Most resolutions are abandoned in the first month or two of the new year. Here’s how to make your cycle commuting commitments stick

New Year, new you. That’s the promise that sees gym memberships soar and countless new diets adopted in January. Then by February, old habits reassert themselves and resolutions crumble and are forgotten. It’s easy to fall into the same trap when setting cycling goals for the year ahead, usually by attempting too much too soon. Deciding to ride twice as far or twice as often might work for you. But you could be setting yourself up to fail.

Set yourself realistic goals, ones you can reach incrementally instead of overnight. If you’re trying to lose weight by cycling, aim for a stone (about 6.5kg) over the course of the year, not in a month. If you’re currently riding two days a week, switch it up to three days rather than five. If you’re riding 30 miles a week right now, don’t suddenly aim for 100.

Whatever your cycle commuting goal is for the year ahead, write it down. You can’t hit a target if you don’t have one. You also need some way of measuring your progress towards your goal.

Track your progress

Any improvement can be slow. Often it’s so slow you can’t see it on a daily or weekly basis; it’s only obvious in retrospect. To maintain your motivation, it helps to have proof that you’re taking measurable steps towards your goal.

This doesn’t have to be complicated. If you’re trying to lose weight, step on the scales once a week. If you’re increasing the number of days that you ride to work, a wall calendar will suffice; tick any day that you cycle, then count the ticks. In pre-digital times, keen cyclists kept diaries and charts of their daily mileages – ‘Tuesday, five miles’ – then totalled it over the weeks, months and year.

Nowadays you can do this and more an app on your phone, such as Strava or Love to Ride. They’ll log all sorts of details: how far you’ve ridden, how often, how fast, roughly how many calories you’ve burned and so on. Both of these apps also have a social media component, enabling you to share your data with others. This lets you see how you’re doing relative to your friends or colleagues – or even with all local cyclists using the app. How does your time up that local hill compare to other cyclists or to your own previous efforts? Strava can show you.

You can add comments with these apps as well, so you can give or receive encouragement. Putting your progress on public display like this can help prevent backsliding. It’s why Weight Watchers has a weekly weigh-in. Committing to something publicly is different from telling yourself you’ll do it.

Depending on what you’re measuring to track your progress, you may need to invest in extra equipment. Fat-measuring scales if you want to lose weight, perhaps, or a heart rate monitor or a power meter if you want to keep a more scientific eye on any fitness gains.

If you want more motivation, log your financial savings from cycling to work by totting up the money you would otherwise have spent (petrol, parking, train tickets and so on). Put this money in a savings account each week, then treat yourself to a meal out or a holiday – or perhaps a new bike (see below).

What’s stopping you?

You’ll ride more in the year ahead – and more easily meet those goals you set – if you remove the hurdles that prevent you riding.

You can’t ride to work if your bike has a mechanical problem such as a puncture or a snapped chain. If you learn to look after it you can keep your bike roadworthy 365 days a year. Failing that, get it serviced regularly – once a year, minimum.

If bad weather stops you cycling, invest in the clothing and accessories that make it more bearable. That’s equipment like mudguards, good lights and weatherproof panniers, and clothing such as gloves and waterproofs. You can get all this through Cyclescheme, which will save you a lot of money, and if you’re using it regularly it will soon pay for itself in any case.

If you find yourself pushed for time in the morning and debating whether or not to ride, make that decision the night before instead. Get everything prepared in advance: lights charged, commuter bag packed, kit laid out and ready. Then you can go through your morning routine on auto pilot, and you won’t end up missing a ride because you couldn’t find, say, a glove.

New bike, new options

Sometimes what’s stopping you riding more is your bike: it works, sure, but it isn’t the ideal tool for the job. A new bike could make a difference. If it’s better quality or more comfortable, you’ll enjoy riding it more. So that’s a useful incentive. Some bikes, however, also give you more opportunities to ride. The game changers in this regard are folding bikes and e-bikes.

You can take a compact folding bike anywhere, especially if you have a bag or cover for it. This vastly simplifies multi-modal commuting, where you use a train, bus, private car or taxi for part of the journey, then cycle the rest. It’s ideal if the journey is too far to cycle the whole way – or too far for you right now, because you’re too tired or not fit enough. When you feel like you can handle it, you could get off a stop earlier or cycle to work and take alternative transport home. A folding bike means you’ve always got the option of riding but need only ride as much as you want.

An electric bike makes longer, hillier or windier commutes a lot more manageable.  The assistance from the motor means you can cruise along at around 15mph in almost any conditions without working up a sweat. Because it’s easier, you’ll probably find yourself rider further and more often. You might even get fitter than you would on a conventional bike, the extra time in the saddle more than offsetting the lower effort level involved. Electric bikes also make it easier to carry passengers or bigger loads. If you had an e-cargo bike, maybe you could drop the kids off at school on the way to work or do the weekly grocery shop by bike on the way home?

Don’t forget that you can get a second bike (or a third or fourth or more) through Cyclescheme, so investing in another is more affordable than you might think – especially if you then use it for journeys you’d otherwise drive.