Running Away With The Circus…

A Drop Bar Diaries dispatch from the Royal Albert Hall, where I spend a few days filming physical perfection… then go home and towel my face at 180 watts.

January had barely started and it immediately did that thing where it grabs you by the collar and says, “Right then mate, let’s see what you’re made of.”

Which is a bold move, given what I’m made of is mostly Gu dessert, good intentions, and a man in his mid-fifties who is still slightly surprised when he wakes up and his knees feel… present.

The festive period, against all odds, didn’t scupper my fitness. The mince pies came. The Quality Street came. The red wine definitely came. And yet I emerged without that familiar post-Christmas sensation of being sealed inside my own body.

I put that down to two things: I didn’t treat December like a moral test, and I now have an AI coach who, as you know if you’re familiar with these ramblings, speaks fluent restraint and refuses to panic when real life happens.

Which is fortunate, because the opening weeks of 2026 didn’t just happen.

They arrived wearing insect costumes and safety harnesses.

The glamour, the grind, and the great human pretence

This month started with a proper circus run. Not metaphorically. Literally.

I was down in London working with Cirque du Soleil at the Royal Albert Hall for OVO. Red carpet premiere. Camera set-ups. Quick turnaround content. One of those jobs where you begin the day feeling professional and end it feeling like a slug that has learned to drive.

The pace was… brisk. The kind of brisk where your brain opens 37 tabs and none of them are helpful.

In the middle of it all, I somehow slotted in a weekend away with my oldest school friends. Cheltenham. Big Regency house. Nige’s birthday meal. Wine. Karaoke. Darts. A basement games den that felt like a parallel dimension where time doesn’t exist and “recovery” is treated as a quaint rumour.

It was brilliant. 

It was also not what you’d call optimal athletic preparation.

Then it was straight back into the circus machine.

One day became sixteen hours. Quick turnaround editing, locked away in the Rausing Circle. After the show, after the final push, after that last little surge of adrenaline that convinces you you’re fine, I drove home on three hours’ sleep, which is always a thrilling experience if you enjoy hallucinating entire conversations with motorway signage.

By the time I got back, I felt like I’d been gently tumble dried.

And the thing is, that wasn’t even the most humbling part. The most humbling part was where I’d been tumble-dried.

Because while I’m there, at the Royal Albert Hall for heaven’s sake (pinch me), trying to look vaguely competent behind a camera and a portable edit suite after a weekend of friendship, karaoke and interesting Hotel Du Vin wall art, I’m surrounded by people who could warm up by doing things I’d need a signed waiver to attempt.

Why Cirque makes you feel like a weakly-designed human

Here’s the thing about working around Cirque performers: you spend the day filming people who look like they were built in a lab by scientists who got carried away.

They backflip because it’s Tuesday. They hang upside down like gravity is a suggestion. Their warm-up involves movements that most of us would reserve for a near-death experience.

You watch them and think: I’m also a cyclist. I, too, enjoy physical activity. Surely this shouldn’t be too hard to do?

Then you remember your most recent athletic achievement was standing up after an hour on Zwift without making a noise that would worry a cat. If I had a cat. Sometimes I’m glad I don’t, as my post-Zwift noises would have sent it straight out of the cat flap and into a witness protection programme.

Being around that level of physical perfection is humbling. Not unpleasant. Just… revealing.

They’re younger. Bendy. Athletic. Probably able to sleep eight hours without waking up to think about pensions, or needing a midnight toilet stop.

And weirdly, it didn’t make me feel defeated. It made me feel determined. Not to become them (I wish), but to become the version of me who can ride a long day and still enjoy the last hour. The version who doesn’t dread climbs. The one who finishes with a smile instead of negotiating with the laws of physics.

My AI coach assures me that version is available at 55. But it doesn’t come from hero sessions. It comes from doing the work in between all this chaos.

The training plan vs real life

The question I kept asking myself was simple: have I undone everything I built before Christmas?

And the answer, surprisingly, was no.

Fitness doesn’t evaporate because you have a late night and a long drive. It fades when you stop showing up completely. It disappears when you decide the plan only counts if conditions are perfect.

This year, my AI engineered plan is designed to survive imperfect weeks and adjust to my unpredictable diary.

So instead of trying to “make up” for travel and wine with something heroic, I did something deeply unglamorous. Something as far away from a red carpet premiere as possible. I simply got back on the bike and did the work I could do. Not the session I “should” do in an imaginary world where I sleep perfectly and never drive to London. The session that made sense for the body I had that day.

One tempo-lite session later, it was obvious: the engine is still there.

Heart rate, heat, and the great indoor swamp

If you read the last Drop Bar Diary you’ll know I’ve also added a new character to the story: a heart rate monitor. Which sounds like a sensible upgrade, but is in fact a portable anxiety generator that straps to your chest.

To recap, my first rides with it were a masterclass in over-attention. Watching the numbers rise, trying to lower them through breathing like I was defusing a bomb.

The reality is less dramatic and more useful. Turns out a big chunk of my ‘high heart rate’ indoors is heat., as my AI coach explained. (Side note: my AI coach probably needs a name.)

I’m a hot-running human. I would sweat in a fridge. I’ve dealt with hyperhidrosis my whole life. If there’s a world championship for “creating a puddle beneath your own bike,” I’m podium level.

And Zwift doesn’t give you a cooling wind. It gives you a screen, a Heads Up Display and a constant reminder that you’re still nowhere near the end of whatever interval you’re hoping will end. Soon.

So I’ve started taking cooling seriously. I moved the fan closer, aimed it at chest and neck, and suddenly it felt like a different sport. Less swamp. More control. I’m now flirting with the idea of a second fan for my face, partly for performance, partly because there are only so many times you can towel your eyes mid-interval without feeling like you’re running an amateur car wash.

The best bit is that heart rate, once you stop trying to win it, becomes genuinely useful. It tells you what you already feel: when you’re stable, when you’re drifting, and when heat is hijacking the effort. It doesn’t judge you. It just tells the truth.

Which is almost as annoying as my AI coach, who keeps asking if I’d like its recommendations for more optimal fan placement.

The circus trick I’m learning

If there’s one thing this early-January mayhem has reinforced, it’s this: the training isn’t the challenging part. The consistency is.

Anyone can do a big session when they’re fresh and motivated. The real trick is doing steady work when you’re busy, tired, mildly chaotic, and one email away from a breakdown.

That’s the trick I’m actually learning. Not just watts. Not just fitness. The ability to keep turning up.

Sometimes it’s Zone 2. Sometimes tempo. Sometimes “get on the bike, do something sensible, get off before you do anything daft.”

It’s boring. It’s also working.

Lincoln: the route is set

There’s now a real line on the horizon. The Lincoln sportive. End of May.

Alan and I had a brief moment of confusion where I thought it was 161 miles, which turned the whole thing into accidental ultra-endurance terror. But the good news is it’s actually 161 kilometres, which is still a proper ride, but no longer requires you to write your will.

So the objective is clear: build steadily, stay consistent, arrive in May feeling capable. Not flawless. Not superhuman. Just ready.

Berlin: the “taper” curveball

The weekend before Lincoln, I’m going to Berlin for a lads’ weekend.

Now, in most athletic programmes, the week before an event is called the taper. It’s where you reduce load, sharpen up, and arrive rested.

In my programme, it might be called: The Pre-Sportive Controlled Chaos Experiment.

We are planning a cycle tour around the city, which I would like to hereby officially classify as “training.” Not because it’s structured, but because it involves bikes, movement, and the possibility of mild suffering if Walters insists we “just pop over this bridge” for the tenth time, trying to relive his halcyon mountain-biking days.

Will it count? Yes. In the same way pork pie fuelling counts. Not scientifically, but spiritually.

Besides, if you can’t enjoy riding around Berlin in late May without worrying about your TSS, what are we even doing here?

Curtain call

So no, the busy start to the year hasn’t scuppered anything. If anything, it’s been the proof-of-concept test.

The plan didn’t collapse when work got heavy. It flexed. I still rode. I still banked the work. I still came out feeling like a cyclist, not a person who used to be one.

The route to Lincoln is set. The fans are multiplying. The sweat is… present. And while I’m in Berlin doing my “taper”, Cirque have a new show there too, which means I can potentially top off the weekend by watching even more bendy people doing impossible things with their bodies.

Either way, May is coming. The miles are quietly stacking. Winter is now just winter riding: steady sessions, sensible progressions, and a growing appreciation for the fact that discipline isn’t grim, it’s simply the habit of showing up.

See you on the road to Lincoln.

And if you spot me mid-ride wiping my face for the 400th time, just know this: I’m not struggling. I’m performing.

Mince Pies, Metrics and Monkeys … The Great Festive Negotiation

A Drop Bar Diaries Christmas-to-New-Year special in which I attempt to train like an adult, supervised by a small primate called Moogy Boogie.

Christmas is a fascinating time of year for a cyclist. Not because of the weather (usually damp, dark and engineered to erode your will to live), but because December turns training into an annual negotiation.

On one side: the version of you that wants momentum… steady work, consistency, a quiet sense of progress.
On the other: the version that sincerely believes a mince pie counts as carb loading and that Quality Street is recovery nutrition if you eat it soon enough after standing up.

Both versions live in me. And this year, they’ve got witnesses.

Moogy Boogie and the Red LED

Picture the scene. Zwift is glowing on the screen, the fan is doing its best, and I’m producing that uniquely indoor-cycling sweat, the kind that starts in your scalp and ends up in your socks.

On the bars, like a tiny director on a tiny set, sits Moogy Boogie. One of the PG Tips Monkey soft toys Jake and I started collecting when he was little. We ended up with a whole gang of them, named, each with their own cheeky character, ridiculous in the best way, and they’ve somehow become part of our family story.

Jake’s 29 in March and still keeps Bing Bong and Zugga Zugga with him in Bristol. Bing Bong even has his own Facebook page, which has been posting holiday snaps and nonsense updates for sixteen years. In our defence, this world needs more harmless daftness, not less.

This Christmas, Charlotte (Jake’s girlfriend, and now an enthusiastic recruit) gifted us two new monkeys released for Comic Relief in November: Cedric Chimpinson, apparently Bing Bong’s long-lost cousin, and Nigel Stevenson. Naturally.

So the gang grows. Which is fitting, because Christmas also brings back another character… the chimp in your head.

The Chimp in My Head

Professor Steve Peters’ Chimp Paradox has done the rounds in elite sport for years, and once you’ve met your own chimp you can’t unmeet it. The gist is simple: you’ve got a rational brain that can plan and pace, and you’ve also got a chimp that deals in feelings, urgency and self-preservation.

The important bit (the bit I didn’t fully appreciate until recently) is that the chimp doesn’t have just one voice. It’s not always the same character shouting the same instruction. It’s more like a shape-shifter with a little box of costumes.

Sometimes it’s mischievous. The Zwift chimp. The one that sees a segment, a rise, a passing rider and goes: “Go on then. Smash it. Prove yourself!”

That chimp is basically twelve years old and fuelled by ego.

But sometimes, and this is the one that’s much more convincing, it’s persuasive. It sounds sensible. Reasonable, even. It turns up mid-effort, looks at the time remaining, and starts making a calm case for why you should stop.

I’ve met that chimp many times, but more recently on one of the longer sweet spot sessions, when the second block suddenly felt like a different sport. The first interval was fine. The second started fine. And then, somewhere around the point where your brain realises there’s still a long way to go, the chimp slid into the passenger seat and began its presentation:

“You’re not feeling 100%. You’ve slept badly. You’re going to blow up. There’s no point. Just pack it in and try again tomorrow.”

That voice used to win. I’d either bail completely, or I’d do the other classic chimp move: surge at the end purely to prove I could, then crawl off the bike like I’d been evicted from my own legs.

This time I did something that felt almost suspiciously adult.

I didn’t quit. I didn’t fight. I didn’t turn it into a moral drama. I just dialled the watts down in ERG mode and finished the time. Not because I’d “given up”, but because I’d decided the actual goal was to bank the work and keep the habit intact, not to impress an imaginary jury of cyclists in my head.

It’s a small shift, but it’s the one that changes everything: listening to the chimp without obeying it.

And that’s why this festive period feels different. Because the main negotiation here is about resisting both chimp impulses: the one that wants to smash every ride, and the one that wants to bail the moment discomfort starts bargaining.

Which brings us neatly back to mince pies.

The Mince Pie Protocol

No, mince pies aren’t the enemy. The enemy is the thinking that arrives with them.

There’s the “it’s Christmas so training doesn’t count” approach, which tends to drift into “it’s Christmas so I’ll do absolutely nothing for two weeks.” Then there’s the “I must offset this” approach, which leads to people doing maximal intervals on four hours’ sleep purely out of guilt, then eating half a tin of chocolates while insisting they’ve earned it. I have been both these people.

This year has been more considered. Some days I train properly. Some days I spin easily. Some days I rest because, well, it’s Christmas Day and I’m cooking for eight and my mum’s kitchen resembles a military operation.

I keep the habit alive without turning it into a performance. Which turns out to be… surprisingly effective.

Heart Rate: The New Anxiety Generator

Christmas also brought me a heart rate monitor. A sensible person would clip it on, ride normally, and glance at the data afterwards like a calm adult.

I did not do that.

I spent parts of my first ride watching the number like a stock market ticker, trying to bring it down using breathing techniques and what I can only describe as mild spiritual negotiation.

The problem with heart rate is that it tells a story, but it also tells several unnecessary subplots. You slept badly. You’re warm. You’re dehydrated. You had a drink. You’re thinking about heart rate too much. It adds another, unwelcome psychological layer to an already demanding situation.

So my AI coach (who we now know speaks fluent restraint) and I have agreed that heart rate is currently observational. We collect it, we learn from it, and we don’t chase it like a dog after a tennis ball.

The Last Ride of 2025

New Year’s Eve arrived and, partly needing to decompress after a challenging twelve months, I decided to end the year quietly. No big party. A controlled session earlier in the day. No heroic “earn your indulgence” nonsense.

The ride itself was tidy: two twenty-minute blocks at 195W, steady as a metronome. The first block settled nicely; the second block ran hotter, as it should, and towards the end I lifted cadence slightly and saw my heart rate monitor’s LED go red.

I’d covered the heart rate number on the Zwift HUD so it wouldn’t distract me, but the LED sits there in my peripheral vision like a tiny traffic light for my nervous system, and red has a way of waking the chimp.

The old me might have panicked, surged, proved something. The new me stayed smooth and kept the power steady. I finished feeling like I could have done a third interval if I’d had fuel to hand, not because I was trying to impress anyone, but because I genuinely felt strong.

I ended 2025 buoyant, not battered. Which is not usually how I exit December.

New Year’s Day: Choosing the Sofa (… “the sofa, let me lie here on the sofa”)

January 1st arrived with a slightly fuzzy head (a few glasses of red, nothing heroic) and, confusingly, legs that felt ready. That “prepped” sensation that normally triggers the chimp’s favourite thought: we should ride to prove we’re still on track. I didn’t.

I visited mum, lazed in front of football, and let the training settle. Adaptation doesn’t happen while you’re heroically sweating. It turns out it happens afterwards, quietly, while you live your life.

As Lisa, an ex professional cyclist, concurred after reading my first blog: “rest, rest, rest!”

Rest looks like nothing, which is why the chimp mistrusts it. But rest is often the most productive thing you can do.

Pork Pie Endurance

A couple of days later I did the steady endurance anchor: sixty minutes at 160W, controlled and oddly easy, the kind of ride you could hold for ages, which is the entire point.

The only complication was that I’d had a pub lunch a couple of hours earlier: cheese and onion roll, pork pie, scotch egg, pint. Oops. Obviously not traditional cycling fuelling. More “British endurance folklore.”

Heart rate sat higher than it probably would on a clean day, which is fair enough when your digestive system is staging a small conference. But the interesting part was how stable everything stayed within the main block. Smooth power, minimal drift… the kind of steadiness that suggests the engine is getting more durable even when real life is interfering.

If nothing else, it’s comforting to know the plan can survive a scotch egg. And it was a delicious scotch egg, to be fair.

The New Context: Lincoln

And then my buddy Alan, in a move that I can only describe as “optimistic friendship”, entered us into the Lincoln sportive at the end of May.

Not the polite distance. Not the sensible option. The full 161 miles, out and back… with the comforting clause that we can turn at the 100-mile point and still claim a respectable century without needing therapy or replacement limbs.

So, that’s the new context. That’s why the festive negotiation matters. Not because I need perfection now, but because I need continuity. Winter isn’t about hero days. It’s about stacking ordinary days until spring arrives and you realise you’ve quietly built something.

Back to the Monkeys

The monkey gang has always been a reminder that the best things in life aren’t always the sensible ones. They’re a thread from Jake’s childhood that’s endured into his adulthood, a little pocket of shared ridiculousness that still makes us laugh.

Bing Bong and Zugga Zugga in Bristol. Moogy Boogie on film shoots and sat with me in the edit suite. Cedric and Nigel joining the story like long-lost relatives turning up at Christmas.

And in a strange way, they’re also a reminder of what this training approach is trying to do: keep the story going.

Not reinvent everything. Not punish yourself for enjoying life. Just keep turning up. Keep building. Keep it sustainable.

If Moogy Boogie can sit through a twelve-hour concert shoot day without losing morale, then I can survive January without declaring war on bread.

Happy New Year from The Drop Bar Diaries.

And remember: if you’re going to use Quality Street as recovery nutrition, at least do it within the anabolic window.

Follow the heroics on Strava

If you’re on Zwift, you’ll find me riding as Tim Sidwell — usually somewhere in Zone 2, riding off the mince pies.

I Hired an AI Cycling Coach…

Apparently, This Is What Midlife Optimisation Looks Like

There are various recognised responses to turning 55.

Some people take up yoga.
Some buy expensive watches.
Some carry on regardless, staring quietly into the abyss.

Sounds dramatic

I, on the other hand, have decided to outsource my cycling fitness to artificial intelligence.

Not because I was broken. Not because I’d hit rock bottom. But because, somewhere between Zwift races, Mallorca climbs, and the creeping suspicion that gravity was winning, I began to wonder whether my long-standing training philosophy of ride hard, hope for the best was perhaps no longer scientifically sound.

Also, if I’m being honest, there was a subliminal ambition humming away in the background: to feel again like the version of myself who, in 2013, rode from Le Havre to Paris to watch the Tour de France, rolling around the Champs-Élysées a few hours before the pros. Fit, motivated, and utterly convinced I’d cracked cycling forever.

Spoiler: I hadn’t.

The Problem With “Just Riding More”

I’ve loved my cycling for the best part of twenty years. Really, it began much earlier, specifically the moment my parents bought me a Raleigh Arena for Christmas. That bike carried me through childhood adventures and into my first job as a paper boy. Freedom on two wheels, paid for in newsprint, dirty hands and early mornings.

Somewhere between sixteen and thirty-five, I lost my way a little when it came to physical fitness. Life happened. Then, thanks to a really cheap and really heavy mountain bike, cycling found me again.

What followed were more adventures, this time shared with friends who, like me, were becoming increasingly aware of the passing of time and the quiet expansion of waistlines.

More recently, the bike has meant Mallorca trips, iconic climbs, long days with friends, and solo rides where it becomes a therapist with wheels.

But training-wise, I’d fallen into a familiar middle-aged groove.

Zwift races. Hard sessions. Chasing watts. Treating rest days like a moral failing.

I was still reasonably fit, but everything felt slightly… brittle. I could go hard, but not often. I could survive tough rides, but recovery took longer. And beneath it all lurked the uncomfortable thought that maybe this - slightly fading, slightly fatigued - was simply how it was going to be now.

Enter AI (Via a Petrol Station)

The idea of using AI crept in quietly rather than arriving as a grand plan.

I was in Mallorca in October and discovered, halfway up Sa Batalla, that enthusiasm had once again outpaced preparation. I ran out of legs, then energy, and finally excuses; a reminder that fitness, like optimism, needs supporting properly.

I was ultimately rescued by the last bite of Anne’s protein bar and a couple of Sue’s jelly babies, while Richard, who had been racing ahead of everyone in his unofficial role as trip photographer, dropped back and gently nursed me up to the infamous Repsol petrol station at the top of the climb.

No, I’m not sharing those photographs.

That evening, slightly humbled, I started asking ChatGPT some straightforward questions about nutrition. When I shared the next day’s route, it suggested a fuelling and hydration approach that was practical, specific, and, crucially, doable.

I followed it. The difference was noticeable.

Back home, the thought lingered. If it could help me think more clearly about what to eat and drink, could it also help me train a little more intelligently? I decided to find out.

Human, Assisted 

I started feeding it ride data from Zwift and Strava. I explained what I’m working toward. In an almost daily dialogue I talk to it about time constraints, work, travel, sleep. Real life.

What comes back isn’t a rigid plan. It’s something far more unsettling.

Restraint.

Zone 2 rides. Tempo sessions that feel suspiciously manageable. Sweet Spot workouts that end with me standing up normally rather than crawling toward the fridge like a wounded animal.

It actively encourages rest days. Celebrates them, even. Calmly and persistently explains that adaptation happens when you recover, not when you bury yourself heroically for the fourth time in a week.

This is deeply inconvenient information because it runs completely counter to everything I’ve spent years believing about fitness. That progress comes from suffering. That if you’re not empty at the end of a ride, you haven’t done it properly. That backing off is weakness, and rest days are something you earn only after near-collapse.

AI, it turns out, has no interest in those narratives.

Conversation, Not Commands

The biggest change isn’t the sessions, it’s the interaction.

I’m not handed a plan and told to comply. I talk through how rides feel. I question stats. I admit when I’m tired, busy, or mildly resentful of Lycra. I explain late nights filming gigs, long drives, disrupted sleep.

And instead of the plan collapsing, it adapts.

Miss a day? Fine.

Feel flat? Back off.

Feeling strong? Hold steady — don’t get greedy.

For perhaps the first time, training feels adult.

Flexible, but not vague. Structured, but not punitive.

The Results 

Let’s manage expectations. This is a work in progress.

I have not woken up looking like a mid-50s Geraint Thomas. I still possess a perfectly respectable layer of winter insulation.

And yet…

Zone 2 feels easier.

Tempo feels comfortable.

180 watts now feels like somewhere I arrive, rather than wrestle into submission.

Sweet Spot sessions leave me energised instead of wrecked. I’m finishing rides feeling revived — which, at 55, feels suspiciously like witchcraft.

Even my belt has noticed. Tentatively. We’re not making any promises yet.

Zwift, Reconsidered

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s fantastic but I’ve always suspected Zwift was part of the problem. Too virtual. Too gamified. Too easy to turn every ride into a race against strangers called things like PainCave69.

But it turns out Zwift wasn’t the issue - I was.

By riding free rides properly - coasting downhill, easing off, riding terrain as I would outdoors - it’s become a genuinely effective training tool. Not a simulation of real cycling, but a controlled environment for practising restraint.

Which, frankly, has never been my strongest suit.

Why Coach AI Actually Feels Like It’s Working

AI isn’t magic. And it’s not replacing good human coaches any time soon. But what it does brilliantly is remove ego from the equation.

It doesn’t care that I once rode the Champs-Élysées.

It doesn’t flatter me.

It doesn’t panic when I miss a session.

It doesn’t get bored when I ask the same question three times in slightly different ways.

It just quietly nudges me back toward consistency.

And consistency, it turns out, is devastatingly effective.

The Long Game

This isn’t about chasing KOMs or reliving youthful glory. But there is, undeniably, a ghost riding alongside me … the 2013 version of myself who felt light, strong, and utterly in love with cycling.

I don’t need to be him again. But if I can meet him halfway - fitter, wiser, less obsessed with suffering - I’ll happily take that deal.

The immediate goal is simple enough: a couple of spring sportives with my mate Alan, threading our way through the Yorkshire Dales. Long miles. Honest climbs. Steady effort. Good company. The kind of rides where you’re not racing anyone, but you still want to feel capable … strong enough to enjoy the day, and sensible enough to finish it with something left in the tank.

Which brings us neatly to Christmas.

Late nights. Big meals. Social obligations. The festive period’s well-worn promise to loosen routines and soften resolve.

Will discipline survive mince pies and red wine?

Will AI intervene?

Will January be a calm continuation or the traditional, slightly sheepish “reset”?

That, I suspect, is where this experiment starts to get properly interesting.

Merry Christmas — and welcome to The Drop Bar Diaries.

Next time: festive excess vs artificial intelligence. Place your bets.

Follow the heroics on Strava

If you’re on Zwift, you’ll find me riding as Tim Sidwell — usually somewhere in Zone 2, practising restraint.