My cycling new year’s resolution? No more distance targets

Adam Becket

News editor at Cycling Weekly, Adam brings his weekly opinion on the goings on at the upper echelons of our sport. This piece is part of The Leadout, a newsletter series from Cycling Weekly and Cyclingnews. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here. As ever, email adam.becket@futurenet.com - should you wish to add anything, or suggest a topic.

If you’ve been on Instagram in the last couple of weeks, you’ll have seen a lot of people posting their Strava stats for the year. You might have friends who have done seemingly impossible numbers of kilometres over the past year, and are showing off. It is impressive. However, have we reached peak target? I hope so.

The Strava-ication of exercise means we are almost always looking at numbers. It’s a great way to push yourself, but I think it might have gone too far. 2025 will be the year I try to cycle just to have fun, for its own sake, and try not to worry about how far I’ve cycled in a certain month, how that stacks up against others, and also my past self. I’m hoping this will allow me to just enjoy riding my bike, rather than seeing it as a chore sometimes - no more thinking “oh I have to cycle today if I’m going to keep ahead of my target” - and more “cycling makes me happy, let’s go for a bike ride”.

With apologies to Cycling Weekly’s Big Ride Challenge - a truly worthy initiative to get people cycling and aiming for fitness - I will not be aiming for a distance target this year. It’s time to focus on the fun part of cycling, not the slog of going for 5000km. Go to the club run or out on a solo ride if you want to, don’t bother making yourself ill or pushing through the pain barrier for a made-up target, though. Why should it matter?

It’s going to be hard, though, I won’t pretend otherwise. Seeing that number go up gives a nice little dopamine rush, and also reminds you of how capable you are, but let’s all take a step back and remind us why we actually like cycling. Not all of us are ultra-endurance athletes, and many of us would benefit from focusing on enjoyment rather than big numbers.

Sure, I’ll still try to go on big rides and enjoy the achievement, but I don’t need to worry about being ahead or behind a target chosen in January. I want to cycle more this year, actually, but without the pressure. I'm going to try and focus on the experiences I want to do and have planned.

Speaking of number targets, I’ve made my dislike of the Festive 500 clear before - I respect anyone who achieves it, but the nature of forcing yourself to cycle at this time of year seems silly to me. However, that pales into comparison with the new January Resolution Challenge from Pas Normal.

The Danish kit brand is trying to get people to ride 1250km in January, the bleakest month of the year. It says the aim is to “encourage its global community to commit to getting on the bike and forming new routines at the start of the new year”. There’s “forming new routines” and then there’s averaging 40km a day in January just to get a virtual trophy on Strava. Again, chapeau to anyone who does it, but it’s not for me. Why not start your riding off this year by going out with some friends and having fun? Not everything has to be a challenge.

Doing any cycling at this time of year, fitting it in with other responsibilities, should be enough for praise, and a nice feeling of achievement. You don’t have to do it, though. Don’t feel like you have to, or force yourself to cycle further than ever.

This piece is part of The Leadout, the offering of newsletters from Cycling Weekly and Cyclingnews. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here.

If you want to get in touch with Adam, email adam.becket@futurenet.com, or comment below.