Building Self-Confidence On The Bike

If Yogi Berra were a cyclist, here’s what he’d say: cycling is 90% mental, and the other half is physical. Yet with enough self-confidence, our minds tend to stay out of the way, and we have the freedom to perform to our potential. The mentally fit cyclist knows how to assess, maintain, and build self-confidence to improve fun and performance on the bike.

By Marvin Zauderer

The building blocks of the mentally fit cyclist’s five core skills, by describing how managing your will to succeed can play an important role in your mental fitness and cycling performance. This month, I explore Self-Confidence, perhaps the most important element of every athlete’s mental fitness.

For the article The Mind of a Mentally Fit Pro, I asked pro cyclist Steven Cozza of Slipstream-Chipotle H3O about mental skills that have been challenging for him. He didn’t miss a beat:

“Confidence. It’s a huge thing in cycling. I was even told by some people,‘consider a career change.’ You can improve so much by believing in yourself. You can say, ‘I should be at the front of the race, I should be top 5.’ You don’t have to be cocky, but if you’re not confident, you don’t stand a chance. You’ve got to believe in yourself.”

Confidence. Some of us seem born with it. Some of us are lucky enough to grow up among family, friends, and mentors who help develop it in us. But for many of us, at least in certain aspects of our lives, it’s an ongoing challenge.

As I noted in the article on Goal-Setting, much of what we’ve learned about self-confidence in sport builds on the work of psychologist Albert Bandura of Stanford University (home of the current national champion road cycling team — defending their title this week!). Bandura defined self-efficacy as your belief in your “capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations.” Roughly translated: Your belief that you can achieve your goals.

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Supercharge Your Sprint

By Chris Carmichael    

You see it in small towns and big cities all over the world, from teenagers to 70-year-old men, the twitchiness and sideways glances as the city-limit sprint draws near. Sprinting is one of the primary components of cycling, for racers and recreational riders alike, but it’s often neglected in training programs.

Even Lance had to work on sprinting. When he was a young rider, he had a strong finish–he won his first Tour de France stage in 1993, at age 21, in a sprint from a breakaway group. But when his post-cancer focus shifted to winning the yellow jersey, sprinting took a back seat to climbing and time-trial training, and by 2003 I was worried about his explosive power. During his preparation for the 2004 Tour de France, the sixth he would win, I reintroduced sprint workouts into his training program. There are two primary components to a powerful sprint–acceleration and top-end speed–and after working on both that winter, Lance sprinted to victories in three of the five stages he won in that year’s Tour de France.

But don’t think of sprint training as useful only at the finish line. It’s also critical for bridging gaps, initiating breakaways, attacking on short climbs and accelerating out of turns during criteriums. It can also save your hide: In my 30-plus years on a bike, a quick sprint has saved me from being caught by dogs and hit by drivers running red lights at least as many times as it helped me win races. Here are two simple workouts you can use to power up your sprint.

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