Mike, troy and Geoff will be riding the Asheville BWR, aka "The Hell of The North", this year. In this podcast they discuss why they decided to do this amazing, but brutal event. How they prepare for the event looking at training plans, material, logistics, nutrition, and much more. What are their current numbers, weight, w/kg, FTP and what are they aiming for to be in tip top race shape?
Among the cycling community we often find those who are passionate and life-long cyclists, a community made up of individuals with a true love of the sport and the challenges it brings. It is a close-knit community, and one that holds itself together and welcomes friends old and new.
Participants and fans alike appreciate the sport and find value with an exhilarating activity that has the ability to take us to incredible places. As we are taken on a journey trekking across iconic locations around the globe, it presents an often skimmed-over dilemma: housing. This was just the thing noticed by the man behind The ChainStay, Gregg Germer.
Two out of 22 teams starting this year’s Tour de France are American sponsored teams. Each team brings 8 riders for a total of 176 riders competing. One would logically conclude that at least a handful of those riders would be American, right? The answer, sadly, is no. Americans represent 1.7% (just 3) of the total riders. Of the two teams with American Sponsors, EF Pro Cycling and Trek-Segafredo, only EF Pro Cycling is bringing any American riders. Our third American, Sepp Kuss, is on Dutch superpower Jumbo-Visma.
What gives?
Geoff and Gerry speak with Daniel Larson. Daniel works as an assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma, Department of Health and Exercise Science. His primary field of expertise is Economic theory in sport; finance and policy for international professional sports; management of national governing bodies (like USAC); participant sport-event management; public finance for sports/exercise interventions; and sport coaching/instruction.
In addition to his work for the University of Oklahoma, Daniel has a wealth of experience as an elite cyclist both on the track and on the road, sports director for the Jittery Joe’s U23 team, Director of Athletics VMG Racing, Head Cycling Coach University of Florida, and event organizer/promotor.
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.
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!
In this episode Geoff & Gerry speak with Erik Hofman the owner of Dutch Diesel Coaching and founder of the Dutch Diesel community on Zwift. We discuss how Erik got into cycling and coaching and we dive into the principles of "Time Crunched Cyclist" and the importance of structured training. There's a good conversation about the importance of balancing your training with your social and work life so you don't over train or even burn-out.
We also discuss software like Zwift, TrainerRoad and Training peaks tools to support your structured training program.
In this episode Geoff and Gerry speak with Dave Grant, a Cat 2 and masters cyclist, who traveled to the Netherlands in the early 90’s to live and race his bike over there.
Of course we were very interested in how he ended up in the Netherlands, how it was racing for the Sauna Diana team and what he’s up to nowadays racing Road, Track, Cyclocross, and Mountain Bike, and how he will never do a Zwift race. Dave also discusses how training has changed under Covid 19, what new technology he’s really excited about, and what his goals will be once the racing season returns.
Image credit: Eurosport/insidethegames
On the front of virtual racing, starting May 4th (may the forth be with you ;-)), there is a very exciting virtual race series starting. At least I think it’s really exciting, but with ZERO racing in real life, virtual racing is as close as it’s get. The exiting part for me its a pro only event backed by GCN (Eurosport) and Zwift using the experience from a virtual racing and a network broadcasting point of view, to hopefully give the best viewer experience as possible.
“Both men's and women's racing will be screened each day between 1400 and 1600 BST with some of the best cycling teams in the world including Mitchelton-Scott, EF-Education, NTT, Alpecin-Fenix, Bahrain-McLaren, Canyon//SRAM Racing, CCC-Liv and Boels Dolmans competing for race honors.”
Another amazing benefit is that the pro’s are racing for a good cause….not only their fitness and bragging right, but more importantly a charity.
“The Tour for All professional racing series will open a month-long charity fundraising initiative that will see Zwift donate a total of $125,000 to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and its COVID-19 crisis fund. An additional $125,000 can be unlocked once 250,000 people complete a stage of the Tour for All. The professional racing series is designed to showcase the mass-participation stages and encourage Zwifters to take part by riding some of the same courses that the pros have raced.”
The stages are more than just a short exhibition. Most of the stages are about an hour long and it will be very interesting to see the pro riders skill levels and experience Zwifting will come into play. Not to forget team tactics……the online races i’ve seen so far was basically all men/women for themselves..😉
4th May - Stage 1
We kick off the Tour with a flat-ish stage for the sprinters. Both courses feature one short steep hill so expect some action with multiple ascents.
Course: Innsbruckring, Innsbruck. Elevation Gain: 72m (237ft). Total distance: 52.9km (33miles)
5th May - Stage 2
Our first hilly stage.
Course: Cobbled Climbs, Richmond. Elevation Gain: 126m (413ft). Total distance: 46.2km (28.5miles)
6th May - Stage 3
Our first mountain stage. We begin by taking Ocean Boulevard around to the reverse Hilly KOM, which is the first half of the Figure 8 route. Then it’s over to the Volcano and up to the top before descending down and heading to the Italian Villas then the Mayan Jungle for a reverse loop of the circuit. After climbing out of the jungle, we descend back to sea level, hit The Esses and spin a quick around the Volcano Circuit. Then it’s through downtown Watopia and out Ocean Boulevard once more to the forward Epic KOM. Our route finishes at the Epic KOM banner.
Course: Medio Fondo, Watopia. Elevation Gain: 981m (3220ft). Total distance: 72.9km (45.1miles)
7th May - Stage 4
We give everyone’s climbing legs a break with a mostly flat and fast stage. Enjoy it while it lasts because tomorrow is the Queen Stage!
Course: Sand and Sequoias, Watopia. Elevation Gain: 147m (482ft). Total distance: 42.6km (26.5miles)
8th May - Stage 5
The Queen Stage with a finish up Alpe du Zwift.
Course: Quatch Quest, Watopia. Elevation Gain: 1710m (5610ft). Total distance: 46.5km (28.9miles)
Link to the original article: Cycling news
Zwift jus released a new update for their cycling platform. Find a copy of the release notes below. It’s a fairly small updates but a couple of nice additions and new features I’m curious to find out how they work and what the impact for riding & racing will be.
Hey Zwifters, we have just released a new update with a number of new content additions, improvements and fixes. This update is available now for PC, Mac, Android. Updates for iOS and Apple TV should be available in the coming hours.
Here’s what the team has cooked up this month:
New Missions and Programs for May
The Tour for All (May 4th-30th)
Join the Tour For All and come together with the Zwift Community to support Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in their response to COVID-19.
CeramicSpeed Cycling Mission (May 1st-31st)
Unlock the CeramicSpeed cycling kit and a chance to win a CeramicSpeed OSPW derailleur by riding the target distance on OSPW enhanced Road, MTB and Tri/TT bikes.
Goodr I.P.A. Running Mission (May 1st-31st)
This mission challenges Zwifters to run 3 different workout types: one interval workout session, one pace group run, and one “altitude” or hill workout session to complete the mission. Completing all three workouts unlocks some sweet Goodr shades and a contest entry to win the real thing.
Content Additions
Workouts
Added 8 new under 60 minute cycling workouts
Added 16 new run workouts (several are offered at both 30 and 60 minute variations), for runners who want to get a good run in, and have less than 60 minutes to spare."
Bikes
Factor One is available in the Drop Shop once you reach level 8
Ridley Noah Fast is available in the Drop Shop once you reach level 9
Events Improvements
Boost Mode is a new event type that will allow users to charge a boost (with their own watts of course) and then discharge that boost at a time that’s right for them. This mode will be exclusively available in a limited number of FutureWorks Club Jarvis events as we test, tune and tweak the experience.
Added a new experimental event mode that lets you experience the sights and sounds of Zwift in its most pure form. This event mode will be exclusively tested within FutureWorks Club Jarvis events
Added support for unique bib numbers for riders and runners in specific events
Added numerous event arches and kits for major events in May
Fixed an issue where Meetup riders would not receive a powerup when passing through a sprint, KOM or lap arch
Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug related to events that could cause some lone riders to achieve ludicrous speeds
Improvements to Apple TV pairing
Upgrades to the anti-sandbagging logic used for some races
Added the GeForce GTX 1650 to the ULTRA graphics profile group
Lots of smaller bugs across all platforms
If you’re riding or running in an event in Zwift, please be sure to log in a few minutes early to give time to download and apply the patch before your event starts. If you happen to hit any issues with this update, please post in the thread below.
Photo credit: Max
In this episode Sam, Max and Lowlands Cycling talk about Zwift and their journey into this amazing platform. Sam and Max are two cyclists that started as outdoor cyclists but evolved into, almost, dedicated online cyclists using Zwift. Their numbers are staggering. Max already has 4,000 miles and Sam over 3,700 miles in 2020. Zwift accounts for more than 90% of these miles.
We talk at length about the Zwift cycling community how easily it is to get started with Zwift.
“Zwift is an online exercise program for cyclists and runners at the moment. It is something that you put onto your computer, your laptop, your iPad and you hook up your indoor trainer to it. Slap your bike onto your trainer and you can ride in a virtual world with real friends from around the world; you have your personal avatars in there as well. It is a fantastic platform because you can do all sorts of things. You can do workouts, group rides with friends, or you can just go in and ride by yourself. Zwift being indoor cycling, it is very safe because you do not have to battle all sort of traffic on the bike, which is wonderful. So, yeah, it's a fantastic tool to get your exercise done in a safe, convenient way.”
“Well, I think for one. For one, this is a great way to eliminate excuses for not actually getting out and exercising, if it is raining out or if it's too dark or too much traffic, or you’re scheduled busy. There is always time that you can find on Zwift. All you have to do is just go down to the workout area and you are good to go. So you really don't need to have the perfect conditions you can ride when the weather's terrible and your day schedule is busy, and truly driving to start and cycling resulting in eliminating a lot of excuses for not getting yourself active!”
Photo credit: Sam
Photo Credit: Max
Photo credit: Stewart Gross
In this Episode Stewart Gross and LowLands Cycling talk about endurance MTB racing, training and racing during the covid19 lockdown and things he learned during his time as a MTB pro. He raced the Wilderness 101, 24 Hours of Old Pueblo, Marji Gesick 100, Shenandoah Mountain 100, Vapor Trail 125 to name a few. Stewart also talks about his future and races like the Ride the Divide, Trans Alp, and Cape Epic.
Stewart is a passionate athlete who is dedicated to becoming the best cyclist he can be, which is evident from his results. Stewart is absolutely an ambassador of the endurance, cyclo-cross and cycling sport overall.
He moved from Colorado, where he raced as a professional mountain biker, to West Chester, PA in the fall of 2015 to work with his parents and brother in Real Estate. In the short time that he has been a resident there, he established himself as one of the strongest riders in the area, as well as, a patron of the sport. Stewart is very active on social media and very well known figure in the local Chester County and domestic bike scene.
Interview references:
24 solo: https://amzn.to/3bs81aC
Mountain bike like a champion: https://amzn.to/2XVMxii
Ride the Divide: https://amzn.to/2VNoRKd
Drink: https://amzn.to/3cwyxzu
Eat: https://amzn.to/3bsh9vS
Photo credit: Stewart Gross
