Mental Game

Hard enduro is full of moments that test your head: a big climb with a crowd watching, a log you failed three times, a crash that shook you, the fifth hour when everything is harder than it should be. Nerves, frustration and tunnel vision are part of the sport. Having tools to reset gets you back to riding.

The best riders say the same. Graham Jarvis told Enduro21 before Erzberg: "For me the biggest thing is not getting too excited, being able to keep my emotions in check throughout a race like Erzberg." And: "I have learned that mistakes will happen and it's how you react to them, how you deal with them that really matters."

Billy Bolt, after winning the 2021 world title, said: "The mental side of my racing was a weakness of mine, but now I feel like I've turned it around to be one of my strengths." The difference, in his words: "These days when I'm in an intense racing situation, I can now control my emotions and make better decisions."

Nerves before a big climb are normal, and some are useful. The Association for Applied Sport Psychology puts it plainly: "Eliminating anxiety from the competitive environment is not possible, nor desirable." You want enough arousal to be sharp, not so much that your grip locks and your breathing goes shallow.

Two ways to deal with them:

• Bring them down when they're too high: slow breathing (below), a routine, and a cue word.
• Relabel them when they're just "there". In experiments using karaoke, public speaking and maths tests, people who told themselves they were excited, rather than trying to calm down, felt more excited and performed better: "individuals who reappraise their anxious arousal as excitement feel more excited and perform better." Racing heart before a climb? That's your body getting ready.

The AASP also recommends practising under pressure: "practice being in an uncomfortable situation and coping successfully." Ride your practice hill with a friend watching. Time yourself. Make practice feel a bit like race day.

When nerves spike, breathing gets fast and shallow. Slowing it down is the quickest way to calm your body.

• Slow breathing. Research on heart rate variability finds the biggest heart-rate-variability response when breathing at "approximately 0.1 Hz (six breaths per minute)", and slow breathing is widely used to settle nerves. That's about five seconds in and five seconds out. Do it for a minute at the bottom of a climb, or for five minutes the night before a race.
• The cyclic sigh. In a small 2023 trial run remotely, participants inhaled through the nose, then took a second inhale "once more to maximally fill their lungs", then exhaled slowly and fully through the mouth. Five minutes a day of this improved mood more than meditation. The researchers concluded that "daily 5-min cyclic sighing has promise as an effective stress management exercise." The AASP adds that its effects "were not significantly greater than other breathing techniques", so use whichever slow breathing pattern you'll actually practise.
• Not on the bike. Breathing exercises are for stops. Never use forceful, rapid breathing methods while riding: the AASP warns against them "while standing, driving, or in any precarious situations, as you may become dizzy or lightheaded."

A cue word is a short instruction you say to yourself at the moment you need it: "soft hands, eyes up", "chest forward", "clutch, not gas", "commit".

A meta-analysis of 32 studies found self-talk had "a positive moderate effect size (ES = .48)" on sports performance, and that "interventions including self-talk training were more effective than those not including self-talk training." In other words, it works better when you practise it. The same analysis found the effect was bigger for fine and newly learned skills than for gross or well-learned ones, so cue words help most with precise, still-developing skills like clutch control on a climb.

Rules for good cues:

• Short. Two or three words.
• Instructional. Tell yourself what to do, not what to avoid. "Eyes on the exit", not "don't look at the tree".
• Practised. Use the same cue on the same skill in training so it's automatic on race day.

Anxiety changes where you look. A review of anxiety and attention in sport found that "gaze behaviour tendencies are reliably altered when performers are anxious, leading to inefficient and often ineffective search strategies." On a bike that means staring at the rock you want to miss, or at the front wheel, instead of the line.

The fix is a deliberate habit: before a hard section, pick the exit or the next placement point and look at it. Say your cue. Keep your eyes moving to the next target as the bike gets to the last one. This is the same "eyes up, look at the exit" you've practised since Controls 101; under pressure it has to be a conscious choice.

Mental rehearsal means imagining a line or a technique in enough detail that your brain rehearses the real movement. A 2025 meta-analysis of 86 studies with 3,593 athletes found imagery practice improved performance, with the strongest gains from "approximately ten minutes, three times weekly". It also found imagery worked better combined with one or two other mental skills.

Make it real. The PETTLEP model from Manchester Metropolitan University lists what to include: "Physical, Environment, Task, Timing, Learning, Emotion and Perspective". For a rider that means:

• Physical and environment: stand in your riding stance, in your gear if you can, at the bottom of the actual climb.
• Task and timing: imagine the exact inputs at real speed: first gear, clutch at the bite, chest forward at the rock step.
• Emotion: feel the nerves and then feel yourself riding through them.
• Learning: update the picture as your skill improves.
• Perspective: see it through your own eyes, as you would on the bike.

Walk the line, then close your eyes at the bottom and ride it once in your head before you ride it for real.

A pre-performance routine is "a set of task-relevant thoughts and actions an athlete systematically engages in prior to performance execution". A meta-analysis found routines had moderate-to-large effects on performance in controlled experiments, including under pressure. Build one and use it every time.

"Win the class" or "clean the hill" are outcome goals. You can't control them. "Clutch, not gas on the climb" or "eyes on the exit in every turn" are process goals. You can.

A meta-analysis of goal setting in sport found "process goals were significantly more beneficial for enhancing performance (d = 1.36) compared to performance goals (d = 0.44) and outcome goals (d = 0.09)". The AASP makes the same point: "When athletes define success as beating others, they have little control over the outcome."

Before each ride, set one or two process goals. After the ride, check them. That's all.

After a mistake. The ride isn't over. Stop, breathe, and ask one question: what's the one thing to change next time? Then change it. Beating yourself up doesn't help: a study with self-critical women athletes found a self-compassion intervention helped with "managing self-criticism, rumination, and concern over mistakes".

After repeated failures. If you've failed the same obstacle three times, go back one step: a smaller version, a different line, or a break. Frustration makes riders add throttle, and throttle rarely fixes a technique problem. The STOP/GO criteria give you permission to walk away.

After a crash. Fear is normal. A review of athletes returning from injury found "fear was a prominent emotional response at the time of returning to sport", and that confidence and low fear went with a better chance of getting back to the previous level. Rebuild it on easy terrain with small wins before you go back to the thing that hurt you. Manuel Lettenbichler, coming back from a serious injury, told Enduro21: "I don't want to put any pressure on myself, just enjoy the race and feel excited to be back." If fear or low mood after a crash doesn't fade, or you had a head injury, talk to a doctor.

Fatigue changes your judgement before it changes your riding. A systematic review found mental fatigue "negatively impacts a myriad of SSPP outcomes, including decision-making, reaction time and accuracy outcomes". Another review argues the evidence "does not provide conclusive support" for a big effect on physical performance, but the risk of a tired decision on a steep hill is reason enough to plan for it. Dehydration adds to it: beyond about 2% body-weight loss it impairs "attention, executive function, and motor coordination".

Build rules before you're tired, so you don't have to make them when you are:

• Tired means conservative. Late in the day, take the easier line. Bolt, on his title-winning race: "I even opted for a couple of easier lines to avoid wasting energy."
• Eat and drink on a schedule, not when you feel like it. The endurance lesson has the numbers.
• One more attempt is a decision, not a reflex. If your technique has gone, stop.

At the end of each ride, write two lines: one thing you did well, and one thing to adjust next time. That's an after-action review. A meta-analysis of debriefs, mostly from workplace, medical and military training, found they "improve effectiveness over a control group by approximately 25% (d = .67)", with similar results for individuals and teams. Two lines in your phone is the rider's version: short, honest and done every time.

Keep the notes in your phone. Over a season they show you patterns: the obstacles you always fail tired, the cue words that work, the goals you've actually met.