Reflections: AI and the Impact it Has On Your Cycling (and Life).

So, that was that – 2024 is almost a wrap, and it’s passed by in a flash! 

Now that we’re staring down the barrel of a new year, the run up to Christmas and ticking over of time towards January 1st is often the catalyst for moments of reflection and contemplation.

What did we achieve this past year?
What goals did we fall short of?
How much faster did I get?
How many more watts did I add to my FTP?
How are we going to improve / be better for next year? 

The constant striving for improvement can feel like a relentless, and sometimes futile grind…

Often leading to frustration at the seeming lack of year on year, quantifiable and linear progress in the form of more watts / faster times / aero gains / self worth etc etc… 

In our Christmas podcast mini-series, “12 Days Of Bike Fit”, we received a very thought-provoking tip from the wonderful Gillian Corke, which was based around reflection. When reflecting on a period of time, our tendency is to often think in 2D – what went well and what didn’t.

Good outcomes and bad outcomes. Black and white. Humans are generally good at identifying these things, as it can often be fairly objective, especially in an age where more and more things are measurable / quantifiable (which can be a dangerous game in itself). But, how do we arrive at these conclusions?

Are our desired outcomes intrinsically or extrinsically motivated?
Why do we want to achieve goal X/Y/Z in the first place, and how do we make meaningful changes to what we’ve done previously in order to improve things, however that looks, the next time around? 

My brain went on a bit of a tangent, and this got me thinking about how we use, or often misuse the internet and AI. 

With AI tools like Chat GPT becoming far more accessible in recent years, this has, in my humble opinion, kind of added a new depth of skewed thinking around what we expect of ourselves, both in our cycling / athletic pursuits, as well as our lives in general. We’ve long known about the perils of social media influencing this (comparison being the thief of joy and whatnot), but AI seems to be adding fuel to that fire.

Now, AI (and the internet in general) can be a fantastic tool, if used appropriately and critically. But the point I’m trying to make here is that the output generated by this “wonder-tool” is only as good as the input it receives. We often only see the output, or outcome of something – far less often do we get to see the input that goes on behind the scenes to make that result actually happen.

Think about it – if you give Chat GPT vague and incoherent prompts, you’re not going to get anything useful back, which is often frustrating, but entirely logical and to be expected. The more specific and direct you can be with your input, the better the output that is generated by the tool.

Cycling and our other athletic pursuits are no different. To a greater or lesser extent, all things being equal, the output you can expect to see will be a reflection of the input consistently invested over time.  

And this isn’t just limited to putting more miles in on the bike. Far from it.

Everything that goes on around your cycling can often have a more profound impact on how you perform on the bike than what you do when you’re actually riding. Things that often get overlooked like:

• Sleep – Consistency & quantity
• Quality nutrition
• The timing of that nutrition
• Recovery (this is where is actually get faster/stronger)
• Maintaining strength
• Regular mobility / flexibility
• Warm up / cool down & muscle activation
• How much overall stress you’re dealing with (and by that, I mean the global demands on your time and energy, both physically and mentally)
  …to name but a few things…

These elements are all relatively widely talked about these days, but something that often gets missed is how to manage our own expectations, and do these expectations align with our actual reality?

Is it realistic to expect the input you’re offering to result in the desired outcome?

So, when looking back over the last 12 months, rather than just identifying what went well and what didn’t go as planned, I invite you to reflect on the below:

• What were your expectations or goals for the year? 
• How did you arrive at these? Were they intrinsically or extrinsically driven?
• How did you do? Did you reach your goals and/or achieve your expectations?

And here comes the real, objective question of reflection…

• Was the output you expected or wanted realistic, relative to the input you offered?

If the answer to the above question is “no”, what are you willing to change in order to achieve the output / result that you want?

Are you willing to adjust / manage your expectations relative to the input you can offer, or are you willing to change the input in order to achieve the desired output? 

Only you can answer these questions! There’s no right or wrong, but you must be willing to sit with whatever outcome is a result of the decisions you make.

Take the holiday period to objectively reflect on some of these things, and set yourself up for success in the new year – whatever that looks like for YOU.

Words by Mat (one ‘t’)

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