INSIDE JOB - HOW TO STAY MOTIVATED WHEN WINTER SHUTS THE DOOR

Indoor training need not break your spirit. Steve Shrubsall shares the secrets of his Pain Cave staying power, with a little help from a WorldTour pro and a coach

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Let me tell you a winter's tale. When the weather finally turned in November, after months of carefree, short-sleeved swashbuckling around southern England, I opened the door to my shed – AKA the Pain Cave – and my heart sank. It no longer looked like a shed; more like a nuclear bunker, its shelves stacked with tins of soup and emergency rations. A harbinger of doom.

Winter can be a grim old season for cyclists: cold, wet, expensive, demoralising. My first autumn visit to the Pain Cave confirmed it. I dusted off the turbo trainer, a contraption that looked as abandoned as I felt, and climbed aboard. Forty-five minutes later, I climbed off, gripped by ennui and the first hints of seasonal gloom. SAD is no joke for those of us who thrive on long days and open roads.

So I decided enough was enough. This sorry season wasn't going to beat me. What follows is my own indoor-training survival guide – plus advice from Matej Mohorič, a WorldTour pro who genuinely enjoys the turbo, and coach Jon Sharples, whose work with Eddie Dunbar helped deliver double Vuelta stage glory in 2024.

Get competitive

After that first dispiriting session in the shed, shuffling around Watopia with all the purpose of a lost tourist, I realised my second session needed some actual intent. And nothing injects urgency quite like an online race. They're fast, frantic, weirdly addictive – and available almost on demand, with Zwift offering a conveyor belt of events 24/7.