How the CW5000 inspired riders through 2020

Read the full article in the January 7 issue of Cycling Weekly magazine. During lockdown you can get the magazine delivered directly to your door by taking out a subscription. You can currently trial three issues for just £3.

Howells bought his first road bike 13 years ago to train for mountain biking then realised he was much better on the road than the dirt. The cardiac physiologist and third cat racer decided to do the CW5000 because “I like figures, i like a target”. 

The 41-year-old says he averages 4,000 miles a year most years. “Being me I panicked and overshot the mark early, i completed 5,000 in August.”

Larkin started riding with her Dad on mountain bikes or hybrids several years ago before she bought a drop-bar bike. “It’s become a bit of an obsession, if i’m honest. If I don’t ride my bike at least once a day I get proper grumpy. I’ve only had six days off this year,” Larkin explains.

Stacey Larkin - The 100-mile Zwifter

“It helps me to get out of the house, that’s the hardest part, once you’re out there it’s fine,” he explains. “I always have a target in mind, whether it be certain mileage, or certain average speed or certain elevation gain.”

“What I looked forward to seeing were the monthly challenges because they just give you that opportunity to try something different, to push yourself maybe that little bit more than you would have done,” says Larkin. She had a place on the RideLondon sportive, but the event was cancelled and when CW set the challenge of riding 100 miles in one ride in August she decided to do that instead. “If someone had said to me, last year ‘ Ride 100 miles in one day,’ I'd probably have just laughed at them and said ‘That's never going to happen. That’s not possible.’ But clearly it is,”

Jan Darnell - The social animal

Speak to anyone who’s spent time in the CW5000 Facebook group and you’ll swiftly hear Darnell’s name mentioned. He constant encouragement and interaction were cited by almost everyone CW spoke to as a factor in that support network keeping their motivation going.

Darnell, 53 from Kentucky in the US, only got a bike last year and rides almost entirely indoors on Zwift. “I’m a semi-retired custom garment maker, I basically hang out at the house and ride my bike,” she says.

Gethin Howells -  The gravel enthusiast

He continues: “I've never been somebody who likes cycling by themselves, I always go out with friends or the Ystwyth Cycling Club. And with what's going on this year, this has given me focus to get me out. I probably wouldn’t have done that without the challenge it kept me sane throughout lockdown.”

Gethin Howells threw in a successful gravel everesting attempt to mix up his 2020 riding