If you want better results from your riding, heart-rate zones are a simple place to start. Discover how to calculate yours, train with purpose and balance intensity with recovery for steady progress.
Heart rate variability, or HRV, is the small variation in time between one heartbeat and the next, and for endurance athletes, it’s most useful as a trend that shows how well the body is handling training and life stress, not as a one-off score that tells you whether today is good or bad. Used well, HRV can help you decide when to push, when to hold steady, and when to back off, but it only becomes genuinely useful when you judge it against your own normal range and combine it with sleep, soreness, mood and the demands of your training.
Outdoor cycling is what happens when you take your indoor fitness back onto real asphalt or gravel, where wind, terrain and bike handling suddenly matter again. After months of riding indoors, the change isn’t just physical, it’s sensory, technical and a little humbling at first.
Gravel riding is a cycling-specific mix of endurance, sustained power, bike handling, fuelling, and equipment preparation designed to help you ride fast and efficiently on loose, high-resistance terrain for long periods.
Mesocycle training is one of those terms that sounds more complicated than it really is. In plain English, it simply means a focused block of training inside a bigger plan. Usually, that block lasts around 4 to 6 weeks and is built around one main goal, such as improving aerobic endurance, lifting FTP, sharpening VO2max, building race-specific power, or adding strength without wrecking everything else.
Can lacing up your running shoes actually boost your cycling performance – or is it a fast track to injury? Discover the real pros and cons of mixing kilometres on foot with time in the saddle, and learn how to strike the right balance.
At some point, every endurance athlete gets tempted by the same thought: what if I could get fitter without doing more hours, just by making the work feel harder? It’s a dangerously appealing idea because it sounds like training and life hacking in the same sentence.
Cycling apps have become an essential part of modern riding, supporting navigation, performance tracking, training and indoor cycling. With many platforms serving different purposes, choosing the right app depends on how and where you ride, what data you value, and how you prefer to train.
A 100-mile ride is achievable with steady training, smart pacing, and consistent fuelling - turning a big challenge into a rewarding day out.