The Ultimate 2016 Gift Guide for Endurance Athletes

  Athletes are hard to purchase gifts for (just ask your significant other). Most people who are not athletes have no idea what you might need, enjoy, or actually use. That’s why you get things like runner wind chimes or a bicycle-shaped corkscrew. Those poor gift givers know you are into endurance sports and want …

The Key to Staying Lean Through Fat Season

  Welcome to Fat Season! Halloween was a few weeks ago, Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and then it’s party time through New Year’s! Let’s face it; this stretch of time is a minefield of dietary indiscretions. It’s hard to avoid packing on an extra few pounds with everyone shoving high-sugar, high-fat foods (and alcohol) …

The Proven CTS 9-Week Holiday Cycling Training Plan

Three Workouts, No Excuses. I talk with busy athletes juggling cycling goals with full-time careers and families pretty much every day, and when it comes right down to it you fall into two primary categories: those who figure out how to get it done, and those who rattle off a litany of circumstances that prevent …

6 Bike Maintenance Problems You Need To Tackle Right Now!

  As winter tightens its grip, I’m seeing a lot of bikes that are ‘plain tore up’, as one of my favorite old mechanics used to say. Your bike or fleet of bikes have seen a lot of hard hours and miles this year, and this is a smart time to get your equipment tuned …

Long Term Review: Ritchey Handlebars and Stems

  There is absolutely nothing more frightening than breaking a handlebar or stem while riding a bicycle. In the 40 years I’ve been riding, some of the worst non-collision crashes I’ve ever seen (meaning not getting hit by a car or colliding into a mailbox) have resulted from breakage or slippage of a cockpit component. …

The Olympic Cycling Race to Watch This Weekend

After a fantastic series of road cycling events at the Rio Olympics, it is time for track cycling! The 4km Team Pursuit is the track event that captures my attention more than others, mostly because CTS Coaches have worked with two of the four teams in medal contention. A lot of cycling fans are only …

Analysis: Mara Abbott’s Incredible Olympic Road Race

All you can give is everything you have. As I watched Mara Abbott, alone, straining against the pedals and headwind with a 38 second lead and 8 kilometers to go in the Olympic Road Race last Sunday, it was plain to see she was pouring everything she had into the effort. Across the nation and …

Here’s Who I’m Rooting for in Rio

John Williams’ “Olympic Fanfare and Theme” still gives me goose bumps. The prolific composer of the “Star Wars”, “Jaws”, and “Raiders of the Lost Ark” scores wrote it for the opening ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympics and it (plus the additional “Bugler’s Dream”) has been used for NBC’s Olympic coverage ever since. When I …