This year saw many riders confused, disappointed and frustrated as Storm Floris flew across the UK causing the event to be curtailed at Richmond to prioritise the safety of the riders.
The way individual riders dealt with this showed a variety of coping strategies when their goals for this cycling event were no longer achievable including:-
Long distance cycling preparation is a massive investment of both time and money; each and every coping strategy used is completely understandable in the circumstances.
No one could have foreseen the weather playing out the way it did, but in ultra-distance cycling events like LEL what we have noticed is that those who can be most flexible and adaptable have the most success. What that looks like is very individual and largely depends on your personal criteria.
Our EBR Club member and experienced LEL/PBP rider, Stephen, (who you can read more about in this blog) shared some of this thoughts which provide a framework that is useful for any rider considering an ultra distance cycling event where at some point the goal posts will move. Key to your event preparation is having a personalised list of coping strategies for cyclists that resonates with you.
Here is the framework:
The overarching truth: The Goals Posts Move
Coping strategies to deal with this are:
Here is how Stephen applied this strategy to his London Edinburgh London 2025. As you go through the thoughts he has kindly shared make a note of your own goals and how you can apply his structure to your own preparation so that you can enjoy any ultra endurance cycling event, no matter what it throws at you.
Much has been written about this year’s London Edinburgh London and most of it focuses on how much work there was to get there and how the ride ‘should have’ played out.
This is not another one of those accounts.
What happened at LEL is one of those things that every endurance cyclist should have in the back of their mind as a possibility. What do you do if the headline goal of the event disappears mid ride? What does it mean when the goal posts move or are just taken away entirely?
For anyone who knows me and how I approach endurance cycling, this plays into the ‘you need to have multiple overlapping goals’ approach.
As part of my preparation for any ride, I create an inventory of the goals for the event. A quick internal brain storm is easy enough to surface even some of the most mundane (but not unimportant) goals that I have.
These are, of course, the simple stuff of training and preparation rides.
The sort of goals that I bring to the headline event are entirely different:
You can see that Stephen has a mixture of outcome and process goals which are linked to both his performance on the bike and his enjoyment of the course. Some of them are absolutely achievable no matter what is happening in the ride, others require effort and performance. The mixture and nature of both the outcome and performance goals varies from person to person, but having that mix is key.
Obviously neither of these lists are complete and there are many more as part of my rides’ preparations. The point is to actually recognise them because these are the things that push me forward when my legs get tired and the headwinds blow. I am constantly confronted with ‘Why am I here?’ moments and these are the answer(s).
When recognising goals, there can sometimes seem to be a conflict between multiple goals. For example, one goal might be to complete the course in under 128 hours and another might be just to complete the course in any time. While these goals obviously overlap if you can get it done in time, it provides clarity on what happens if you can’t hold that pace. If you miss your goal time, should you just jump on a train and get home or press on and complete the course regardless?
This can sometimes be framed within the context of a continuum for performance related goals including the ‘stretch target’ and the ‘minimum acceptable target.’ The usefulness of this approach is that it can reduce performance anxiety as there is no ‘win/lose’ ‘pass/fail’ criteria.
One of the tools in my riding toolbox is the recognition of sunk costs. That is, anything that I have done, or not done, in the past has no bearing on the decisions I make from here on.
To apply this to the discussion on goals, that means once a goal becomes unattainable, I don’t waste any more time thinking about how to meet it. Specifically, in August, I was in Richmond and several goals I had were no longer able to be met. What then?
While there was obvious disappointment, once the logistics became clear, there was an immediate refocus and re-stacking of the goals that were still attainable and the new ones which had surfaced in their place.
This is a brilliant example of Prof Steve Peters’ strategy called AMP
Before LEL 2025, I had only ever ridden further than 600km in event conditions on just six occasions. The learning value on a long ride, even if it has been shortened to ‘just 950km,’ is extremely valuable. The ability to assess and even experiment with the myriad of physiological and psychological challenges a ride of this length presents is just not able to be done in training. This is about as ‘real world’ as it gets.
As a training ride, this year’s LEL was able to provide all sorts of valuable learning that I just wouldn’t be able to get anywhere else:
What it also gave me was the ability to ride without the psychological threat of a time limit breathing down my neck so I was able to try a more relaxed pace to see how I felt. It also gave me the ability to be reminded of how painful my contact points become and why.
Most importantly, once all the event ‘overhead’ was stripped away, it allowed me to be reminded of why I love to ride. Even without trying to meet challenging goals that I had set for myself; I still have a love of cycling just for itself. Just to enjoy riding is a valid goal on its own.
Side note: Sir Hubert Opperman was known to ride around the car park of his nursing home well into his later years.
I ‘completed’ this year’s LEL with a fresh stack of learnings about endurance riding. The event got scuppered by Storm Floris but as a ride to learn valuable things about myself as an endurance cyclist, it was a real success.
For those of you who follow these blogs you will recall Phil (‘Clarky the Cyclist’) from last week, who also discovered that sometimes you need to redefine what success looks like. For him that meant moving away from chasing podiums and instead finding joy in mindful, sustainable cycling. You can read more about Phil’s journey here.
As Stephen’s account shows, ultra endurance cycling events are not just about being fit; the coping strategies, planning, self-care and flexibility are just as essential. These demands apply outside the event as much as within it, as highlighted by Phil, “Clarky the Cyclist,” whose story shows how external stressors can derail your cycling progress. [Read how Clarky managed to come back from burnout through cycling here].
If you want to build resilience and develop coping strategies to help you both reach the start line and complete your next ultra distance cycling event, our free Traffic Light Tracker can help. By combining your own data with AI-driven insights, it highlights hidden stress patterns and supports smarter, more sustainable training.
You can find more details in other blog articles and on our YouTube channel.To keep going to the finish line you’ll need to keep rethinking your goals - perhaps you aren’t covering the kilometres you expected, perhaps you need more rest than planned or maybe an unexpected niggle appears. In race and in life, one truth remains: the goal posts move. The key is adaptability - and that’s what will keep you moving forward.
Quitting an ultra endurance event is a very hard decision to make. In most cases the reasons to quit are very personal, but we would always advise someone to ensure that they are not a danger to themselves or others when they are cycling.
Sometimes people assess an injury as so bad that it will with be difficult or impossible to recover from; in most cases the chances of you doing permanent damage are slim but if recovery will take longer than you wish thus impacting on your next event and/or life in general then this can be a good reason to quit.
Life is messy and rarely goes to plan so being able to adapt to new life situations to maintain training consistency is key. Sometimes the plan you end up with bears little if any resemblance to the plan you started; having an adaptable training plan is key.
Personalised coaching can make a big difference here, as the coach can adapt the plan to your current needs. You can read more about training plans and why they might not work for you here.
If you are planning to do PBP you might also be interested in this YouTube video:
If this happens in a race then it’s usually best to think DER. DER stands for Drink, Eat, Rest and is the best strategy to take before making any decision about your race; things often feel very different after you have rehydrated, refuelled and had a bit of a rest.
In the course of training and preparation the principle is the same; you may need to press pause and reset. This might mean re-thinking your goals as Stephen did during his LEL 2025 or finding a better balance between work and life stress as Clarky the Cyclist did.