By Chris Carmichael CEO and Head Coach of CTS The Tour de France tried something new this year, in the form of two very short, very hard mountain stages, both ending with summit finishes. The first was Stage 11 in the Alps, a 108-kilometer race with four categorized climbs and virtually no flat valley roads. …
By Mara Abbott 2010, 2013 Giro Rosa Champion Olympian CTS Contributing Editor In July, the world’s cycling fans multiply. The phrase “yellow jersey” is bandied around in public. Here in the United States, you might even hear someone say “kilometers”. July is why I love cycling too, but my Tour de France watching habits are …
There are a lot of frustrated cyclists out there. It’s summer and maybe your fitness and performance aren’t where you expected them to be by this time of the year. We hear this scenario every summer from new athletes signing up for coaching. The year hasn’t gone as planned up to this point and …
By Mara Abbott Olympian and CTS Contributing Editor It may have been the opening for my entire cycling career – a super-cool upperclassman invited me to go mountain biking with her in my first weeks as an impressionable freshman still identifying as a swimmer. She said I should join Whitman College’s cycling team. Jane Rynbrandt …
By Syd Schulz CTS Athlete and MTB Pro Training for enduro is a unique puzzle because you need high-end power for short stages that last as little as five minutes, while also having the endurance for long days on the bike (sometimes as long as seven hours!). The road version of endure is called timed …
Even though I am not fast enough to set KOMs in Colorado Springs, I still upload all my rides and off-bike activities to Strava. I like it. I rarely pin on a race number or even go on aggressive group rides, but I still have a competitive streak. Strava allows me to compete against …
By Mara Abbott, Olympian, CTS Contributing Editor Less than ten kilometers into this year’s Ride the Rockies, I bailed into the refuge of a hapless course marshal’s SUV. It was then, as I cranked the heat and downloaded a newspaper onto my phone, that I got my first inkling of just how awesome the week …
It’s been a great week riding the Ride the Rockies cycling event in Colorado. The weather was great for riding and the people were incredible. Cyclists of all ages, shapes, sizes and skill levels rode together, helped each other out, and made new friends. As a coach I tend to pay attention to how …
By Mara Abbott, US Olympian – Cycling CTS Contributing Editor We’ve got a lot of muscle and plenty of power, but cyclists still don’t sit too high on the road-user food chain. If we want more respect – and the extra safety that can come along with it – we need to recognize we, as …
By Syd Schulz CTS Athlete and Pro Athlete “Listen to your body.” This is a common refrain in the world of athletics, but WHAT DOES IT MEAN AND HOW DO YOU ACTUALLY DO IT? I mean, seriously, this phrase really needs an addendum (or two or three). When people say “listen to your body” what …