Blog: The Coaching Chronicles

Are 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…

Choosing a Tire for Your Next Gravel Adventure

“Hey… what’s the best tire for this event?” That’s something I’ve been hearing a lot over the last few months as more and more mixed surface and gravel events come on the calendar. I remember back to my full time cyclo-cross (CX) days riding with the KCCX team and all the conversations we had about…

What does bike type, comfort, power, efficiency, injuries consideration, feedback, longevity have in common?

What’s my bike fit “philosophy”? These can, or just maybe should, be keywords to all fit philosophy. There has been bike fit developments in recent years. Big developments. There are new bike types, gravel bikes, enduro bikes, changes to many if not all geometries of bikes. For bike fits, there are apps, bike fit bikes,…

How to Get Better at Bike Racing Skills

Bike racing is a puzzle requiring numerous pieces. When an athlete fits all of the puzzle pieces together as one, great things happen, like winning! As a coach and a racer, I cannot emphasize the importance of ‘skills’ in racing and training. Typically, when asked how to define skills for bike racing, coaches focus on…

How 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,…

2019 Belgian Waffle Ride Survival Camp- Day 3

Day 3! We focused our efforts on Lemon Twist, plus some odds and ends, finishing Day 3 up Double Peak one last time, and lunch at The Lost Abbey. Day 3- Chamois Butt’r required! PR Lotion too. One final Source Endurance coaching lecture… 100% Cycling glasses for optimal coverage and visibility. (Nite Rider) Lights, camera,…

2019 Belgian Waffle Ride Survival Camp- Day 2

Day 2 was the big one: 100 miles, 8400 ft of climbing, and a LOT of dirt….errrr mud. It rained a bunch the night before and when we started bright and early, it was still drizzling. Good morning, Day 2! All ready to go with a sleek Orucase saddle bag. Castelli came to the rescue…

2019 Belgian Waffle Ride Survival Camp- Day 1

Day 1 of the Belgian Waffle Ride Survival Camp kicked off with getting everyone settled- getting Canyon Bike demos dialed, goodie bags distributed, IRC tires mounted, and Castelli Cycling custom BWR Survival Camp kits distributed. Danny Munson of DMunson Photo captured the whole weekend for us. Yes please! Campers got all sorts of goodies from…

Film 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…

Rider Highlight: JP Brocket ticks off bucket list event: Taiwan KOM

Check out this guest post from JP Brocket who recently took on the Taiwan KOM Challenge in October! Bucket List event checked off!!! I have wanted to do Taiwan KOM Challenge for several years and this year life events lined up perfectly. The timing of the race is right in the middle of my Cyclocross…