Velo Podcast

With Il Lombardia approaching, it's a great time for the VeloNews podcast to take a closer look at the final monument of the season. There's plenty to discuss: Newly crowned world champion Alejandro Valverde is hungry for his first win in the rainbow stripes, and riders like Thibaut Pinot and Mike Woods are eager to put their late-season form to good use. We pick a few favorites for Saturday's race. Plus, news director Spencer Powlison reports on his experience at the Oz Trails Off-Road. The final event in the Epic Rides series offered some great racing — and one heck of a prize purse — over the weekend. This episode is sponsored by Feedback Sports, which just unveiled its Range Torque Ratchet Combo wrench. This tool is all you need to correctly torque your bike's bolts and easily remove them without damaging the torque mechanism. Learn more: https://www.feedbacksports.com/shop/range-torque-ratchet-combo/

Best worlds ever? The Innsbruck edition of the UCI World Road Championships certainly had tons of exciting action. We hear from Team USA rider Coryn Rivera on how the action played out and what it was like for her to make that bold breakaway in the elite women's race. Then, we discuss Alejandro Valverde. He won the rainbow jersey with magnificent cunning, but for some, he is a symbol of the bad-old-days of early 2000s doping. How do we feel about having a world champion who served a doping ban after Operacion Puerto? All that and much more on this podcast. This episode of the VeloNews podcast is sponsored by Health IQ. To get a free quote and save money on life insurance, go to www.HealthIQ.com/velonews

The Hour. Those two words represent many things to many people. Some believe it to be the ultimate test of man and machine: out there on the track, with nowhere to hide, an athlete must come to terms with what they’re truly capable of. Others know it as a form of torture, a crucible for understanding one’s ability to cope with pain, suffering, or madness. If you’re lucky, the Hour is a hard way to reach a form of cycling-inspired, dizzying nirvana. Many of the greatest cyclists in history have made attempts or held the Hour record. Most of them then crawled off their bikes never to ride on a track again. With UCI rule changes several years ago came a resurgence in interest in the event. Eventually, Bradley Wiggins smashed the record, hitting 54.526 kilometers in June 2015. And the obsession lives on. There are few people in the world who know both the agony and ecstasy of the Hour as well as Colby Pearce, our main guest today and someone who has attempted more Hour records than anyone else I can think of. Just days ago he set a new master’s world record in the 45-49 age category, riding a remarkable 50.245 kilometers, 833 meters farther than the previous record held by Kent Bostick.

How fast have you gone on a bike? Denise Mueller-Korenek hit 184 miles per hour! We hear from her about her wild ride. But first, we have an in-depth preview of UCI World Road Championships. It's a climber's course, but will it suit a pure climber? We discuss the favorites of the men's and women's races and analyze the course. This episode of the VeloNews podcast is sponsored by Health IQ. To get a free quote and save money on life insurance, go to www.HealthIQ.com/velonews Check out the bike that Mueller-Korenek rode to her world-record speed: https://www.velonews.com/2018/09/gallery/bike-gallery-denise-mueller-koreneks-record-breaking-khs_479137

The 2018 grand tour season was a British invasion! Simon Yates made it a clean sweep by winning the Vuelta a España. Was it a good edition of the Vuelta? What does it mean for Yates? How do we rank this year's grand tours? We unpack the action from Spain. Then, Fred talks to Gregor Brown who followed the race on the ground and he speaks to Mitchelton-Scott team director Matt White via Skype after the team's first grand tour victory. Plus, Spencer talks about the story behind Breck Epic mountain bike race's decision not to sell to Ironman. This episode of the VeloNews podcast is sponsored by Health IQ. To get a free quote and save money on life insurance, go to www.HealthIQ.com/velonews

The best riders understand … mindset wins races. And controlling your thought patterns in races is one of the most powerful things you can do. Mindset in cycling is an important and frequently neglected side of our training and racing. It's avoided because it seems unclear, inconsistent, and, let's face it, can be too new-agey for the likes of us "tough guys." In reality, mindset is often all that separates the best from second best and can be the difference between reaching the podium or finishing a race. When Coach Connor managed Team Rio Grande, he offered to cover the costs for one of our riders for a few sessions with a top sports psychologist in Colorado. The rider refused and ultimately quit the team. But when Trevor told several high-level pros the story they all asked the same thing: "Can I get those appointments?!" Today, we'll delve into this concept of controlling your thoughts for performance. We'll touch on: 1. The concept of dominant thought and why it's so important, including whether we are funnels or buckets. 2. How athletes are either task- or ego-oriented, the pros and cons of each, and why it's important to know which one you are 3. Using trigger words to control your dominant thought 4. Why it may not actually be good to stay mentally focused for an entire race and how to pick your moments when you are on your mental game 5. And finally, how to control your thoughts when your body is screaming in pain and telling you to stop Our primary guest today is a professor of sports psychology and is a senior teaching professor at Colorado State University, Dr. Brian Butki. Dr. Butki has worked with athletes in almost every sport, both at the university level and on professional teams in the Colorado area. In addition to Dr. Butki we spoke with: Dean Golich, a head coach at Carmichael Training Systems. Over decades as a top coach, Dean has worked with athletes all the way from recreational amateur riders to Olympians and world champions. He is uniquely qualified to talk about the mindset of top athletes. You may be very surprised to hear what he has to say. Sepp Kuss, a WorldTour rider with LottoNL-Jumbo and winner of the 2018 Tour of Utah, talks with us briefly about his mindset and the danger of being too focused on the win. Finally, local top coach Colby Pearce gives us a variety of tips on controlling your mindset both in training and in racing situations. In our next episode, we'll talk with Colby and Chris about the hour record and their experience with it. But in the meantime, Colby is going for the master's world record from September 22-25. We're still waiting to hear if they are going to livestream it. If they do, we'll put a link up on the VeloNews page for this podcast along with our references. So let's get to the task at hand. Find your balance. Focus your mind. But don't get too focused … you need your breaks. Let's make you fast!

Wow. Kate Courtney won world mountain bike championships, breaking a 17-year drought for the U.S. We call the champ to hear firsthand about the exciting race in Switzerland. But first, Andrew Hood catches us up on all the key storylines from the Vuelta a España — the budding Colombian rivalry, Simon Yates's chances of winning the overall, that terrible crash at the finish of stage 12, and whether Movistar can use its strong team to win in the race's final week. All that and more on this episode of the VeloNews podcast!

What’s up with all the “standards” in bottom bracket technology? Tech editor Dan Cavallari talks to Jay Sycip from Chris King to find out why there are so many different bottom brackets today, what happened to threaded bottom brackets, and whether we’ll ever see the end of creaky press-fits.

It has been a big week for American cyclists — Ben King won two stages at the Vuelta. Sepp Kuss, in his debut Vuelta, has been tearing up the climbs. And Ashton Lambie set a new world record in the individual pursuit, winning Pan-American Games gold. We talk to all three of those riders, plus we hear from European correspondent Andrew Hood who has been following the Vuelta. Spencer also has a quick rundown of what Rebecca's Private Idaho is all about. This gravel race put on by the "Queen of Pain" Rebecca Rusch is just as fun as it is hard. This episode of the VeloNews podcast is sponsored by Roka. Spencer wore the superlight GP-1 sunglasses at Rebecca's Private Idaho and loved their comfortable fit and clear optics. Learn more: https://www.roka.com/collections/apex-sunglasses/products/gp-1-sunglasses

We received so many questions after we published episode 51, "Polarizing your training, with Dr. Stephen Seiler," we decided to take an even closer look at the polarized model of endurance training, to help listeners execute such a model in their training. Our discussion includes: - Why cycling is an aerobic sport - What is meant by the two thresholds — LT1 and LT2 — and how to determine yours, both in terms of power and heart rate. Dr. Seiler provides a test protocol to determine LT2, which may sound very similar to Neal Henderson's test that was described in episode 33, “Is FTP dead?” - Why it's important not to over-estimate LT1 or LT2, and how to use them to determine your zones in a three-zone model. - The specifics of zone 1 training: how long, how much, how easy? We take a deep dive into what zone 1 training is all about, why it's important to keep those rides easy, and the value of long rides. - Finally, we discuss the 80-20 principle of the polarized model and how to put it into practice to map out your week.