Ride Into The New Year - From Resolution to Execution

What an amazing year 2022 has been! As we look back and reflect on this incredible year our heart is filled with joy to see so many new and old cyclist on the roads in the UAE. Thank you for your friendship and riding along with the Wolf Gang.

This blog post is dedicated to all the "newbies" as an encouragement to take up cycling as a new activity. We are a passionate group of cyclists and would love to spread the word about the beauty of this sport. We hope you will join us  and ride along with the Wolf Gang. See you on the tracks soon.

Let's get you started!

So what is on your mind to improve for 2023?

Improve your health? Lose weight? Increase your social network or learn something new and fun? If you read our 11 reasons to start cycling blog, you'll be impressed on how riding a bike can change and improve your life.

However, starting cycling is one thing, but what will make the difference is falling in love with cycling, and to ride alongside fellow cyclists. By maintaining your habit, your New Year's resolution will come miles closer to completion, and your new lifestyle will become an essential part of you.

To make you succeed, the Wolf Gang has put some tips together to make sure you have the highest possibility to turn your resolutions into habits, so let's dive into them.

Essentials

1. You'll need a bike

Get the basics right: if you have already got a bike, make sure it is serviced and ready to roll. Our team of expert bike mechanics are always here for you to answer all your questions and to make sure that your bike is always at its best condition to ride on - please feel free to book your bike in for some TLC.

Don't have a bike? We have got your covered! The Wolfi's bike rental has over 100 bikes (Road, MTB, Hybrid, e-Bikes and Kids Bikes) to choose from whether you are in Abu Dhabi or Dubai. Have a look at our bike rental range in Abu Dhabi and Dubai for a pleasant ride.

Make Sure Your Bike Fits

Simple adjustments (even half a cm in your saddle height) can make your ride feel like a dream (or a nightmare) if your bike is not set up properly. Pop into our stores and we will do a complimentary bike measurement for you and get your started feeling well positioned and comfortable on your bike.

Plan your new routine

The golden rule remains: if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. So lets plan out your exercises. Decide which timing is most suitable for you to ride. It is much easier to stick to your training plan when it is realistic. Make sure it fits your schedule and location in advance. Add your exercise into your calendar and treat it as the most important meeting or appointment in your daily/weekly schedule.

People often fail to stick with a routine because they do not realize that they are too ambitious with their daily/weekly commitments. If you have not started running your own calendar yet, we would highly recommend this for you to start. You will soon identify the unimportant activities (we love Netflix, too!) what you can swap with your newly loved passion.

Start with small rides

To start with small ride  is the most valuable tip of them all. As most new habits fail here. When we start with something new, it's always exciting, we start with a full gas of motivation and energy. But often we cross our boundaries, we face an injury, discover that it takes too much time, or get exhausted. So we stop doing it. 

Remember, we are working to make an improved you, so we want to make cycling part of your new daily habit. You're doing something new, something your body doesn't know yet. So let your body get used to it. Start with nice rides of 20 minutes maximum. And you don't need to go fast. Go nice and easy. Enjoy the surroundings and start enjoying cycling. It's the key to let your body slowly get used to doing daily exercises. From there we can form the habit.

Enjoy your progress

You will feel that after two weeks, your body is adapting to your new rhythm. This is the moment you can slowly increase the duration of your exercises, Make your workout ride 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes and from there go to an hour. Once you've done this, you can start increasing the intensity, ride faster, make your routes a bit more challenging with some hills, do some sprints in-between, you name it. But remember, we are still building this habit, so try to avoid increasing the intensity and duration at the same time. 

Join one of our coffee rides and be part of the Wolf Gang cycling community!

Prepare your gear

Having your gear prepared will help you to start your ride easier. Just imagine that your alarm goes off early in the morning and you have to assemble all of the things you need for this ride. You're more likely to skip, turn off the alarm and go back to sleep. While if you prepared everything the evening before, it's a matter of packing your gear and go ride. The less friction you will have right before starting your exercise, the more likely you are to start your ride.

Just get off your sofa

The hardest part of starting your ride is leaving the comfort zone, many people call it their sofa or their house (just to give you some ideas). As soon as you are out and up on your bike you'll instantly feel better.

Mix up your rides

Doing the same routine day in, day out will quickly result in bordem and this will make you quit faster. So let's mix it up. Mix longer more dynamic rides with shorter coffee ride. Maybe mix up your routes, ride with different friends, or try another way of cycling, change your road bike for mountain bike every once in a while. Step away from cycling once in the week and go out to your local gym and do a different form of exercise. Remember, your body is getting used to doing an exercise daily, so we need to maintain this rhythm, but you can change your ride for running or going to the gym every once in a while. Also make sure you put in some days where your body is able to recover. Pushing your limits everyday will burn you out, and end up losing your energy, fun and motivation.

Here is a list of cycling tracks in the UAE for you to ride and explore!

Rest don't quit

The great thing about us humans is we are not all the same and how we get to our goals is all different. Life gets busy and exercise is a great stress relief and helps us to feel good. But when we get to a point where your body is extremely tired and the work life balance is a bit out of flow it is ok to go for an easier ride and take a day's rest. Listen to your body and rather than making it a stress factor, get back into the routine and revisit your goal and keep at it.

Set goals

Set yourself some achievable and measurable goals to help you ride and stay on track and where you can see the improvements, this will keep you motivated and have something to work towards when we start questioning 'why we are doing this'. Short and long term goals which have a time frame are key to stay on track and help you establish if you are doing enough to achieve your results. So go ahead, enter for that race, ride and put in the work and make 2023 the best year yet.

Enjoy the journey

Whether you are looking to be on the podium or just participate in your first event the secret potion remains the same - enjoy the ride and the journey! We spend a lot of time working towards our goals and this should be an enjoyable experience. How great we feel after smashing that hard session, the fun ride with the community and being fit and healthy are daily wins that you should enjoy and be proud of.