Time for a new cycling playlist? I’ve got just the set to bump up your threshold power.
But first, rewind to 2010, pre-Italy, when I spent my days trying to win bike races, eating food (primarily green), listening to electronic music, and counting my pennies. Funny enough, all these immature, twenty-something years are well documented in my blog because that was the thing to do those days.
Despite the horrific spelling and terrible grammar, there’s still more than a glimmer of wisdom to be gleaned from this no-longer public journal of a female pro bike racer. And to be fair, I happened to also win some of those bike races.
Keep reading because pulled straight from these dusty archives is a cycling playlist or mix set — ideal for Zwift sessions. If these tunes can make a National Champion, surely they can up the ante on your Zwift sessions.
But before you scroll to the bottom, here’s a little context of the peaks and valleys through the lens of women’s pro cycling.
Cycling playlists for winning bike races
My biggest win was undoubtedly Canadian National Championships in 2009. For any sporting title that doesn’t fade away, there’s some sort of unexplainable luck — and for this one, I knew I was going to get lucky.
Earlier that year, I’d pitched the white flag and surrendered to a steady paycheque. It didn’t take long to realize that looking at a black AutoCAD screen eight hours a day was a soul-destroying trade-off. I recommitted to an ultra-thrifty lifestyle, and National Championships was the perfect place to up-level my cycling career.
After pre-riding the course, I knew I could win or I believed I would. It sounds presumptuous, I know, but the course was made for me and the truth in your body does not lie. It became so matter-of-fact that I set out a strategy on how to win, I would do just that, and have it ticked off as complete in a few short hours. No chasing down useless attacks, the chances of anybody collaborating in a break were slim to none, then I’d go for it in the bunch sprint.
Most, if not all, of my current and past athletic achievements are fueled by music, not always electronic, but mostly. I’ve come to know chances of success (and I mean any success) are high when visualizing an outcome and getting in the right frame of mind. It’s easy to get distracted these days, so music (or replaying it in my mind along with a mantra) is my way of staying hyperfocused and blocking out distractions.
