San Diego Bicycle Club: Summer 2023 Recap

sdbc team

With the road season stretching from mid-January to early August, it can be a difficult balancing act to stay consistent and perform from start to finish. SDBC did an excellent job of representing the club during the late Spring and Summer months, racking up several wins and many podium finishes across multiple fields.

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Intelligentsia Cup Podium Finish After Injury

JP Brocket Intelligentsia Podium

JP had not raced a proper high-level USA criterium since mid-2019, and was concerned about the caliber of racers at the Intelligentsia Cup. He was also still recovering from a double crash in April, which resulted in a broken shoulder blade and a month off the bike.

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Cory Williams, Evolution of Excellence

Cory Williams- Riding

I had heard about Cory prior to 2016 but in all honesty I didn’t know much about him.  I knew he was one of the fastest and most explosive field sprinters in North America.  But his Achilles Heel was that he couldn’t consistently reach the finish line with the peloton. As the Performance Director on the Elevate- KHS Pro Cycling Team there was a distinct need to see improvement from one of the team’s designated closers.  

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Tulsa Tough’s FASTEST LEAD OUT

Legion Lead out

Tulsa Tough is the biggest and most prestigious weekend of criterium racing on the planet. It is a destination race for the best-in-class and the best criterium teams send their most valuable riders to vie for the glory at the races. But who has the fastest, and by proxy, the most dominant lead out?

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Criterium Workout of the Week: 30-30s

We like to use these 30-30s or Tabata intervals to really engage an athletes anaerobic system. The explosive efforts are short and unsustainable and coupled with a rest that’s incomplete this workout really quenches the big power thirst of criterium racing. 

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Criterium Workout of the Week: Film Study

Film study

Film study has always been an important tool for improving personal and team outcomes in competition. Teams and racers were late to the game but are catching up and now film study is just as important in cycling as it is in other sports.

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Criterium Workout of the Week: Rest Days

Recovery days are often overrated but are crucial to criterium racing because of the repeated high-intensity efforts. These intense efforts can lead to muscle fatigue, soreness, and even injury if a rider doesn’t allow their body enough time to recover. Recovery days allow the body to rest and repair, reducing the risk of injury and improving…

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Criterium Workout of the Week: Sweet Spot All-Day- Long

win the crit

Sweet spot training. Criterium racing is still an endurance event, despite our willingness to make it about explosive efforts. Any event lasting 30 minutes or even 90 minutes is definitely an endurance based sport. So how do we get better at riding for that long? Sweet spot training.

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Which Training Methodology Best Improves Your Performance. Systematic Review

scales

The general concept of leveraging different training methods to improve Functional Threshold Power (FTP), VO2 max and ultimately performance is immensely important to every endurance based performance athlete. Until now a direct systematic review comparing Traditional Periodization, Block periodization and day-to-day programming has been never conducted.

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Why a Legion Sprinter is so Hard to Beat

Legion of Los Angeles Sprinters

Become your best performing self April 11, 2021.  That was the day that criterium racing came back to Southern California with the Majestic Criterium in Ontario, CA. The turnout was incredible and it really showcases how desperate we all are for social interaction and real-life competition.  The action did not disappoint as onlookers were treated…

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How to Make Winning Look Easy: Team Edition

Teams and directors, amateur and professional, on any given day try to put assets into the break away and up the road as early in a race as possible.  From this strategic position many more opportunities and options are afforded those that have been successful with their aggression. Southern California has been synonymous with fast…

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Forcing the Break at the Redlands Classic Criterium

I did a bit of a contest on social media asking the internet what Alex Hoehn’s average power was in the Redlands Classic Criterium during those crucial first 5 minutes where the break away was being established.  The answers were all accurate in that the power number was big, especially considering his weight.  Let’s take…

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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…

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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…

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Peaking during crit season with Matt Bosman

There’s a few different ways to build your periodization around crit or general road season. Periodization is key in cycling and coaching. Even if you don’t have power, even if you have major A races scattered through the season, periodization of your training and timing where you will peak is a necessity. In Matt Bosman’s…

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Cory Williams- 2018 Air Force Classic Sprint Analysis

  There is zero chance or randomness in a field sprint. In fact, the term “field sprint” is misleading.  What we witness isn’t a field sprint but more like a handful sprinters having at it with the remaining riders following and incorrectly believing that they have a chance. It is no coincidence that we would…

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Rider Highlight: Skyler Mackey takes 6th at Collegiate Nationals in the Crit

Skylar Mackey recently finished a respectable 6th at Collegiate Varsity Men Criterium Nationals in Grand Junction, Colorado. The course was super tight and technical with very few places to move up. The changing surface from asphalt to concrete and to brick made for interesting corners throughout the track. How the race went down: During the…

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Rider Highlight: Dean Parker takes the Kansas State Criterium, Masters 65+

Dean Parker recently took the win at the Kansas State Crit Championships in the Masters 65+, and top 10 including the Master’s 50+! Note: the photo is from the Tour of Kansas City, where he also landed himself a top spot!  Event & Category: Kansas State Crit, Masters 65 Brief event/course description: The course was…

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Cory Williams: Manhattan Beach Victory Recap

As Elevate- KHS Pro Cycling comes off of a great couple of weeks at the Tour of Utah and the Colorado Classic, we wanted to take a few minutes and review the winning performance of Cory Williams at the 2017 SoCal season finale, the Manhattan Beach Grand Prix (MBGP).  Cory was able to take the…

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Athlete Key Workout: Patrick Bos

Patrick Bos wins crits. How a rider wins crits is key in what workouts to give them. We have to work out our weaknesses but at the end of the day we win with our strengths. Patrick is a versatile rider but lately we have been seeing success in working his strengths, a hard effort…

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Case Study: A day in the life of a Sprint Specialist

Photo Credit above: DMunson Photo When a sprinter stands on the top podium step we all see the same thing: arms up in the air and that smile, rehearsed to show sincerity while trying to hide that extreme confidence bordering on a cockiness that could be unappealing to the fans and media.  But behind the…

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Coaches Corner: Justin Williams wins the SoCal Season Opener

  Happy New Year!   With 2017 officially in process, it’s only natural that the first criterium of the year should be in Southern California, in January.  Source Endurance Ambassador, Justin Williams, came away the winner in spectacular fashion with a field sprint finish.  But what does it take to win a field sprint in…

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Source 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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Case Study: Using Intervals to Correct Deficiencies

The idea of “threshold power” or any one of its analogous titles has been seen as an end-all, be-all by too many athletes, coaches, and competitors in endurance based sports, particularly cycling. However, at the elite level, many of these general fitness and performance markers fall to the wayside, and for good reason. When examining performance at the…

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