Velo Podcast

What types of bicycle racing stories appeal to a mainstream sports audience? It's a topic we've often thought about here at VeloNews. On this week's episode of The VeloNews Podcast, we speak with Patrick Redford, who covered pro cycling for the sports website Deadspin.com.

Patrick also takes us through the fateful past few months at Deadspin, which saw the entire editorial staff resign after the outlet's ownership tried to alter its focus and voice.

Before we hear from Redford, Fred Dreier and Andrew Hood discuss the week's biggest story, which was that WorldTour veteran Peter Stetina will become a full-time gravel racer in 2020. Stetina is trading the Tour de France for Dirty Kanza, the Belgian Waffle Ride, and other big gravel events, and he's doing so in his relative prime, at age 33.

What does this news, when matched with the cancellation of the Amgen Tour of California, tell us about the state of U.S. bicycle racing? The guys discuss the ongoing trends in professional and participatory cycling, and try to read the tea leaves for what it means for the sport.

All that and more on today's episode of The VeloNews Podcast.

Bobby and Gus bring you this special edition of PYSO from Pace Ranch in Tucson, AZ. And not only are the guys together in the same room, but they have a special guest too. Nicola Cranmer, the founder and GM of the TWENTY20 Women’s Pro Cycling Team joins the podcast.

The trio talk cover a variety of topics including:

* What riders do during their off-season (spoiler alert: not much according to Bobby)

* The physical & mental importance of taking time off the bike

* The cancellation of the Amgen Tour of California & what it means for American cycling

* Weekly Zwift rides with Team Twenty20 - join them!!

* Ad hoc Fall training camps (Bobby despises them), and formal Dec/Jan camps.

* New kits, new bikes, and new teams.

Got questions for Bobby and Gus? Send them over to [email protected]. If they answer your question you'll get a pair of PYSO socks.

Typically, when we hear the words “strength training,” we think of going into the gym, slapping some plates on a bar, and seeing what we can lift. The more, the better.

But there’s a lot more to strength training than that, especially for those of us focused on endurance sports. Strength and conditioning is also about maintaining proper function, training neural patterns, and preventing injury. Sports like cycling, by nature, cause imbalances. If all you do is ride your bike, an overuse injury is nearly guaranteed for your future.

We also believe that weight training aids performance on the bike. Regardless of your position, as Coach Connor likes to point out, no matter what you believe, race performance will suffer if you’re sitting on the sidelines with a bad back or painful knee injury.

So, in this episode of Fast Talk, we’re going to discuss four of the most common overuse and imbalance injuries in cyclists and how to address them with off-the-bike work and proper bike fit.

Patellar tendinitis, or pain at the front of the knee. Cycling is a quad dominant sport. Keeping balance and doing some loaded eccentric work can help prevent this very common pain.

Pelvic obliquity, a broad term for imbalances and asymmetrical movements in the hips.

Back pain. A proper bike fit and learning to rely on your glutes and hamstrings instead of the postural muscles of the back can go a long way towards preventing this all-too-common issue.

Thoracic kyphosis, a fancy term for a slouched back, which is common among cyclists. Regular exercise to open the chest will help you improve posture off the bike.

Our guest today is owner of Tag Performance and University of Denver faculty member in Human Performance and Sports, Jess Elliot. [you can link here to episode 32 which she also appeared in]

Jess recently taught a half-day workshop on strength training for endurance athletes at the Training Peaks Endurance Summit and, for those of you in the Colorado area, because of the popularity of that workshop, she’s hosting it again on December 7. Go to her website at tagperformanceco.com/events to sign up. Use the code “fastlabs” to get a $25 discount.

You’re going to hear a lot of technical terms in this episode; we hope you walk away with an understanding that effective strength training is about more than creating a list of exercises then going to the gym and giving it your best shot. Proper movement, ensuring you are activating the correct firing patterns, and lifting an appropriate weight are all crucial. To help out, Jess is posting videos of most of the exercises we discuss on her website.

Along with Jess, Trevor talked with Charles Van Atta, the head biomechanist and fitter at the University of Colorado Sports Medicine and Performance Center. There’s no point in doing the off-the-bike work to resolve an over-use injury if a poor bike fit is promoting it. Charles addresses each of our four injuries from a bike fit perspective.

With that, let’s make you fast.

On this week's episode of The VeloNews Podcast, Fred and Andy discuss the recent news that AEG has cancelled the 2020 Amgen Tour of California.

Why is the race cancelled? The guys take a deep dive into the business of North American bike racing, and explain why the revenue model has always been challenging for big races like the Tour of California. The guys also discuss what the race meant for North American riders, and what its absence means for the WorldTour riders.

Then, we hear from Tejay van Garderen, who won the 2013 edition of the race. Van Garderen discusses his own history at the Tour of California, and how it shaped him into the race he is today. All that and more on today's episode of The VeloNews Podcast.

On this week's episode of The VeloNews Podcast, Andy Hood and Fred Dreier analyze the routes for the 2020 Tour de France and Giro d'Italia.

The Tour has adopted a modern route with shorter stages, punchy climbs, and a lack of flat time trials. On paper, this course appears to cater to French riders like Julian Alaphilippe or Thibaut Pinot.

The Giro, meanwhile, has revealed another long and punishing route that is packed with stages over 200 kilometers in length. The Giro is again hoping for week 3 dramatics, with three punishing mountain stages and a final individual time trial to keep fans hoping for a last-minute win. Will such a scenario play out?

Finally, we're joined by recently crowned UCI World Road Champion Annemiek van Vleuten, who takes us inside her big win in Yorkshire. Van Vleuten also believes her new rival, Chloé Dygert, has become the big favorite for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

This week's episode is sponsored by VeloSwap, the nation's largest used bike expo and swap. It's happening Saturday, November 2 at the National Western Complex in Denver, Colorado. Get your tickets today at veloswap.com/tickets.

We've received so many intriguing questions from our listeners, it was time to devote an entire episode to answering them. We appreciate the feedback, and generate many future podcast topics from your questions, so please keep them coming. You can always email us at [email protected].

Please help us understand what you'd like more of on Fast Talk and give us overall feedback on the quality of the show by taking our survey, linked below. You can also answer questions that will help us design our Fast Labs Performance Experience camps that we are very excited about.

Take our survey here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSda2fzZg0YZxeXk9Wg8aEV3yB5qa--foFZ3hLi6cLDZAVf3nw/viewform

Today we’ll answer questions about inflammation, training for gran fondos, cardiac drift, elevated heart rates, and one of Trevor's favorite topics in all of physiology, plus much more. Thanks for listening.

On this week's episode of The VeloNews Podcast, we have to very special guests.

First up is author Daniel DeVisé, whose seminal book on Greg LeMond "The Comeback: Greg LeMond, the True King of American Cycling, and a Legendary Tour de France" has led to an important piece of news. The U.S. Congress is going to vote on whether to award LeMond the Congressional Gold Medal, one of the highest awards given to a civilian.

As it turns out the lawmaker who proposed the medal, CA Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA 5th District, got the idea after reading DeVisé's book. We ask DeVisé about the award, why Thompson believes LeMond deserves it, and whether or not the U.S. government will actually approve the award.

Next up is Lea Davison, the veteran of U.S. cross-country mountain bike racing. Davison's career has seen incredible highs, as well as a few crushing lows, and she discusses them all in great detail. Plus, she discusses how a professional women's cyclists overall value has shifted during her pro career.

Davison is hoping to qualify for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, and she discusses the long pathway she will be on to try and achieve this goal, which would cap off an already impressive career.

Bobby & Gus breakdown the 2020 Tour de France route including their disappointment with the race organizer, ASO, for only offering one day of racing for professional women. And the guys express their dislike for how the 2020 route looks on the map.

La Course 2020 Women's race --> http://bit.ly/LaCourse2020

They weigh in whether long stages still have a place in the Tour, for both riders and fans, and Bobby offers up his feelings about the individual time trial on the penultimate stage.

And they debate the merits of gravel, time bonuses, and mountain stages, while Gus wants to give non-climbers a chance to win the TDF.

VeloNews analysis of 2020 route--> http://bit.ly/TDF2020_Route

This episode of PYSO is supported by Saris. Learn more about Saris and their bike trainers here --> bit.ly/SarisPYSO

Got questions for Bobby and Gus? Send them over to [email protected]. If they answer your question you'll get a pair of PYSO socks.

Bauke Mollema grabbed a career-defining win at the Giro di Lombardia this past weekend. On this week's episode of The VeloNews Podcast, Andy and Fred break down Mollema's win, and discuss the significance of the victory within his wider career.

Who is Bauke Mollema, and why was he the perfect rider to foil the big stars at Il Lombardia? Fred and Andy share stories from Mollema's career.

Il Lombardia caps off Italy's autumn classics, a grouping of six one-day races that produce plenty of drama and great racing. Why hasn't this bloc of racing grown to the same level of significance as the Belgian Classics? Will the UCI's new Classics series impact the events? The guys discuss.

This week’s episode of The VeloNews Podcast is sponsored by Whoop, the performance tool that is changing the way people track their fitness and optimize their training. Whoop tracks your heart rate and gives you a strain scores that lets you know how strenuous your training was on your body, with additional information around your sleep and recovery to tell you how well your body rebounds from training.

Right now, listeners can get 15 percent off a Whoop device by going to www.whoop.com and using the code ‘velo’ at checkout.

Here on Fast Talk, we’ve been known to periodically quote a study or two. While in the past, athletes mostly figured out their training by trial and error or what felt right, nowadays, in this era of marginal gains, no coach or serious athlete can get away without some understanding of physiology. Winning at the highest level requires digging through the science to find those little nuggets that translate to real gains.

The problem is, while many of us read the science, a lot of us don’t know how to interpret it, or when it’s good research that draws useful conclusions or bad research that will lead you astray. That’s made particularly complicated by the fact that there are many well-conducted studies that, because of the nature of their methods, outcome goals, or the size of their study group, may lead you to draw conclusions you shouldn’t.

So today we're going to dive into the physiology research itself and give you some tips on how to both read and interpret the science. We’ll discuss:

• First, the basic structure of a research study.

• Next, some basic concepts you need to understand in order to read research.

• We’ll then dive deeper into the methods—the section people love to skip over—and why they are so important.

• Next, we’ll talk about some preferences among researchers, such as their tendency to test in the lab and not on the road, and why they love VO2max tests, despite the fact that they don’t actually correlate well with performance.

• We’ll discuss a study’s endpoints—what they are measuring and why that is so important.

• Next, we’ll learn about the concept of the false null hypothesis and things that can influence it, such as study length and the number of participants.

• Finally, we’ll talk about how the data revolution in cycling is allowing for some truly unique studies.

Our primary guests today are Dr. Jim Peterman, a professor of exercise physiology at Ball State University who got his Ph.D. while balancing a professional cycling career, and Nate Wilson, a former elite U23 racer and head coach at Catalyst Coaching.

Along with our primary guests, we talked with cyclocross legend and longtime coach Katie Compton, and also Dr. Ciaran O’Grady, a physiologist with Team Dimension Data. As high-level coaches, both need to keep up on the research. They each shared thoughts on what they look for to know they can trust a study.

Finally, we touched base with Grant Holicky, a top coach at Forever Endurance, and one of his athletes, Maxx Chance, who had a unique take on the research.

Now, are you ready to be blinded by science? Let's make you fast!