By Chris Carmichael, Founder and Head Coach of CTS There is no shortage of endurance challenges spanning the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Although the “Festive 500” – 500 kilometers between December 25-31 – remains one of the most popular, you can also find other distance-, duration-, and elevation-based challenges for the coming …
By Scott Mercier, CTS Contributing Editor, US Olympian, Retired pro cyclist Winter was always my favorite season as a kid. Powder days and ski racing were what I craved. It helped having skiing as P.E. class school and a lift just 4 blocks from our house in Telluride. When I discovered the bike, however, my …
By Chris Carmichael, Founder and Head Coach of CTS If you want to get a sense for the quality, durability, and versatility of a bicycle, you need to get feedback from cyclists with a range of body sizes, experience levels, and riding styles. I can tell you I love a certain bike, but that’s the …
By Reggie Miller, NBA Hall of Fame, Olympian, MTB Racer, CTS Contributing Editor If you asked me in January what 2021 would look like, I would have responded, “Not so great.” But as I sit and reflect on this past year, it absolutely was a year of PROGRESS. We were all hit with a terrible pandemic, collectively unsure …
By Chris Carmichael, Founder and Chief Endurance Officer of CTS I have always enjoyed getting to know people and hearing their cycling stories during group rides, and it’s also interesting to listen to the advice riders give to each other in the pace line or at the coffee stop. Most of the time it’s …
By Chris Carmichael, Founder and Head Coach of CTS When you tally up all the workouts and rest days, Time-Crunched Athletes spend more than 95% of their time NOT exercising. Even cyclists on high-volume training plans rarely spend more than 10% of the total hours in a week training. What you do – or don’t …
By Alison Tetrick, Pro cyclist, Entrepreneur, CTS Contributing Editor There is always something to be thankful for – even missed workouts, breakups, and a lower FTP. Trust me, I know. When good things happen to us, being thankful is obvious, but the low moments, the frustrations, and the challenges, those too can be beacons of …
Caffeine is one of the world’s most widely used stimulants, with the average caffeine consumption in the United States around two cups of coffee (200mg) per day. Most of us are familiar with our afternoon coffee’s ability to help us through the workday and how strongly ingrained coffee is in cycling culture, but does caffeine …
By Alison Tetrick, Pro cyclist, Entrepreneur, CTS Contributing Editor Find that flow. I currently have a rest week off the bike. Ordinarily that would make me anxious and twitchy, but I haven’t regretted this one for a moment. First of all, it is raining for the first time in a long while here in California. …
By Chris Carmichael, Founder and Head Coach of CTS When I was an elite athlete and even during the early years of my career as a coach, too little attention was paid to sports psychology, both in terms of how we could apply it to enhance performance and in terms of the ways harsh coaching …