Cycling skills are essential for speed, safety, and fun. Whether you ride solo, pedal with friends at the local group ride, or participate in cycling events and races, it’s important to practice and continually improve your cycling skills. This guide covers basic and advanced techniques for drafting, pace lines, riding in a group, cornering, descending, …
Table of Contents This content is available in multiple formats. Click below to jump to the format of your choice. Podcast with Adam Pulford Video with Adam Pulford Article by Chris Carmichael Note: Several cycling training terms used throughout this post are trademarked by TrainingPeaks, including Training Stress Score®, Normalized Power®, and Intensity Factor®. Additionally, …
People have strong feelings about carbohydrate, despite the fact it is neither good nor bad. The positive and negative effects of carbohydrate on health, performance, and recovery come from when, why, and how much people consume. For endurance athletes, carbs are an essential fuel for performance and recovery. To understand this critical component of sports …
Nearly every profession, sports, or area of study has its own language, and subsequently its own acronyms and abbreviations. Cycling training terms can sound like gibberish to non-cyclists, and can be confusing to long-time riders, too. Here’s a reference guide to some of the most common terms and abbreviations used in cycling training. And because …
By Jim Rutberg, CTS Pro Coach, co-author of “The Time-Crunched Cyclist” and “Training Essentials for Ultrarunning” Athletes consistently undervalue the necessity and benefits of recovery weeks. Following a productive training block, taking a recovery week is one of the best things you can do for promoting adaptation and progress. Here’s what recovery weeks look …
A powerful sprint is an important weapon in any cyclist’s arsenal. For competitors, strong accelerations can be the key to winning a race, establishing the breakaway, or closing a gap. Non-competitive cyclists frequently undervalue sprinting, which is a mistake. Sprint workouts increase explosive power, muscle fiber recruitment, and anaerobic capacity. Short sprints can also stimulate …
By Jim Rutberg, CTS Pro Coach, co-author of “The Time-Crunched Cyclist”, “Training Essentials for Ultrarunning”, and “Ride Inside“, 10x finisher of the Leadville 100 MTB, and 2-time finisher of Unbound Gravel. The right equipment and gear choices can be the difference between a great gravel race, a miserable death march, or a dreaded DNF. Personal preference plays …
Challenging multi-day cycling events are one of the fast-growing categories of cycling for amateurs. Some are competitive; others are not, but most feature big mileage, lots of climbing, and incredible camaraderie. If you’re planning on riding one of these challenging multi-day events, here’s an essential guide to training, managing your efforts during the event, and …
Chris Carmichael CTS Founder and Chief Endurance Officer There’s something special about a well-organized high-speed paceline. By sharing the work of pushing through the wind miles fly by at speeds no one in the group could achieve solo. A good paceline epitomizes teamwork and the notion of a group being better than the sum …
Throughout a lifetime as an athlete, I’ve had my share of injuries, surgeries, and comebacks. On December 27, 2021 I had my left hip replaced and started a 3-month return-to-training process that culminated in coaching on the bike at a week-long cycling camp in March 2022. As I’ve shared my journey, many athletes have inquired …