Rebasing the foundations of sports psychology for non-professional cyclists. 

The performance improvements sports psychology could deliver to amateur riders are unrealised, not just because of cost or inaccessibility but because the interventions are irrelevant to that population.
Current tools and techniques are focused on making the very best perform better or encouraging the reluctant to adhere to exercise. Consequently, it caters for the tiny number of elite sportspeople and those who need to exercise but do not have the motivation to do so consistently with intent and purpose. For most cyclists, these categories are irrelevant.

Putting aside arguments about how well it succeeds in addressing the needs of either of these specialist populations taking into account their long term physical and mental wellbeing, it leaves passionate enthusiasts without sports psychology support helpful to them.  As a result, its potential benefits on performance and enjoyment for those who pursue their sporting endeavours for reasons of satisfaction, achievement and meaning are lost.

Competitive amateur riders, like the millions who post their endeavours on Strava every day, are unconvinced because it does not relate to how and why they engage with cycling.  This is unsurprising given that its theoretical base is either trickle down social psychology or subjective observations from a small sample of a few elite performers.

Sports psychology is unhelpfully dualist in two ways. First, it is based on the separation of mind and body. Increasingly it is evident a holistic ‘whole human’ approach is needed to ensure physical and mental well-being alongside considerations of performance. This is prescient at a time when British Cycling have come under scrutiny for the treatment of riders on their programs. Secondly, it separates sport from culture rather than viewing it as integral. The cultural dimension is critical to the engagement of riders as it has a massive influence on how cycling is experienced.

Before it gets its tracksuit on and starts jogging, sports psychology needs to tie its ontology and epistemological laces because it trips itself up by starting in the wrong place. It does not ask why people passionately engage in sport despite it needing this understanding before effective interventions can be made. ‘Because it’s fun’ does not cut it. It is much deeper than that, sport and cycling in particular is a non-negotiable part of identity for millions.

Mindset is a significant performance differentiator. The effect of competitive pressure, both positive and negative is evident although it has never been measured empirically in context. Rather than generalisable principles, sports psychology and consequently coaching practice is based on guesswork using observational assumptions. This implies a rebasing of sports psychology is needed to understand the underlying conscious and unconscious motivations of participants who feel compelled to exercise, train and compete.

First, existing research in evolutionary psychology, social psychology, affective neuroscience need to be critically reviewed and applied to a sports and exercise context where is it appropriate to do so. This should also include the application or initiation of research into the cultural and anthropological dimension of amateur mass participation sport.

Second, novel empirical research needs to be undertaken to understand the correlates of motivation and the effect of competition and competitive environments on performance. This needs to done using a combination of experimental techniques, computational modelling and an analysis of large publicly available exercise data sets to produce generalisable principles.   
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Only from there is possible to produce evidence informed tools and techniques empirical data that are relevant to non-professionals who engage in physical activity and competitive sports that can be tailored to the individual.  

Comfort, convenience and a decreasing willingness to do hard things...

Much is made of the barriers to cycling and the sports’ governing bodies are targeted with reducing them in an attempt to encourage more people to ride. The results of their efforts are mixed and it’s difficult to unpick how much of the success they claim is legitimate. The most quoted barriers are cultural like cost, sex, age, environment, risk, opportunity and physical ability.  

However, first and foremost, cycling is hard. It’s physically hard in the utilitarian context of getting from one place to another for travel. Harder if you decide to push it, harder still to train to compete. The need to enthusiastically embrace some physical discomfort is a barrier that many don’t want to confront. Frankly, it’s more convenient to employ a cultural excuse rather than admit cycling is just too hard.

This reflects the current cultural epoch that equates easier with better, where mental and physical effort can be eased by Apps, machines, AI and labour saving devices. More comfort and more choice – shakes remove the need to chew, delivery removes the effort to collect junk food, gears change themselves and music is selected for you. 
 
This is fake, it’s a pastiche. It’s superficial and shallow. It looks genuine but it’s not. Above all, it makes activities that require effort easier. Not better, just easier.  
  
This subterfuge is exemplified by putting an electric motor in a pedal cycle. This makes the hardest part of riding a bike easy. Just hit a button and it eliminates the risk of effort induced suffering. It dilutes human involvement by eliminating a critical dimension that makes cycling a meaningful activity.

This is not to dismiss eBikes, they have their uses and places. However, cyclists who train, compete or race identify strongly with the effort required to ride a bike, it being a hard thing to do is one of the defining shared characteristics of group membership. Riders are voluntarily embracing a little suffering in order to achieve their goals. This identity explains the enmity felt by many non-electrically assisted riders toward those who choose the easy option.

The effort barrier is not cultural or related to any of those things commonly quoted, but a measure of the strength of an individuals’ intrinsic motivation to be physically active – to seek satisfaction and contentment from pushing at the physiological limits of the body.  To attain a sense of achievement by doing something hard and to be seen to be part of a group with this shared characteristic. It’s not a learned dimension, it’s either inherent or a stable personality type. You’ve got it, or you haven’t. You understand it, or you don’t.

This is not say other ‘non-effort’ related barriers to cycling don’t exist, they do. However, the first one to jump over is that it’s going to hurt a bit but therein is a sense of connection between mind, body and environment that’s lacking in contemporary culture.

There is meaning and fulfilment for those motivated to do hard things.

​Rich Smith has an MSc and a BSc in psychology, specialising in competition, motivation and affective states. He is a British Cycling qualified Level 3 Road and TT coach supporting riders nationally and internationally. He established RideFast Coaching in 2015 to deliver physiologically effective and psychologically sustainable training to enthusiastic amateur riders. ​

'Train like an amateur' sounds unglamorous next to the ‘train like a Pro’ mantra. More so now you can pay for an avatar of a dodgy ex-professional rider to verbalise AI generated coaching wisdom for you.  
  
However, if you are going to train like a Pro, you’ll need, as a minimum, 24 hours a week to ride. This colossal amount of riding would also require the support of a doctor, a psychologist, a nutritionist, a team car, a mechanic and, probably, an ambulance. It would also need a coach of questionable ethics with a mandate to get a performance out of you even if it killed him. Or you.

Maybe I’m being unfair, if you were lucky you might go mad or become chronically fatigued before it killed you. Or him.  

Unless you’re an 18 year old elite category rider who’s been training since they were 8 years old and you’re prepared to gamble on the sub 1% chance of becoming a World Tour Pro, you should train like an amateur. By this I mean adopting a training program that reflects who you are and what you want to achieve.

Pro riders are paid to do a job of which bike racing is only a part. They don’t choose their equipment, training regime or targets. They are cycling advertising boards. They are extrinsically motivated by money, fame and success whilst, at the same time, trying to sell you their sponsors products. There's nothing wrong with this, we just need to be honest about it and apply some critical thinking to what that means for our consumption of the products they sell. 

As an amateur, you don’t get paid, that’s the whole point, it's a choice. This intrinsic motivation to ride a bike for enjoyment means you get to choose your own direction and set your own goals. Motivation comes from the soul, not a sponsors wallet. You've got nothing to sell. As an amateur, cycling is a meaningful, liberating and honourable endeavour.  

Embrace the amateur status, take pride it in and train effectively with cognisance of time limitations from family, work or study. Recognise your age, sex and the hard won experiences that shape who you are and build them into a plan that reflects you.

Ultimately, your success will come from engaging in a training program that helps you achieve your goals, not those conflicted by commercialism. Be an amateur, train for who YOU want to be on your terms.  

​Rich Smith, MSc, BSc (Hons) Psych is a British Cycling qualified Level 3 Road & Time Trial coach supporting riders nationally and internationally. He established RideFast Coaching in 2015 to deliver top class physiologically and psychologically sustainable training to dedicated amateur riders of all ages and abilities. ​

RideFast Coaching has been going for over 10 years now. I’ve coached some amazing riders in that period, including nationally ranked time trialists, UCI Grand Fondo competitors and transplant world champions. It’s even gone international, coaching riders in France, Spain and South Korea.

This Trumpian takeover of the cycling world now continues with RideFast’s first foray into sponsorship. In 2026 RideFast will be sponsoring some of the Shropshire Cycling Clubs Association Championship events, notably the 10, 25 and 100 mile time trials and the flagship 4up Team Time Trial in August. 

We’re fortunate in the county to have a network of well represented cycling clubs who get involved in events throughout the year under the SCCA umbrella. Not just racing, but with club members supporting the organisation and running of races with time keeping, catering and marshalling. After 25 years of taking full advantage, particularly of the catering, it’s an overdue privilege to be able to give a little back.

So, especially with the growing popularity of the road bike category, let’s get those winter miles in and start looking forward to some warmer and lighter days on the bike. Look out for the RideFast Coaching tagged events on the SCCA and CTT websites and I’ll have a think about some prizes.

Of course, if you're interested in being coached by the RideFast MegaCorp, get in touch here. 
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And remember the sagacious words of Desmond Tutu - ‘Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to cycle and he will realize fishing is stupid and boring’. 

These guys have just finished a brutal winter circuit race. If established sports psychology is to be believed, they are having fun whilst engaging in an opportunity for social connections, fitness and competition. It is interesting to ponder what the response would be if, whilst bent over the handlebars gasping for breath, they were asked if they were enjoying themselves. Amongst racing cyclists there is a maxim attributed to Eddie Merckx that races are won by the rider who can suffer the most. Suffering is probably the best word to represent the physical effort required to reach a competitive level in any sport involving endurance or strength.

Embracing failure

Suffering also relates to psychic pain in pursuit of excellence in the absence of exhausting physical effort. Skill based sport requires the humility to repeatedly fail as an essential element of improving performance. In his book ‘Bounce’ Matthew Syed says, ‘progress is built upon the foundations of necessary failure’. None of this sounds like fun and it seems unlikely that money is the motivation. Professional sportspeople are paid for their work but the sacrifices they have to make over years to get that point are unrewarded. The dropout rate of aspiring professionals is huge, only a tiny percentage ever make a living out of it.

In surveys, the most common answers to what motivates people to play sport is a combination of fun, enjoyment, fitness and competition. These data are often analysed in light of social psychological theory like Self Determination Theory or Achievement Goal Theory that are foundational for sports and exercise psychology practice. These are well established theories but they are not sport specific. It is questionable whether they fully reflect the combination of effort, sacrifice and discomfort involved. Furthermore, they fail to capture any element of emotional satisfaction. The responses do not reflect the passion of the millions, for example, who attend football matches every week simply to spectate rather than compete. The shared extasy of wining or the devastation of losing is entirely vicarious. It is acceptable for a football supporter to say ‘we’ played brilliantly, without ever getting (at least legitimately) on the pitch. It begs the question are ardent football fans supporting their team for fun and enjoyment or because they feel compelled to? This is a challenging construction to capture within the confines of a psychological survey. Equally, it is a hard message that people are not cognisant of their motivations. However it may illuminate the reasons for the mismatch between prosaic explanations for motivation and the deep emotional engagement in sport.

Ancient history

Evolutionary psychology offers interesting insights into why it is so hard to express true motivation. It proffers sport developed because of the evolutionary pressures faced by ancient human ancestors to engage in small scale warfare, to choose mates or to assess the strength of others. Although now out of step with the modern cultural context, it suggest the unconscious drive to engage in these efforts has become innate and is now expressed as sport. Certainly, evidence suggests males, the principal protagonists in ancient fighting, are more likely to engage in sports where aggression, physical contact and competition are involved. The theory that males use sport to demonstrate their genetic fitness to females is less strong as the overwhelming audience numbers for men’s sport is other men. Mostly likely men are comparing others to assess threats and possibilities for making alliances.

The brain’s chemistry set

One aspect of motivation overlooked by social and evolutionary psychology comes from Affective Neuroscience. Research has identified seven fundamental human drives arising from the subcortical brain that unconditionally (without stimulus) affect behaviour focused on survival and reproduction. In particular the SEEKING system, associated with the often misappropriated neurotransmitter dopamine. Experimental evidence shows when this brain area is stimulated electrically, in the absence of influence from the neocortex, it generates a feeling of excited expectation and intense enthusiasm inspiring movement and engagement with the environment. The researchers suggest this is the fundamental driving force behind all mammalian activity. In Darwinian terms, it is proffered as the psychological and physiological mechanism that underpins the evolutionary process in all mammals. Those with the genetic material best matched to their environment are more likely to survive and, through gradation, these systems become increasingly honed over time. It seems one way this SEEKING behaviour in humans finds expression in contemporary culture is through sport
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It is likely motivation for sport arises from a combination of brain chemistry shaped over millions of years in an adaptive evolutionary environment and finds expression in a modern social context. However, the powerful and unconscious subcortical root of intrinsic motivation requires no reward or punishment as stimulus, simply the act of being activated is satisfying. Consequently, it is unsurprising a simple answer to what really motivates such suffering in pursuit of sporting fun remains complex. 

Goal setting is Sports and Exercise Psychology's best stab at encourage athletes to adhere to a training plan when things get tough. If you're training for fitness and/or competition in 2026, now is good time to get clear goals established. 

Measurable targets are easy to set but if they're not meaningful to you as a rider, a person, and a fully paid up member of the human race they are pointless. I wrote about it at length here but the long and short is it's worth spending time thinking about why you are motivated to train and let your goals flow from that.

Get in touch if I can help.  

Rich Smith is a psychology 'weirdo', a fitness 'freak' and more relevantly a British Cycling qualified Level 3 Road and TT coach supporting riders nationally and internationally. He established RideFast Coaching in 2015 to provide effective training to all kinds of cyclists after years of eating the corporate shit sandwich. ​

It’s worth considering a few things before taking the plunge.

AI will have an incomplete data set

Unless you record ALL your metrics that have a bearing on physiology like walking, washing the car and gardening the data AI has to work with it is incomplete so, in the absence of complete knowledge, it cannot accurately plan intensity, frequency and duration of training.

AI only measures the measurables

HRV and sleep monitors are a poor proxy for recovery. Heart rate is useful but variable. FTP settings are critical for training zones but will fluctuate and will differ between turbo and road training sessions and between bikes, particularly aero, race, gravel, MTB and, if you use one, a winter bike. AI doesn’t know the difference. Additionally, none of these measurements tell AI how you feel. If you could find a way to tell it how you feel about your short term commitment, long term goals and what motivates you, it would not know what to do with the information. It has no way of interpreting it into a psychologically a sustainable training pan.

AI uses Training Stress Scores (TSS) to plan training

A 10 mile time trial is about 35 TSS. A 4 hour Zone 2 ride is about 210 TSS. If you did 6 10 mile time trials throughout a week, your fatigue level would be completely different from a 4 hour Z2 ride but the Training Stress Score would be the same. AI cannot detect the difference, but your legs would.     

AI cannot know you

Try as it might, AI cannot reflect individual psychology. It does not know your personality type, behavioural characteristics and what you do and don’t like. It does not know when your mind needs a break or what encouragement you might need to re-engage in training after being floored by something out of the blue.

AI does not ‘do’ accountability

You cannot be accountable to a machine and it cannot be accountable to you. Machines don’t care and they don’t understand. It’s not possible to develop a healthy relationship with computer code.

More often than not, any training plan is better than none so AI might be worth a try - it’s also going to be cheaper than hiring a coach. Or at least it should be. However, a plan tailored to your individual psychology and physiology, reflecting what you want to achieve as a rider is likely to be more effective, sustainable and satisfying. If you do decide to trust your training to AI, I'd be fascinated to hear about your experience. 

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​Rich Smith is a psychology graduate and a British Cycling qualified Level 3 Road and TT coach supporting riders nationally and internationally. He established RideFast Coaching in 2015 to provide effective training to cyclists after becoming convinced the machines are trying to kill us all. 

​If you’re aiming to be at your best for 2026, now is a good time to set some goals.
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Goal setting is sports psychology 101. Of the mental coaching tools used by sports psychologists it’s probably the most valuable and is usually framed around the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound) acronym. The riders I coach who’ve achieved the most with their cycling are those who have a clear sense of why they train and set goals with a purpose clearly in mind. That is, they remain consistently committed to completing purposeful training by establishing goals that above all are meaningful to them.

SMART can be overdone. The mark of a successful goal is not whether it is ultimately achieved (if goals are ‘smashed’ then they’re too easy) but whether it is sufficiently meaningful to keep training on track when motivation dips. Coming up with something useful might involve a couple of deep breaths and allowing the mind to land on the real reasons why cycling has a value to you before putting pen to paper.   
For example, hitting 4w/kg at FTP by 4th Feb 2025 is a SMART cycling training goal but it lacks meaning. It’s a process target, not something that is psychologically connected to why you’re prepared to put so much effort and time into training. Your goals may be to stay fit, weight management, being in shape to do a week in Mallorca or something entirely different so it’s worth spending some time to frame something genuinely useful. Your targets may not have all the SMART credentials of a power to weight metric, but they are probably capable of being made SMART enough to be valuable. Pick goals that mean something to you not ones that fit conveniently in the box.

The right goal gives meaning to hard work, so you train with intent and purpose rather than just going through the motions. This makes training more effective, more consistent and ultimately makes you faster and fitter.

Above all, goal setting represents hope for the future. It demonstrates confidence and optimism about the ability to achieve continued enjoyment and satisfaction from cycling. This self-belief sits beside oxygen and carbohydrates as a vital training ingredient. Set your goals with this in mind.

If I can help with your training, get in touch here. Now is a great time to start the work for 2026. 

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​Rich Smith is a psychology graduate and a British Cycling qualified Level 3 Road and TT coach supporting riders nationally and internationally. He established RideFast Coaching in 2015 to provide effective training to cyclists after being sanctioned at work for proposing a goal of 'doing away with his earthly body and becoming a glowing nimbus of pure energy'.  

We all worship in different cathedrals, some of them built from medieval stone, others are the roads of France, the Crucible or Anfield. We suffer together and make our sacrifices in these places. And we all worship our own God’s, some wear a crown of thorns, others coloured shirts with their names inscribed on the back.   

Playing and watching sport is ubiquitous and engages us at an emotional and spiritual level. Any study of history, mythology, sociology, anthropology or psychology will throw up the reasons why human, particularly male, engagement in sport is endemic. Rules based low risk combat, territorial alliances and defence, shared suffering, family rituals, social bonding, sexual selection, the rush of exercise – the list is endless. Sport is an essential part of our culture and it is culture that separates humans from the other animals we share the planet with. 

I can think of a couple of football related examples demonstrating the cultural and emotional influence of sport, particular over men. First, I know that Trent Alexander-Arnold is not a middle aged, overweight white guy from Telford, yet I was recently in a gym with a man wearing a Liverpool football shirt with ‘Alexander Arnold 66’ emblazoned on the back. In what other environment would one man choose to celebrate another in this fashion? Where else would a male identify with another man so strongly he would wear his name? Secondly, there’s the old joke about a guy finding Alan Shearer in bed with his wife and asking him how many sugars he’d like in his tea. This touches on an ancient a taboo fuelled by eons old sexual jealously that usually inspires men to violence rather than laugher. Mix anything the power of sport and the shape of the world changes.      

However, encroaching commercialisation and mechanisation of sport represents the advance of the profane and a corresponding reduction in value. The amount of money flowing through a sport is not an appropriate measure of its success, it just demonstrates how detached it has become from its followers. Similarly, a mechanical approach to the application of sports rules and laws represents a retreat from the human and the humane. The introduction of Video Assistant Referee (VAR) technology in elite football typifies the foolishness of applying empirical measurability to an environment where interpretation is essential. In an attempt to remove the frailty of human judgement and imagined or real bias, it has amplified it. Endless pouring over super slow motion reruns and the application of laser-like analytics to interpretative rules and laws has thrown up some ludicrous decisions. If anything, the red lines, multiple replays and refereeing reviews emphasise an even greater need for the interpretation of what amounts to no more than ‘data’.  This has certainly not improved the game for players or supporters, nor has it made it fairer. 

I was expecting the machines to take over by marching towards us firing laser weapons. And it looks like they have. We’ve just been lied to by our Sci-Fi movies about what the machines might look like. However disappointing it is that our robot overlords don’t look like the Terminator, we must still resist them for the sake of humanity.

VAR comes from a commercial pressure where winning is judged the number of football shirts sold or TV revenue generated, not by the elation or despair of the players and supporters. The financial implications of a loss or a win in professional sport can be altered with a few keyboard strokes by the club’s accountants but for the devout, the heroic triumphs and catastrophic losses are etched on the soul. The victories are remembered with a warm pride and the losses hurt at depth. They really hurt.  For the money men, a loss shows only on the balance sheet. This is superficial and essentially meaningless to the real value of sport and its multitude of worshippers who will suffer or rejoice at an emotional level.
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The rise of materialism has eroded much of what is truly meaningful for humans and sport has been just one casualty of this. The commercial evolution of rugby is an example where this is having real world consequences for the health of participants. Recall that the game came about by accident but developed into one that could be played by all shapes, sizes and ages. Train on Wednesday, play on Saturday. The infrequency of playing and the physical conditioning of players mitigated injury risk. Now there is a growing litany of young, permanently injured players, performance enhancing drugs and chronic brain damage sacrificed on the altar of those who wear blazers rather than shorts keen to make a few quid. By no measure does this make the sport ‘better’. And of course rugby is not alone.    

So, what’s the moral of the story? Firstly, don’t judge the success of a sport by how much money is involved in it. It’s a poor measure of real value at the best of times and debases sport to the ordinary, rather than the extraordinary. Secondly, however dweeby they look, we can’t let the machines take over control of rule interpretation. Mistakes and all, that needs to be done by humans who you be booed in unison. There’s no point in making up rude songs about machines, because machines don’t care.

The team are currently preparing for the 25th World Transplant Games to be held in Dresden, Germany from 17th to 24th August 2025. The Games, and GBTx Cycling team, exist to demonstrate the success of organ donation and transplantation and increase awareness of the importance of joining the organ donor register.

The next training session for this latest edition of the games will be held on Sunday 8th September 2024 at Stourport cycling circuit.

The selection criteria for the team (in addition to having a life supporting organ transplant) are as follows:

1. Performance against age group peers at British Transplant Games (and European or World Transplant Games if relevant) or demonstration of potential to reach a competitive level at European or World level.
2. Demonstration of relevant cycling performances outside of transplant related cycling competition.
3. Attendance at the minimum number of the Team Briefings for WTG (and/or attendance at Cycling Coaching sessions).
4. Remaining sufficiently fit and healthy and committed to regular training and racing.
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It is the intention the team time trial teams (2 riders for women’s teams, 3 for men and 3 for mixed teams) will be selected from those riders who attend the training sessions or have the known technical, tactical and physiological performance characteristics to compete for podium positions. It is likely the Games organisers will limit the number of team time trials teams each country can enter.

You can follow the team along the journey here, on X @GBTxCyclists or on our Facebook page 

​Rich Smith coaches and rides for the GBTx Cycling Team after receiving a liver transplant 31 years ago competing in 10 editions of the Games from 1999 in Budapest to 2019 in Newcastle, winning 15 gold medals. He never stops going on about it either. Follow him on X @ridefastcoach