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Lost Your Cycling Mojo? 7 Tips to get it back!

1,810 views · Published 6 January 2017 · 4:58 · Indexed 30 October 2026

Channel: leonardmlee · 2017 · Sports

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Losing ones cycling mojo is something that can happen to anyone. Instead of laying around stuffing yourself with tea and cake there are a few things you can do to get you back on the bike.

Anyone can lose their cycling mojo for a wide verity of reasons but for the sake of simplicity lets just look at the main two.

The first, and probably the most common, is the inability to see future improvements. This is particularly common amongst racing cyclists who feel that are unable to go any faster or further or even regular cyclists who have experienced some kind of negative event such as a crash or road rage incident. The second is, essentially, fatigue; either physical or emotional.

Thankfully, there are a few things we can do to get ourselves back on the bike and having at least some kind of idea of why you feel the way you do will make it that bit easier.

1) Give yourself a break. 

Sometimes feeling guilty about not getting out on the bike will make you less inclined to actually ride; its a vicious circle. By allowing yourself a couple of bike free weeks you let yourself off the hook and in the process, reduce the feelings of guilt. You may even find yourself missing your regular ride and actually looking forward to getting back on it. This also has the advantage of letting you physically recover from any fatigue you may have had. Yes, you will lose a bit of fitness during your time off but, hopefully, it will soon come back.

2) Try something different.

Variety, they say, is the spice of life but if your rides are all the same you can quickly become bored and lose interest. By finding new routes or new people to ride with you can make them interesting again. If you are a sportive rider, try giving a local time trial a go. If you race, try a long distance audax, in fact anything to shake up your everyday ride and make it unusual.  

3) Get passionate.

Now there must have been something that got you on the bike in the first place, something that inspired you to take up cycling and made you feel good when you were riding. As time goes on and our riding goals change, it is very easy to forget those good feelings. For instance, if you enjoyed riding through beautiful countryside in glorious weather and all you do now is the daily commute through rain and traffic, its very easy to see whats happening. By doing less of the riding that you don’t enjoy and more of the riding that you do, you re-kindle your passion.

4) Kick start it.

We all need an incentive from time to time to get our juices flowing and that can be something small like that treating yourself to that cool jersey or new cycling computer you’ve been admiring for ages to something slightly bigger such as a new bike or even that bucket list cycling holiday in the south of France you have always been promising yourself. 

Slightly controversial but I wouldn't recommend signing up for any kind of charity ride to kick start your cycling mojo. With this type of ride you are under a little under pressure to get the miles in to be able to complete it and that is actually the last thing you need. The keyword with a kick start should be fun.

5) Easy does it.

The thought of going out for a long, hard ride might not yank everyone's cranks and if this is you it's probably better to settle for a shorter, easier ride. Essentially it's all about making dragging your sorry arse out as easy as possible. 

6 Preperation
I know that when I wash my bike or do any kind of work on it,  I can't wait to ride it again as soon as possible. If you feel the same, why not use this positive energy and actually follow it through and go out for a ride?

7 Forbidden fruit.
One sure way to get someone to do something is to tell them they can't do it or that it's impossible. Call it rebellious spirit, or just sheer bloody mindedness, telling yourself, or better still, have some negative vibe merchant actively telling you NOT to ride your bike or you'll never be able to do a particular ride may just give you the motivation to go out and rub their smug noses in it!


If you would like to follow my efforts on the bike you can follow me on Strava. My profile is here: http://www.strava.com/athletes/515946

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