The Time-Crunched Cyclist Podcast by CTS

​​Free Cycling Training Assessment

Preparing for your first gravel race can quickly become more complicated than it needs to be. What bike do you need? How wide should your tires be? What pressure should you run? What happens if you flat? How much should you eat? And how fit do you actually need to be?

CTS Head Cycling Coach Adam Pulford strips gravel racing back to the essentials. He covers the bike and equipment you actually need, fueling strategy, flat repair, tire selection and pressure, navigation, training, and why spending time riding real gravel is one of the best ways to prepare.

HOST

Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

Interested in working with a coach? Schedule a free consult: https://trainright.com/coaching/cycling/

Self-coached athlete? Check out our TrainRight Membership: https://trainright.com/membership/

Find more free resources here: https://trainright.com/blog/

Resources:

• How to change a flat & fix a puncture: 
  • Gravel Bike Outside: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm5UrDKZsss
  • How to Plug a puncture tubeless: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kgs3Iq36mZg
  • Effortless tip: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/lsoCr_a8wwI
• Tire Pressure Calculators:
  • Silca: https://silca.cc/pages/pro-tire-pressure-calculator?srsltid=AU7gw4VeflE3QaGaC5X2NSoV3l-6xNcHEsFH740xLSPyKAUzEcDo2eEk
  • SRAM: https://axs.sram.com/guides/tire/pressure 

Your wearable gives you a recovery score every morning, but how much should that number influence your training?

Adam Pulford breaks down the information coaches actually use when evaluating readiness, including subjective feel, life stress, recent training load, sleep, resting heart rate, and HRV. He also explains why he pays far less attention to proprietary readiness scores and detailed wearable sleep metrics, and why trends are often more useful than one morning’s score.

HOST

Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

​​Free Cycling Training Assessment: https://trainright.com/cycling-training-assessment-welcome/

Interested in working with a coach? Schedule a free consult: https://trainright.com/coaching/cycling/

Self-coached athlete? Check out our TrainRight Membership: https://trainright.com/membership/

Find more free resources here: https://trainright.com/blog/

Resources:

• Miller, Sargent & Roach, 2022 — Validation of six wearable devices
• Dial et al., 2025 — Nocturnal RHR and HRV validation
• Schyvens et al., 2024 — Systematic review of wearable sleep accuracy
• Manresa-Rocamora et al., 2021 — HRV-guided training meta-analysis
• Steve House/Uphill Athlete — Practical coaching interpretation
• Jason Koop/CTS — Practical HRV recommendations
  • https://trainright.com/practical-heart-rate-variability-recommendations-for-ultrarunners/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
• Marco Altini — Wearable HRV measurement critique
  • https://marcoaltini.substack.com/p/trusting-the-right-tool-for-the-job?utm_source=chatgpt.com
• TrainingPeaks — WHOOP integration documentation
• TrainingPeaks — Oura integration documentation
• TCC HRV Interview with Jason Koop:
  • https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-time-crunched-cyclist-podcast-by-cts/id1494799053?i=1000625446661
• Using Subjective Feedback to Drive Performance with Natàlia Balagué and Lluc Montull | Koopcast Episode 155
  • https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/koopcast/id1489494447?i=1000587345880
• The Case For HRV with Marco Altini: 
  • https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/koopcast/id1489494447?i=1000544394187

Strength training has a place in a cyclist’s program year-round, but that doesn’t mean doing the same lifts, loads, and routines for 52 weeks.

Adam Pulford explains how he periodizes strength training alongside cycling throughout an athlete’s season. He covers annual planning, how strength priorities change as racing approaches, the anatomy of a well-designed gym session, and why tracking your lifting matters even when you’re not chasing PRs.

The takeaway: treat strength training like your riding. Plan it, progress it, and change it as your goals change.

HOST

Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

​​Free Cycling Training Assessment: https://trainright.com/cycling-training-assessment-welcome/

Interested in working with a coach? Schedule a free consult: https://trainright.com/coaching/cycling/

Self-coached athlete? Check out our TrainRight Membership: https://trainright.com/membership/

Find more free resources here: https://trainright.com/blog/

Self-coaching gives you freedom, but it also makes it remarkably easy to reinforce your own biases.

Coach Adam Pulford breaks down five mistakes he repeatedly sees in self-coached cyclists, from avoiding field testing and inflating FTP to under-recovering, failing to plan long-term, and chasing equipment gains before training gains.

HOST

Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

Cycling Camps: https://trainright.com/camps/

​​Free Cycling Training Assessment: https://trainright.com/cycling-training-assessment-welcome/

Interested in working with a coach? Schedule a free consult: https://trainright.com/coaching/cycling/

Self-coached athlete? Check out our TrainRight Membership: https://trainright.com/membership/

Find more free resources here: https://trainright.com/blog/

Resources:

• https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/comparing-cycling-field-tests-using-the-best-test-for/id1494799053?i=1000697861599

After 24 years of coaching athletes, Adam Pulford has seen enough training plans, races, breakthroughs, failures, and comebacks to recognize which lessons continue to matter.

In this episode, Adam steps away from the charts and physiology to share 20 observations from his coaching career: why fitness isn't performance, why recovery matters as much as workload, why perfect training doesn't exist, what winning and losing can teach us, and why long-term development requires more patience than most athletes expect.

HOST

Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

CTS Cycling Camps: https://trainright.com/camps/

​​Free Cycling Training Assessment: https://trainright.com/cycling-training-assessment-welcome/

Interested in working with a coach? Schedule a free consult: https://trainright.com/coaching/cycling/

Self-coached athlete? Check out our TrainRight Membership: https://trainright.com/membership/

Find more free resources here: https://trainright.com/blog/

Resources:

• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius 
• Beyond Thoughts by Joseph Nguyen 
• Don’t Believe Everything You Think by Joseph Nguyen
• Awareness by Athlete de Mellow
• Find Your Why by Simon Sinek 
• On The Nature of Things by Lucretius
• Atomic Habits by James Clear
• Flow by Mihaly Czeskmihaly 
• Deep Work by Cal Newport 
• Waking Up App by Sam Harris 

A successful 100-mile ride is rarely the result of one thing going exceptionally well. It's what happens when your fitness, fueling, pacing, and execution all come together on the same day.

Coach Adam Pulford breaks down how much to eat and drink, why the opening miles should feel easier than you think, what to prioritize with one week versus six weeks to prepare, and how to use your training data to guide your effort.

And Adam's fourth piece of advice might be the simplest: bring your friends. Because 100 miles is usually faster, and definitely funner, with good wheels around you.

HOST

Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

​​Free Cycling Training Assessment: https://trainright.com/cycling-training-assessment-welcome/

Interested in working with a coach? Schedule a free consult: https://trainright.com/coaching/cycling/

Self-coached athlete? Check out our TrainRight Membership: https://trainright.com/membership/

Find more free resources here: https://trainright.com/blog/

Resources:

• https://youtu.be/_SQA-9uzVcc?si=g9UPnFf8tHGZ_0LM
• https://youtu.be/kPjy5rejBSg?si=mRa7_JewytDDOBlt
• https://www.trainingpeaks.com/my-training-plans/threshold_6_week_100milePrep 
• https://www.trainingpeaks.com/my-training-plans/VO2_6_week_100milePrep 
• https://trainright.com/camps/

Torque training has become almost synonymous with low-cadence riding. But simply dropping to 60 RPM doesn't guarantee you're producing more force or creating the adaptation you're after.

Coach Adam Pulford breaks down the relationship between torque, cadence, power, and force production; explains why the gym may be the best place to raise your strength ceiling; and shows where low-cadence work actually belongs in a cyclist's training year.

HOST

Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

​​Free Cycling Training Assessment: https://trainright.com/cycling-training-assessment-welcome/

Interested in working with a coach? Schedule a free consult: https://trainright.com/coaching/cycling/

Self-coached athlete? Check out our TrainRight Membership: https://trainright.com/membership/

Find more free resources here: https://trainright.com/blog/

Resources:

• Strength Exercise F-v and P-v Profiles as Predictors of Elite Sprint-Cycling Performance - PubMed
• Power-time, force-time, and velocity-time curve analysis during the jump squat: impact of load - PubMed 
• 58. HIGH INTENSITY TORQUE TRAINING CAN INCREASE CYCLING PERFORMANCE
• Effects of Cycling Training at Imposed Low Cadences: A Systematic Review - PubMed
• Effect of Cycling Cadence on Neuromuscular Function: A Systematic Review of Acute and Chronic Alterations - PMC 
• Pro Workouts: Torque Efforts with Noemi Rueegg | EF Pro Cycling 
• https://trainright.com/camps/

Does FTP actually matter for criterium racing?

Coach Adam Pulford breaks down why your aerobic engine plays such a big role in an explosive race, how a higher FTP can reduce the cost of repeated attacks, and why sprinty "crit dawgs" and breakaway riders should approach their training differently.

Plus, why none of those watts matter if you haven't developed the race craft to use them!

HOST

Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

​​Free Cycling Training Assessment: https://trainright.com/cycling-training-assessment-welcome/

Interested in working with a coach? Schedule a free consult: https://trainright.com/coaching/cycling/

Self-coached athlete? Check out our TrainRight Membership: https://trainright.com/membership/

Find more free resources here: https://trainright.com/blog/

Resources:

• https://australianfootballstrengthcoach.com.au/3-energy-systems-quick-introduction/
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK546695/ 
• https://strengthmatters.com/anaerobic-lactic-energy-system/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=On4W1OVrFig

Recovery isn't the break between training. Recovery IS training.

In this episode, CTS Head Cycling Coach Adam Pulford explains how he structures recovery blocks with everyone from beginners to elite athletes. Learn why recovery doesn't always need to last a full week, how to know when you've earned one, and why the athletes who recover best often perform best.

If recovery weeks make you anxious, this episode is for you!

HOST

Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

​​Free Cycling Training Assessment: https://trainright.com/cycling-training-assessment-welcome/

Interested in working with a coach? Schedule a free consult: https://trainright.com/coaching/cycling/

Self-coached athlete? Check out our TrainRight Membership: https://trainright.com/membership/

Find more free resources here: https://trainright.com/blog/

Resources:

• https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3905295/
• https://trainright.com/coaching-consultation/
• Recovery Podcast with Christie Aschwandan: 
  • https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/trainright-podcast/id1494799053?i=1000722793917 
• Regulation of Muscle Glycogen Repletion, Muscle Protein Synthesis and Repair Following Exercise - PMC

Days before the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, Coach Adam Pulford caught up with professional cyclist Alison Jackson to talk about the final phase of preparation.

From altitude camp in Boulder and heat training to tapering, race strategy, joining a new team, and life behind the scenes, this conversation offers a rare look inside the final build-up to one of the biggest events in professional cycling.

HOST

Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

​​Free Cycling Training Assessment: https://trainright.com/cycling-training-assessment-welcome/

Interested in working with a coach? Schedule a free consult: https://trainright.com/coaching/cycling/

Self-coached athlete? Check out our TrainRight Membership: https://trainright.com/membership/

Find more free resources here: https://trainright.com/blog/

Resources:

• https://www.peacocktv.com/sports/tour-de-france-femmes-stage-1/bc4c2e95-62c1-3feb-bab2-fd9aeca9d12d
• https://hepoxtech.com/
• https://www.instagram.com/auber93cyclisme/
• https://www.skratchlabs.com/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLlhAR6yoMc&t=653s
• https://www.precisionhydration.com/performance-advice/performance/how-to-taper-before-a-race/?srsltid=AfmBOooiiHV_JusShIJz67tRyopkUUTnjLmUZRCHBGLE-UhbLaHAv6Rb
• https://www.instagram.com/apsprocycling/reels/
• https://www.cyclingnews.com/pro-cycling/teams-riders/push-them-outside-their-comfort-zone-four-time-uspro-champion-freddie-rodriguez-returns-to-cycling-as-co-owner-and-strategist-for-aps-pro-cycling-by-cadence-cyclery/
• https://apsprocycling.net/