When I created the CTS Bucket List, the idea was to provide athletes with opportunities to compete and participate in life-changing challenges. To make it onto the list, an event has to be extremely challenging, unique, and outrageously fun. Haute Route Pyrenees was a great fit for 2014, and in 2015 we’ve included Haute Route …
As years pass it occurs to me that the beauty of endurance sport is that as we move through life there’s always a niche that resonates with our goals and lifestyle. For years I sought high-intensity, close-quarters racing in criteriums and road cycling races. But now I’m older and I’ve fallen in love with ultra-endurance …
There are two competing mantras that dominate training blogs and magazines at this time of year. One is that the late-summer and early fall is a great period for endurance athletes to take a break, rejuvenate, and recover from a long season. The other is that this period is the best time to make …
“Pick your head up!” In recent years that is probably one of the phrases I’ve used most in group rides, charity rides, and during camps and Bucket List events. Of all the habits that make a cyclist more economical, safer, and faster in a group, keeping your head up and your eyes forward is …
What a week! Last Saturday I was up in Leadville, Colorado, to support CTS Athletes as they conquered the Leadville 100 MTB Race, this week we announced the 2015 Bucket List Event Schedule and released the “CTS Endless Summer” report, and tomorrow I’m headed to Aspen to meet Team CTS before the start of the …
In the modern Tour de France, time trials play a huge role in the final outcome of the race. This year is somewhat rare in that there is only one test against the clock. Typically the organizers either start with a prologue and/or put an individual or team time trial in the first 10 days …
You know, I’ve heard and read sentiments that Vincenzo Nibali is winning the 2014 Tour de France solely because Chris Froome and Alberto Contador abandoned. Yesterday someone even asked me if I thought Nibali would think less of his victory because of their absence. My emphatic answer was, “Hell no!” Being able to stay in …
The first day in big mountains is always a day of reckoning in the Tour de France. There is nowhere to hide when the a climb takes more than 30 minutes to ascend, and not even the riders themselves know how their legs will fare until they’re actually on the early ramps of these major …
Bike racing is a cruel sport. Even in the middle of the biggest race in the world, with roads lined with tens of thousands of fans and surrounded by everyone else in the peloton, at some level each rider is alone. You’re the one doing the work and making the decisions about how hard to …
Team BMC’s Peter Stetina summed up the first week of the Tour de France perfectly when he was interviewed following Stage 7 on Friday: “Sketchy”. That’s exactly what the first week is like, and here’s why: everybody is fresh, every team starts out with big goals and the desire and horsepower to execute on them, …