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Riders looking to go faster tend to reach for one lever: ride more, or ride harder. Both work, up to a point, and both eventually run into the wall of the hours you actually have and the fatigue you can actually absorb.
What follows is broader — ten changes that make you a faster, more effective cyclist, only some of which involve producing more watts. They're ordered roughly by how much difference they make relative to the effort involved.
The ten
Get a proper bike fit
SetupThe highest-leverage change available to most riders and the one they put off longest. A good fit finds power you already had, fixes knee and back pain, and lets you hold an efficient position for hours instead of minutes.
Train your weakness, not your favourite
TrainingEveryone rides the sessions they're good at. Look at your power curve, find the duration where you're worst relative to the rest, and spend eight weeks there. It's the fastest available improvement.
Build a wide cadence range
TechniqueNot a magic number — a range. Be able to produce your power comfortably at 70 rpm on a steep ramp and 100 rpm chasing a wheel. Alternate 2 min at each within a steady block.
Push harder from twelve to five
TechniqueThe downstroke produces almost all of your power. Forget pulling up on the backstroke — the research doesn't support it. Just make sure your recovering leg isn't a dead weight.
Lift weights twice a week
StrengthSquats, deadlifts, step-ups. Not for bulk — for force production, durability late in long rides, and the bone density cycling never gives you.
Strengthen your trunk
StrengthA stable trunk stops your hips rocking and stops power leaking sideways. Fifteen minutes twice a week is enough to change how you feel in hour three.
Learn to pace
SkillMost riders lose more time going out too hard than they'd ever gain from extra fitness. Practise negative-splitting climbs and efforts until even pacing is instinctive.
Corner and descend properly
SkillFree speed. Braking before the corner rather than in it, looking through the exit, weighting the outside pedal — these save more time on a hilly route than any watts you'll add this season.
Fuel the session properly
FuellingA hard session on empty is just fatigue. Carbohydrate before and during the work lets you actually complete the intervals you planned — which is what produces the adaptation.
Ride consistently for months
ConsistencyThe dull one that beats the other nine. Four sessions a week for six months transforms a rider; ten hours one week and nothing the next does very little.
Four things you can fix this afternoon
Before any of the training advice, there's free speed sitting in your garage:
Clean and lubricate your chain
A filthy drivetrain costs real watts — and it's five minutes of work.
Check your tyre pressure
Over-inflated tyres are slower on real roads, not faster. Match pressure to your tyre width and the surface.
Ditch the flapping jacket
Aerodynamics dominate above roughly 25 km/h. A close-fitting layer is free speed.
Move your hands to the drops
The cheapest aero gain in cycling, available immediately, costing nothing.
How to actually find your weakness
Point 2 on the list is the one riders most often skip, because it requires admitting something. The method is straightforward: look at your power-duration curve and compare its shape to what your goals demand.
- Strong 5-second, weak 20-minute? You're a sprinter riding gran fondos. Build threshold.
- Strong 20-minute, weak 1-minute? You'll get dropped every time the pace surges. Train VO2 max — see our VO2 max guide.
- Everything falls off a cliff after two hours? Your problem is durability, not power. Ride longer, and fuel it.
Moveee builds that curve from your own ride history and marks the estimates as estimates, so you can see the shape rather than guess at it.
The two that need a controlled environment
Cadence work (3) and finding your weakness (2) are both far easier indoors. Cadence drills need constant resistance and no junctions; targeted interval blocks need the intensity held exactly rather than negotiated with the terrain.
That's most of the argument for a trainer, and it's why the indoor half of a serious rider's week tends to be where the specific work happens. If you'd rather do it somewhere less bleak than a garage wall, Moveee Indoor holds the session targets in ERG mode while you ride one of your own real routes rendered in 3D from map data — free while in alpha, nothing to install, and every ride saves with full power streams so the curve keeps updating.
Pick two, not ten
The genuine risk with a list like this is that you try everything at once, change nothing properly, and conclude none of it works. Pick the two that apply most to you — for most riders that's the bike fit and the consistency — and give them a full season.
Then come back and pick two more. That's how riders actually get faster: not in a burst of enthusiasm in January, but by fixing one thing at a time over several years.
Sources 7
Where this article summarises a study, the study itself is linked — not a write-up of it.
- 1 Bini R, Hume PA, Croft JL Effects of Bicycle Saddle Height on Knee Injury Risk and Cycling Performance · Sports Medicine · 2011
- 2 Korff T, Romer LM, Mayhew I, Martin JC Effect of Pedaling Technique on Mechanical Effectiveness and Efficiency in Cyclists · Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise · 2007
- 3 Foss Ø, Hallén J Cadence and performance in elite cyclists · European Journal of Applied Physiology · 2004
- 4 Rønnestad BR, Mujika I Optimizing strength training for running and cycling endurance performance: A review · Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports · 2014
- 5 Olmedillas H, González-Agüero A, Moreno LA, Casajus JA, Vicente-Rodríguez G Cycling and bone health: a systematic review · BMC Medicine · 2012
- 6 Abbiss CR, Laursen PB Describing and Understanding Pacing Strategies during Athletic Competition · Sports Medicine · 2008
- 7 Crouch TN, Burton D, LaBry ZA, Blair KB Riding against the wind: a review of competition cycling aerodynamics · Sports Engineering · 2017
See this in your own numbers
Moveee builds your power curve, fitness and fatigue from every ride you upload, and writes a training plan around them. It is free, it takes one Strava connection, and it will tell you more about your riding in a week than any article can.
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