mountain biking
The Trajectory of a Junior Cyclist
Young riders are the future of our sport. Whether or not a certain junior cyclist will go pro on the quick trajectory, or that rider will stop after college, take a break, come back as a Cat 3 and race through masters, every young rider entering the sport is someone that should be cultivated. With…
Read MoreExercise in Wildfire Smoke: Poor Decision?
Exercise in wildfire smoke can be an insidious threat to performance and health. Learn some practical health tips and how to protect yourself and keep training.
Read MoreCoach Nikki tapped as Assistant Coach for Reno Devo Nationals Program
In addition to being the Program Coordinator, Coach Nikki will also be assuming the role of Assistant Coach with the Reno Devo Nationals Program.
Read MorePlanning Your Season
Start next season NOW The best part about planning your season for next year is that we get to plan our epic adventure(s). Many of these adventures involve travel to faraway lands which ultimately means you’re committing significant time, energy and funds to create a life enriching experience for yourself. You would be in the…
Read MoreA Guide to Choosing a Cycling Coach
Hire a Coach! Choosing a cycling coach is very important… and it can also feel very overwhelming! In my opinion, it’s as important as choosing a bike frame, wheelset, or drivetrain. A coach is someone who not only keeps you accountable, but works together with you to achieve your goals. If you choose to hire…
Read MoreDr. Echo Dahl Rowe’s Leadville Trail 100 PR, 8 Years Later
Of all the athletes I’ve ever worked with, Echo’s drive to succeed in whatever she chooses is among the very best. This need to succeed is directly reflected in her work ethic and can be seen in everything she does.
Read MoreHaving a Coach Holds You Accountable: Tales from an Endurance Mountain Biker
My name is Ray Landry. For work. I am a dental rep. I race mtn bikes and gravel mostly and a little road for fun. So many races. It’s hard to pick a favorite. But my favorite would be the event that got me into cycling to start and that would be the Leadville 100.…
Read MoreShake Your Money Maker: Helmets Protect Your Greatest Asset
Using science-based evidence to guide us when choosing a safe bicycle helmet
Read MoreJosie Fouts, Leader in the Off-Road Para-cycling Movement
Born in Korea with only a right hand, Josie is an Asian-American amputee that grew up in the midwest, always standing out. Her interest in metabolism research led her out to San Diego and the year-round great weather encouraged her to begin commuting by bike. Soon the San Diego cycling community discovered her potential and…
Read MoreJP Brocket, King of the Long Ride
SE athlete JP Brocket has been training hard in Taiwan: JP Brocket, a long-time Source Endurance athlete, has been living in Taiwan and sharing his journey with us on social media. He’s been climbing big mountains, completing hard intervals, and hopping into local races. JP just finished a big block of volume where he completed…
Read MoreLess Pain, More Gain: 6 ways for cyclists to reduce soreness from strength training and running
Get DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) every season you start working out in the gym? Can’t walk the day after going for an easy 2 mile jog? Tried doing a 15 minute HIIT workout once and now your arms feel like jello on the bike? Check out these strategies to reduce soreness from exercises that…
Read MoreShadd Smith, Multi-Discipline Master
From long-time SE athlete Shadd Smith: Big shout out to Source Endurance coaches for keeping this guy in the mix. I am certainly a creature for training and riding so I can not stress enough how important the coaches are to properly keeping the sword sharpened. Cyclocross is in full swing now with racing every…
Read MoreReturning to Training and Racing After Covid19, an Update
As the pandemic began to tighten its grip, the United States and the world began to enter lockdown. Meanwhile, professional sports leagues including Major League Soccer (MLS), Major League Baseball (MLB), National Hockey League (NHL), National Football League (NFL), and the men’s and women’s National Basketball Association (NBA, WNBA) were already planning the massive undertaking…
Read MoreConsistency, the Most Important Aspect of Training
What is the most important aspect of training? Is it nailing the fundamentals? VO2 max intervals? Squeezing out every marginal gain? I’d argue each of these has validity but the king and queen of them all is consistency. Cycling is a highly aerobic sport and most of the training adaptations simply take a lot of…
Read More10 Tips and Tricks for Fueling for Long Gravel Races & How to Maintain Stamina in the Heat and Dirt
Race Day Nutrition Plan Mass start, dust up the nose, endless climbs, stretches of desolate scenery, clock ticking. Gravel races are sweeping the hearts of cyclists across the country for the opportunity to complete something epic, try something new, enjoy beautiful scenery, and challenge oneself. As one of the newer disciplines of cycling, racers are…
Read MoreHow to make mountain biking friendlier
SE coach and ambassador Nikki Peterson recently wrote an article for Trek Bikes entitled “How to make mountain biking friendlier.” If you’ve met Nikki, you probably know that she is a professional MTBer for Competitive Metals Trek, runs the GRiT podcast, has been working for NICA for years, and is, well, incredibly friendly and welcoming!…
Read MorePatience in Racing: Often Overlooked, Never Underrated
HERE. WE. GO! Whether you’re ready or not, the 2021 racing season has started. Many of us are emerging from the months of Zwift training and working up the courage to do that first race. It’s likely racing will be analogous to our first post-pandemic group social interactions. We’re all going to be excited, a…
Read MoreIncorporating other cycling disciplines to improve your cycling performance
Perhaps you are in the middle of a training block and your fitness is starting to plateau and stagnant or maybe you’ve been road riding the same loop day in and day out and motivation is starting to wane. Picking up another discipline of cycling might be just the right move to boost fitness and…
Read MoreReturning to Training and Racing After COVID-19
If you or someone you know has gotten Covid, check out Adam Mills’ guide on Returning to Training and Racing After Covid-19, recently published on TrainingPeaks.It looks at the latest studies that are coming out and can hopefully serve as a way to self-evaluate when you can start riding again. Read the Article. Check out all…
Read MoreKeeping a Positive Mindset When Things Seem Not So Positive
Not to sound like a broken record, but 2020 has tested a lot of people, physically and mentally. With so many changes and people feeling more isolated than ever, it can be hard to keep a positive mindset. However, it has been proven that having a positive mindset can have a lot of health-related benefits…
Read MoreAdjusting goals and event predictions
2021, the first year of the new world, and we’ve been through a ton and we’re not at all out of the COVID woods. With everything that has happened in 2020, it’s easy to lose sight of what life was like and where we are heading for next year. There are many things that are…
Read MoreMeet SE Coach Taylor Warren
Taylor Warren just joined the Source Endurance coaching team. Taylor began his cycling journey on the bike path as a kid and fell in love with racing shortly after. He’s spent time at the top in road and track, holding National Championship titles and racing professionally on the road with 303 Project. How did…
Read MoreDylan Zakrajsek comes back from bad crash to win his first race back!
Over the course of the past few weeks I have continued to train and do more recovery from my hard crash back in February. This past weekend I did my first race since the crash and man was that fun, and I won! Being able to get back in-between the tape and shake some of…
Read MoreFlavors Make You Fast
It’s no secret that food is fuel. Kristen Arnold has written many pieces giving excellent nutrition advice on how to fuel exercise and an active lifestyle. If you want to nail your workout, recover like a Pro, and keep making improvements, it’s imperative that you take in enough nutrition. But did you know that flavors…
Read MoreMeet SE Coach Nikki Peterson
Nikki Peterson is Source Endurance’s newest coach. A lifelong endurance athlete and current professional mountain biker, she backs up her experience with years of education in the Nutrition and Exercise field. We did a little Q&A with her so you can get to know her. What was your athletic career pre-cycling? I started running in…
Read MoreNikki Peterson wins Rim Nordic Time Trial-format XC Mountain Bike Race
I got to race on Saturday, July 18th! Rim Nordic, a legendary race venue in Southern California, held a Time Trial-format xc mountain bike race. The racers were started in 20 second intervals and the Pro Women’s Category had 7 racers. I started 4th and caught up to the 2nd and 3rd ladies by the…
Read More5 Benefits of Cycling Coaching in a Pandemic
The global pandemic is very real. If you’ve been fortunate enough to maintain your health and employment, you’ve probably also felt bummed to watch all your 2020 events and goals go up in smoke. We’ll never be taking events for granted again, that’s for sure… Here are five ways Source Endurance coaches are here to…
Read MoreThree ways to increase your FTP
Hire a coach and level up your FTP Functional Threshold Power or FTP is a single power value used by athletes and coaches to define a range of training ‘zones’ as well as assess overall fitness gains, losses, and status. FTP, as defined by Andy Coggan and Hunter Allen, is the highest average power or…
Read MoreAre V02 and Blood Lactate Tests Still Relevant? With WKO, probably not.
If we’re focusing on raising FTP or Lactate Threshold power, we need the best metrics to track change in FTP. 5 and 10 years ago, we sent our athletes into a lab or university to get the athlete’s blood lactate and maybe Vo2 max tested. Back then, that was the best way to check FTP…
Read MoreHow Much Time Does it Take to Improve FTP?
As a reader of our blog, you’re probably familiar with the term FTP, or functional threshold power. This number is most often approximated to maximal one hour power output and is one of the foundations of modern training and performance analysis for cycling. Very much like your 1 mile, 5k or 10k pace in running,…
Read MoreUtilizing Indoor Training Apps for Coaching
Source Endurance launched a free guide titled Utilizing Indoor Training Apps for Coaching, written and designed by Colorado-based senior coach Zack Allison. This guide evaluates the smart trainer and all the apps and tools that have come in its wake. Designed with cycling and triathlon coaches in mind, it is also beneficial for the devoted…
Read MoreBasic Nutrition for Endurance Athletes, Part 1
Build a Strong Fueling Foundation for Victory, Blog Series Part 1 Over the next few months we will discuss the basics of nutritional needs for endurance athletes. In order to optimize performance through nutrition we need to start with the basics and build a solid foundation. Similar to how base training builds a foundation in…
Read MoreWhen To Start Training For Next Season And Why
Now. The time is now. As coaches and athletes, fall or early season is training season and this is the most exciting time of year. We can look back at last season and be objective in looking at the data and seeing what worked and what didn’t. We can sit down and map out the…
Read MoreI See Food in your Power File: Fueling Adequately for Training
A few weeks ago I hosted a webinar for USA Cycling on the Nutrition Care Process. I discussed how Registered Dietitians conduct nutrition assessments and how coaches can apply these concepts to identify nutrition-related issues in their athletes. The webinar inspired this article where I present a few cases where athletes were unable to complete…
Read MoreAre starches the new sugar? Types of carbohydrates for cycling and how they improve performance.
Many athletes ask themselves how much sugar they should have, when, and from what sources. Studies show eating or drinking carbohydrates before and during workouts improves performance in endurance exercise1. For decades sugars have been king of performance enhancement during exercise in endurance sports. Hundreds of companies make products with sucrose, glucose, maltose, dextrose and…
Read MoreHow to Choose your Peak Events
To peak means to reach a highest point. In endurance sports this means training intensity and volume accumulate over time to reach top-level fitness at a specific time for a given individual. Reaching peak fitness can be tricky as there is a balance for every athlete to reach their highest fitness at the right time,…
Read MoreFilm Study: Cycling’s New Training Frontier
While many sports have benefited from film and video technology for years, and even decades, cycling is not quite there yet. There are a variety of reasons for this, but primarily it’s due to the lack of accessible video and the associated cost of filming or otherwise capturing the correct things in a sport that…
Read MoreCycling Training: Workout completion over perfection
October is an odd month for cycling athletes. In many ways it’s a great time of year: fall is here, the leaves are changing, warm weather sticks around sometimes and can make for some great riding and training. October, November, December are also when athletes are most likely to look backward or inward. If you…
Read MoreAthlete Highlight: Blaize tackles RPI
Rebecca’s Private Idaho is a 96 mile gravel race at elevation in the mountains of Idaho. Source Endurance Athlete Blaize Baehrens showed up to last years event self-coached and finished in a respectable 5 hrs 45 mins. This year training under coach Adam Mills, this race came up as a long training weekend leading into…
Read MoreRace Week Tips from Coach Matthew Hill
The week before a big – especially a big long race – start adding a little bit of extra salt to everything. Drink a little bit more water with everything. Cut out the caffeine heading into a race, and you will get a bigger bump from it on race day. Well proven, and helps with……
Read MoreRider Highlight: Shadd Smith takes age group wins at God's Country Fat Tire Festival and OMBA CARAMBA Mountain Bike Race
A challenging part of coaching is keeping riders mentally fresh as they prepare for their upcoming season. Shadd Smith, a cyclocross-focused athlete, is working with his coach Adam Mills to use some mountain bike races to prepare for the ‘cross season. Shadd took things one step further and won his age division at God’s Country Fat…
Read MoreGet Your Source Endurance Socks
There are two ways to get some sweet Source Endurance socks: Follow us on Facebook and Instagram, share a photo from a recent bike accomplishment (send to marketing@source-e.net) and share your story with us here. We’ll then mail you a free pair of socks! Purchase below for $14. Price is inclusive of shipping and applicable…
Read MoreThe Mental Aspect of Winter Training
The mental aspect of training in winter can be the hardest part. We worked with Utmost Performance to figure out what you can focus on to keep those winter blues from derailing your training even with a vast majority of rides on the trainer. Here’s a brief interview with Mario Arroyave on how to stay…
Read MoreEndurance athletes: Don’t beat winter, embrace it!
Cycling training in the northern US presents many challenges. Shorter days, inclimate weather, and possibly even psychological factors associated with seasonal affective disorder may lead to training inconsistencies. Living in a subarctic climate presents challenges of training indoors versus outdoors and making optimal workouts can be a task. Potentially even more important than your chosen…
Read MoreTop 5 Mistakes of the Self-Coached Athlete
Every so often at Source Endurance we get individualized consults done for the self-coached athletes or we get athletes signed on that have been self-coached and we get to see what they were up to before they signed on for coaching. There’s a few patterns that we see with self coached athletes along with patterns…
Read MoreTopical Edge PR Lotion Significantly Improves High-Intensity Interval Performance
If you remember last fall, we were recruiting study participants in the Fort Collins, Colorado, area to participate in a study using Topical Edge. Well, the results are in! Here’s an excerpt from Topical Edge and a link to the full study and results: Coming on the heels of the clinical trial at San Diego State University…
Read MoreWhy You Should Choose Orucase The Next Time You Travel With Your Bike
WRITTEN BY: COLIN JASKIEWICZ We all know what it’s like to travel with a bike. Lug a 25 pound (empty of course… 40? 50 fully loaded?) plastic case to the airport. Now it’s time to check in, how much are they going to charge you? It’s a continual guessing game as to the mood the…
Read MoreWhat to expect when you're not expecting, an acromioclavicular (AC) joint injury.
Coming back from injury can be arduous Our Coaches are trained and certified to help you! Click Here Shoulder separations are among the most common type of injuries in sports. Not to be confused with a dislocation, a shoulder separation involves the Acromioclavicular (AC) ligament, and sometimes the Coracoclavicular (CC) ligament, whereas a dislocation refers…
Read More13 Ways Hiring Source Endurance for Coaching is Different than Simple Programming
Hire a Coach Today As endurance athletes, it’s easy to get caught up in what other people are doing that has worked for them. Many are also, unfortunately, familiar with the experience that what worked brilliantly for a friend has worked poorly for you. We’re also familiar with the idea of one-time-purchase training programs, which…
Read MoreRider Highlight: Matt Gilhousen qualifies for Leadville!
Matt Gilhousen recently competed in the Lutsen 99er, Men’s 40-49 geared category which had pretty intense conditions this year. He dug through and finished great, qualifying for Leadville in a couple of weeks! Brief event/course description: Lutsen is one of the Leadville qualifiers located in extreme northern Minnesota overlooking Lake Superior. The 99 mile course…
Read MoreAthlete Highlight: Peter Seng qualifies for Leadville MTB
Pete Seng recently competed in the Lutsen 99er, Men’s 50-59. His result qualified him for Leadville, a long-time goal of his. Congrats Pete! Good luck at Leadville in a couple weeks! Brief event/course description: Along the north shore of Lake Superior, in the Minnesota north woods. The race is 99 miles, about 7,000 feet of…
Read MoreTrain harder. Recover faster.
What can we say, as a coaching company made up of athletes who studies sports science, we love keeping up with the latest studies. If you remember, we mentioned these guys awhile back when they were still looking for study participants. All of our coaches are currently testing out Topical Edge. Topical EDGE is the first and…
Read MoreMeet SE Ambassador Philip Tinstman
Philip Tinstman races just about everything: road, cyclocross, and MTB XC. We asked this long-time racer and SE Ambassador a few questions about cycling and this upcoming year: How long have you been racing? Began Racing road bikes at age 17 after transitioning from the MTB and BMX side of cycling. Had a long term…
Read MoreCoach Adam Mills A Year in Reflection
We talked with coach and Source Endurance owner about his reflections on 2016 as both a coach and an athlete and what he’s looking forward to in 2017. What did cycling mean for you in 2016? I think I was lucky as I moved away from the elite racer side of cycling to more of…
Read MoreEarly Season Racing: Should You Do it?
Here in Texas, and elsewhere across the country like Southern California, the racing season starts early. Like mid-January early. While it’s great to have races for so much of the year, there’s also some thought that should go into the decision of whether to race from January all the way through May and beyond. After…
Read MoreThe trifecta of optimizing your fitness
Now that we are past the holidays and many of you have started chipping away at your fitness goals for 2017, it’s time to get down to business and start training right, right? Perhaps you are already a couple months into training? Either way, before you mark down your races and build your plan, there are…
Read MoreNew study: sodium bicarbonate lotion to enhance performance?
“The Science of Results” is the motto we have here at Source Endurance. We’re constantly looking at and evaluating research to expand our knowledge as coaches and to help our athletes continually refine their training for the best. This new study from SDSU is no exception. In this study they looked at if a topical lotion…
Read MoreCoach Grant Harrison- A Year in Reflection
In 2016 I returned to my roots both geographically and in discipline by returning to mountain biking and the state to which I consider to my true home, Minnesota. Although I competed much less in 2016 than previous years, I realize the value in paying attention to aspects of my life that mattered the most…
Read MoreJorge R. Martinez podiums at the 787 Racing 3-Hour MTB Race in Texas
SE athlete Jorge R. Martinez recently podiumed at the 787 Racing 3rd Annual 3&6 Hour MTB Race out in Reamer’s Ranch in Dripping Springs, TX, where he competed in the Master’s 40+ 3-hour race. We asked him about his success there: What was the course like? 95% Single track, technical, rocky and flowy with…
Read MoreYour Saddle Bag Packing Guide for the Cervélo Belgian Waffle Ride
Few things are more disappointing than flatting or getting a mechanical that puts you out of the event you’ve spent so long preparing for. The Cervélo Belgian Waffle Ride is definitely a long event that can put you at risk for a disappointment like that. Here’s our recommended guide for your event-day saddle bag (and those course previews…
Read MoreCoach Zack Allison Completes F.I.S.T. Bike Fitting Certification
Source Endurance coach and Source Endurance Training Center of the Rockies owner, Zack Allison, recently completed his F.I.S.T. Bike Fitting Certification in Valyermo, California. This rigorous 5 day course covered every aspect of bike fitting including cleats, shims, fit philosophies, as well as different disciplines of cycling from triathlon to road to MTB. Why is…
Read MoreNew Service: Group Coaching
Source Endurance recently added Group Coaching to it’s range of services as a way to better serve cyclists in different places and with different goals. Why might one choose group coaching? Group coaching is a great introduction to coaching with custom workouts for a group and discounted rates. While you won’t be able to get…
Read MoreNew webinar: Why & How, Strength Training for Cyclists
**Check out the recorded version of this webinar** Webinar: Why & How, Strength Training for Cyclists Date: November 17, 2016 Time: 7:00pm US/Central Registration: Here– it’s free! Description: SE coaches Zack Allison and Mitchell Sides have recently written about the importance of getting in the gym right now in Offseason is Over: How Do We Know? and Should Strength Training…
Read MoreOffseason is Over: How Do We Know?
It seems like it’s just started, but offseason is just about over. There are a couple reasons why this is true, but if you’re looking to race well in the coming season, right now is the time to get ready. Offseason: People are different. One of the most important parts of effective training is tailoring…
Read MoreShould strength training be a part of your off-season?
To lift or not to strength train, that’s NOT the question. It’s that time of the year for serious road cyclists. Your season ended, everyone is planning their off season break or just ramping back into winter training and cross training. As you sit down and make the big plan for the winter, pondering the…
Read MoreSource Endurance Training Center of the Rockies is opening in their new location Oct 3rd!
It’s that time of year again- the days are getting shorter and cooler which means limited training time outdoors for most. The Source Endurance Training Center of the Rockies is getting ready to re-open for the season in our new space at 1833 E. Harmony, Unit 20! While we are dealing with some construction delays,…
Read MoreNew Video Consulting Service for Tier 3 and 4 Clients
Beginning October 1, 2016, Source Endurance will be offering video consulting via Google Hangouts, for Tier 3 and Tier 4 clients. This allows for a more personal and direct mode of delivery of consulting services and will enable the coach to utilize screen sharing to analyze your data files with you in real time. You’ll be…
Read MoreJan Roubal wins Bell's Beer Copper Trails Festival
In considering all of the factors that decide the outcome of the race, there are some major contributors such as overall fitness, experience, etc. However, often times it’s the little things that mean the difference between 1st and 2nd. In a hard fought battle at the Bell’s Beer Copper Trails Festival last week, Jan Roubal…
Read MoreMind Matters: Psychological skills for cycling
Any athlete can tell you about their performance in terms of what their time was, what the score was, or other outside variables of the competition that lead to their success or failure. However what is rarely expanded upon in sport is the contribution that was made from an athletes psychological skills towards that performance.…
Read MoreRider Highlight: Mat Gilhousen gets first buckle at Leadville
Name: Mat Gilhousen, Tradewind Energy Cycling Team Event & Category: Leadville 100, Open-Geared Bike Brief event/course description: The Leadville 100 mountain bike race is arguably the top endurance mountain bike event in the country with nearly 1,400 entrants ranging from those who simply want to finish to top professionals. The course starts in Leadville at…
Read MoreHow to Choose a Bike for a Gravel Event
Gravel riding and racing has really taken off throughout the U.S. in the past couple years along with types of gravel events. It seems that every day new styles of gravel bikes and equipment pop up. While training is an essential part for a good gravel experience, equipment choice can be the difference between…
Read MoreAthlete Highlight: Christian Helmig, Luxembourg National Champion
Christian Helmig has done it all. He holds Luxembourg National Titles in a range of disciplines- Cyclocross, XC MTB, MTB Marathon, Elite Road, and Elite Time Trial. How does an athlete come to find success in such a range of disciplines? It’s definitely not easy and takes a lot of careful planning, a lot of…
Read MoreUpcoming Event: FUELTALK at Interbike
Source Endurance Coach Adam Mills will be a part of FUELTALK’s seminar located in downtown Las Vegas during the week of Interbike. The night will be full of knowledge-sharing from sports nutritionists, coaches, pro-athletes, and endurance sport entrepreneurs and will cover how to optimize your performance with mind, body, and tech. The goal of FUELTALK…
Read MoreSource Endurance Event: Racing and Training in the Heat Webinar
Recently, coach Adam Mills conducted a webinar all about racing and training in the heat. Studies are constantly being done looking at heat’s effect on the body. In the webinar Adam looks at five areas: What is a hot environment? How does it affect performance? Physiological adaptations Behavior modification Improved performance in hot conditions We’ve…
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