Building Confidence and Resilience

When you start doing longer and longer rides, being miles away from home can at first seem daunting. What happens if something goes wrong with your bike? What if you run out of energy, or have an accident? This can put you off entering more challenging events like audaxes, bike packing trips, or multiday races. Believe me, everyone on the start line of these events has had the same thoughts. So, how do you overcome these worries? The thing is, they are real concerns, all these things can actually happen, but they shouldn’t stop you from participating, and they definitely shouldn’t stop you from having fun!

The trick is to build your confidence in dealing with them. Remember when you first started going on long rides, and you were terrified about getting a puncture because you didn’t know if you could fix it? On a group ride you could perhaps rely on others to help you, but you didn’t feel confident enough to go out on a solo ride. Over time you watched and learned, started to do them yourself, and your confidence grew. Maybe you are still one of those people who doesn’t feel they could fix their own puncture?

I’ve been there too. When I first joined a cycling club, in 2012, on my brand new Ebay bargain road bike, I had no idea how it worked, or how to fix anything on it! Being a fiercely independent woman (to my own detriment at times!), there was no way I was going to be (self)shamed, for a second time, for not knowing how to fix my own puncture. I practiced changing the tube on both wheels a few times, in the safety of my back garden. When other people had punctures on our rides, I would jump in to help and get more practice. Avoiding getting my hands dirty was not going to help me in the long run. The thing is, the more experienced members of a cycling group will want to help you learn. They know it will build your confidence. You just need to be willing to get your hands dirty (or get the nitrile gloves in your pack dirty) and push your comfort zone a little.

Just as you build your fitness for doing longer and longer rides, so will your knowledge and confidence with bike maintenance grow.

This knowledge bank will also mean, when you come to doing those big scary challenges, you know what you can and can’t do, you know what tools to take, and you’ll get a big boost on the start line knowing you can be self sufficient.

Some tips:

• Clean your own bike. Giving your bike a thorough clean forces you to get to know how it works, see up close the different parts and how they all work together. This means, when something does go wrong, or it starts making strange noises, you are more likely to be able to work out what’s gone wrong and resolve it quickly
• Carry a pair or two of latex or nitrile gloves in your saddle pack. Well, you don’t actually have to get your hands dirty. FYI these can also be used as glove liners if your hands get cold!
• When someone else on a club ride gets a puncture or a mechanical issue, jump in to help, watch and learn, build your knowledge bank
• When you have your bike serviced ask the mechanic to talk through the parts they’ve replaced. Over time the terminology and bike parts will become more familiar to you
• Go on a bike maintenance course. Jenny at the London Bike Kitchen offers some great online courses to help build your bike maintenance confidence
• Watch YouTube videos and learn how to service your own bike. All bikes are a little different in some way, some have their own little quirks, but there’s a video for pretty much every make and model.

That covers all the practical elements, then there's the mental strength needed to take on an ultra distance event, to continue when your body is screaming at you to stop. When everything aches, you are sleep deprived exhausted and exhausted. How do you build resilience to those kinds of challenges? What's the different between those that push on and those that stop? Again, this is a real concern, and should be taken seriously. Thankfully the solution is pretty much the same, except you're learning about yourself, and building your knowledge of mindset skills. As with all learning, there'll be mistakes made, but in our failures come our biggest lessons.

So, where does resilience come into this conversation? The definition of resilience is something that has been continuously debated by psychologists and philosophers.

The Cambridge English Dictionary defines resilience as “the ability to be happy, successful, etc. again after something difficult or bad has happened”

The American Psychological Association (APA) defines resilience as “the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or significant sources of stress”

Psychologist Ann Masten, Phd, describes resilience as “Positive adaptation to adversity.”

A research paper led by a Professor at the University of Brighton’s Centre of Resilience for Social Justice recognises resilience as ‘Overcoming adversity, whilst also potentially changing, or even dramatically transforming, (aspects of) that adversity.’ (Hart et al., 2016, p. 3)

As you can see, there are many different interpretations of what resilience is, and this is just a few, but here are my thoughts.

You can be confident in your ability to fix a puncture on the road, but what if that puncture happens when you are on your own, it’s your third puncture of the day, it’s 5pm, 60 miles into a 100 mile ride, out in the middle of nowhere, a storm is approaching so the head wind is getting stronger and you can see heavy rain ahead of you? What if it’s also late winter, so the nights draw in early, and it’s Sunday, so all of the shops are shut, and you’re running low on water and snacks. In this situation you are dealing with many adverse challenges. It might take a shed load of mental strength to overcome them all, which could change what you believe you are capable of, but for me, this belief that ‘I can do hard things’ is just the half of it.

“Positive adaptation to adversity” for me also means reflecting on what happened that day, what I learn about myself, thinking about what I could have done differently, and changing how I could approach the next challenge. We can’t always ‘change, or even dramatically transform, (aspects of) the adversity’ itself, there are so many factors outside of our control, but we can change our own behaviour and how we respond to it.

So, how could I approach the next challenge differently? In the case above this might look like:

• learning how to use puncture patches in case I run out of inner tubes
• looking for a front light that can also be used as a head torch to make working in the dark easier
• researching how to find supplies of water when the shops have shut
• find an effective packable rain mac (the holy grail of rain jackets)
• Checking my tyres for wear regularly
• trying different tyres, maybe something with better puncture resistance and hardwearing
• structured training so 100 miles doesn’t take as long (!), etc.

This is all very much a part of the ‘adaptation to adversity’ too, not just how you respond in the moment. When you find yourself in a similar, or an equally adverse situation again, yes, you know you have the mental strength to get yourself through it, but you also have the mental (or even physical) tools and/or skills to deal with the challenges. For you now, as the person who adapted to adversity, these challenges are within your comfort zone. Of course, this doesn’t happen the very first time you experience adverse conditions (if only!), but over time you get better at dealing different situations, as you build a knowledge bank of experiences. This is where you want to be when you’re standing on the start line of your big event, confident that you will be able to face and overcome whatever challenges you meet on your ride.

Ultra distance and multiday events

Many of my one to one clients are training for multiday timed events or races. This brings whole new areas of unknowns, such as night riding, sleep deprivation, outdoor sleeping, on the road bike maintenance, etc, as well as the fatigue and exhaustion that comes with ultra distance events. So, as well as training their fitness for the event, they also need to build their confidence, resilience and mental strength in all of these areas. We do this by gradually widening their comfort zone, creating, or exposing them to situations in which they will face these new types of challenges. We create mini test events trialling different equipment and tools, pacing strategies, food options, and learning about how their mind and body reacts to adverse conditions.

The longer the event, the more it becomes about mental strength and resilience, and resilience is a muscle that can be strengthened, just like your legs. It should be considered as just as important as your training rides and workouts.

Tips:

• Do an event analysis: consider all of the challenges of your event such as duration, opportunities to resupply on food and water, possible weather conditions, bike maintenance needs, pacing strategy, hours on the bike or riding in the dark, is it supported or unsupported, etc
• Do a strength analysis, i.e., where are your strengths and weaknesses, regarding experience, knowledge and equipment. What do you already feel confident with and what do you need to work on?
• Schedule into your calendar mini test events over the weeks and months before your event. Will you be riding through night? If so, do a night ride close to home to see how you respond to sleep deprivation. Perhaps it’s an unsupported ride and you need to be able to find your own supplies and sleep under the stars, so do a short bike packing trip to test yourself in those conditions, as well as your equipment. Do you need a better sleeping bag? Could you replace your heavy tent with a lightweight bivvi? How much advance planning do you need to do to feel prepared during the event?
• After these rides make notes reflecting on what went well and what didn’t. Did not having enough food in the evening create anxiety and affect your sleep? How did you cope with sleep deprivation? Did you fill your bags with things you didn’t need? Make plans to incorporate any learnings into the next test ride. I.e., What adaptations could you make in response to these adversities?

Of course, you can’t plan for every eventuality! But you can build trust in yourself that you can overcome adversity, actively and consciously build your resilience for when things don’t go to plan. With the skills and knowledge you’ve gained, you are more likely to be able to create solutions and resolve new problems more quickly and with less anxiety. You are more likely to carry on through exhaustion when you've proven you can before. You are more likely to recognise the early signs of when fatigue and sleep deprivation are affecting your mood, and know what your body needs to be ale to carry on.

There’s nothing I enjoy more than seeing my client’s confidence grow, and how empowered they feel when they can look back and see how far they’ve come. Extending your comfort zone on the bike, pushing yourself beyond your limits, has a ripple affect across all areas of your life, as well as those around you.

So, what are your big fat hairy arse goal for the coming year? I'd love to know! 👇🏿👇🏾👇🏽👇🏼