How to Plan Your Cycling Season

Without a plan, a season usually goes like this: a motivated January, a busy March, a few good rides in spring and a goal event that arrives when you are tired. A plan doesn't need to be complicated. It needs to answer three questions: what matters most, when is it, and what has to happen before then?

Step 1: Choose your goals – A, B and C

• A goal (1–2 per season): the event you build everything around. A gran fondo, a gravel race, a qualifier, a World Championship, a personal challenge like your first 200 km.
• B goals (2–4): important events where you want to ride well, but without a full taper.
• C goals: training races and big rides. Fun, useful, not a priority.

Write them down with dates. Be honest about what is possible around your work and family.

How our founder plans her season with her coach

"My coach doesn't hand me a plan. He gives me space to think about what I need from the next season. I make a list of everything I want to race, and we discuss it. He corrects what won't work for me and sometimes suggests his own options. That's how our plan is born." – Darina Balabai, founder of Portcycling

That is the approach we recommend: the goals have to be yours. The coach's job is to make them realistic and put them in the right order.

Step 2: Work backwards from your A goal

Put your A goal on the calendar and count back:

Step 3: Plan in blocks, not weeks

Train in blocks of 3–4 weeks: two or three weeks of gradually more load, followed by an easier week. The easy week is when the training turns into fitness. Skipping it is the most common amateur mistake.

Step 4: Put testing on the calendar

Test at the start of each phase: a power profile test – your best power over about 1, 5 and 12 minutes. Testing tells you whether the plan works and keeps your training zones correct. Without testing, you are training to numbers that may be months out of date.

Step 5: Plan your camps

A training camp is the most powerful week of the season if it is in the right place:

• January – start of base/build: big outdoor volume in the warm, testing, a plan for the year. Our Open The Season camp in Calpe includes power profile testing, a coach-built race calendar and 1 month of remote coaching.
• May–June – specific block before a summer goal: altitude or long climbs. Our Altitude Road Camp in Sierra Nevada (May 17–31) is built as a spring block before early-summer goals.
• October – review and restart: test, analyse the season, plan the next one. Our Close The Gap camp in Calpe (October 9–15) has two test days and daily data debriefs.

After a camp, plan 3–5 easier days. The fitness comes after the camp, not during it.

Step 6: Plan around your life

• Mark work trips, holidays and busy periods in advance – make those your easy weeks.
• Decide your realistic weekly hours, not your ideal ones.
• Keep one or two rides a week purely social. Motivation is part of the plan.
• Decide in advance where you will train in winter: indoor or outdoor.

Step 7: Review every month

Once a month, look back: did you do what was planned? How do you feel? Do the numbers move? Adjust the next block. A plan is a map, not a contract.

A sample season (A goal in late August)

• Oct–Nov: transition, then start base. Test.
• Dec: base, strength.
• Jan: training camp + test + race calendar.
• Feb–Apr: build, first B race.
• May: qualifier or B race; altitude or climbing block.
• Jun–Jul: peak, specific work, tune-up race.
• Aug: taper, A goal.
• Sep: easy weeks.
• Oct: review camp, plan next season.

Racing the 2027 World Championships? Read how qualification works and how to prepare.