If the recent article in the UK Telegraph scared you out of racing your bike with the crazy cost, I'm here to tell you it's not nearly that bad. You can race a bike for a fraction of the 25,000 pound cost they claim! Today's podcast will walk you through some of the choices and help you understand, realistically, what the cost of racing is.

The Tailwind Coaching Podcast returns to help you get more out of your build phase of your training. Today's topics include evaluating and training your weaknesses, polishing your strengths, the importance of maintaining your base of fitness and how to combine various strengths and weaknesses into fitness building, time efficient work.

If you have a power meter, W' is something you want to start looking at. It has a number of uses including validating your training, determining how to structure your intervals to most closely simulate your goals and more. In this video, I'll explain how you can use it and what it's good for.

Do you have big goals this season?  Are you trying to break a gran fondo PR or win your favorite race?  Are you stuck on how to make this season your best season on the bike?  A lot of the cyclists I talk to have ambitions such as those I mentioned, but they don't necessarily know to go about achieving them.  They keep on doing the same things they've done for the past couple of seasons and hope they will magically find more fitness than they did before.  This approach is how Einstein defined insanity: “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

I've got a few tips and tricks to help you make that leap from a “good season” to a “great season”, and I'm going to share them in today's podcast.  Check out the show notes, links and episode guide after the jump:

Coach Rob discusses how you can effectively review your season...in FEBRUARY! Yes, for those of you just finishing your base periods, you need to direct your efforts during your build periods towards crushing the weaknesses that hindered your success last season. Coach Rob will tell you how to do that and more.

This episode of the Tailwind Coaching Podcast will deal with base period training, skills work, modes of training and why the "ride lots" approach is antiquated and puts a low ceiling on your fitness.

Recovery is the time when your body gains fitness. Maximizing your recovery is a complicated process, and I'll give you a few tips and tricks to help it along. I'll also include a few supplements that you may not know of that can help you recover faster and allow you to be fresher for your next workout.

Adapting to a high fat diet has numerous benefits, not the least of which is a potential increase in your cycling fitness. Breaking the "eat pasta before race day" myth with some nifty biochemistry and science, Coach Rob explores fasted training, eating more bacon and burning more fat by eating butter.

I'll discuss how Strava has altered the cycling community at large, both positively and negatively. I'll discuss how we've changed our training philosophy (or not) because of Strava and their brand of psychological motivation/addiction. I'll even tell you how I use Strava as a valuable training tool in the toolbox of coaching.

Is FTP the key to improvement? Is it the only things we should train for? Or is there something else that might give you an even bigger edge? I contend that there is, and I'll explain what it is.