Allison is a professional mountain-biker who started cycling fairly late after spending many years playing soccer and doing gymnastics. Encouraged by her parents and having joined the local West Chester Cycling Team, Allison started cycling more and more. In college, she picked up her first wins, racing collegiate road and mountain-bike. At that moment she started thinking about setting goals to become a pro-cyclist.
In this episode of the Lowlands cycling podcast Geoff and Gerry speak with Rebecca Larson. Rebecca had an an amazing career as a Professional Competitive Cyclist between 1999-2008, won 10 National Championship Titles (Junior, U23, College), won Over 100 individual race victories, World Road Cycling Championships competitor, raced Internationally as a member of the United States National Team in Belgium, Holland, Italy and Switzerland.
In this podcast we interview Jasper Verkuijl. Jasper started with BMX racing when he was 5 years old following in the footsteps of his big brother. He ended up racing BMX at a very high national and international level until his early twenty's. We talk about getting in to flight-school and road racing which brought him amazing adventures and experience racing in the US and the Netherlands both at Elite (P,1,2) level. What are the differences between racing in the US and the Netherlands?
We talk about balancing his racing, work, family and a popular youtube channel. An amazing insight in the life of Jasper and his cycling fanatics community.
Rich has his own YouTube channel (25k subscribers at the time of this article) dedicated to all aspects of mountain biking and he does this in conjunction with "The Ride Series" MTB Skills Clinics.
This interview was an absolute blast and we learned a lot about Rich and his philosophy on learning to ride your bike and improving your skills. Just like he does on his youtube channel, he breaks down every topic in clear and concise details. We reference the sport and mental aspects relative to your life outside cycling from a social, but also professional perspective. Listen to the end when Rich shares his goals for the channel and has some great advise to young mountain-bikers and how to leverage social media to your advantage.
In this episode Geoff and Gerry interview Kim Geist. We discuss her long and extensive cycling career, how she got into coaching and how she deals with challenges like injury and currently events being postponed and cancelled.
We dive into strength training and talk a lot about the beauty of track cycling and her home turf The Valley Preferred Cycling Center in Trexeltown PA. If you are interested in track cycling orienting what it takes to start, or learn more about this discipline, makes sure to listen to the complete podcast!
This is a great video by Ted King where he gets tips from his good friend Kevin Bouchard on how to race on Zwift. I really like the side by side interview and the production of this video. Obviously all credits for this video go to Ted king. Enjoy!
Pro Zwift racing tips:
Throw down big watts straight out of the gates! (
Figure out how to float in the pack
Be ready to go berserk on every climb, not matter big or small
Aero Power-up is best for sprinting
Work on your efficient drift through the pack
Set your priorities correctly (balance work, family and training time)
Don’t accidentally get dropped. (Ted King wasn’t paying attention for 10 seconds and lost the wheel)
Save your feathers for the hill
Keep it all in perspective. People will “cheat” on shift. Enjoy and know that you are getting a good work out.
Know the course
Bonus Tip. Get a towel!
Bonus Tip 2. Do a good warm-up including a couple of openers.
Bonus Tip 3. It’s good to know your competition. Will take some experience and riding the same races.
“Kevin Bouchard Hall, pro-Zwift racer and pro-Dad, is here to teach Ted, newbie-Zwift racer and neo-Dad, how to maximize his time on the trainer.
Kevin Bouchard Hall is a former US national team stand-out, but he decided that unless he was making it to the Pro Tour, he'd rely on his intelligence to move forward in life so he stepped away from cycling. Now married with two beautiful boys, the Bouchard Hall family is busy as it gets, so Kevin is as well. After a hiatus from racing he's back on the scene, but now storming Zwift at all odd hours of the day. Kevin and Ted are gravel racing buds and as a throwback to their collegiate racing days when they battled it out, they're doing so on gravel bikes all across New England and beyond. Ted and Kevin are both riding Saris H3 trainers with the Saris MP1 platform underneath them for the added realistic feeling of bike moving under you. Kevin has the Velocio Unity Jersey and Ted has the Velocio Indoor kit featuring the Radiator Tank and the Ultralight shorts.”
