Start by looking back

Before deciding where you want to go, take a moment to reflect on where you’ve been. Your last season holds useful clues.

Which rides did you enjoy most? Which moments made you proud? Where did you struggle? Maybe you loved long days in the saddle but faded on every climb. Maybe you felt strong in the first hours of a gran fondo but ran out of energy towards the end. These insights tell you what kind of goal will motivate you, and where you have the most room to improve.

Choose a goal that excites you

Training for something you care about makes it much easier to get on the bike on a tired, busy Tuesday when the couch is calling. Your goal might be a gran fondo, a gravel race or your first 200 km ride. It could be a famous climb abroad, a multi-day bike trip, or a personal best on your local hill.

There’s no right or wrong kind of goal. What matters is that it means something to you, and that it’s specific enough to train for. “I want to get fitter” is a wish. “I want to ride the 160 km gran fondo and feel strong on the final climb” is a goal you can build a plan around.

How hard is your event really?

It’s tempting to judge an event by its distance alone, but the real challenge comes from a mix of factors: the climbing, the road surface, the pace and even the weather. Two rides of the same length can feel completely different once you’re out on the bike.

Climbing changes everything. A ride with a lot of elevation isn’t just a bit harder than a flat one. It’s a different kind of effort. How the climbs are spread matters too. Rolling hills give you small moments to recover, while long, steady climbs demand consistent effort and smart pacing. Building up through moderate climbs teaches you how to pace yourself and develops the endurance and mental resilience you need when your legs start to tire.

Descending is a skill too. Cornering at speed, braking control and handling in bad weather are hard to practise if you live somewhere flat, and they can make a mountainous event much more demanding than the profile suggests.
Weather can be your biggest opponent. In recent summers, heat has often been the toughest challenge on event day. You can get used to it by training more in warm conditions, but you’ll still need to lower your intensity, drink more and pace more conservatively. That’s why you need some margin in your fitness. If you’d only just make the time limits on a cool day, a hot day could push the event out of reach.
The ideal event is challenging enough to push your limits, but still leaves you with enough energy to finish with confidence.

Match your goal to your training reality

A good goal fits your life as it is right now, so be honest with yourself.
Have you been riding regularly over the past few months, or did life get in the way? After a break of around three months, you’ll have lost most of your fitness. Can you put in the same training hours as before, or even more? If you have less time available than last year, expecting better results isn’t realistic.

Also think beyond simply finishing. A smart goal is about how you get to the end. You want to finish tired but not completely wiped out, and feel normal again within a few days rather than weeks. If you expect an event to leave you drained for ages, it’s probably too much for now.

Use your JOIN level as a guide

This is where JOIN helps you make a realistic call. For each event in JOIN, you’ll see a recommended JOIN level range, which is the level you need to complete the event at ease. Ideally, your own level on event day sits in or close to that range.

In the app, you can see your current JOIN level, how it’s expected to develop with your current training availability, and how much more you could progress if you free up extra time to train. Put those numbers next to the recommended range and ask yourself: can I realistically get there in the time I have?

If you’ll be 5 to 8 levels below the range, the goal is still within reach. Some extra availability later in the program will help close the gap. If the gap is bigger, finishing isn’t off the table, but you’ll probably be riding at or beyond your limit for a long time. In that case, a slightly easier event this year, or the same event next year with more time to build up, may be the smarter call.

And if you’re planning well in advance, being outside the range doesn’t have to stop you. You can increase your availability in JOIN to plan longer sessions and steadily raise your level towards your goal.

Think in phases: build, improve, peak

Once you’re confident your event fits your level and timeframe, it’s time to structure your preparation. In JOIN, training follows three types of phases: build, improvement and peak.

Build plans are your foundation. They’re ideal when your goal is still far away or when you’re coming back from a break. If your event is nine months away and you haven’t been training consistently, a Stamina Builder or FTP Builder helps you rebuild endurance and strength, so your body is ready for the next block.

Improvement plans come next. They focus on a specific area you want to develop, like short climbs, long climbs or other parts of your performance. They’re perfect if you already have decent fitness and want to work on a particular weakness.
Peak plans bring you into your best possible form for your event. This phase usually lasts three to four months.

A typical path looks like this: Build plan → Improvement plan → Peak plan. If you’re already in good shape, you might move straight from a Build plan into a Peak plan.
After your event, the cycle starts again. That often means going back to a build plan to refresh your base before aiming for your next peak. Stringing peak plans together without a foundation phase in between rarely works well. Long-term progress comes from repeating sensible cycles, not from trying to be in top form all year.

So, is this goal right for you?

The right goal isn’t the biggest or hardest one you can imagine. It’s the one that motivates you every day, pushes you through tough sessions and builds excitement as the date gets closer.

You’re in the right zone if:

• the event’s climbing, distance and conditions are a step up from what you’ve done before, but not a giant leap

• your JOIN level is in or close to the recommended range

• your recent training and available time support the build-up

• you expect to recover within a few days afterwards

If one or more of these doesn’t fit, you don’t have to give up on the dream. Shift the timing, use the time you have to build up with smart plans in JOIN, and come back stronger.

Can’t find your event in the list? You can create your own goal in JOIN.
Your next goal starts now. Find it, add it in JOIN, and let your training lead the way.