mister_hl

Hello everyone...

I was wondering...how does everyone here set their cycling goals?

Do you guys just go riding when you feel like it?

Or do you aim to achieve 'X' amount of kilometres a week? Certain distance and average speed???

I'm just trying to set objectives to keep motivated etc...

any tips?

seely

bikejournal.com is a great way to track your mileage and see averages and improvements. It also compares you with other riders nationally and makes you feel humiliated and woefully inadequate ;-)

For motivation, I just love to ride so thats rarely a problem. I sometimes feel kinda lazy but once I get out riding I have a great time everytime, its just actually getting dressed and out the door thats hard sometimes.

I usually set a weekly mileage goal. Right now I am trying to do 100, staying conservative with exams and work right now, but once school is over I will do about 200/wk, with about 25-50 of that being singletrack, the rest on the road. Doing club rides is a good way to rack up mileage too and get a consistent ride schedule.

hillyman

I think if your young ,strong and talented there might be a reason to set goals.
But since I am none of the above, I just ride the damn bike. Getting back in one piece is enough goal for me!

outashape

I'm like Crawdaddy. I ride when I ride. If I have a tour coming up, I'll train for that specific tour haphazardly. Currently, I have a ride in the Canadian Rockies at the end of June that will involve climbing. I try to climb more than normal. I will work for 15-30 minutes twice a week. When it starts to get closer, I'll get a little more active. I kind of try to hang with the faster riders once a week. I ride by myself for hours at a snailpace when life is stressful and I need to escape. My legs will hurt at least once a week. I try to do a century a month, and once May arrives, I'll try for a century a week. It's still early in the year, so I'm not trying for speed on the centuries, just endurance.

spazegun2213

goals are really what you want out of cycling. I have racing goals and riding goals, both are diffrent enough that i try not to confuse them. My racing goal is pure speed for my TT's and learing everything about pacelines for crits. As for riding, its to have fun, and ride as much as i want I would sit down an honestly tell yourself what you want out of cycling. Everyones goals will be different...

good luck
-Ross

foehn

Also like Crawdaddy, I enjoy getting home in one piece. My current goal is to get out two to 3 times on the weekdays and then take a longer ride of 20 miles plus on the weekend. I figure that I will keep toting on the miles, 5 or 10 at a time to increase my trip lengths. Only problem is that I am not very fast, and am extremely slow on hills so tacking on mileage runs up my saddle time pretty dramatically.

My previous goal was to get my bike set up to where I could ride for more than 40 minutes without having the "burning yearning" to get off the bike because my butt was so uncomfortable. This I have accomplished. Last weekend I rode about 20 miles to where my husband was refereeing some soccer matches at a tournament. I made it without to much discomfort and even got up that bloody steep hill at the end--now that was a real pain in the butt!

I would like to work up to riding 100 plus miles in the future.

Little, easily graspable incremental goals have worked for me. I conquered the 1-1/2 mile up to my house--after a 20 mile ride, which is pretty darn good for me, as I am pretty overweight and had never been able to climb the hill straight by itself, let alone after 20 miles.

Pick something little at first, something that might be fun, maybe a destination you want to ride to --eventually. Don't over do it at first, or you will get too discouraged

Go out and ride and most of all, enjoy it!