Road Cycling Academy Podcast

Episoder

• Thinking About Hiring a Cycling Coach? Here's What Actually Happens 17.06.2026 37min

  Thinking about hiring a cycling coach but not sure what's actually involved? In this episode of the RCA Podcast, Cam Nicholls sits down with RCA coach and sports scientist Ben Treble to pull back the curtain on the coaching process and explain exactly what recreational and amateur cyclists can expect when they start working with a coach. Whether you're training 6–12 hours per week, struggling to improve your FTP, getting dropped on group rides, preparing for a Gran Fondo, or simply looking to become a stronger and healthier cyclist, this conversation covers the complete journey from onboarding through to long-term performance improvements. RCA coaching: https://roadcyclingacademy.com/one-to-one-coaching/  In this episode you'll learn: ✅ What happens during a cycling coaching onboarding call ✅ Why goal setting is more important than FTP targets alone ✅ How coaches analyse your training history and cycling data ✅ The difference between FTP and Critical Power testing ✅ How TrainingPeaks is used to deliver and monitor training ✅ Why accountability is often the missing ingredient for improvement ✅ The role of recovery weeks and periodisation ✅ How coaches adjust training around work, family and illness ✅ Common mistakes recreational cyclists make when training themselves ✅ How structured coaching helps break through performance plateaus Ben also explains how coaching extends far beyond simply prescribing intervals. From nutrition and recovery to training load management and identifying performance blind spots, coaching provides the structure and accountability many cyclists need to unlock their potential. If you've ever wondered whether cycling coaching is worth it, or what the process looks like behind the scenes, this episode will answer your questions. 🚴 Perfect for recreational cyclists, Gran Fondo riders, masters athletes, endurance cyclists and anyone looking to train smarter and achieve better results. Subscribe for more evidence-based cycling training, nutrition, bike fitting and performance content from the Road Cycling Academy.   Transcript:  Cam Nicholls (00:01.804) Welcome to the RCA Podcast, designed for recreational and amateur road cyclists with a focus on performance. We dive into cycling training, nutrition, strength training for cyclists and even bike fitting tips, all designed to help you train smarter, ride faster and hopefully tear your mates' legs off. So without further ado, let's dive into today's episode. Welcome back to the RCA podcast, where today I am joined by the RCA's European correspondent Ben Treble, who's also a science data geek that digs into all the research. But today we're actually, Ben, we're not going be talking so much about the research, although I know your approach is very research based. So no doubt we'll be sprinkling that a little bit into the topic of today's discussion. But what I wanted to do today is talk about what does the process look like if I'm a recreational slash amateur road cyclist. You know, I've been training anywhere between six to twelve hours per week, depending on the week. And I'm kind of stuck on a performance plateau. I've been thinking about getting a coach, but I'm a little bit un uncertain. Maybe it feels a little bit beyond me, or maybe it feels like it's going to be another thing in my life. But I I kinda I don't really know. I know people improve a lot when they get a coach, but I don't know if I can commit to it or or what's involved. So I thought maybe you could share how you work with RCA members, which are essentially men, women between the ages of, you know, thirty-five to sixty-five, that busy lifestyles, jobs, families, you know, life stresses, but they want to improve on the bike. So let's peel it back. Let's just say somebody doesn't really know you know they know s coaching's gonna help them improve, but they don't know what's involved. So my name's Joe Blow. I'm thinking about getting coached. Ben, what's it gonna look like? Ben Treble (02:00.162) Yeah. You're gonna you're gonna sign up to the RCA and the first step is we're gonna get you scheduled in for an onboarding call, which kind of sets the stage for what's gonna happen afterwards. In that onboarding call, we're just gonna have a big discussion. We're gonna talk about primarily it's a it's an opportunity to get to know each other, but second it's an opportunity for me as a coach to get your context, get your history. And we're gonna start to have the first conversations on what is one of the most important parts of working with a coach and that's goal setting. I think it's something most athletes are typically not very good at doing. Cam Nicholls (02:41.304) Yeah, and I think some people come into cycle coaching with a an expectation that they have to have like a event goal or, you know, a specific of you know, something that's happening on a certain time and I need to be, you know, peeking for for that. Whereas I know a lot of our members actually yeah, once once I have a call with them, because I like I'm typically speaking, you know, as in the inquiry guide to them before they join. No, you don't need a specific event goal. You don't need to be racing your bike. You can literally just want self improvement. But then within that self improvement, you're breaking down what does that look like? Ben Treble (03:24.76) Exactly right. I can think of a perfect example. It's probably one of my longest standing athletes I've worked with at the RCA. He did just do his first event recently, but we've been working together for well over a year now, and he never had any necessary intention to do any events. He wasn't racing in the history. His goals were quite simple in some respects and beautiful. One was he wanted to get fit and healthy So he was a good role model for his daughter. And he wanted to get fit and healthy for himself so he could enjoy life a bit better. And he also just found cycling really enjoyable. and he only did indoor training at this point in time when we started. Interesting. So a very different set to maybe what is more traditional where someone says, I'm a master's writer and I'm gonna do a grand fondo in twelve weeks' time. Cam Nicholls (04:09.912) Interesting. Ben Treble (04:21.633) And I would like to qualify for the UCI Grand Fondo Worlds. Cam Nicholls (04:25.698) Yep. Okay. So in this call, if someone says, yeah, look, I just want to increase my FTP, do you just go, Great, let's just increase it? Or do you set things a little bit differently? And how do you determine where to go? Because obviously you're having a conversation, but do you in that initial call, are you like looking at the previous riding history? are people, you know Are you getting them familiar with training peaks, which is the software application we use for the calendar and looking at the data, or are most people already familiar with it? Ben Treble (05:00.642) Most people are familiar with training peaks or a similar athlete management system. if they're not familiar with it in this initial meeting, I'm not going to spend massive amounts of time on that because you could spend days doing this. That initial meeting is the time has to be focused on getting the context of the athlete. So what's their training history, which might be I'm very new to the sport to I've been training for fifteen years, you know, varied periods of time from seven to twelve hours a week. So you could have big different levels of experience and there's often a injury context. So, you know, I've recently had diabetic people who are trying to improve diabetes. I've had people who are coming back from back injuries, very common back or knee injuries. maybe they've not been riding for twelve months because of that and they're trying to come back into the sport. So the context is that's a big part of the conversation. Then there's the availability piece. We're trying to tick this off relatively quick, which is, you know, what days can you ride? How many hours are you willing to commit to? That sort of thing. Part of that is looking at their training history. So objectively, I tend to look at if they have training peaks, I'll go in before this conversation and look at how many hours they do a week. And I'll ask them, how many hours do you think you do a week? And they always overestimate it. Interesting. And then I show them, I show them the data in training peaks. I'll screen share and be like, I know you said you think you're doing eight to ten hours a week, but unless you're not syncing your data into training peaks completely, says you're only doing five to six. So there's sometimes we just try and set the scene a little bit here and put in some reality checks. When someone says, I'm doing eight hours a week and I want to move up to twelve, if they're only doing five hours a week in reality, you're not going to jump to twelve. Yep. Straight away. So I like to do that. And then the goal setting is the next biggest piece. And if That's a very common thing. Someone says, I want to lift my threshold. I want to improve FTP or what's worse is I just want to improve, you know, my cycling. And I'll ask them why. So Cam, Joe Blow, why? Tell me why you want to improve your FTP. Cam Nicholls (07:10.196) because I I'm struggling on the local group ride. I'm you know, I'm in in the D in the B group and I feel like I could be better in the B group and I want to get to the A group. Ben Treble (07:21.816) Yeah, so tell me what do you struggle with the most in the B group? Cam Nicholls (07:26.002) look, towards the end of the ride I just tend to fatigue out a bit and I go from being able to roll some turns and then I'm at towards the back and there's this climb at the end where sometimes I get popped and you know, I I don't finish and then other times I make it, but I'm always just struggling in the last part of the ride. Ben Treble (07:43.778) Yeah. So already asking more questions, we're digging into some really nice goals, right? It's not I need to lift my FTP. Maybe that is part of the answer, but often we're already digging into two goals. One, you know, it might not be as measurable in terms of power, but it's still measurable. I want to try and move from my B to A group in a bunch ride. Sometimes it's I want to get from, you know, the the C grade crit race, the local crit, up to the B. And I want to be able to get to the end of my bunch ride and do the kick, which is a durability question. So, okay, we already have two really good goals. Like how do we get you moving along in your program to improve your durability? And then how do we lift you up into the next grade? Cam Nicholls (08:32.418) Yep, okay. And what if I say to you, Ben, but I I also like this is a not negotiable ride for me. It's the Saturday group ride. I go there with my mates, we have a good time. I really don't want to like I'm happy to do stuff during the week with you, but the Saturday ride I'd really love to keep it. Is that okay? Ben Treble (08:50.37) Definitely. There might be a time and place where I say you might be better off here missing it for something specific. But at the end of the day, there's a really important component to training. That is you need consistency and volume. Kind of that's the bottom of the the pyramid, if you want. And often to achieve that you have to stay motivated. So if if doing yes, often the bunch ride's not as effective. If you're doing three bunch rides a week, I'm probably going to try and convince you to drop some. But if your non-negotiable is I want to do one social bunch ride a week, we're going to make room for it. What that might mean though, that might look like, okay, Friday has to be easy or an off day. Or maybe the Sunday has to then be an easy day. I don't want you doing back to backs like doing a crit race on Friday AVO, going into another really hard bunch ride and then buggering yourself for three days. Cam Nicholls (09:27.704) Okay. Cam Nicholls (09:44.812) Makes sense. So we've kind of dug into some of the actual underlying drivers behind the FTP goal. you've done a deep dive on, you know, my logistics, my injury history, you've looked at some previous training. What happens next? You you send me off into the abyss or what am I looking at? Ben Treble (10:06.934) Yeah, we would talk about a few other topics. Always try to touch on sort of in a self self assessment on strengths and weaknesses, which would include reflecting on your recovery and nutrition practices. I don't normally deep dive on them too much, but I just try to get a picture, okay, is that an area that I need to dig into more with you or not? Have you got a good handle? Are you good and up to speed on, you know, modern nutrition practices or not? And if you're not, I usually make a note, a self note to myself. Okay, next coach call, we're gonna we're gonna have a bigger chat about nutrition as something for us to work on. Once we've got those out of the way, we've got an idea of the schedule where typically we'll have a chat about equipment. I need to get familiar with what power media you're on, do you have heart rate? What bikes do you have? Are you okay doing indoor training? Do you have a preference for indoor outdoor? They're a little bit different. Typically I might prescribe slightly different work if you ride. Some people are very good outdoors with doing their intervals. And some people really struggle. So there's no point giving somebody thirty fifteens if they have rolling terrain and they just cannot execute them. Cam Nicholls (11:14.294) Of course. Ben Treble (11:15.382) So yeah, making sure that the work you prescribe is relevant and feasible for the athlete to pull off, I think is an important part. Maybe I'll try build you up to a point where we can get you to pulling off high quality thirty fifteen's outdoors. Okay. Cam Nicholls (11:30.936) So then what happens after that? After the call? Ben Treble (11:34.04) Or I throw you in the deep end. No, I'm just kidding. No, no. So we would wrap up the call typically with a point where normally there's a couple of days where I go away, I take all the information and I build out your initial couple of weeks of training and we put in place a sort of a higher level macro plan. So often there's if there's not an event goal, I do like to put in place a time bound goal. So that might be we want to try move from, you know, C to B grade at the crit races by the end of the season. So that might that could be three months away, could be six months away. Who knows? Depends on the individual. But we put a time bound goal in place and that helps drive the the macro plan for the training. So the general blocks. We might say month to month, you know, generally we try and put in place, I want to work on these things. I would hand this over to you in training peaks for you to have a look at in a note. And you can go in and say, That's not gonna work because I'm going actually going away on holidays for four weeks here, or these are some blackout dates, can't do it here. So then we start to do this a little bit back and forward, getting to know each other and the schedule and making sure that everything fits in place and will work for the athlete. Okay. Cam Nicholls (12:52.974) Okay. And in that first four weeks where you've sent me off into the abyss, a lot of people get a bit nervous about doing tests because, you know, they need to work out their their numbers. and obviously at the RCA, we don't use FTP, we use critical power. So is everyone doing the tests in that first week? What do the tests look like? Or can you look at existing, you know, data? And are some people already You know, ticking some of the they haven't done the test, but maybe they've done a three minute all out effort in a local bunch ride. So, you know, you don't need to test that. Well, what does that typically look like? Ben Treble (13:29.762) Yeah. I would at least in the first four weeks we're gonna do critical power testing. Cam Nicholls (13:34.838) Okay, so what does that look like? Ben Treble (13:36.728) Yeah, so we'll talk that through. It's normally for me, I'd like to do three efforts, different durations, short, medium, long. First one's around three minutes, next one's five to six, and a long effort could be from ten to fifteen minutes. Ideally, if someone is more of an outdoor rider, I tell them just go find a segment or a climb that's roughly those durations and try do your best time up it. I like to split them across days, do it on three days. You can do two in one day if you really want. but I typically try to avoid that. I often find the first time you try this, if the athlete's never done it before, the testing doesn't go perfect. There's a familiarization piece, which I kind of expect and it's normal. but I find often if you let them find a local climb or segment where they just try to do their best time up it, it's a lot easier for them to go repeat it. It's also easier for them to go redo. testing without it feeling like you gotta try do, you know, testing, which people hate testing, which is fine, but we just try and make it as easy as possible. As you said, some people might have a recent power PB. So we can just easily look in training peaks. If you've recently done in the last, you know, sort of 30 days, even up to 60, I would say, if you've done any of those three efforts, like a good P B, we might use that. So then you might only need to do one more effort. We just have to fill in the gaps. Yep. Equally, if you've done three power BBs across those numbers in the last thirty days already, training peaks is a great feature in its modeled, it's called modeled FTP, FTP. It's in the the beta, I think it's still called beta function charts. And so we can often rely on that relatively well, at least to get a good idea. So if they're very anti testing or depending on their goals and phase of training, if the first couple of weeks are not great to do testing. Cam Nicholls (15:06.179) Okay. Ben Treble (15:34.092) And they have some good training history data, we can often get a pretty good idea of critical power without officially testing, but I would still target in that first block to try and do full C P testing. Yeah. Cam Nicholls (15:47.118) Okay. And with the training as a general rule, I know this will depend on the person's goals and how much time you have with them, but let's just say they've got a fair bit of time. Their goals are just general improvement. In that first, you know, four weeks, what is there a typical focus you find? Like do they are you sort of peeling them back a little bit and let's have more of an aerobic focus and and get some of that foundational stuff right? Or do you just go straight into it? Ben Treble (16:17.314) I actually like to go straight into it a little bit. I do to some respects I get gauge how well they might be able to do some stuff. And I like to put in a a mixture of work because I really want to see how good are they at performing intervals. I want to see how good they are at giving me feedback, like their comments. Do they always put in their RPE? This first month is really important for me to get a gauge on the athlete's ability to do work. How they respond, what their level of feedback is, and just build upon that. So I might give them quite a mixture of work to do, if there's not a singular focus. But I do find in that initial conversation, it's rare that I can't get them to some good goals. Okay. Everybody who says, I just want to improve my cycling generally, when you start asking them why and really pressing, you get down to those, as we did before with Joe Blow, you get down to those really nice goals of okay, I want to improve durability. I want to move up from this grade to this grade. I want to get to the end of my bunch ride and still do that big kick. I want to improve my sprint or I'm going on a European holiday and I wanna do climbs, but my nutrition's really poor. Pretty quickly we can put in place some really specific stuff. Cam Nicholls (17:34.2) This podcast is brought to you by the Road Cycling Academy. And as you now know, we've got some massive news for our listeners, especially across Europe. Now at the Road Cycling Academy, we are proud to serve an international audience from our base here in Australia, mate, connecting our US, Canadian, Asian, and of course Australian clients across the days work beautifully. But Europe has always had that unique time zone puzzle. Usually just as our European members are waking up. Starting their days, we're wrapping up our days and preparing our dinners. Well, that puzzle is now officially solved. Based right out of Switzerland, Ben is servicing our European clients in absolute real time. So if you're in Europe and ready to smash your FTP, nail your nutrition, or unlock your true cycling potential, Ben is right there in your time zone, running our 12 week custom plans and our one-to-one coaching offering. If you want proof that Ben can do a good job for you, just go check out our Google reviews. Our members consistently rave about his deep scientific approach, his game changing whole food fueling strategies, and his ability to consistently get riders to improve by a minimum of 10 to 20% on their FTP, or we use critical power at the RCA in as little as three months. Spots are, of course, limited. So head over to the roadcyclingacademy.com and lock in your spot with Ben today. Let's get back to the episode. Yeah, okay. Cool. And you you mentioned comments there, then them providing feedback. So, you know, you put the the workouts in the training peaks calendar software. One of the the benefits of this software is that it's been around for years and all the major head units and indoor training apps integrate seamlessly. So when you sign up, People just add their their Wahoo account or their Garmin account, they add their Zwift account, or maybe a lot of people are using Training Peaks Virtual these days because it's covered in the Training Peaks license, which is basically the same as Zwift, which means that when you log into Zwift or Training Peaks Virtual or you turn your head unit on in the morning, it's like, there's the workout that Ben's prescribed me. I just need to follow along. So they follow along, do the workout, and you mentioned feedback before. So Cam Nicholls (19:53.932) How does that work? Are people just shooting you an email after they do their their thirty fifteens that Ben's prescribed on a Thursday? Or what does that look like? Ben Treble (20:03.606) I mean they can, but typically what we try to do is the sort of day to day communication is through the comments function in training peaks. So as you said, you get set up. If people are not familiar or tech savvy, there's sometimes some emails after that initial onboarding to make sure that they get set up in the tech, whatever that is that they want to use with Training Peaks. So connecting their Strava, their Garmin, Wahoo, Swift, whatever that is, making sure it's connected. To training peaks so that the workouts will sync across from the calendar into their device where they can perform the training and follow along. They complete the workouts each day. And at the end of the workout, I try to get them to put in a comment. It doesn't have to be every time. if a workout just goes well and there's nothing to note, you don't need to put anything in. I do ask my athletes to put in their RPE, that's rate of perceived exertion. In training peaks, that's a score from zero to ten. Zero being no work at all, feet up on the couch, ten being the hardest thing you've ever done before. Throwing up, puking at the end of a ride. So I try to get everybody to put in an RPE score. It's still a very, very valid measure of tracking how hard was the training. It typically factors in all the other stress you have in your life. So workouts work out. You know, if you're stressed or not stressed outside of the bike training, it can impact how hard it felt. So that's where it gets measured. And the comments athletes can put in comments like that, that felt really easy. If I give someone, if we haven't managed to do C B testing, we're doing say VO2 work and they put in an I don't know, RPE of two, the intensity's probably pretty wrong. that's an extreme example, but I mean it the the good example here with RPE in those early days is trying to get the zone two endurance work right. So making sure you can use RPE with heart rate. To look at the power and see what's happening. So yeah, collecting that athlete feedback and the athletes often put in the comments, you know, a little bit about their nutrition. I quite like that. I've got some athletes put in comments about nutrition, managed to eat XYZ. This workout felt super hard, or first two sets felt great, but third set failed like, you know, really hurt, or maybe there was a tech glitch, was riding outdoors, third set interrupted because a car cut me off. So little bits of feedback help give me context. So when I Ben Treble (22:32.428) At least once a week, ideally twice a week, I go through every athlete to review and respond against the comments. And when I'm looking at those workouts and looking at the data, if I don't get that context from the comments, often you can miss stuff. So you go, did the power drop off in the third set 'cause a car interrupted them? Or is it because it was the intensity was too hard? Cam Nicholls (22:52.27) Interesting. Okay. And what happens if you know, back Joe Blow, he works for a company which is head officed in interstate. I've had to fly to head office for a few days, didn't mean for it to happen. Then I came back and I was a bit sick because one of my one of my kids was you know, gave me something from daycare. So I've had five days off the bike. What happens in in that in that case when you've laid out the four weeks of training after that initial call and there's been a disruption? Ben Treble (23:22.828) Yeah, I mean assuming this is a monthly if we say this is a monthly coached athlete, I would try and set up in the initial onboarding that the for anything like this, I would say this is sort of more urgent communication. So if you get sick or injured or there's something more urgent you need a response to within a day or two, is to email me. And pretty quickly I would want to make adjustments. So if I know that you're getting sick, we're just gonna put in, most likely depending on the illness, a couple rest days. And just monitor. As soon as you're ready to go, we might start putting in some shorter, easier recovery rides and just build you back into the hard work again. If you have to travel for work last minute, that's often something that happens. Someone says, I need to go fly to the East Coast this week suddenly because work needs me over there. I've got to leave tomorrow. We might have to just drop a few days out of that week, but then I might adjust the week after in response. Cam Nicholls (24:19.342) All right. And let's just say that I've I haven't been sick, then I I've nailed the month, you know, I've done all the workouts. Training peaks, you know, for those with a bit of OCT gives you a green badge if you do it in a compliant way. And a lot of people like getting the green badge or all the green color code. So, you know, get to the end of the first month. We're doing monthly coaching here and you know, what what happens next? Ben Treble (24:45.858) Yeah, I put in a little there's different ways, but typically, you know, we try to have at least one call a month, ranges from a short phone call, twenty minutes, where sometimes people do it in the car, to forty five minutes on a video conference, which is preferred the video conference, because we can share the screen and the athlete can often we will share the screen and I'll bring up a certain workout or we want to talk about certain data or make some adjustments to the program. So The monthly call can be used for different things. We can review the goals. Often you end up talking about one or two topics though more deeply than anything else. It might be, we need to make some adjustments. I've got travel coming up. Let's adjust the plan. It might be discussing the last couple weeks of training, what worked, what didn't work. And then based on that feedback, I'll be able to make some adjustments going into the next block. We might review the goals, see how we're tracking against goals. Cam Nicholls (25:41.942) Yeah. So it becomes more less about understanding who the person is, their writing preferences, what their goals are, and more about digging into specific topics that are relevant based off of the phase of training. Ben Treble (25:56.066) Massively, yeah. And some athletes bring certain topics. I think the advantage of working with me as a coach is I'm an accredited sports scientist, so I am a bit of a data nerd and I'm very happy to talk about some of those other topics like nutrition or talk about physiology on why something's working or not working. And a lot of my athletes love that. It's not for all of them, but yeah, the ones who are interested in going deeper on the data can take full advantage of that. Cam Nicholls (26:23.384) Yeah. Yeah, cool. And I also you know, know that on that topic in particular, so a lot of our members also go to the gym. So even like strategic placement of the gym, especially when you're doing, you know, high intensity interval training, is a is a super important one. Because you know, once again, it's not a one size fits all gym needs to go here because people will respond differently. Like I know myself, for example, it took me years to figure it out, but I actually can do a high intensity interval training quite well the day after a gym session. but two days after a gym session and even sometimes three days, I really struggle. So, you know, it was I had to play around with that a a lot initially to figure that out. And no doubt this is something you would do with your clients, whether it's gym or some other cross training activity or maybe maybe a family stressor, just adjusting things to suit that particular individual and how their physiology responds to, you know, the training. Ben Treble (27:20.94) Yeah, and it's a different circumstance where the adjustments are really important along with the feedback. If I think of the North Americans and the Europeans, they have very distinct, you know, seasons. And going into winter often means a significant drop in volume for recreational cyclists. It's a lot trickier. They don't ride outdoors as much. It's often too cold or snowy. It's not possible. Riding indoors, you're not gonna do most people anyway, are not doing six hours on the indoor trainer twice a week. So Managing that and managing them through that with motivation and is there even talk about cross-training or just keeping fitness up in different levels varies athlete to athlete. But it comes back to the importance of those monthly conversations where you can collect the feedback about the context. And that helps me as a coach work out what's appropriate, what adjustments do we need to make to keep this athlete going, moving forward towards their goals. Cam Nicholls (28:17.006) How long do you feel it takes for people to embrace, you know, the the periodization schedule? So obviously one of the big benefits of working with the coach is I think people conceptually understand like building and progressively overloading and having an easier week, but a lot of people don't just don't do it. They listen to podcasts, they watch videos, they just don't do it. But obviously when people work with the coach, they're kind of like committing to, all right, I I know this is something that I need to do. And the coach is gonna, you know, put it in the plan and is gonna make me accountable. But then there's also the buy-in aspect. So some people might start off doing it apprehensively, where it's like this D-load week, I'm doing not doing enough training. you know, this feels a bit weird. And then I've I've found anyway, and this is from my experiences when I used to coach, maybe after the first four to twelve weeks of training, all of a sudden they're looking forward to the D-load week because they are starting to experience real freshness and real fatigue and They're buying into it. Like how how do you find, you know, people that you've trained at the RCA respond to that sort of the process? Ben Treble (29:24.928) Masters male athletes are not good at taking time off the bike. So it's often something that takes time. Some of them are better at it than others. I often kind of let them I try to show them how they come to this conclusion, which sometimes means I have to let them mess up a D-load week on their own. And then, you know, in our monthly call, we're gonna go back and look at the data. And and you can often see in the data, they if they mess up the D load week. You go into the next block and midway, they're really struggling. And you see it in the comments. And when you review it together objectively like this, they're like, I probably should have taken that rest. Then I then I could have got through the block. Okay, this D load week in a week's time, I'm I'm gonna try to stick to it. I'm gonna take the extra rest day. Like putting data to it often helps. I think a lot of these athletes really see why it's valuable. But sometimes they have to go through the process of sort of messing it up that first time and and then struggling through a block to realize that. And that also gives you the data to kind of convince them that it's really valuable that they need to do it. Cam Nicholls (30:31.51) And as we're talking here, I'm just pulling up the RCA Google reviews. maybe I I I'm not gonna have time to pull up some of your really good ones because I know there are some great reviews in there about working with you as a coach. I was trying to I'm thinking of Josh as he's dropped a recent review. I was trying to find his his results. But people can go and read them, of course. When do you think I've just pulled it up here? I don't helped my FTP grow by over forty percent. So you help Josh increase his FTP, we might be talking about critical power by over forty percent. So there are some really massive numbers people achieve, whether it's FTP, whether it's critical power, whether it's their local climb or their bunch rides or or events, you know, shaving half an hour or an hour off peaks. I know you recently took a guy who'd failed peaks challenge three times previously. Yep. And then on the fourth attempt under your guidance, made it through with half an hour to spare. So obviously you're static. So there are some really big, juicy goals people are you know, that they might have had for years and they've been on a plateau and the goal seemed out of reach and they get coached and all of a sudden they they're achieving what they wanted to achieve. Like people are inherently impatient as well. So like I I gotta ask you the question if people get coached. When should they expect the big gains? Is it is it in the first eight, twelve weeks or is it more so they've kind of done a build, then they've d dialed it back and then they're into their second build. So maybe it's twenty four weeks down the track or thirty six weeks. What are you saying? Ben Treble (32:11.656) I think there's often some big gains in the early blocks. In the first eight to twelve weeks you often see really good improvement. This is often just because you're changing their training and giving them more stimulus or different stimulus and trying to get them to take on more recovery and give structure to it. This alone, most athletes see massive jumps in that first sort of eight to twelve weeks. But I think you bring up two really good points here. You brought Josh up as an example, and he's a great example because he really struggled with taking time off the bike, recovering, right? He's a sort of person that if he doesn't ride on a day, he feels like he's missing something. So how do we get him to take recovery? Because that's why he was stagnating in performance. He was going nowhere in his bunch rides, but he really wanted to improve. And I think when we started He had a lot of capacity to improve, which obviously he's had really significant improvement with a lot of commitment and hard work. But what Josh needed was accountability and permission. So most athletes, I think what they get from a coach is you get this accountability piece. Like as soon as you're paying someone for their service, you feel a bit more committed to it, and there's this other person involved. Right. And they're going to come back to you and say, Hey, on a monthly call, I'm going to talk about it and say, You missed these sessions or I think you could improve here. This could be done better. I'm going to be constructive. I'm going to give you positive feedback as well, but I think a lot of people thrive off constructive feedback, especially in those early days. There's a steep learning curve and that comes from getting constructive feedback. The permission piece is equally as important. A lot of these masters, male athletes, in my experience, they need to be told. They need to be given permission to take a day off the bike. And they need the confidence to go, Josh knows I'm a sport scientist. So if I tell him he trusts me, and he knows if I tell him you need a full day off and this is why, because if you don't do it, this is what's going to happen. He goes, okay, I can have a day off. It's okay and it's actually going to be good for me. But he needed that human interface and he needed the verbal permission to do it for it to work. Cam Nicholls (34:31.074) Yeah. No, it's great. Great examples. And look, you know, one of the I appreciate you breaking that all down, Ben. You know, one of the the the challenges that you know, I face as running the RCA is really trying to to normalise cycle coaching because it's funny if you if you if I was speaking to a triathlet this morning and they were talking about a coach all these coaching they supply triathlet gear, custom triathlet gear to co and a lot of it to coaching businesses in in triathlon. And what I was just talking about how in the triathlon culture, it's very normal to have a coach. But in the road cycling culture, which they're reasonably intertwined, it's probably less normal to have a coach. And I feel like a lot of that comes down to just education. A lot of people don't really know what's involved with cycle coaching and also don't think that they've got the right goals for cycle coaching because they're not racing or they don't have a big UCI event that they're targeting. But in actual fact, look, it's just for anyone that wants, you know, self-improvement. So yeah. Appreciate your time, Ben. anything to add to that before we wrap up? Ben Treble (35:44.224) No, just that coaches help you identify those blind spots. You can be an excellent cyclist, potentially even have a some very good working knowledge on how to train. Maybe you've been even coached in the past, but human nature, you know, we're quite biased to ourselves and we're not good at identifying our blind spots. So sometimes having that human interface, the coach, there to call you out. To help you identify those blind spots and break those problems down and how do you solve them? Sometimes that becomes more valuable than saying, I can do a Zwift program and get 30, 30, 15, you know, VO2 hit sessions. Right. So sometimes the I think the value of the coaching in those first few blocks is probably from the training itself more than anything. But after this, it's the monthly or weekly conversations where you identify these little gaps. And you can find a solution from them, that's where I think athletes get these really big value out of having a coach. Cam Nicholls (36:51.704) Good. Well, if you're listening and you'd like to try cycle coaching yourself, make sure you head to the RCA's website. It's www.roadcyclingacademy.com. Check out you can either there's two spots you can check out. We've got a 12-week custom plan. and it's that's what it's called in the menu system, which is more of a one-off call with the coach, like Ben described, but then he'll build or they'll build you out twelve weeks in advance and it kind of stops at twelve weeks or What we've really focused on today is more of that monthly operating rhythm. we also have a weekly, which is perhaps a rabbit hole for another day, but monthly coaching is kind of what Ben's described today. So that's in our menu system as well, where you subscribe and you work monthly with the coach. Catch you in the next podcast.  
• Want to Climb Faster? Here's How to Train for BIG Climbs 16.06.2026 30min

  Are you planning a cycling holiday in Europe, tackling iconic climbs like the Alps, Dolomites, or Swiss mountain passes? In this episode of the RCA Podcast, Cam Nicholls sits down with RCA coach and data science specialist Ben Treble to discuss exactly how recreational and amateur cyclists should prepare for a climbing-focused cycling trip. Ben breaks down the key physiological factors that determine climbing performance, including VO₂ max, fractional utilisation, threshold power, training volume, and cycling-specific nutrition. Together, they outline an 8-week training strategy designed to help cyclists maximise their fitness, improve climbing ability, and arrive in Europe ready to enjoy every ride. Whether you're heading to the Tour de France region, riding the famous Swiss Alps, taking on Peaks Challenge, or simply wanting to improve your climbing performance, this episode provides practical, science-backed advice you can apply immediately. In This Episode: ✅ Why VO₂ max alone doesn't determine climbing performance ✅ The importance of threshold power and fractional utilisation ✅ How to structure an 8-week climbing preparation plan ✅ VO₂ max training vs threshold training for long climbs ✅ Why recovery weeks (deload weeks) are critical ✅ How to increase training volume safely ✅ The role of low-cadence climbing work and muscular endurance ✅ Nutrition strategies for multi-day cycling trips ✅ Gut training and carbohydrate intake for endurance cyclists ✅ Common mistakes recreational cyclists make before a cycling holiday Who This Episode Is For: Recreational cyclists Amateur road cyclists Gran Fondo riders Cyclists planning a European cycling holiday Riders preparing for Peaks Challenge, Amy's Gran Fondo, Tour de Brisbane and other climbing events Anyone wanting to improve their climbing performance 🎯 Learn more about RCA Coaching: https://roadcyclingacademy.com/one-to-one-coaching/    Transcript:  Cam Nicholls (00:01.804) Welcome to the RCA Podcast, designed for recreational and amateur road cyclists with a focus on performance. We dive into cycling training, nutrition, strength training for cyclists and even bike fitting tips, all designed to help you train smarter, ride faster and hopefully tear your mates' legs off. So without further ado, let's dive into today's episode. Welcome back to the RCA podcast, where today I am joined by the RCA's European correspondent and data science geek, Ben Treble, who's currently in Sydney but will be in Europe by the time this podcast goes live. Hello, Ben. Ben Treble (00:43.714) Hey Cam, how are you? Cam Nicholls (00:45.656) Good, thank you. So today, because you're heading over you're escaping actually you've timed this pretty well now. I'm just talking I'm thinking about this out loud. You're you're you're about to hit the depths of winter in Sydney. And Sydney gets pretty cold. People don't think it does, but it's actually it's a pretty cold winter. And you're moving to Europe, you've got a one way ticket, you're gonna be in Switzerland, one of my favorite places in the world. So you're basically heading into you're going from one summer season to the next summer season. You're gonna bit you're an expert in summer seasons, essentially. So I thought it would be a good podcast topic to talk about what's the best way not to prepare for a summer season, because we've kind of, you know, you should have been doing that two, three months ago. But maybe you might want to blend that into the conversation. But more so, you know, we're at the start of the summer season. How are we, you know, as a recreational and amateur road cyclist who's training anywhere between sort of six to twelve hours per week, depending on the person. We might have some goals to, you know, do some Fondo events, do some big climbs. How are we going to tackle the summer season? What's the best approach? Ben Treble (01:50.926) yeah, I think for me the context here is probably like a bit of a focus on climbing. So it's pretty hard to go over to Europe and not do climbing. I am a s more of a sprinter myself, so why I picked Switzerland as a location is beyond me because I'm definitely not a climber, but you can't really go anywhere without going over some big mountains. Cam Nicholls (02:15.458) Yeah, and I think this is like relevant to, you know, most people going into their summer seasons because let's face it, even though we don't have huge climbs here in Australia, when people are looking at their summer season, you know, so many people in Australia, you know, peaks has become the biggest fondo event. You know, they target peaks and there is a lot of climbing in peaks. And even some of the smaller fondo events, like Amy's, for example, what's the first thing you do? You go up a fifteen, twenty minute climb and then there's another climb in the middle. even Tour to Brisbane, which is you know, UCI qualifier, there's a fifth 10, 15 minute climb in the middle or wherever they put it because they change the event every year. So climbing isn't just a European thing. I know you're trying to rub salt in the worm because you've got amazing climbs over there, Ben in Switzerland, but you know, I think it's relevant no matter where you are in the world, because most events have significant climbs. Ben Treble (03:10.274) Definitely. Yeah. I mean Tura Brizzy, I can think of two athletes where, you know, the performance determinant was the climb. So, you know, it might not be a one hour, two hour climb. Maybe it's only fifteen to twenty minutes depending on your pace. But it's still a big determinant in tour of Brizzy and it's sort of a in some respects it it's a it's a speed hump in the what, one third of the way in. So it's but still it's super important. So climbing does become very important. I guess I just wanted to talk a bit around a couple different things on this topic. The first is probably what's important in determining climbing performance. So we'll stick to a bit of a focus on climbing and then we'll talk a little bit more around like people who go to Europe. I can think of a number of athletes I'm working with right now who are planning European holidays. That's either from North America, from Australia. I've even had athletes who wanted to prepare because they were in Australia and just going down to Bright, which is a very famous alpine region in Victoria, where there's a lot of big climbs, which don't don't underestimate. They are equal to many of the big climbs in Europe. They might not have the same altitude, but you can get a similar elevation profile. We're talking, you know, Mount Hotham as a climb in terms of total elevation is massive. It beats probably half the European climbs. Cam Nicholls (04:33.078) Yeah. How many meters do you hit in Hotham? Are you over fifteen you're definitely over fifteen hundred. Did you hit over two thousand? Ben Treble (04:40.024) think you do get two at the very top. Cam Nicholls (04:42.604) That t two thousand, from my understanding of when I climbed the the glibia many many moons ago was altitude actually kicks in at around five hundred meters. Although you probably it's probably quite subtle. Or even a few hundred meters it actually starts kicking in. But once you get to sort of fifteen hundred, two thousand, then the effects are really significant. Ben Treble (05:05.846) one eight four five Cam Nicholls (05:07.788) One eight four five. There you go. Ben Treble (05:10.254) There you go. Anyway, yeah, I think the first thing we should talk about is VO2 Max. We've talked about this a lot on the podcast. I think it's a big topic, but VO2 Max, we often talk about training it to have a higher VO2 Max. Lots of people walk around with their garments, which estimate their VO2 Max. You can think of that, it's like the the engine size, right? You can have a 600 horsepower car, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you've got the you know, horsepower or the fuel lines to feed enough fuel into the engine to actually achieve and utilize that power, right? Like you need all of the bits underneath. What is your utilization of the engine? So we know this is true. You can see people who have high VO2 maxes, but don't seem to be able to reach the same performance levels of other athletes with the same VO2 max. Cam Nicholls (06:05.269) More. Ben Treble (06:06.424) So why? Because the fractional utilization of VO2 Max is lower. Typically the way that we consider fractional utilization of VO2 Max is at your threshold. When we're talking threshold, I'm talking maximal lactate steady state, gold standard. For everybody on the podcast who don't know what that is, you can think of it as your critical power if you want to equivalent FTP. So threshold at w when you ride at your threshold, let's say it's 200 watts, 250 watts. What percentage of your VO2 max are you holding? Really well trained athletes are going to be, you know, using 85% or higher of their VO2 max at threshold. What does that mean? They're relying more on the aerobic energy system and less on the glycolytic. So they're going to use less glycogen, which is one of your, you know, most valuable resources for fuel. So you're going to conserve that glycogen. For later. Let's you having a high fractional utilization lets you ride at a higher intensity for longer, relying on less glycogen. Cam Nicholls (07:14.988) So less lactate production. Ben Treble (07:17.474) Yeah, exactly. Cam Nicholls (07:19.69) Okay. So that's important for climbing. Ben Treble (07:23.532) I should reference it's not necessarily less lactate production, it's a higher clearance rate. You're able to utilize lactate better through the aerobic system. Cam Nicholls (07:32.886) Okay. Because when you started to talk about VO two Max, I was like, well, wait a second, aren't aren't we talking about long climbs? Don't we aren't we just worried about sort of around threshold and maybe a bit of tempo and sweet spot? Like w who cares about? I'm not doing short, punchy climbs around France. I'm just grinding all day long. Ben Treble (07:54.254) Exactly. Yeah. So VO2 Max is important, but sort of like one piece of the story. I mean, there's two papers. Some of this dates back quite old. you know, back to nineteen ninety-one with newer papers in two thousand and eight, if you want to call that new. particularly there's a scientist Coyle and Joyner have done multiple papers on climbing performance. They really bring it back down to VO2 Max. Fractional utilization and economy. Now that comes back to really fractional utilisation of threshold to me, and your efficiency on the bike. So Yeah. What we're looking at here, there's a big focus on fractional utilization of VO2 Max and that helps you with your climbing performance. Cam Nicholls (08:46.542) Okay. Well, tell me, Ben, I'm I'm a recreational and amateur that wants to go rip apart the hills in in Europe. What am I doing then if I wanna increase that? Ben Treble (08:58.498) Yeah. So you're probably gonna do very different training, but you're gonna take on blocks of VO two work, probably if you're in building blocks. And as you get closer to your actual holiday or your trip, you're gonna start heading more towards threshold blocks and longer. So progressively increase the intervals. Cam Nicholls (09:19.466) Interesting. So you are gonna s actually almost reverse periodise the zones. So you're going to start more with a VO two focus and then as you get towards the trip time, it's more threshold focused. Ben Treble (09:36.92) Yeah. I mean you you're never doing one thing in isolation, right? Like physiology is is broad and and mixed, but if we bring it a little simple terms, you're gonna try build the engine as big as possible to start with, which is key sessions on VO2 max and base volume. Then you're gonna bring it back to threshold work, try and lift your threshold. So this is gonna help improve your fractional utilization. And then you're just gonna continually progressively try build out How long can you hold that for? Right. So maybe when you start doing threshold work, this might be over-unders, for example, where you're sort of dipping, you know, you go over 105% of threshold and you go under 95%. And you might do one minute above, one minute below, and do, you know, maybe at the start you're only doing 10 minutes of this as one set and you try to do two sets. But you want to get to a point where you can do, you know, at least two or three sets of 20 minutes. So then you kind of go to a point where you're doing an hour of over-unders. In a single session. Cam Nicholls (10:38.24) An hour of over and unders. Wow, that sounds I want to dig into that. Let's peel it back now. So now you've you've sold me on doing a block of VO two and doing a block of sort of threshold. And I know as you just said, you're not just doing that. You know, you're not doing six sessions a week of VO two and six sessions a week of threshold for for six weeks at a time. It's a variation and variability, but there there are key focus points. Give me a high level lens. Let's just say I'm going to Europe. When do most people go to Europe? Around Tour de France time, maybe before, maybe after. So June, July. This podcast will probably go live in a couple of weeks. So let's just say we're going live early June for the purpose of this discussion. So we've got we've got eight weeks. You know, the title of this podcast is going to be something like preparing to tackle the the mountains in Europe. Listen to Ben. Tell you what to do. Won't be exactly that title, but I'm I'm now giving you a a little project here. I've got eight weeks essentially. That that's what we're looking at. What am I doing to really get the most out of my trip? Ben Treble (11:46.828) Yeah, the first thing I would do is try to maximize volume. And that's gonna depend on, you know, how much recovery time you have and how well you respond and your training history. So have you only been averaging four hours a week in the last three months? Or have you already been doing ten hours a week, even if it's bunch rides and whatnot? That probably changes wha how well you can pull off what you want to pull off. Cam Nicholls (12:10.414) So let's say well let's say I'm averaging eight to ten hours per week over the last few months. I'm doing a mix of everything, bunch rides, I'm going and doing some clients here and there. Of course, I'm a typical, you know, amateur recreational. I train too hard too often. I'm not having recovery weeks. I'm probably a little bit fatigued, even though I don't think I'm fatigued. you know, the all all the kind of boxes that many recreationals tick before they join us. So I'm that person, Ben. What I you mentioned you want to focus on volume. So if I'm doing, you know, eight, ten hours a week, does that mean I now want to be doing twelve to fifteen hours per week for the next eight weeks? Ben Treble (12:48.088) Yeah, I well if you've got the capacity to do it and the ability to recover, if your sleep is good, your nutrition is good, you can probably jump up to the twelve, even fifteen hours a week, right? But if you have a stressful job and you have family and kids, I probably wouldn't move you that fast. I would try to get you up to fifteen by the end of the eight weeks. Cam Nicholls (12:51.234) Okay. Cam Nicholls (13:07.478) Okay. Interesting. Ben Treble (13:09.72) So that's a bigger picture thing. But that first four weeks I would want to focus on VO2 max work. Cam Nicholls (13:16.11) Okay. And we may or may not have released this podcast by the time this one comes out, but we've we've done one where we talk about short intervals versus long intervals at VO two max. So should there bear any specific focus if you're going over for the longer climb? Should we focus more on the longer? Or once again, it's just variability. Do a mix. Ben Treble (13:37.39) I would probably start with some variability. Probably wanna shock the system, get some stochastic work going on. So I'd probably do some short intervals to start, but then progress you into the longer VO2 intervals through the end of the block. So if we talk more of a traditional periodization, we've got eight weeks till Europe. First four weeks, we're gonna ramp up for three weeks. So maybe the first week we're gonna do some short intervals, build you into longer intervals through the first three weeks, slowly ramp up your volume. at the same time. And then we're gonna have fourth week's gonna be a D Load week. Cam Nicholls (14:11.672) This podcast is brought to you by the Road Cycling Academy. And as you now know, we've got some massive news for our listeners, especially across Europe. Now at the Road Cycling Academy, we are proud to serve an international audience from our base here in Australia, mate, connecting our US, Canadian, Asian, and of course Australian clients across the days work beautifully. But Europe has always had that unique time zone puzzle. Usually just as our European members are waking up. Starting their days, we're wrapping up our days and preparing our dinners. Well, that puzzle is now officially solved. Based right out of Switzerland, Ben is servicing our European clients in absolute real time. So if you're in Europe and ready to smash your FTP, nail your nutrition, or unlock your true cycling potential, Ben is right there in your time zone, running our 12-week custom plans and our one-to-one coaching offering. If you want proof that Ben can do a good job for you, just go check out our Google reviews. Our members consistently rave about his deep scientific approach, his game changing whole food fueling strategies, and his ability to consistently get riders to improve by a minimum of 10 to 20% on their FTP, or we use critical power at the RCA in as little as three months. Spots are, of course, limited. So head over to the roadcyclingacademy.com and lock in your spot with Ben today. Let's get back to the episode. Yeah, okay, nice. And what is a if somebody's out there listening, because the we've done a lot of content on this, or you know, we call some people call it an easier week. Some other coaches at the RCA call it an adaptation week to make it sound a bit cooler because no one likes to deload or no one likes to take it easier. But What is what are people doing in an easier or a D load week and and what's the purpose of it? Ben Treble (16:07.052) Yeah, I I typically try to aim for a sort of fifty to sixty percent of the same volume as the final third week. So I don't know, let's say you do twelve hours, you know, we're probably gonna try to drop you down to, you know, six or seven hours of volume. Put in an extra full rest day. So you might have two or even three full rest days in that week. And I would still try keep some intensity. So I'd probably have Still two key sessions, but those key sessions would be, for example, if we're doing short intervals, instead of three by twelve, thirty fifteens, you might only do two by nine, and I would give you fifteen minutes recovery in between the two sets. So really long recovery, less intensity, but still giving you some stimulus. Yep. Through that week. Same with the if we were doing four by four, so longer intervals. You know, you might only do two or three of them and again give you 10, 15 minutes between them, right? So I find this lets people keep a lot of stimulus going in a delay week. The idea is you you really want the body to recover and have time to adapt to the stress you've just put on it for three weeks. In particular, those first three weeks, by the third week, I'm trying to really push people into a fairly the feedback I'm looking for is. Maybe I couldn't even finish the last workout. I my legs feel tired. I feel tired. I feel fatigued. That's kind of what you are. You want to feel fatigued by the end of a block. But then you want to go into the recovery week and you wanna be trying to if we talk training peaks numbers, you're trying to probably look at potentially their form would be going negative fifteen to negative forty even, somewhere here, depending on what their history is. And then in their D load week, you're trying to get them back to a positive position almost on form. So that comes from a big reduction in volume and often you want them by the end of that week they should be, I want to train again, I feel energetic and I'm ready to go. Cam Nicholls (18:14.742) Yep. And I think it's it I don't want to spend the whole podcast on this, but it's if you're not doing D lo weeks and you're preparing for a trip for Europe and you just train all the way through and doing high volume, high intensity, you're gonna get to the trip fatigued and you're not gonna get the most out of the climbs. So you're four weeks now out. What are we looking to do in that final block leading into our European trip? Ben Treble (18:38.392) Yeah, we're gonna do threshold work. probably a mixture of I would do two key sessions, probably try to keep it interesting. So it's gonna be a mixture of progressing people through over unders to try and get as essentially as much out of them as you can. So it depends on their history. Some people can already do two by fifteen minutes, and then you could probably get them out to potentially at least two by twenty, if not get them trying for the three by twenties. But then you're gonna have people who really struggle with them and never done them before, and getting them to one by twenty might be a good achievement. But you might start with three by six minutes with big recovery. Cam Nicholls (19:21.506) And what's the other key session? Ben Treble (19:23.628) Yeah, I would do some some steady state threshold work. Cam Nicholls (19:27.854) Okay. So what's steady state threshold work look like? Ben Treble (19:31.704) Yeah, I mean if your critical power is, let's say it's two hundred and fifty watts, we're gonna go out and we're gonna go try to just progress it as long as you can. So ideally the other thing you're doing is some outdoor riding with climbing. Your body position on the bike when you climb is just a little bit different. So the muscle recruitment pattern is slightly different. Your position on the bike is slightly different, and you just wanna get used to this. Potentially you're gonna go to Europe and sit in your climbing position for one and a half to two hours. For one climb. And if you're planning to do two climbs in the same day, it's just a lot of hours sitting in the saddle in that inclined position. So it's what you should train at, I believe. So yeah, trying to get climbing meters in the legs and doing some of your threshold work on a climb. So just see how long can you hold your threshold. Maybe you do a little bit sub threshold, 95%, et cetera. But yeah, generally around threshold, do some repeats. Cam Nicholls (20:26.988) Interesting. And then so you you're you've got one session a week, you do it you're progressing your over unders, one session a week, you're progressing sustained threshold or just under threshold work. And then are you gonna carry this kind of this work out structure and stress into the trip or you have another D load week before you head away? Ben Treble (20:50.968) Yeah, I would definitely do one D load before going. Typically we try to time it with the travel week. So normally, at least from Australia, it's not a fast trip to Europe. It's gonna take you probably at least thirty hours, give or take. You're gonna have a day of jet lag. Probably the day before you leave, your bike's already packed and you're not riding. So yeah, we typ try to typically plan it around around that. But yeah, definitely try to get a deload week leading in or a taper week if you want to call it that. which I would still keep some more volume in this D load week and probably just cut the intensity. So I would try to keep a bit more volume in the legs compared to the previous D load week. Cam Nicholls (21:31.906) Yep. Interesting. So one thing one question I have for you, because I feel like when people go do these European trips, they're mo they're probably spending a lot of time tempo and maybe sweet spot on the climbs. They're not actually going threshold like at a hundred percent or ninety five percent. They're probably not doing much of VO two. So in this eight week lead in, I know if you if I gave you a twelve week scenario or sixteen week scenario, there would have been tempo and sweet spot in incorporated probably in the early days. But obviously it's I'm interested that it ha you haven't prioritised it. You've you said VO two in a threshold, but when actual fact probably a lot of the writing would be maybe around tempo and sweet spot. So why is that? Ben Treble (22:14.546) so we should probably clarify that I would still do some, if you want to call it tempo work. where would it sit in a program? It's gonna sit in your long ride. So most athletes are gonna do two shorter key sessions in the week and then they're gonna do one or two long rides on the weekend. And one of those long rides is I would also consider it a key session, and that's where I would Definitely still have them doing, if you want to call it tempo work. It often would look like in at least in that first block, it's gonna be high torque, which is low cadence at subthreshold efforts. So you're talking in this 80 to 90 percent range in the sort of you know fifty, fifty-five RPMs, quite nice. And you're just going to push through that and do repeats. The repeats will progress. You might start at ten minutes. It could even be shorter, five minutes, and then push them out to ten or even fifteen, depending on if they have any knee or back issues. Cam Nicholls (23:17.962) Okay. Well it makes sense. Well, that's interesting. I'm I've once again I've learned something from my conversation, Ben, because I would have never have thought a VO two block into threshold leading into a European trip. But it's all based off of increasing what's it called again? These scientific terms. I don't know them as well as you. Ben Treble (23:43.766) increasing your MLSS or your fractional utilization of VH Max. Yeah. Cam Nicholls (23:49.932) Yeah, there you go. So I Ben Treble (23:52.504) think there's probably I would the other really common component, like if you had eight weeks of training, what is the one other thing I would do? So call it beyond the bike work itself. And I would have a very big conversation on nutrition and and body weight. In eight weeks you're not going to go lose a lot of weight, but that is a massive factor in climbing performance. So, you know, watts per kilogram, we won't jump into it, but there's a version of that With allometric scaling, which is arguably a bit better than just pure watts per kilogram. So if you're a bigger rider, there's a scaling to the watts per kilogram that you can look at using. But that's still a massively important factor, especially around gross efficiency, which is a known factor for climbing performance. We're not gonna dispute that. The science is massive on it. I would look at gut training. So we're talking about nutrition, carbohydrate, intake. It's something most masters riders are not good at. I think we're biased. They often think they're good at it. I talk to them and when we have really honest conversations, say, Yeah, I got my feeling really good. We do some estimations and you look at how hard they were pushing in their long ride, which is often harder than they think, and they're burning massive amounts of carbs, like potentially they're using five hundred, six hundred grams of carbs on a three, four hour ride. And they're only eating 50 grams, 60 grams an hour. People talk about 90 grams per hour. You hear about 120 grams plus in the propellant these days. If you really break that out and look at how much food that is, it is a lot of food. You are eating nonstop on the bike. so it's very difficult to pull that off, but it's an easy win for most masters riders to improve their experience on a cycling holiday in Europe. If you could just get yourself from forty, fifty grams per hour of food up to eighty, you will significantly improve how much easier the cycling feels every day. You'll have higher energy levels throughout those six to eight hour days on the bike and it's going to give you better repeatability. So you're doing multiple days of this typically, right, on a cycling holiday. It's not one day. You might go for three, four, five days of riding in a row. And by the time you get to day four and five, most people are Ben Treble (26:19.062) are buggered. The people who are not buggered got their nutrition a lot better. So gut training in that eight weeks and getting yourself up to a higher carb intake is a big win. Cam Nicholls (26:32.226) Yeah, a hundred percent agree. As you said, it it's not being buggered at the end of each day or after three days and and you know, everyone goes out and has a beer or two and you you you just want to stay in the hotel room because you cooked. it actually I remember when I fuel properly for a training block recently, how much better even after the long, hard Saturday, you know, f smash fest for six hours on the pedals, I'd actually I felt quite energize in the afternoon, whereas old Cam who didn't fuel properly used to be on the couch rolling around, having a snooze, feeling really grumpy. So that just enjoyment that they'll get from better recovery fr from fueling that way is key. And I I think just to add another layer to that, you know, if they're gonna if people are gonna start, you know, fueling properly or or training their guts in their in their sessions, you you don't have to do it for all rides. You know, if you're doing a you know a couple of rides per week, which are just sort of like aerobic sort recovery rides for an hour or two, don't really focus on those. Focus on the VO2 max sessions you talked about, the threshold sessions you talked about, the long Saturday ride. The long Saturday ride in particular is where they want to be focused on targeting, you know, up to eighty, ninety grams of carbs per hour. And if they're at fifty, don't start doing eighty or ninety straight away. As you said, slowly bring it in. You know, next week try sixty, then the week after try sixty five or seventy and until you if your gut feels a little bit funny, maybe just back it off the next week and I found personally dealing with a lot of recreational amateurs, a lot of people will stop at maybe 60 or 70 because they had a bad experience. Their gut felt a little bit off. But as you said, it's training. So, you know, be patient with it. You know, try it again or maybe try some different food next time. Try bars instead of lollies or whatever it might be. And just be consistent with it because you'll find over time that those gut sensations that maybe you got initially tend to dissipate. Ben Treble (28:20.32) Massively. You know, we've talked in a previous podcast about the the UCI nutrition project and one of the clear outcomes here is that the gut is trainable like your legs are. But it requires training and like your legs, your legs go through periods where they don't feel good and they hurt. And then you have to recover and then you go again. So the gut is is exactly the same. You want to find your limit. And once you find it, you probably want to back it off five grams per hour, roughly. And then, you know Every week you can try and add another ten, maybe fifteen grams, and you'll find that week on week you're able to tolerate the the extra intake. Cam Nicholls (28:57.454) Good. All right. Well, that's plenty of details for people, Ben. If they've got a a European adventure in two thousand and twenty six. If you've got a European adventure later in the year, or if you've got one in two thousand and twenty seven, you know, working with a coach can be very beneficial to ensure that you get the most out of your trip. Not only in terms of, you know, your performance and being able to beat your mates up the climb. There's nothing like beating a mate up a a a French out climb. I did it to Mitch Boyer. It felt really good. and obviously, you know, I I was taking or working with an RCA coach at the time. you know, check out the RCA's website, one to one coaching. Just go to our menu system. It's at www.roadcyclingacademy.com dot AU and there you'll see one to one coaching. You can work with Ben and As you now know, he's based in Europe. So for all our European listeners, Ben's on the ground there. Or if you're in Australia or elsewhere, we've got a number of other coaches who are based here in Oz, Asia and New Zealand. So you can submit an inquiry or you can sign up straight away if you want to get stuck in. And thanks for your time, Ben. We'll catch everyone in the next podcast.  
• Long vs Short Intervals: Which Builds VO2 Max Faster? 10.06.2026 29min

  Are short VO2 max intervals better than long intervals for cyclists? In this episode of the RCA Podcast, Cam Nicholls sits down with coach and data science specialist Ben Treble to unpack one of the most debated topics in endurance training: long intervals versus short intervals for improving VO2 max and cycling performance. Recent research has suggested that short interval formats such as 30/15s and 40/20s may allow cyclists to accumulate more time above 90% VO2 max compared to traditional 4-minute efforts. But does that automatically make them better? The answer is more nuanced than most cyclists realise. Ben breaks down the science behind VO2 max training, glycolytic capacity, VLaMax, lactate production, and why the "best" interval workout often depends on your physiology and cycling goals rather than what the latest study says. In this episode you'll learn: ✅ Long vs short VO2 max intervals explained ✅ Why some cyclists thrive on 4-minute intervals while others prefer 30/15s ✅ The role of glycolytic capacity (VLaMax) in cycling performance ✅ Why climbers and sprinters often respond differently to the same workout ✅ How to choose intervals based on your physiology ✅ The importance of training variability and periodisation ✅ Why copying professional cyclists isn't always the best approach Whether you're training for road racing, gravel racing, criteriums, gran fondos, or simply trying to improve your cycling fitness, this episode will help you better understand how to structure your interval training for maximum results. RCA Coaching: https://roadcyclingacademy.com/one-to-one-coaching/  Timestamps 00:00 Introduction 02:00 Long vs Short Intervals Explained 05:00 Are We Talking About VO2 Max Training? 08:00 Why Short Intervals Became Popular 12:00 Understanding VLaMax and Glycolytic Capacity 17:30 Why Different Cyclists Respond Differently 21:00 Does Research Really Show Short Intervals Are Better? 25:00 Sprinter vs Climber: Which Intervals Should You Choose? 27:00 Training Variability and Periodisation 28:00 Key Takeaways   Transcript:  Cam Nicholls (00:01.804) Welcome to the RCA Podcast, designed for recreational and amateur road cyclists with a focus on performance. We dive into cycling training, nutrition, strength training for cyclists and even bike fitting tips, all designed to help you train smarter, ride faster and hopefully tear your mates' legs off. So without further ado, let's dive into today's episode. Welcome back to the RCA podcast, where today I am joined by European correspondent and data science geek Ben Treble. Are you okay to be called a European correspondent now? Ben saying that, well, you're currently in Australia, but in two weeks' time you're gonna be going over and living in Europe. Ben Treble (00:46.646) Yeah, I'll take it, maybe clarify. I am not European, but I will be moving to Europe permanently and I will be the boots on the ground for RCA when I arrive. Cam Nicholls (00:59.148) Yeah, you'll be based out of Switzerland. So hopefully that gives us a bit more presence in Europe for not only to support our existing European clients, but anyone considering getting coaching, you know, that who are in Europe and they're like, I don't want to deal with, you know, those Aussies over there. Well, now we've got an Aussi who's, I guess, part Swiss. You know, I know you're going over there with a lovely lady who's from Switzerland. So we'll call you part Swiss for the time being, part European. Ben Treble (01:25.154) My better half is definitely Swiss. so I'll take a little bit of that. Cam Nicholls (01:30.05) Nice. So today I wanted to talk about something that popped up in a recent RCA coaching group call. So we have a a catch up with all the coaches at the RCA about once a month. And one of the coaches presents a a topic and one of our coaches, Johan actually, presented a a paper and he did a little bit of practical exercises alongside the research, which he presented, which I thought was pretty cool, about long intervals. versus short intervals. And I thought the research paper was pretty interesting, Ben. So I gave you the project, being somebody that likes to dig into all the research, to find out is this a real thing? Are certain type of intervals better than the other if you were to focus on one or the other? So Ben, you went away and did some digging. What did you find? Ben Treble (02:25.998) I do love this topic, particularly 'cause I I love building different workouts and you know, I've been very fortunate to do my cycling certifications, you know, with the UCI. We've had some they had some very good scientists come and present certain topics. For example, Ronastad came over and talked about HIIT training, which has probably been his life's work endurance HIIT training for for some respects as a researcher. Yeah, I love this topic. It's really important. I think every few years, you know, there's new trends with cycling training and we had HIT training a long time ago, I think. We've had zone two in the last couple of years and it seems to be making a resurgent at the moment across social media that, you know, you've got the classic Norwegian, you know, four by fours, which I would consider long intervals. And now you've got a lot of research coming out from Ronastad and a few other researchers where these short high intensity intervals might be better. And when we're talking about those short high intensity interval sets we're talking about anything from your 30 fifteens. So that would be 30 seconds on, 15 seconds easy, and you repeat this between nine to twelve reps, then you have a rest period, and then you do a second and potentially third set of those short intervals. There is no universal answer to which one is is better, Cam. So everyone always hates me when I say it's a context that matters the most. So We can bring this back to why do we train? We need to create stimulus for the athletes. And every interval is going to create a stimulus, but the stimulus for the individual is where it differs and varies. So should you do long or short intervals is going to come back to what type of athlete are you physiologically and what are your goals? Cam Nicholls (04:16.183) Can I also just preface and you know this before you continue, because when we talk about intervals, you can do zone two intervals if you really wanted to. Most people don't. They kind of just ride zone two. But you can certainly do tempo intervals. You can certainly do sweet spot intervals. So these are all sort of below threshold. But when we're talking about long and short for this conversation and I guess the research on this topic, I'm assuming We're talking about intervals that are kind of above threshold, kind of in that VO2 max category. I guess probably pretty much in that VO2 max category because a all anaerobic intervals are probably gonna be short. I don't think anyone's doing a 10-minute anaerobic effort. And threshold training, correct me if I'm wrong, is would mostly be deemed as long interval training because it's gonna be at least three to four. four minutes bare minimum in length. So are we specifically talking about VO2 max training when we're talking about short versus long? Or is there a line in the sand? Ben Treble (05:25.932) Yeah, I think for the purpose of this conversation, it's gonna be in reference to trying to improve VO two max. So what's going on in the media is obviously there's an awful lot of discussion around VO two max being a very important metric. We're not gonna debate how important VO two max is in this podcast, but it is a very important metric. It's definitely not the entire picture, it's one one metric among many that would help you understand how your training is working. But yeah. So long versus short intervals, maybe I'll just run through them both to keep it clear, but long intervals sort of anywhere from four to eight minutes, typically on or slightly above threshold. this would be, you know, akin to the Norwegian four by fours, obviously being four minutes, so it's going to be typically a bit higher, potentially a hundred and ten, up to a hundred and twenty percent, depending on what papers you look at. And then you have four minutes easy, repeat. This typically allows you a VO2 max to climb. really high. So the VO2 kinetics are going to climb and hold. and then you typically get we'd call it full recovery between those intervals. The short intervals are going to be the on phase anywhere from it's it can be as short as 15 seconds, but more common is going to be 30 or 40 seconds with either 15 or 20 seconds rest. So very short rest. The 30-15 component is typically around 120% of threshold. Sometimes it's harder. Certain research papers have tested should the 30 be maximal. So a common example that's very hard to prescribe in practical sense is going to be Ronostad did some papers where the 3015s were if the set is 12 reps, the athlete had to try and keep the highest possible mean power within the whole set. So the 30s were essentially maximal. And then the 15s were still moderate. They were not easy. So that's there's nuances to this in the research. It's not all the same, which is probably important for everybody to understand that you often hear and people are citing research, but they'll talk about 30-15s, but if you really dig into it, it's not always the same protocol in there. But yeah, VO2 max tends to stay elevated with the short intervals. That's the idea that it doesn't drop. You get higher lactate accumulation, but Ben Treble (07:51.18) you get a bit more rest from a muscular point of view. So the cardiovascular system, the rest is short enough that your heart rate can drop, but not too much. You're trying to keep it up. But then you get more muscular recovery. So that's the idea. The other thing that where this came from, long versus short, is Ronastud talks about how do we do VO two max work but for less rate of perceived exertion. So can we achieve a similar outcome? Which is spending as much or accumulating as much time as possible above ninety percent VO2 max, but for less effort. Cam Nicholls (08:29.602) Yep. Makes sense. Like for me, the thought of doing like a five minute VO two max effort on an indoor trainer is like absolute death. Whereas doing thirty fifteens and getting myself a cumulative time of thir you know, five minutes at that same power, but in thirty second increments, so much easier. Ben Treble (08:51.106) Yeah, but it's gonna depend. Like if you talk to a highly aerobic athlete, they're probably gonna prefer longer intervals. Like it'll feel potentially feel easier. And for certain athletes, they find the short, harder intervals easier. The bit that's often missing, I think, here is consideration for the glycolytic capacity. So, you know, if we just quickly touch on what the research is is showing We're trying to drive more time above 90% VO2 max. You know, this is there's plenty of papers on this. We can link them in the podcast. But Ronastadt is a big one on this. Alpenhans, and I'll pronounce this wrong, but Scovering also did studies on this. most of the studies on well-trained cyclists also have been repeated on runners and triathletes, so I think it's fairly reproducible. But the VO2 max of these athletes are a bit higher. So we have to really keep in mind. These studies are typically done on well-trained athletes. And what you do see in well-trained athletes is they tend to have a lower glycolytic capacity. They have more slow twitch muscle fibers, they're more aerobic, they're less sprinter. When we look at our recreational cyclists, let's take the RCA for example. Generally speaking, people who are new to cycling, people who don't do a lot of endurance training or have a a low history of high volume endurance training tend to have a higher glycolytic capacity and tend to have more type two fibers. So how relevant is this for the all these people who are reading this research? This is the bit that's kind of missing for me. And this was what sparked this podcast when we had this team discussion. I was thinking it was a little bit missing from this conversation as well. So interest. I mean, have you ever considered it? Cam Nicholls (10:33.762) Sing look, I I more so think about training now when you know, I'm training myself for event is variability. So not looking at one or the other, you know, is longer better or is shorter better, which one should I be doing? But appreciating the fact that if I'm going to be constantly, you know, just the old general adaptation syndrome constantly shocking the working muscle so they can adapt and don't get stagnant. I've got to change up what I'm doing. So if I'm spending, you know, six weeks on VO2 Max, I'm not doing all long intervals. I'll do a blend of short intervals and unfortunately long, even though I don't like the long ones. I prefer the shorter ones because I I realize and I know actually it's interesting when I'd start doing the three to five minute VO2 max intervals, for me personally, that's probably the biggest stimulus that I get from my training. I notice once I've done that for like two or three weeks. I'm like, well, okay, now I've I feel like I've got another gear. Whereas the short intervals, even though I find them easier and in the science it says, yeah, if you you're spending more time above ninety percent. So technically they're more effective. I don't find for me personally they're more effective. It's the longer ones interesting, but I do both. Ben Treble (11:54.614) Okay. That's good. I think we'll we can loop back to that because I think there's a lot more to be said for that than I think it's underrated, essentially. for the it's cohort of people listening to this anyway. Let's I'm just gonna jump into glycolytic capacity because I think that's let's kinda just I'll discuss it. Maybe one of the ways that you can consider measuring it or how it's typically measured in the literature. I would say it's a little controversial and it's Probably new metric for you, Cam, but it has been around for some time. It's called VLA max. This is the maximal lactate production rate. So you've heard of VO2 max. You can understand what VLA max is. So the V stands for flux rate. Obviously, O2 is oxygen and max is maximal. So what is the flux, the production rate of your oxygen and its maximal? So VO2 max, your maximal consumption rate of oxygen. Likewise, VLA max is V flux LA is lactate max, so maximal lactate production rate. Why is that a good marker for glycolytic capacity? So if we really think George Brooks is probably one of the most well known researchers on lactate, I think most people now know that lactate is not a negative thing. We have two energetic systems in a simple model, shall we say? You have the aerobic and the anaerobic system, probably better termed glycolytic, but they work together, right? Glycolytic system, it's producing lactate. And if we think of it like the exhaust, the aerobic system needs that lactate to go through the oxidation process. It's an input to allow it to produce ATP. So their systems are constantly working, and you have this thing called the lactate shuttle, right? So we're each side producing, consuming, moving the lactate through both sides. This is where, you know, I would say the original threshold is coming from, which would be. maximal lactate steady state. To me that is the gold standard for your threshold when people talk about threshold these days. And that's the point at which your production of lactate meets the combustion. So bring it back to VLA Max. If you can produce more lactate, you're gonna be more glycolytic because you need lactate for glycolysis to work really well. Where do we produce the most lactate? It's in your type two fibers. They're more glycolytic. So Ben Treble (14:22.432) If you're more sprinter, you're going to be more glycolytic, more type two, type two X fibers, you're going to be able to produce more lactate. But it often comes at a cost to a weaker aerobic system because you have less type one fibers, which is where the oxidation of the lactate occurs. How do we measure VLA max? This is the probably most tricky part, and which is why we won't get too stuck into it. But there's various tests. Typically, there was a 15 second test done on an SRM ergometer. I think the new literature brought brings it out to a 20-second sprint test to account for the a-lactic time period. And then they actually did this with measuring lactate, which we know is not feasible for most people still. They're not measuring lactate at home. And then you can use this as a measure, right? It's typically you get these ranges of VLA max of anywhere from a very low, let's say 0.2, which you would expect in a highly aerobic trained climber type athlete with high volumes. Maybe a triathlete even, all the way up to, you know, your weld to a sprinters at say 0.7, 0.8 even, maybe in a track sprinter. Very high glycolytic capacity. So there's a bit of a range. And if you know this range, this is what helps you understand why long, short intervals have different effects on different people. Cam Nicholls (15:41.014) Hmm, interesting. Ben Treble (15:43.426) I know this is going a little bit deep, probably over some people's heads, so I can already see your eyes glazing, Kem. Cam Nicholls (15:50.104) No, it's actually I'll you were going pretty deep there, but I now you've come back to essentially tying into what I was saying earlier about what I found in my own training, how actually, you know, despite what's maybe some of the papers say that one's better, it's dependable. This podcast is brought to you by the Road Cycling Academy. And as you now know, we've got some massive news for our listeners, especially across Europe. Now at the Road Cycling Academy, we are proud to serve an international audience from our base here in Australia, mate. Connecting our US, Canadian, Asian, and of course Australian clients across the days work beautifully. But Europe has always had that unique time zone puzzle. Usually, just as our European members are waking up, starting their days, we're wrapping up our days and preparing our dinners. Well, that puzzle is now officially solved. Based right out of Switzerland, Ben is servicing our European clients in absolute real time. So if you're in Europe and ready to smash your FTP, nail your nutrition, or unlock your true cycling potential, Ben is right there in your time zone running our 12 week custom plans and our one to one coaching offering. If you want proof that Ben can do a good job for you, just go check out our Google reviews. Our members consistently rave about his deep scientific approach, his game changing whole food fueling strategies. And his ability to consistently get riders to improve by a minimum of ten to twenty percent on their FTP or we use critical power at the RCA in as little as three months. Spots are of course limited, so head over to the roadcyclingacademy.com and lock in your spot with Ben today. Let's get back to the episode. Ben Treble (17:37.74) Yeah. And so we're gonna I will loop this back to try and make this feasible for people to picture at home where they sit on the scale. So I'm gonna talk about two edge cases because it just stretches out the extremes to make it clear are the differences. But if you had two athletes, one is very sprinter, very glycolytic, you've got one that's more of a climber, high volume, very aerobic type guy. Let's take the long intervals. Let's say they both had a similar VO2 max. Similar threshold, but one is just more glycolytic than the other. What happens when they do the four by four minutes? Right? The aerobic, so the low VLA max guy, the climber, is getting more of a glycolytic stimulus. It sounds counterintuitive, but the sprinter guy needs less of a glycolytic stimulus when he does those long intervals. So By the numbers, I won't go too deep on this. This is something from Sebastian Weber, who kind of continued Alois Mater's research in sort of glycolytic work and VLA Max, but it's the you think of fractional utilization of VO2 max, we have fractional utilization of VLA Max. Same notion, but on the glycolytic or anaerobic side. You need to stress that system to either cause it to adapt, maintain, or if you don't stress it enough, it's going to reduce. Now, if we think about if you have a high glycolytic capacity. It needs a lot more stimulus just to stay where it is, or it's going to start to drop. So if we're doing a four by four, the aerobic guy who has a very low like glycolytic capacity doesn't need to do a lot of effort in the high intensities to stimulate glycolysis. So four by fours, you're probably going to find the aerobic guy is maintaining his glycolytic capacity and the sprinter type guy. will actually end up with a reduction in his glycolytic capacity. So if your goal is to become more aerobic and you're already more of a sprinter, you probably want to lean towards the longer intervals. Cause your goal is to reduce a glycolytic capacity and lift your aerobic. Are we good? Have I got you? You're following me? Cam Nicholls (19:51.106) Yeah, interesting. Ben Treble (19:52.578) Let's jump to the short intervals. So you take 4020s, 3015s. What happens between these two examples? You're gonna have the aerobic guy gets a significant glycolytic stimulus, potentially say 20, 25% utilization of VLA max. So you would expect him to lift his glycolytic capacity. So if you're typically a very slow twitch, lean guy genetically, and you actually want to do more crits and sprinting or lift your sprint. But you also want to work on VO2 max, you're going to lean towards doing these short hit intervals, the 4020s. If you're a sprinter, it also goes up the glycolytic utilization in the short intervals, but it only goes up to about 10%. So you would expect them to just maintain their sprint capacity. So if you have a sprinter that wants to do VO2 work and they're trying to maintain their glycolytic strength, they want to maintain their sprint. Then you would also do the short intervals. But if you get a sprinter who's trying to reduce their glycolytic capacity, so really lift the the aerobic and fat oxidation type aspects of training, you're gonna want to lean on the longer intervals. Cam Nicholls (21:05.644) Interesting. So it's not a one size fits all after all that. But did didn't this paper that Johan presented indicate that shorter were better? Ben Treble (21:17.57) Yeah. So think about this though, right? Most of those papers work on highly trained athletes who are gonna have this as a hypothesis because it's not typically measured, they're gonna have lower glycolytic capacity. So they're gonna spend more time in VO two max in the short intervals. But they we're talking about if you really look at the short versus the long intervals in these VO two max papers of for time above. The differences are still small, right? They're scientifically measurable, but we're talking about small differences that are measurable. I think most athletes probably have bigger goals than just lifting VO2 max. So I'm probably what I'm doing is trying to get people to look beyond those papers a little bit and ask deeper questions around do you want to think not just about VO2 Max, but equally think about maybe the best VO2 Max workout for you should be brought back to Are you more glycolytic or more aerobic? And what are your goals? Do you want to become more of a climber, maintain your climbing capacity, or are you trying to improve or maintain your sort of sprint glycolytic capacity? I think that needle, that decision point is a bigger decision point than the difference you would see in doing long versus short VO2 work. Cam Nicholls (22:36.12) Okay. So going back to my example now, I'm you know, I'm a simple man, Ben. I need I need you to spell it out for me. So I would consider myself more of a aerobic guy, more of a grinder. You know, I'm more of a climber, even though I don't look like a climber and I'm probably not a climber. That's just my skill set. And sprinting is definitely not a strength of mine. You know, being able to You know, neuromuscular repeatability, like the thought of going and doing a hot dog crit, like I'll be out the back straight away. You know, jump even this morning I was doing a local group ride and I jumped on a guy's wheel because we have like a little sprint to the signpost at the end. And you know, he's not a big sprinter, but there was no way I was getting around him. I was just sitting on his wheel, sprinting out of the saddle. So my you know, my sprint capacity, like I'm assuming that's the glycolytic system is is not that great, whereas the aerobic I think's reasonable. So why do you hypothesize that I'm responding well to like the longer VO two intervals when I do them? Ben Treble (23:41.452) Well, yeah, if I was to guess, you probably sit more in the middle. You wouldn't ha you're not an edge case for glycolytic. You're probably more in the middle, which is gonna be let's say your VLA max is between, I don't know, point four and point five, maybe. P 0.35 to point five, somewhere in here. And this is gonna come back to maybe for you, if only sit in the middle, it's coming back a little bit to what sort of work do you typically do? And you probably respond better to long intervals because you don't do them. True. And this comes back to, you know, some let's bring this really back out of the science to the core principles of training, which is you need stimulus and you need to stress the body to get adaptation, that often needs variability. So again, back to your original idea, which I think is really valuable for non-elite athletes, which is in the early days in training, it matters less which intervals you pick. But rather that you're consistent with your training, which often just requires variability. So I actually see that for some people, when you're early in your training journey, you're probably better off using a mixture of these interval style workouts. Cause you just want to create different stimulus, you want to test the body and you wanna see what works well. Often the intervals you find the hardest are the ones that will create the most stimulus because it's what your body's not good at. Cam Nicholls (25:04.61) Makes sense. Yeah. So I guess, you know, if people are out there listening, one of the key takeaways, I think first and foremost, if they were to favor one side or the other, they need to consider what type of rider they are. How do you do that without going and getting, you know, a blood test or whatever's required to identify this? Is it as simple as like, yeah, I'm really good at sprinting and good at repeating my sprinting and I'm terrible at climbing, or vice versa, or does it go deeper than that? Ben Treble (25:33.742) I think if you ask most people to self assess probably eight out of ten times, they'd be pretty close to saying, no no, I know that I'm I feel more comfortable doing long sub threshold efforts and I enjoy climbing versus the people who say, no, I consider myself more of a sprinter. I like doing high intensity interval work. I find that easier than doing tempo for two hours. I think that's a pretty good indicator. If you said, which one do you find easier and prefer and lean towards naturally? And that would tell you if you prefer more high intensity work, like you just you enjoy doing Hessions and you don't find them as taxing, you're probably more glycolytic. Cam Nicholls (26:17.996) Okay. Ben Treble (26:19.542) On the flip side, if you say, No, I love long climbs, I prefer long efforts and TTs, you're gonna be less glycolytic, more aerobic. Cam Nicholls (26:26.988) Okay. So then on top of that, like you still want variability irrespective. So yeah, you might tend to favor one or the other, but ultimately, yeah, you want that continuous shocking of the working muscles, the the different stressor, so you can progress. And as you said, you know, I probably respond best to the longer VO twos because I don't I don't do them. I only do them when I really want to peek for something. So it might be like once a year or once every eighteen months, do I actually go, All right, that five minute climb that I hate, I'm willing to go do, you know, repeated five minute VO two max efforts on it. Ben Treble (27:08.76) Yeah, I agree. I think there's a there's a big timing component. So the periodization in your say annual training plan. This conversation's probably most relevant if you really want to pick one and stick with it and work on a specific capacity. It's gonna be in your building phases in terms of the periodization, potentially even in the base periods. But once you get into the racing season or the specific components of your training blocks, I think the interval style you pick should really just be matched to the demands of your goal. So if your goal is to do crit races, I would still end up pushing people towards the shorter interval styles closer to their crit races because it's going to be more, you know, replicable within the race. It's going to replicate the race demands a lot better. Equally, if someone's going to do more hilly road races where they've got two to four minute climbs or even longer climbs, we're going to lean more towards longer intervals. Cam Nicholls (28:07.822) Well that's interesting, Ben. Thanks for your time. Was there anything else that you wanted to to mention or do you feel like we've we've wrapped up there? Ben Treble (28:16.512) No, I think it's the key takeaway for people is ask yourself a question. Would I consider myself more of a sprinter, more of a climber? What type of intervals do I find easier? And what is your goal? Like are you training to go over to Europe and do some big of the famous climbs in the Alps? Or are you training in the US because you want to do the crit season? Like two very different goals and depending on what type of rider you were when you asked the first question. probably gonna help indicate what type of intervals you should think about doing more than another. Cam Nicholls (28:51.17) Yep. Good. Well, if you're out there listening and you're like, well, I've just learned a fair bit there, but I'm still a little bit unsure about, you know, what's the best way to bring this into my training? How do I, you know, slowly progressively increase, you know, the intensity and difficulty sessions. When do I bring in short? When should I bring in long? Don't forget we're a coaching business here at the RCA, so you can head to our website, www dot roadcyclingacademy dot com. Check out one to one coaching. that's where you'll find Ben and a number of other coaches. And of course, if you're in Europe, don't forget, by the time this podcast goes live, Ben will be maybe settled in Europe or settling in Europe and ready to take on some European clients for the summer season. Thanks for your time, Ben. We'll catch everyone in the next podcast.  
• The Simple 6-Week FTP Boosting Plan Most Cyclists Ignore 02.06.2026 13min

  Are you stuck on a cycling performance plateau? Have your FTP gains stalled despite doing hard intervals, bunch rides and endless VO2 max sessions? In this episode of the RCA Podcast, Road Cycling Academy Head Coach Ryan Thomas explains why a dedicated block of tempo training (Zone 3) may be the missing piece in your training program. Many recreational and amateur cyclists spend too much time riding hard and not enough time developing their aerobic engine through structured progression. Ryan outlines a simple 6-week tempo training framework designed to improve muscular endurance, increase efficiency, reduce fatigue and set you up for bigger FTP gains later in the season. You'll learn: ✅ Why tempo training is one of the most underrated zones in cycling ✅ How to structure a 4-8 week training block for maximum benefit ✅ Why most cyclists plateau despite training hard ✅ The difference between random intensity and strategic progression ✅ How to reduce heart rate drift and improve aerobic efficiency ✅ How tempo training fits alongside bunch rides and high-intensity sessions ✅ What training should come after a tempo block ✅ Why amateur cyclists should train differently to professional cyclists Whether you're training for gran fondos, road races, criteriums, bunch rides or simply want to improve your FTP, this episode provides a practical framework that can help you train smarter and achieve more sustainable gains. 📥 Download Ryan's Tempo Progression PDF below. Topics Covered: Tempo Training for Cyclists Zone 3 Cycling Training FTP Improvement Cycling Performance Cycling Training Plans Endurance Cycling Threshold Training VO2 Max Training Heart Rate Drift Cycling Coaching Road Cycling Academy Amateur Cycling Performance How to Increase FTP Structured Cycling Training Cycling Fitness Progression Download the PDF here RCA's 12 Week Custom Plan: https://roadcyclingacademy.com/cycling-plan-custom/  Transcript:  Cam Nicholls (00:01.804) Welcome to the RCA Podcast, designed for recreational and amateur road cyclists with a focus on performance. We dive into cycling training, nutrition, strength training for cyclists and even bike fitting tips, all designed to help you train smarter, ride faster and hopefully tear your mates' legs off. So without further ado, let's dive into today's episode. Welcome back to the RCA podcast, which is also on YouTube. Today I'm joined by the RCA's head coach Ryan Thomas. And today we're going to extend a conversation we had recently about a simple way or a simple format or framework you can utilize to increase FTP. And it's all about periodizing through the zones or spending, you know, strategic periods of your training working specific zones. Right. And according to you said something interesting, Ryan, in that chat, which I've kind of clung on to. Which I think is really easy if if somebody's out there listening that that they can think about. I think YouTube and the internet is just covered in all sorts of different you know, workouts you can do, ways you can boost VO2 threshold and people will see a workout or they'll see something online and they'll go I'll try that. And they might try it for a week or two weeks or just not long enough. So, you know, understanding the way training peaks calculates fitness, they look at a six week rolling average. Forty-two days. Why is that? Because, you know, in a lot of the literature, you know, s it's sort of it doesn't implicitly say, but it suggests that you need roughly around six weeks for the body to sort of absorb a stressor that you're putting on it. In this case, you might be targeting a specific zone. And that's the stress. It could be upper anaerobic, it could be a VO2, it could be threshold. So today we're going to dial it right back and talk about if someone wanted to start on this journey. Where's the best place to start? Ryan Thomas (01:54.818) Zone three of tempo. It's usually the first place you would go. Cam Nicholls (01:58.444) Okay. So let's talk about it. Ryan Thomas (02:00.034) Yeah. So I think the like most people would see zone two. It's plus zone two's plus it everywhere. And they've you people are usually doing some sort of zone two and then some sort of high intensity. Yep. And I think the the thing that most people come to the RCA with is either fatigue or they're plateaued. So they're struggling to get an improvement and they're doing bunch rides and they're doing random intensity and usually it comes with fatigue. So I guess the negative Taking a step back. The negative of doing a lot of high intensity is the neuromuscular fatigue, the nervous system fatigue that just goes on and on and on and you don't give it a rest. The benefit of zone three of tempo is there's not a whole lot of neuromuscular fatigue. It's mainly ki you're keeping everything under threshold. You're not getting to a point where you're in that hard or severe domain where you're really getting you're really having to work hard. It's just working on efficiency, endurance and muscular endurance. So I don't think it's something that people dedicate time to for a six week period or it doesn't have to be six weeks, four to eight weeks, whatever it is. But I think it's really beneficial if you just focus on it for six weeks. Most people get to the end of that and they're like, I just feel good. Like I just feel good at riding in zone two, three threshold. You just feel steady, comfortable at riding at that. It's a very different sensation to doing VO2 and feeling really good at high power, but it's really beneficial for when you actually get into that type of work. So Cam Nicholls (03:21.154) Yeah, okay. Ryan Thomas (03:22.05) Kinda wanna start. We'll have a progression when you you'll be able to see this laid out, but six weeks kinda wanna start. Cam Nicholls (03:28.01) So when you say you'll be able to see this, we've got a downloadable for people below. Ryan Thomas (03:31.266) Yes, PD downloadable PDF goes through every progression week in for six weeks. and you do these once to twice a week. And you can do the same workout. So a lot of the things that we do, we try to keep it interesting, but if you get down to the basics, doing the same workout twice in a week is completely fine. Like that's you're hitting the same physiology. It actually is probably the best way to do it. So we're starting super simple tempo, zone three, eighty to eighty five percent of your threshold or critical power. And we're doing that for 10 minutes, three by ten minutes with five minutes recovery in zone one. So that's a pretty easy workout. And most people will go and do that and be like, that didn't really do anything. Like it felt really easy, didn't really get my heart rate high. It was like I want to go harder. And that you should feel like that. In tempo stuff, you kind of should feel like you want to go harder. But it's really important for this type of work is to stay controlled. Stay in your zone because we're working on efficiency and muscular endurance. You go harder. What starts happening is you start accumulating lactate, your heart rate starts to rise, you start acc recruiting fast-rich muscle fibers, that starts adding the fatigue and it takes away, it's not targeting what you want it to. So you get up around threshold, very glycolytic dependent, you're a lot of glycogen down in tempo, just kind of mixed fat and carbs. So there's a whole bunch of stuff happening there that we're targeting. So as soon as you get above the target, kind of not doing it. So it's really important to teach control. Minimise that fatigue week in, week out, and we do it for six weeks. Cam Nicholls (04:58.914) Yeah, okay. And you you know, if people are gonna adopt something like this where they do target an upper end aerobic zone being tempo in this case, they can still do a like a bunch ride once a week or something where they just go tear it to shreds. But the rest of the riding is done in more of that strategic Yes. Obviously a bit of zone two, but also the tempo that you talk about. Ryan Thomas (05:12.822) Hundred percent. Ryan Thomas (05:20.11) Yes. And I to like high intensity interval training. Zone three is h interval training. It's intensity. It's just lower intensity than what a bunch ride would be or a VO two session or a threshold would be. And that that's there's a reason for that. We want to keep it reasonably easy. By the end of the six weeks, the progression goes through when we increase time in zone three. We increase the percentage light slightly up to ninety percent. We decrease recovery. during those intervals and we get all the way up to the last interval session in the at the six week mark is a forty to forty five minute effort at eighty five to ninety percent of threshold. Or you can do two by twenties at eighty five to ninety percent. So up to you. But that's a hard effort. Like you do forty five minutes at ninety percent the top end, by the end of it you're gonna be hurting. But that's the whole point. We start easy and gradually overload, gradually stress the system a little bit more each week and that starts to give really good benefits. This podcast is Cam Nicholls (06:13.294) Brought to you by the Road Cycling Academy. If you're a recreational or amateur road cyclist and you're stuck on a frustrating performance plateau, feeling like you need some guidance, but you're not quite ready to dive straight into one-to-one coaching. At the RCA, we've created something called the 12-week custom plan, which we believe would be your perfect next step. It starts off with an upfront deep dive call with your coach who will understand your goals, your riding preferences, what your not negotiable rides are. And where you want to go, then they'll create a fully tailored 12-week custom plan that is supported over the 12-week period. We believe it's the perfect intermediate step, giving you a taste of working with a coach and experiencing a customized plan without committing to full coaching. Our writers are seeing real results too, and you can go to our Google reviews to see this. Marvin recently shaved over 30 minutes off his Grafton to Inverel time from doing the 12-week custom plan. Adam gained 20 watts on his FTP in 12 weeks and 40 watts on his five minute power. And we have riders completing rides that they've failed in previous attempts, like Peaks, Challenge, all from doing this 12 week custom plan. So if you're ready to break through, head to the roadcyclingacademy.com. In the menu system, you'll see our 12 week custom plan and take the first step towards that next level performance. Now let's get back to the podcast. Okay. So if someone was to do this, first and foremost, what should they experience over the six weeks if they're focusing majority of their work on upper end aerobic? Ryan Thomas (07:49.716) Usually you will decrease your RPE at that level. So we have to keep in mind that the intensity is increasing slightly, the intervals are getting longer. So theoretically we want to see less drift over that time. So if the first session is more of an introductory session, so it's not super taxing at all. But as the weeks go on, that heart rate at that power level, let's say eighty five percent, we should see that heart rate come down a little bit. So if you're finishing one of those intervals and you're finishing at 160 beats per minute, Keep an eye on that. Note where your finishing heart rate is sitting. And then over the weeks, compare, this week I finished my 12 minute effort on my 15 minute effort and it was 155. That's five beats less than what I was doing in the first week. So that heart rate drop, the the decrease in decoupling. So what's your heart rate doing in the first effort versus the last effort? That should change week in, week out. And you should be out theoretically, you should be able to push the higher end of the zones as well in terms of power. Cam Nicholls (08:43.116) Yeah. That's certainly what I noticed when I used to coach people as you'd see in these tempo efforts is that, you know, their heart rate would just be drifting or decoupling, as you said. And it would be quite high. And then after sort of four or five weeks it's stopped drifting as much and it comes down. And they're like, this session's feeling really easy. And it's like, Well, look, you can't have vascular systems responding. you're adapting to the training. So I think it's interesting training for people because yeah, mu people say, Well, I do tempo work, but you you're probably doing tempo when you're supposed to be doing zone two. A lot of people do that because tempo feels a bit eas easier and you're probably doing a random tempo effort and fading out towards the end. Yeah. You're not doing strategic blocked work where you're giving yourself recovery and then going again. Yeah. So what's one of the negative things people can experience if they did this type of training? And I'm maybe I'll put some words in your mouth here because I feel like, you know, people do Ryan Thomas (09:26.07) Yes, exactly. Cam Nicholls (09:35.5) Yeah, their goal is to do the local group ride. They want to get from the A to the B group or the B to the A group, I should say. Not the other way around or, you know, they're racing or or something like that. You will over time tend to lose a bit of that upper end stuff by doing this, won't you? So don't expect to get really good sprint power or anaerobic power from this type of training. Ryan Thomas (09:41.824) Yeah. Ryan Thomas (09:57.24) Yeah, and typically I wouldn't as a coach and prescribing this stuff, I wouldn't do it sol would this wouldn't be your only intensity in a six week period. You wouldn't usually only do this type of work. So if you're gonna implement this, maybe you choose this once a week or during three interval sessions, you do this twice a week and then you do bunch ride or you do some sprints or you do some sort of high intensity stuff to maintain that because we don't want to lose that. Like you're going through training, it you don't need to be doing only one thing. It's like you're not gonna go out and do six weeks of zone two only because you're gonna lose a lot of your top end. Get bored. Yeah, and you get bored. So yeah, there's other important factors, but focusing on that natural progression each week, using one to two workouts a week where you can do it and then do other stuff around it as well. Cam Nicholls (10:43.214) Yeah. And there is like even if you did say you wanted to overindex on it, because I've certainly done this before. I've gone, you know what, I'm just spending the next four to six weeks, mainly zone two and tempo. And I might do one bunch ride. And I don't care if my bunch ride is not that great. As long as I can get through it. Mm-hmm. Once I then get to the next round of training, I'm fresh. So when I do get into the intense stuff, I'm like, I'm ready to go. Plus I've got a really robust aerobic base because I've kind of maybe overindexed on it. Ryan Thomas (11:02.296) Yes. Cam Nicholls (11:10.85) been willing to push aside the high intensity stuff for a period, but I'm it pays dividends longer term. That's certainly been the case for me. Ryan Thomas (11:18.094) I think this is it's a really good point and I think it's so much more applicable to the everyday amateur athlete than it is a professional athlete. Exactly. So that they will see what the pros are doing and say, I just need to do that. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no. No I've like far from the truth. It's because they have so much time to recover. You have no time to recover as a full time dad worker. You literally can't spend like your rest your recovery time is the hour before you go to sleep. Yep. So it's like there's no recovery time there. So if you're constantly doing trying to replicate what the pros are doing, it's not going to work. You need that period of training where you're not stressing your body too much. Yeah. So that you when it comes time to do four weeks of VO two work, you're ready and you can really crush that for four weeks and then you back it off. Go again. Cam Nicholls (12:09.558) If you wanted to go buy the book, not that there's a book about this, but if you wanted to like take it to the next level and maybe this is a the next video and podcast we do, what happens after this six weeks? What are we transitioning to? More sweet spot, threshold, sub threshold work? Would that be the next one? Ryan Thomas (12:26.04) Yeah, you would mix in a bit of threshold and VO two. So you kinda wanna take it up. So usually twelve to sixteen weeks is kind of the period of training for any this is what we've found out of the RCA is that any amateur athlete who has other stuff going on, if you're training for more than twelve to sixteen weeks in a block, usually you're gonna start to fatigue. And if you don't rest before that sixteen weeks and you keep going and going and going, you're gonna drop or you're gonna plateau and it's gonna be really hard. So don't wanna think about training too much in the long term because there's so much context for these sub for everyone listening. So we focus on that six weeks and then the six to eight weeks after that, that's where you want to really knuckle down. And that's where you're going to get your peak fitness out of. And we don't want to sustain that for much longer. And the way you peak your fitness is VO two, threshold, sprints, anaerobic work. Depends what your goal is. Yeah. Cam Nicholls (13:14.638) Okay. Cool. All right. Well, we'll leave it at that. Ryan's put together a, as we mentioned earlier, a PDF which goes through some workout progression in tempo that you can do. We'll put a link to it below and we'll catch everyone in the next show.  
• Time to Move on from FTP Tests (Critical Power Simply Explained) 27.05.2026 18min

  In this episode of the Road Cycling Academy podcast, Cam Nicholls sits down with RCA Head Coach Ryan Thomas to break down one of the most talked-about topics in modern cycling training: Critical Power vs FTP. If you've ever wondered: What is critical power? Is FTP testing outdated? How do you test critical power? Why do some cyclists struggle at threshold but excel in VO2 max efforts? How do professional coaches use power profiling? …then this episode is for you. Start the RCA's 12 Week Custom Plan: https://roadcyclingacademy.com/cycling-plan-custom/  Ryan explains critical power in simple, practical terms for recreational and amateur cyclists — without getting lost in overly scientific jargon. The conversation explores why many coaches and platforms are now moving beyond traditional 20-minute FTP testing and toward more accurate methods of assessing cycling performance and training zones. The episode also covers: The difference between FTP and Critical Power Why critical power better reflects lactate threshold How to perform a simple 3-minute and 12-minute critical power test What W' (W Prime) means in cycling performance How power curves reveal what type of rider you are Why some riders are naturally stronger at VO2 max than threshold The importance of testing multiple energy systems How coaches use power profiling to personalise training Why FTP alone often fails to tell the full story Cam and Ryan also discuss real-world coaching examples from recreational cyclists and criterium racers, showing how two riders with similar FTPs can have completely different strengths on the bike. Whether you're training for: criterium racing, gran fondos, endurance cycling events, climbing performance, or simply trying to become a stronger recreational cyclist, this episode will help you better understand your physiology, your training zones, and how to train smarter. Topics Covered Critical Power Testing FTP vs Critical Power Lactate Threshold Cycling Power Curves VO2 Max Training Threshold Training Cycling Coaching Cycling Performance Testing Power-Based Training TrainingPeaks W Prime Explained Cycling Physiology Recreational Cycling Performance Amateur Cycling Training About the RCA Podcast The RCA Podcast from the Road Cycling Academy is designed for recreational and amateur road cyclists who want practical, science-based advice on: cycling training, nutrition, strength training, bike fitting, recovery, and performance improvement. 🎧 Listen now and learn how modern cycling coaching is evolving beyond traditional FTP testing. Transcript:  Cam Nicholls (00:01.804) Welcome to the RCA Podcast, designed for recreational and amateur road cyclists with a focus on performance. We dive into cycling training, nutrition, strength training for cyclists and even bike fitting tips, all designed to help you train smarter, ride faster and hopefully tear your mates' legs off. So without further ado, let's dive into today's episode. Welcome back to the RCA podcast, which is also on YouTube. Today I'm joined by the RCA's head coach, Ryan Thomas. And today, Ryan, we're going to talk about critical power for laymans. I'm a little bit of a layman when it comes to critical power. And I think there are a lot of people out there that still are, despite the fact that it's used over FTP quite often these days. Yep. So I don't want to go too deep into the weeds with critical power, which I'm conscious you can. I want to try and stay high-level. But I think before we talk about you know, critical power for laymans and, you know, how to test it and what it's about. Maybe if we can just talk about FTP first, because it's kind of a different mechanism to using FTP as your way to work out your zones and your threshold and all this kind of stuff. So how is it different to FTP? Ryan Thomas (01:13.516) Yeah, well I I actually think of FTP just as a term. Okay. But it's typically by the layman, it's thought of as one way to test and that's a twenty minute effort. Typically with a five minute effort before. And it's your approximate sixty minute maximal peak power. That's what they were trying to achieve out of the FTP testing, the old school five minute all out effort, and then your twenty minute all out effort and you take ninety five percent of that. And it's Cam Nicholls (01:31.265) FTP testing. Cam Nicholls (01:39.402) Most people don't do the five minute effort though, let's face it. It's a twenty minute test. Ryan Thomas (01:43.47) still pretty close to estimating your 60 minute maximal power. Which is essentially what they were trying to find a number that estimates your metabolic steady state. Yep. Which was pretty close. And it's a good test, but there's been yeah more science around critical power and your actual power profile and it's shown to be closer to what your actual metabolic steady state is. Cam Nicholls (01:47.118) Yeah, okay. Cam Nicholls (02:06.146) Okay. Right. So it's been proven in the literature then that it is more effective. Yes. Identifying that steady state. Ryan Thomas (02:13.346) Yeah, it's more closely related to your actual L T two. So where your lactate curve, so your lactate threshold two. Yep. We have two lactate thresholds. The first inflection point if you're doing a lactate test is the L T one or your top of your typical zone two. And then your second lactate point is your threshold or your functional threshold power, your critical power, or whatever however you want to determine it. Okay. Or describe it. But critical power is found to be closer to what your actual lactate threshold is as opposed to your approximate sixty minute maximum peak power. Cam Nicholls (02:45.646) Okay, interesting. And I feel in addition to it being more scientifically valid, it's actually maybe less daunting for people to do in terms of the testing protocol, external to the ramp test, which you can do if you're testing FTP, because that's just like a ramp to failure. It's pretty easy to get through, even though it can be inaccurate if people are actually doing which I mean most people aren't doing it as well. Yeah. Ryan Thomas (02:55.35) One hundred percent. Ryan Thomas (03:02.189) Yes. Ryan Thomas (03:09.152) Yes. Cam Nicholls (03:14.464) You know, not testing. So that's another rabbit hole for another day. But s with critical power, you know, before we talk about how you were using it, like how are we testing first and foremost? Ryan Thomas (03:25.282) Yeah, so whenever I'm talking to a member and I say, we're gonna do testing, you can see their faces just go, no, I'm gonna have to do a long, hard effort. Yeah. And then I say, we're using critical power testing and we're using a three and a twelve minute effort. They're like, is that all? So like people respond really well to that and they find it much more easy to achieve by doing a shorter effort than a twenty minute or however long you want to do. But the Science suggests you need anywhere from two to four perimeters. So two to four durations that you choose, and typically between two to twenty minutes is what you would choose in your range. The initial examples were three and twelve. And three and twelve would pretty much get you pretty close to if you were to do four tests. So we recommend you do a three minute, a twelve minute, and if you have time and the motivation to do a five minute. Okay. The five minute is optional and the reason I call it optional is that usually you get within two to four watts without the five minute by just using the three and the twelve. Okay. And we do those on separate days. So we want those to be your maximal effort, not on fatigue legs, not going in after a f effort. We we want these to be maximal, fresh, ready to go, your best power that you can produce on the day. Cam Nicholls (04:43.158) Okay. And separate days for the three minute and the twelve minute? Ryan Thomas (04:46.392) Separate days. Yes. Okay. Cam Nicholls (04:48.632) So if someone was like listening and going, okay, maybe I should trial this, how would they like what would a week look like to do the three minute and the 12 minute test? Would you do them back to back days? Would you spread it out over the week? obviously you want to be fresh that week as well. So don't, you know, come off the back of a a huge volume week where you've done 20 hours and five bunch rides or whatever it might be. So you go into the week fresh, what would it look like to do the three minute test and the the 12 minute test? Ryan Thomas (05:09.272) Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Ryan Thomas (05:15.33) Yeah, usually I would give someone a day off. Yeah, easy week before the day off, let's say starting on a Monday is a simple way to think about it. Start on a Monday with your day off. On Tuesday, do some sort of activations to get your body ready after having an easy week so that you're primed for that three minute effort. Yep. Following day, Wednesday, for example, you would do your three minute. and the key here is you need to do some activations before. You don't just go do twenty minutes at zone two and then go into this three minute effort because you'll get a sh big shock. Yes. after an easy week. So you do a couple activation efforts, some thirty second efforts, a ramp to threshold, something like that to open the legs. Recover for five, ten minutes and then go for your three minute. Yep. You can do the twelve minute the next day. So on the Thursday, because a three minute effort on its own isn't super exhausting. So you recover pretty quick from one s one individual three minute effort. Okay. Particularly twenty four hours later. So I usually do a back to back days. Okay. But if you schedule a lines and a day in between's fine. Okay. Yeah, that's it. Once you've done those two efforts, we can we can get you critical power. There's so many different calculators out there. we can I'll tr I'll leave a I'll put a spread a link to a spreadsheet below that you can use. Okay. The key is there's some calculators out there that this is where it becomes even easier for the layman is if you've got a segment or a Striva segment that's two and a half minutes or it's three minutes fifteen or it's your longer ones Cam Nicholls (06:38.638) Doesn't have to be three minutes. Ryan Thomas (06:40.086) No, it doesn't have to be. And you can change the duration in these calculators to the seconds. So this the calculators are usually based around the seconds of effort. Yep. So you can adjust based on it doesn't have to be bang on three minutes. Okay. So that's also a benefit of doing this type of testing. Cam Nicholls (06:55.384) So if someone's done the the three roughly three minute test and roughly twelve minute test, could be eleven minutes, thirteen minutes, as you said, depends on the hill, depends what's practical for somebody. Yeah. And they punch it into the calculator, what are they going to be presented with? Ryan Thomas (07:08.61) You'll get your critical power number or your threshold. So you need a change in mindset is that critical power number is your threshold. And that's the setting that you use in training peaks for your threshold number. Cam Nicholls (07:20.022) Okay, so we're now getting if we've had an old FTP or an estimated FTP, goodbye. Goodbye. Okay. In the big Okay, replace that thinking, and now we have a critical power number. Okay. Ryan Thomas (07:25.838) Replace that thinking. We have a critical power number. Okay. Yes. And we use that as your leverage for your zones. So that number will leverage your zones for the rest of your zones. The other other number that you'll get is a number that's W with a little asterisk and it's a watt prime or W W prime. Right. And essentially it's measured in joules. So joules is energy. and it's energy that you can expend above critical power. Okay. So if you think about your power curve. Anything above critical power within that curve, in that exponential curve, all that area in the middle is how it's calculated and that's energy that you can expend. Okay. Every time you go above, let's say critical power's three hundred watts in an event or a bunch ride, you go above three hundred watts, those joules gets taken away from how much you can expend. And theoretically, once you s expend all of those joules or you're above critical power for a certain amount of time, you're empty and that's you're a failure. And it it's really accurate. Cam Nicholls (08:22.99) Okay. Ryan Thomas (08:25.122) So if you were go to go and do an FF to 320 watts and your critical power is 300, we could tell you pretty close to the second when you're going to fail at 320 watts. So it's really accurate in that sense. There's not many practical applications for that unless you're a professional athlete or you're doing really short time trials, but it's a good way to measure how much energy change when you're doing testing over a period of time. Now it does that. energy above critical power change. Do you get more? Have you done training that gives you less energy above but increases your critical power? So there's a whole bunch of play, interplay that goes on with these numbers that gives you a lot more data than just doing a straight 20 blood effort. It gives you one number. This Cam Nicholls (09:09.09) Podcast is brought to you by the Road Cycling Academy. If you're a recreational or amateur road cyclist and you're stuck on a frustrating performance plateau, feeling like you need some guidance, but you're not quite ready to dive straight into one-to-one coaching. At the RCA, we've created something called the 12 week custom plan, which we believe would be your perfect next step. It starts off with an upfront deep dive call with your coach who will understand your goals, your riding preferences, what your not negotiable rides are. And where you want to go, then they'll create a fully tailored 12-week custom plan that is supported over the 12-week period. We believe it's the perfect intermediate step, giving you a taste of working with a coach and experiencing a customized plan without committing to full coaching. Our writers are seeing real results too, and you can go to our Google reviews to see this. Marvin recently shaved over 30 minutes off his Grafton to Inverel time from doing the 12-week custom plan. Adam gained 20 watts on his FTP in 12 weeks and 40 watts on his five minute power. And we have riders completing rides that they've failed in previous attempts like Peaks, Challenge, all from doing this 12-week custom plan. So if you're ready to break through, head to the roadcyclingacademy.com. In the menu system, you'll see our 12-week custom plan and take the first step towards that next level performance. Now let's get back to the podcast. So How does it correlate then? I'm going to give you a use case. All right. So recently I had a call with a recreational writer who, like most, actually hasn't done any official testing. Yep. So he had a rough FTP number. but he was doing some pretty good training. So I would say maybe his rough was actually, you know, pretty good in comparison to, you know, some others that I've heard about. And he said to me, Cam, I I really struggle with sub threshold efforts. So, you know, that's maybe ninety percent of FTP in his world or ninety-five percent of FTP. He was doing six to eight minute intervals. Yep. And I was thinking, hmm, you shouldn't really be struggling, you know, if you're conditioned. But then he said, which suggests that he does have some good conditioning, but I find three minute efforts at VO2 max are quite easy. Yeah. And I'm like, so here's a rider where perhaps he isn't that strong at threshold, but he's actually really strong at VO two. So Cam Nicholls (11:30.85) How does critical power support a rider like that? Ryan Thomas (11:34.476) Yeah, it's a really good use case because the essentially critical power is modeling your power curve. So if you see on the new training peaks, if you're in the analyze function or the there's extra graphs in the analyze 360 now that will predict your power curve. Okay. So if you've done a couple of hard efforts anywhere across your power curve, it'll make that curve exponential and it'll flatten out at some point. So what the power curve what the critical power is trying to do is Cam Nicholls (12:00.334) And just hold that thought. I'm gonna interrupt, just for those who have never seen or heard of a power curve before. Yeah. We kind of look at like top end. What can you do for like one second, five second, ten second, thirty second, one minute, three minute, five minute. Ryan Thomas (12:14.2) Yep, three, five, six, ten. Ten. Cam Nicholls (12:16.61) And and it just kind of it extrapolates out. Ryan Thomas (12:19.128) Yeah, and the benefit of training P it looks at every second of that curve. So two minutes and five seconds is on there. So you'll peak for that duration. Cam Nicholls (12:26.958) So if you're like a really conditioned rider who's racing and really focused, you're probably gonna have all these numbers. But if you're a recreational and amateur that's never really looked at this before, you're probably gonna have no idea. So the critical power is kind of by doing that three or two minute whatever test and the the twelve minute test, it's it's kind of plotting that out for somebody. Ryan Thomas (12:36.906) Exactly. Yeah. Ryan Thomas (12:45.496) Exactly. Yep. It's estimating your power curve. And what what the benefit of that is if we do a three minute test and your three minute is relatively to someone who's not very strong in that anaerobic PO2 area, if it's much higher than another person, then it'll adjust the curve down the bottom end. So we're assuming that you're not very strong aerobically and anaerobically you're really strong. Whereas if you're 12 minute relatively to your three minute, there's fifty watts difference instead of a hundred watts, for example. Yes. then we're assuming that you're aerobically quite strong. So it's going to adjust your critical power based on that. And it gives us those markers. So if you're doing a three minute VO2 effort, for example, we know that your best three minute ever is 400 watts. So if we're getting, if you're doing efforts and you're like you're they're set at 300 watts, then there's nowhere near what you're capable of. So it gives us a marker to base your efforts on as well. So we know what that limit is. So we can go pretty close to that limit. In terms of prescribing intervals and j three minute duration, for example, pretty close to that limit and repeat it one after the other. And that's where the big benefit comes from this type of stuff is that we're getting multiple maximal peak powers that we know you're capable of. And we want to push right up to that ceiling, repeat it over and over and over for weeks, and that's that's where we go. Whereas you don't do these tests, you don't do a three minute or a five minute or a 12 minute. Cam Nicholls (13:50.253) Yes. Ryan Thomas (14:09.176) We only know what your peak twenty minute power is. What we don't have no idea what's happening with the top end of your curve if you've never done a maximal effort there. Yes. We might have done a couple efforts like ninety, ninety five percent of max, but it may be thirty watts off, so how do we know? Cam Nicholls (14:22.424) Yeah. It's interesting. I was editing a a client testimonial for the RCA today. We'll drop a link below, Andrew, if you're out there listening. And he was actually saying, you know, one of the things that he really enjoyed about the process of of working with the RCA was identifying what type of writer he was, which I assume is part of the critical power testing protocol. And, you know, he's not a very strong FTP writer, but he's a really good A grade club level crit writer that wins. And his FTP, if you heard it, it particularly when you consider his weight, watts per kilo, is actually not that great. Yeah. Like on paper, I would be a lot stronger than him, but I can't win an A great club level race. But he's very good at repeating, you know, the three minute or the one minute or the two minute efforts. Yeah. Which makes him a really good crit right. Ryan Thomas (15:11.022) Well yeah, contextually so his his peak power's around fifteen, sixteen hundred watts. Okay. So enormous neuromuscular. Enormous neuromuscular. Pretty good. Cam Nicholls (15:20.216) For a forty seven year old, is he or forty six? Ryan Thomas (15:23.374) Unbelievable. I've never haven't seen you don't see that in the Proviello much at all. Like he's a big guy, but doesn't matter. Sixteen hundred watts is still sixteen hundred watts at the end of a going seventy K an hour, like it dust mean a sprint, that's for sure. Yeah. Cam Nicholls (15:28.012) Yeah, okay. Cam Nicholls (15:37.112) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, there's a use case, you know, a lot of people do FDP tests and maybe, you know, if you're not genetically predisposed to have a good threshold, people go, Well, I'm not a good cyclist. Yeah. Well, actual fact, it's only one use c well, a very good use case, you know, which helps a lot of people work out their zones and, you know, be able to operate at threshold, et cetera. But it misses a lot of the picture. Ryan Thomas (15:59.118) I think so, yeah. It does work and it gets critical power and the sixty minute approximate maximal peak power are usually within it's very dependent, but it's like within five percent. So you're getting close, but it's how you it's the rest of the picture in when you're looking at critical power testing is the big benefit for me. It gets it's a much better measure for your metabolic steady state, but it's the other stuff that it's giving you, the other benefits of that are other maximal peak powers and the power profiling that Most good coaches would do regardless anyway. So if you're doing a twenty minute effort, you would do s other short maximal efforts to get your power profile correct. But if you're an amateur out there just riding around and you're just doing a twenty minute and you don't know what your peak two minute, one minute, five minute is, then what type of rider are you? You don't really know until you do it. Cam Nicholls (16:43.714) don't know. Yeah. The other interesting point is like if you are like trying to improve and you're going through maybe your own training plan or you're working with a coach to be able to get to the six week mark and retest or twelve week mark and retest, unless you say you're not inclined to have a big increase in threshold. And then you do the test and you're like, the training hasn't been doing anything. But if you've got another test there, which I think was the case for Andrew, who didn't have a huge increase in thresh his critical power, I should say, his ability to operate at critical power increased significantly. Yeah. But where he saw big improvement was his three minute, which I think went up by fifty watts in in twelve weeks. Yeah. so once again if he didn't do that test, wouldn't Ryan Thomas (17:22.584) Exactly. Yeah. And testing is I say this to all all the athletes that I work with is testing is like it's you have to be on your best day, right? It's hard to and if you have testing across three different days, one day you might have a good day, you might have a bad day the next day and an average day the other day. So if we have three or four measures to go on, then usually one of them's gonna be good. Or if for whatever reason it's you have a busy life or stress and stuff happens and we use that context, but you say we can still say, three minute went up twenty watts, but this was just a bad day. other day. So it gives a yeah, gives us a lot to work with. Cam Nicholls (17:55.598) Yeah, cool. All right. Well, I think that's soldered to me. Critical power came in after my time as a coach. Yep. so I feel like I'm still learning about it and then the use cases and you know how powerful it can be for pretty much any writer. So we'll drop a link to the calculator below or in the podcast description, and we'll catch everyone in the next show.  
• Cycling & Lower Back Pain: The Hidden Cause Most Riders Miss 19.05.2026 11min

  Summary Cycling causing lower back pain? Dealing with sciatica, disc injuries, or recurring pain after long rides? In this episode of the RCA Podcast, Cam Nicholls sits down with expert bike fitter and sports physiotherapist Neil Stanbury to unpack one of the most frustrating issues cyclists face: lower back disc problems. Neil explains the difference between common muscular lower back pain and more serious disc-related issues, why cyclists can develop chronic back pain from asymmetry on the bike, and how poor biomechanics may contribute to disc irritation and sciatica symptoms. In this episode we cover: ✔️ The difference between muscular back pain and disc injuries ✔️ What disc herniations and annular tears actually are ✔️ How poor bike position and hip asymmetry can overload the spine ✔️ Why cyclists may experience sciatica, hamstring tightness, or numbness ✔️ Bike fit changes that may reduce lower back stress ✔️ Recovery strategies including swimming, strength training, ice baths, sauna and inflammation management ✔️ Whether core strength training can help prevent future issues If you're a recreational or amateur cyclist struggling with recurring back pain, stiffness after rides, or nerve symptoms down the leg, this episode may help you understand the causes and potential solutions. Subscribe for more cycling training advice, bike fit insights, injury prevention tips and performance content for recreational road cyclists. #Cycling #LowerBackPain #BikeFit #Sciatica #CyclingInjuries #RoadCycling #CyclingPerformance #BackPain #DiscInjury #CyclingTips
• Bike Fitter's Top 3 Race Bikes (geometry & adjustability) 13.05.2026 11min

  Podcast Summary In this episode of the RCA Podcast, Cam Nicholls sits down with expert bike fitter Neill Stanbury to break down their top three modern race bikes — but from a bike fitting and geometry perspective rather than the usual marketing hype around stiffness and aerodynamics. Neill explains why geometry, sizing range, and adjustability matter far more for recreational and amateur cyclists than marginal aerodynamic gains. The conversation dives into why some bikes suit a wider variety of riders, how aggressive race geometries can limit comfort and performance, and why finding the right fit can completely transform your riding experience. The episode highlights three standout bikes: The Pinarello Dogma for its exceptional sizing range and geometry options. The Cannondale SuperSix EVO for balancing race-bike performance with a less aggressive fit. The Polygon Helios for riders needing an ultra-aggressive, long-and-low racing position. The discussion finishes with a broader conversation about how the "best" bike is often the one that actually fits your body correctly — not necessarily the most expensive or aerodynamic option. Key Points 1. Bike Geometry Matters More Than Marginal Aero Gains Neill argues that for most recreational cyclists, bike fit and geometry are far more important than tiny aerodynamic or stiffness differences between modern superbikes. 2. Modern Race Bikes Are All Extremely Good According to Neill, there are very few genuinely "bad" bikes at the top end of the market anymore. Most performance differences come down to rider fit and comfort rather than frame technology alone. 3. Pinarello Dogma Excels in Sizing Options The Dogma stood out because of its massive sizing range, with 11 frame sizes that allow extremely precise fitting for riders of vastly different body proportions. 4. More Sizes = Better Fit, But Higher Cost Neill explains that producing more frame molds dramatically increases manufacturing costs, which partly explains premium bike pricing. 5. Cannondale SuperSix EVO Balanced Comfort and Performance The previous-generation SuperSix EVO was praised for having a taller front end and less aggressive geometry, making it ideal for middle-aged riders wanting race-bike performance without extreme flexibility demands. 6. Modern Bikes Are Becoming More Aggressive Again Neill notes that the latest SuperSix geometry has become more aggressive, which may reduce its suitability for everyday amateur riders. 7. Polygon Helios Is Built for Aggressive Racers The Polygon Helios was highlighted for its extremely long-and-low geometry, making it ideal for younger, flexible, performance-focused racers. 8. The "Best Bike" Depends on Your Body The episode reinforces that choosing a bike based on your body proportions, flexibility, and riding goals is far more important than chasing pro-level marketing claims. 9. Comfort Can Improve Performance Cam shares how finally finding the right geometry significantly improved his comfort and long-duration power output after years of riding unsuitable setups. 10. Bike Fit Education Matters The episode concludes by promoting RCA's Bike Fit Fundamentals program, designed to help cyclists better understand what bike geometries suit them best. Bike Fit Fundamtenals: https://roadcyclingacademy.com/bike-fit-fundamentals/    Transcript:  Cam Nicholls (00:01.804) Welcome to the RCA podcast designed for recreational and amateur road cyclists with a focus on performance. We dive into cycling training, nutrition, strength training for cyclists and even bike fitting tips all designed to help you train smarter, ride faster and hopefully tear your mates legs off. So without further ado, let's dive into today's episode. Welcome back to the RCA podcast, which is also on YouTube. So please excuse any visual references. Today I'm joined by expert bike fitter, Neil Stanbury. Neil's going to give us his top three favourite race bikes, but we're not talking about how stiff it is and how fast it goes. We're talking about... Neill Stanbury (00:45.581) Geometry and adjustability. Or d-d-d-d-d So these are the things that really matter to me. Because when you're talking about the level that you and I would be potentially racing at, or most people watching this podcast, the tiny 1%, you know, two watts here at 50 kilometers an hour, that kind of stuff, the aerodynamics of the Frank... It just doesn't matter. Cam Nicholls (00:46.926) adjustability. Cam Nicholls (01:03.786) important very very important Neill Stanbury (01:07.924) Okay, all of these bikes, the top end of the road bike of the road bike world is all so good now that it's actually getting hard to sort of delineate much between them in terms of like the speed and the stiffness and the ride quality and all this sort of stuff. They're so good. There's so many that we have to choose from. There's very few real dog bikes out there anymore, I find. Yeah. Cam Nicholls (01:28.622) I'll also ask the boys at the Nero show, that's what they're doing every week. There's lots of dog bikes apparently. Neill Stanbury (01:33.07) Yeah, well, I mean, they're looking at it. They're looking at the aesthetics of it and that sort of stuff. Honestly, I've had my butt kicked by 65 year old guys on steel framed down tube shifted bikes with the levers on the down tube. I've kicked some guys with a 15, $20,000 Pinarello. The legs are what does, you know, what makes the bike go around. So this is the stuff that they're more interest me, which is the geometry. Let's go with number one. The number one that I love the most dealing with is the Pinarello Dogma. Cam Nicholls (02:00.206) Geez, if you've got a spare 30 grand floating around. Neill Stanbury (02:02.913) That's the problem. Cam Nicholls (02:04.92) You went bad with Pinarello these days Bill, yeah what's going on here? I've never heard you mention this bike and now all of a sudden... Neill Stanbury (02:10.568) I've been riding a dogma for about a week now. Yeah, Now why do I love the dogma? Yes, it is expensive. We're not talking about the cost. It is a beautiful race bike from all reports. Yeah, cost aside. This is the stuff that I love about it. So they apparently ride really well. They're very stiff. They handle well. They've got all those good attributes. Cam Nicholls (02:14.764) Yeah, you got three in your head. Cam Nicholls (02:24.216) we should have prefaced his cost to size. Neill Stanbury (02:34.11) like a lot of these bikes that we'll talk about. But what is best about them is the sizing range. They are amazing. So for example, just yesterday by a stroke of good fortune, I had a lovely lady from Northern New South Wales, Karen, if you're watching this, I hope you're enjoying these videos. Karen was very short, you know, not to beat around the bush. She was pretty small. She had been advised to buy a Dogma in the or the 415 size, the smaller size that they have, which was a great decision because it matched her perfectly. The smaller size Dogma F has a reach dimension of 350mm. Which is like, it's the smallest bike in the world. there's very, it's, if someone out there knows a road bike with 700c wheels that has a shorter reach than 350 whatever, I think it's 351 or 352mm, please let me know. But they are tiny. This bike suited her beautifully. It had an 80mm stem on it. It was perfect. She had a seat height of about 620 millimetres, so short legs, short arms. These bikes go tiny. They also go really big. And in between those, there are 11 sizes. Eleven! It's fantastic. A lot of modern bike brands, you'll get five sizes, right? There'll be an extra small, a small, a medium, a large, and an extra large. And the reason for that primarily is that you don't have to have as many frame moulds. Keeps the cost down. And there's often big jumps between the sizes or the small one is just not that small, you know, just doesn't go that small. And so you'll have this really annoying large jumps between them and you can't quite get the geometry perfect for the person and so forth. But with Pinarello, it's fantastic. You'll often see particularly, I think there's there's five one five, a five three zero and a five four zero. And the reach change between these three sizes is about five millimeters or six millimeters, something really, really small. And it's mainly the stack that changes. So they change because there's 11 sizes of them. They change in really tight increments. So you can spec them perfectly to suit the person. So, you know, if it turns out that the 530 is just a little bit low in the front end, you can jump to the 540 and the reach is only three mil longer. But the front end is 12 mil higher. They're fantastic. They just have so many sizes, so much adjustability. Cam Nicholls (04:49.71) Maybe this explains their costs now because this would cost them a lot to produce so many sizes. now maybe they can justify that price point a little bit. Neill Stanbury (04:57.966) Well, it's a very carefully thought out geometry chart. It's the most wide ranging geometry chart of any bike pretty much that I know of in the road bike scene. Really, really good because of the number of different frames that you can choose from. They're just fantastic. They are not cheap. And part of the reason is Pinarello name tax, you know, and part of the reason is because for each one of those sizes, you need four, five, 10 frame molds for the production process. And frame molds are not So when you've got 11 sizes compared to five, it does blow out the start of the production run initiation costs for each series of dogmas that they bring out. They've also, should talk about in a different video, we'll talk about the Pinarello X, but these, these are talking about race bikes here. Pinarello X is their endurance bike. The downside of this thing, obviously it's very expensive. The top tier ones come with a one piece cockpit. but there are a lot of different one-piece cockpits that they offer. So you can, you know, if you've got the money and you can afford to spec it right, fantastic race bike due to the immense number of geometry iterations that you can get out of them. Number two, the Cannondale Super 6 from last year. Now this video is going to come out in 2026. There has just been a new one released. I was riding with a couple of the boys from EF earlier this year on the new bike and they loved it because it was more aggressive than the old one. Oh, okay. Cam Nicholls (06:03.927) Number two, please. Neill Stanbury (06:20.27) means it's not so good for me. So the old Super 6, the one from 2023, I think it ran through to 2025, had about in the 54 size, it had about a 10 or 12 millimeter higher stack than almost any other race bike out there. It was, I would describe it as the least aggressive top end race bike on the market. It was not, certainly not an endurance geometry, but it was kind of in between. It wasn't hyper aggressive. And I loved that bike because there are so many people out there that have got enough money to spend on a good bike. They want it to be stiff. They want it to be aero. They want it to feel like a race bike, but they're not that flexible. They're not a pro. They don't have amazing hip mobility. They're a middle-aged bloke, know, that is here. So these bikes, we would spec them all the time because they had that more upright front end and that increased stack across the whole range of about 10 millimetres. in the medium sort of sizes, primarily, it was really helpful for me from a positioning standpoint, because it opened the bike up to a much wider variety of customers. This year's model, the 2026 one, they've gone down in the front to make it basically now just a conventional race bike geometry. There's nothing unusual about it. It will therefore suit less people generally. Okay. And there was no complaints about that bike in terms of the aerodynamics, the climbing ability was a beautiful way all around. It was very stiff. It's just everyone who had a Super 6, particularly the Lab 71 and the High Mod models, everyone who had one quite liked it, from my perspective. So no complaints about the bike generally and fantastic geometry that's not hyper aggressive. Cam Nicholls (07:59.478) No longer a Kraken file. Yeah. Well they used to call it back in the early days. Neill Stanbury (08:02.178) Colin? I have probably can't see this. See, I've heard of stories of a couple of them cracking around the seat post, but I don't know how prevalent that is. Cam Nicholls (08:10.444) Yeah, I think it's the thing of the past. Yeah. And number three. Neill Stanbury (08:13.646) Number three, so this is the polar opposite. When you're a bike fitter, you're often trying to squeeze people onto bikes that don't really suit them. And we also have, as we just described with the Cannondale, we have that same problem in reverse fairly regularly, where you've got a person with short legs, lowish seat height, really long torso, who's quite flexible and they need ridiculous geometry, like really, really low and long bikes. And shout out here to Polygon. Now, I'm not just saying this because these guys sponsor our race team. But the new Helios, the A series that they've just brought out, it rides beautifully, very, very lovely feeling bike, good compliance, good stiffness, all of that sort of stuff. But man, the geometry is nuts. Cam Nicholls (08:55.404) It's probably out of speaking to all the boys, it's that and they say how stiff it is. Yeah. But the geometries think they love the most because they can get really aggressive for their racing. Neill Stanbury (09:04.552) So these are young guys, flexible, lean, and part of the reason why they're so, they're at the top of the sport is because they're very aerodynamic. It's one of the things that predisposes you towards being a high-performance cyclist. And so they need geometries that are really long and low. And man, this thing is crazy. Like when I, you know, the one that I rode for a couple of weeks or a month. You had a big chimney on it. I had the chimney to end all chimneys, mate. was, yeah. Cam Nicholls (09:30.328) make a video about it which will be we can put up there you talking about it specifically Neill Stanbury (09:33.678) So I had to size down to the small, would normally be a medium. The small has an incredibly low stack height, I think it's like 520 something. And the reach on the medium, the one that I would normally have ridden was 400 millimetres, which is like 15 millimetres longer than most 54 centimetre medium race bikes. So really, really long, really, really low. Fantastic for these guys. Not so great for mere models, but when you're trying to squeeze people, unusually shaped people. onto bikes, having something like this, you can refer them to for purchasing is great because there are very few bikes that are this long and low on the market. Very, very, very few. And as a bonus, it's a really good bike and it's incredibly good value. you can get a... Yeah, so you can get a Dura Ace version for like six and a half grand or something. It's insane. Yeah, they're just unbelievable good value. Cam Nicholls (10:20.279) to how we started the video. Neill Stanbury (10:29.666) So I highly rate that bike. It looks good, rides well, and it's hyper aggressive. And if that's what you need from the geometry, it's a really good pick. So shout out to Polygon for making that thing. Yeah. It's terrible for me, but for you guys out there that are long and low, great bike. Cam Nicholls (10:37.987) Yeah, okay. Cam Nicholls (10:45.996) Yeah. that's interesting. I'm looking forward to the next one, which will be endurance bikes. So that we're doing endurance bikes next. Hopefully my BMC road machine gets a mention. No? Okay, damn. Okay. That's a shame. Well, look, if you're out there listening and you want to dig a little bit deeper into what geometry might be best suited for you. Cause I know from my experiences in riding for such a long period of time, like I found the road machine sort of 20 years after I took up the sport almost. I'm like, this, finally found a geometry that works for me. Neill Stanbury (10:55.416) Probably not. Cam Nicholls (11:13.76) I can ride longer. feel more comfortable. My power output's great, you know, over long durations. So it's great. It's great for me. So, you've, put together or we've put together a program called Bike Fit Fundamentals where people can kind of identify what sort of geometry is probably going to best suit. Neill Stanbury (11:19.49) See you that Neill Stanbury (11:28.45) their needs. will, yes. This one of the modules has a fair bit of information about that type of thing. And yeah, hopefully that'll be of assistance to you if you're trying to navigate your way through this at home. Cam Nicholls (11:37.262) More link below. Thanks everyone. Catch you in the next podcast and YouTube video. Cheers.      
• Why Amateur Cyclists Plateau (What I Learned From 80 Calls) 06.05.2026 14min

  Summary: In this episode of the RCA Podcast, expert bike fitter Neill Stanbury interviews Cam Nicholls about the biggest training mistakes recreational and amateur cyclists make when trying to improve FTP, endurance, and overall cycling performance. After completing more than 80 one-on-one coaching calls with plateaued cyclists, Cam reveals the three major problems repeatedly holding riders back: Training to inaccurate FTP and power zones Skipping key aerobic development work like tempo and sweet spot training Failing to implement proper recovery and adaptation weeks The discussion dives into Zone 2 training, VO2 max work, sweet spot intervals, fatigue management, cycling recovery, aerobic base development, and how recreational cyclists can train smarter instead of simply training harder. Whether you're struggling to increase your FTP, feeling stuck in a cycling plateau, or wondering why your structured training isn't delivering results, this episode provides practical insights to help you improve your cycling fitness and performance long term. Topics covered: FTP testing and training zones Zone 2 vs tempo vs sweet spot training VO2 max workouts for cyclists Cycling fatigue and recovery Adaptation weeks explained How to break through a cycling plateau Structured training for amateur cyclists Common cycling training mistakes   The QUIZ: https://roadcyclingacademy.scoreapp.com/    Chapters 00:00 Introduction to the RCA Podcast 00:27 Interview Dynamics: Host and Expert Bike Fitter 01:58 Identifying Performance Plateaus in Cycling 02:23 Training to the Wrong Numbers 07:30 The Importance of Aerobic Work 09:52 Strategic Easier Weeks for Recovery     Transcript: Cam Nicholls (00:01.804) Welcome to the RCA podcast designed for recreational and amateur road cyclists with a focus on performance. We dive into cycling training, nutrition, strength training for cyclists and even bike fitting tips all designed to help you train smarter, ride faster and hopefully tear your mates legs off. So without further ado, let's dive into today's episode. Welcome back to the RCA podcast, which is also on YouTube. Today I'm joined by expert bike fitter, Neil Stanbury. And for the first time in a, I think about five years of content, Neil, you're actually going to interview me. It'll be funny if this video gets like five views. Neill Stanbury (00:38.702) The rolls are reversed here. really on something. You mentioned to me off camera, this is a kind of an interesting one, I didn't know you'd been doing this, but you have with your RCA members, you have a service where they found that their performance is stagnated or plateaued. They can actually call you direct and it's a decent length conversation that you often have with them. I'll give it out to everyone. Cam Nicholls (00:58.862) Well, I'm not giving out my number to everyone now. People wouldn't necessarily call me and it's not for RCA members. It's for people that they've definitely plateaued from an FTP perspective. It's a quiz that we've got on our website and I'm not here to promote the quiz. I'm here to talk about what I've learned. But if people want to do the quiz, it's a quiz where people fill out, I think 15 questions, takes three minutes. And then they get a report on where the low hanging fruit opportunities are for them to improve their cycling fitness or to FTP. Neill Stanbury (01:08.376) So not just for members. Neill Stanbury (01:26.466) And you'll have a decent one-on-one conversation with these people to sort of tease out where they might be struggling. Cam Nicholls (01:31.49) Yeah, exactly. So those who fill out the quiz and say that consider some tailored advice or even working with a coach, we then offer a call, which is currently with me because it's like a beta offering we have. Not even on our website, this offering at the moment, because, you know, jumping straight into coaching can feel a little bit daunting for some people. So here's a one hour call and let's identify your low hanging fruit. Well, probably now, like no exaggeration, we implemented this back in the last year. So it's been about six months now. Neill Stanbury (01:50.742) You've done quite a few of these. Cam Nicholls (01:58.99) I've probably somewhere between 70 to 80 calls now with recreational and amateur road cyclists that have hit a plateau and they're probably training somewhere between six to 12 hours per week, depending on the week. Neill Stanbury (02:08.364) And you've learned absolutely nothing and that's the end of the video. Exactly right. You've learned a fair bit from these people, which is what you wanted to share. Cam Nicholls (02:11.598) No, nothing of interest aside And I haven't shared with you what they are, so hopefully, you there might be bit of interest from your Neill Stanbury (02:20.6) You mentioned there were three major things that you'd found? Cam Nicholls (02:23.38) Big things that, I mean, there's lots, everyone's different, but three big things. First one is people are training to the wrong numbers. you've done this before. I thought you would have been probably a little bit more because you've, you know, we've coached you in the past. think once you've been coached and you'd become more intimate with your numbers, it's, know, even if you don't retest, you kind of have a good feeling of where you're. Neill Stanbury (02:27.054) Alright, hit me with number one. Neill Stanbury (02:35.704) I'm doing it right now. Neill Stanbury (02:49.838) I'm terrible. always, you know, I had a bit of a layoff recently with bad weather and illness and stuff and didn't ride much for three weeks and I thought, I probably haven't dropped that much in three weeks. And I have, because when I tried to do some VO2 sessions to the same numbers as what I used to, there was just no hope. So I underestimate how much my numbers dropped back during those periods. Cam Nicholls (03:11.158) Yeah, and look, you know, we wouldn't recommend you go do VO2 work, you know, after some time off, you'd want to give it a good, obviously, if you're doing a bunch ride, you're going to do it or something like that or push with a mate. But if you're riding by yourself, you'd probably want to spend a good six to eight weeks at a below threshold, reestablishing the base. Neill Stanbury (03:26.894) Yeah, I'm too, uh, too impatient for that. I think I did two or three weeks, maybe four weeks of a bit of bass, and then started hitting the VO2s again and um, yeah, they were nowhere near what they used to be. Yes. So, training to the wrong zones, mate. Cam Nicholls (03:29.089) Yes, almost did, Valar! Cam Nicholls (03:41.07) Yeah. And that's ultimately what it means. So people taking an estimate off, you know, their Wahoo or their Garmin or Strava or some people use AI coaching platforms and take a number and nothing against those platforms because they're doing the best they can with the numbers that they've got. But nine times out of 10, the numbers are wrong. And then people are going and doing, I'm going to do this session on the trainer or I out on the road. You know, I watched it on YouTube and then they're actually targeting the wrong areas. Yeah. They're not actually at threshold. They're at VO2 max or they're not actually at zone two, they're actually at tempo, which in turn, and this is probably an underlying cause of a lot of people having underdeveloped aerobic engines. If you're not doing targeted zone two work or if you've never done it before, when I say zone two, from a power context, I'm talking around 60 to 70 % of your FTP. You know, a lot of people, every rider bringing lactate into the working muscles, which disrupts the aerobic adaptation. And then they're never really doing targeted zone two stuff off the back of having the wrong numbers. Yes. So that's the first lesson. you know, really for people out there, you know, the best way to get your numbers is just to do a test. Yeah. You know, as simple as a ramp test, you know, we were a bit more advanced at the RCA where you something called critical power. So that's typically three tests you can do with critical power, but we typically get our members to do a three minute test and a 12 minute test. So you get more of an understanding of the bigger picture. You might be really good at sustained efforts and not so good at the shorter efforts or vice versa. In fact, I had a call with somebody recently. where they're like, why is it, and he'd done a test, he's like, why is it when I do sub threshold work and I'm doing eight to 10 minute efforts, I really struggle. I'm like getting to the end of that eight to 10 and I'm like barely being able to finish the effort. Whereas when I'm doing a three minute effort, I can perform really well. It feels easy actually with my current FTP. Well, it's like, well, most likely genetically you're stronger at VO2 and not at threshold. So having, know, if you can get more comprehensive with your testing, then your zones are going to be... more accurate and your training is going to be more effective. Neill Stanbury (05:38.264) I mean I can relate to that because I'm the exact opposite. So I can cruise along at upper end zone 2 for a very long time without a lot of fatigue creeping in, but I'm terrible once I creep into VO2 or neuromuscular. It's just not. You're a grime. yeah. Yeah, I'm all slow twitch mate. All slow twitch. So it's very much fighting against my genetics to try and do a lot of VO2 and neuromuscular stuff. Cam Nicholls (06:02.286) This podcast is brought to you by the Road Cycling Academy. If you're a recreational or amateur road cyclist and you're stuck on a frustrating performance plateau, feeling like you need some guidance, but you're not quite ready to dive straight into one-to-one coaching, at the RCA we've created something called the 12-week custom plan, which we believe would be your perfect next step. It starts off with an upfront deep dive call with your coach who will understand your goals, your riding preferences, what your not negotiable rides are. and where you want to go, then they'll create a fully tailored 12-week custom plan that is supported over the 12-week period. We believe it's the perfect intermediate step, giving you a taste of working with a coach and experiencing a customized plan without committing to full coaching. Our writers are seeing real results too, and you can go to our Google reviews to see this. Marvin recently shaved over 30 minutes off his graft into Inverrell time from doing the 12-week custom plan. Adam gained 20 watts on his FTP in 12 weeks and 40 watts on his five minute power. And we have riders completing rides that they've failed in previous attempts like Peaks Challenge, all from doing this 12 week custom plan. So if you're ready to break through, head to the roadcyclingacademy.com in the menu system, you'll see our 12 week custom plan and take the first step towards that next level performance. Now let's get back to the podcast. Yeah, cool. Neill Stanbury (07:30.446) So what's number two? Cam Nicholls (07:31.054) Number two is an interesting one. A lot of people are not doing that work before threshold. So if they're doing some structured stuff, you know, they've watched a few YouTube's or read a few articles, they'll typically, you know, think they're doing zone two, even though they may not be doing zone two because they're not doing it exclusively and they may have the wrong numbers, but let's just say they are doing it. They're doing zone two, then they'll go straight to threshold work or VO2 work or anaerobic work, know, 3015s or over-unders. And they're missing out on that upper end aerobic work. So what do I mean by that? I'm talking about tempo work zone three, and I'll put a zone model up on the screen or sweet spot work, which is like high 80 % to mid 90 % of FTP. Yep. Which is in this, you're ironic in the scheme of some platforms, they tend to over index on that stuff, but the general recreational and amateur aren't doing a lot of work there. They're just going straight to the meaty stuff, which makes sense, right? Because that's where you get really fast gains. And that's where there's a lot of content about you know, people want to increase their VO2 max, I'm going to do a VO2 max workout. But the challenge with that is, you know, assuming they're targeting the right numbers is it's very fast acting that work, but also very fatiguing. So people find, and this is why they filled out the quiz and wanted to chat, the plateau. So the idea is, and this is research-based, right? It's the pyramidal methodology where you're spending in a three zone scientific model, more time in zone two, which is that tempo sweet spot. So the key is, And look, a lot of people say, I'm doing tempo work when I'm on my bunch ride or I go out and ride hard, you know, once a week and I'm at tempo. It's not really strategic tempo intervals where it's, you know, lactate in, because you will bring a bit of lactate in during a tempo zone for interval and then recovery and then doing another one and then recovery. And then next week, progressively making that a little bit harder. And then once you master that kind of tempo work, what do I mean by master? I'm talking about rate of perceived exertion so that session feels easier. I can see my heart rate's not drifting as much in that tempo effort and coming down. Then you move up maybe four, six weeks later and you do some sweet spot stuff. And the beauty of that work as well is it's not overly fatiguing. So you kind of freshen up, you build a really strong aerobic foundation. And then when you do get to the VO2 or the threshold stuff, you've got a much better foundation to work from. Neill Stanbury (09:47.874) Yes. Yeah, makes sense to me, mate. Yeah. Very nice. Cool. All what's number three? Number th- Cam Nicholls (09:52.568) Three is, and we've made content on this a lot, is they're just not having strategic easier weeks. So we don't really call them easier weeks at the RCA because that sounds like you're not doing anything. call them adaptation. It's good. And it's as simple as just backing off your intensity and your volume by about 30%. So if you're doing 10 hours a week, you're doing seven hours a week. And instead of doing three intense sessions in your normal weeks, you're just doing one intense session in your easier week. And the idea is you're absorbing the stress from the previous week's adaptation. Yep. And you're freshening up for the next round. So when you do get back into a training week, you're fresh and you can tackle it and you can probably overextend because you've got some freshness. and provided you recover properly, you get fitter from it. So that's a real easy one people can implement without getting too bogged down in the details of training. It's like, every third or fourth week, and I've got mates that do this now who are not interested in structured training, but they just, every third or fourth week, they just back it off a little bit. And they find that's had a huge increase in their performance longer term because they're giving their body rest. And yeah, they can tackle the next weeks with greater frills. Neill Stanbury (11:04.142) Yeah, and cycling, in my experience, cycling fatigue, like the chronic fatigue that you develop from big blocks of training and that sort of stuff, it's insidious. It's not like when you go to the gym and you lift a bunch of heavy weights and your muscles are sore for a few days afterwards. That sort of perception that you're still in the recovery zone is really clear because, you know, your biceps still hurts, your quads still hurt. Cycling is different, isn't it? Where you just sort of, you you wake up and you're like, geez, you got no motivation, you're a bit tired. You get to the end of the afternoon and you want to have a nap. It's insidious fatigue, isn't it? That kind of creeps up on you a lot of the time. It's not as clear cut as the type of fatigue that you get from strength training. it's much, I've fallen into this hole many times over the years. It's much more insidious and therefore harder to sort of know that you're doing it to yourself, you know? And so you have to really monitor those feelings. Cause I'd never really thought to monitor them until I talked to you guys years and years ago about this. And I sort of, I'm now much more aware of it when it's happening. Like, and I think, okay, for me, it's that I either haven't eaten enough, because I have to keep the calorie intake really high. I've got a very fast metabolism, or more likely I'm just a bit cooked from those three big bunch rides I did this week, or that big VO2 effort I did two days ago. I'm much more cognizant of that fatigue now, but it is hard to sense that fatigue feeling for a lot of people, for a lot of people, it's their default state. Cam Nicholls (12:29.806) That's exactly what I was about to say. So the amount of calls that I've had with people and some of them do transition into coaching. And I've said, think I believe you're actually in a fatigue state. No, I don't feel fatigued. I mean, it's not that defensive, but it's kind of like, can tell they're like, what's this guy saying to me? I don't like this guy anymore. Probably haven't been to that. And then when they actually do have an easier week and then they start the training and then they have another easier week and then another one. This is what freshness feels like. This is what actually being able to overextend in a workout feels like. So as you said, it's that body awareness and a great use case to wrap up here. One of our members, Andrew, if you're out there listening, not all our members race, in fact, probably only about 10%, but he races the crits. He came to us, he, well, I had a call with him. He's doing other things as well, like a lot of cross-training stuff. And I said, Andrew, I think you're doing a bit too much. For 46 kids, you know, got a job. And he's like, no, I feel fine. The very first, he started working with Ryan Thomas, our head coach. The very first thing Ryan did with him is like, we're going to back it off a lot this week. We're going to have more than 70%. We're going to go like 40%. He said, I can still go race the crit on Sunday. Hadn't placed in his crit for like six months. What happened? Got a podium, third. Just fresh, just from recovery. And now he's like fully in tune with his body and dialed in and appreciates it. So as you said, his body awareness, it's often not until you come out of that state. Neill Stanbury (13:42.594) This fresh. Cam Nicholls (13:53.288) until you recognise it. So Neil, they are the three things. Neill Stanbury (13:56.174) Very interesting mate that and a lot of it makes sense to me and I can see myself in some of those comments You have to change some of the ways that I'm doing things as well Cam Nicholls (14:03.34) Yep. So if somebody does want to do the quiz and wants to take a call, we'll put a link below and we'll catch everyone in the next podcast and YouTube video. Cheers.    
• 10% Power Gains with THIS Simple Bike Fit Adjustment 29.04.2026 16min

  Summary In this episode, expert bike fitter Neill Stanbury explains the importance of Q factor (aka stance width) in cycling and bike fitting. Notably, how it affects power transfer, injury prevention, and how to optimize it for individual riders. Learn practical tips on measuring and adjusting Q factor for better cycling performance and comfort.   Key topics What is Q factor and why it matters Symptoms of incorrect Q factor How Q factor affects power transfer and injury risk Practical methods to measure and adjust Q factor Impact of Q factor on cycling performance and training   Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Q Factor and Cycling Performance 02:44 Understanding Q Factor: Definition and Importance 08:35 Identifying Q Factor Issues and Symptoms 14:24 Adjusting Q Factor: Solutions and Recommendations   Bike Fit Fundamentals: https://roadcyclingacademy.com/bike-fit-fundamentals/    Transcript:  Cam Nicholls (00:01.804) Welcome to the RCA podcast designed for recreational and amateur road cyclists with a focus on performance. We dive into cycling training, nutrition, strength training for cyclists and even bike fitting tips all designed to help you train smarter, ride faster and hopefully tear your mates legs off. So without further ado, let's dive into today's episode. So welcome back to the RCA podcast, which is also on YouTube. So please excuse any visual references, which is going to be hard with the man beside me, Neil. You use your hands. Yeah, it could be an interesting one, but today we're going to talk about Q factor. Notably, you know, I'm interested in how you can produce more power through the pedal stroke with your Q factor. But Neil, before we talk about the intricacies of Q factor and bike fitting and more power, what is Q factor? Neill Stanbury (00:35.426) There's going to be a few of those. You liked it? Neill Stanbury (00:56.078) Yeah, so Q-Fact is, the easiest way to think about it is how far apart your feet are. Okay. It's a terrible term really. I think it's a bastardization of a medical term in the orthopedic literature called Q-Angle, which sort of refers to the angle of a person's knee, whether it sort of kicks in or kicks out. it's been adopted by the bike fitting world from that, but really we should describe it as stance width. Yes. The distance apart that your feet are. And on a road bike, you're looking at about 25 centimeters. And on a mountain bike somewhere closer to 27 or 29 on some of the big dogs with huge bottom brackets, massive tire clearance. Cam Nicholls (01:28.684) I found super interesting and I might be cutting into your storyline here, but you mentioned this in a video we did four years ago. Jeez. Q-Factor long time. Been a while. That all bikes, all road bikes have the same Q-Factor no matter the size. It's just really odd. Neill Stanbury (01:35.886) Here we Neill Stanbury (01:43.842) Yeah, it's kind of strange, isn't it? Yeah, because it would be logical that the Q factor or the stance width of a bike would need to scale up or down depending, generally speaking, depending upon the size of the bike. That, mean, there's, plenty of exceptions to that rule. There's, short, wide-waisted people, broad-waisted people who need a wider Q factor on a tiny bike. And there's also really tall, beanpole, six foot four people who've got a really narrow waist and amazing hip mobility who need really narrow Q factors. But as a general rule of. you know, of extrapolation of thumb, you would think that bigger bikes would have a wider key factor, but they don't. There's a whole bunch of industry reasons behind that. Like it would be prohibitively expensive and difficult for a lot of the groupset manufacturers to make different bottom bracket, you know, different width crank systems and that sort of thing. So it just doesn't happen. And we're just kind of left to our own devices to deal with this. Cam Nicholls (02:33.198) So if you are a recreational amateur road cyclist and you are lift your own devices, how do you get to the bottom of whether you've got the right Q factor or the wrong Q factor? Neill Stanbury (02:44.334) Yeah, tough call. So let's talk about first of all, the symptoms that you might get if it's wrong. I'm going to tell you that probably 98 % of the time that your Q factor is grossly wrong, it's that it's too narrow, right? So there's like a 2 % chance that your Q factor is too wide and there's about a 98 % chance that it's too narrow if it's wrong, right? So let's say the symptoms that you would get if it was too narrow. Generally what will happen in cycling biomechanics, we really like to see your knees descending more or less vertically over the center of the pedal spindle. And if they're descending straight down the center of the pedal spindle or slightly inside the line of the pedal spindle, you'll very rarely have a problem, right? That's kind of kinematically biomechanically kind of optimal in a lot of cases. Sorry, what did you just say? Let's say you've got a circle that your foot is prescribing in the air. We want your knee moving straight up and down over that pedal center. Okay. We don't want your knee. Cam Nicholls (03:35.052) layman Neil you gotta break it down simply for me Neill Stanbury (03:37.166) I've always known you're a layman. I've known you for a long time. You'd never graduated beyond layman, but here we are. So we want your knee descending vertically over the center of the pedal spittle, ideally. Or slightly inside the line, but we do not want it chopping in from outside the line of the pedal. And we've got plenty of stock footage of your left knee doing that. It's the same B-roll every time. So if your knee is descending across Cam Nicholls (03:56.874) I've been in the audience this second time. Neill Stanbury (04:03.374) the line of the pedal spindle, you're much more likely to get biomechanical issues. And what are those issues going to be? Look, if it's on one leg, there'll be things like lateral knee pain, patella type knee pain, lateral foot pain from as the knee descends across the line of the pedal, you're going to load the outside edge of the foot, that type of thing. ITB insertion syndrome issues. If it's bilateral, your biggest, most frequent symptom is going to be lower back pain. So as the patella or the knee tries to move across the line of the pedal, your glutes will work over time, trying to stabilize this. Or in some people they will just switch off and your pelvis will rock excessively. And both of those will cause lower back pain for slightly different reasons. The first one is because of the excess muscle contractile effort and your glutes just makes them hurt. And the second one is just the excessive movement of your pelvis means that you're going to get instability and therefore pain as the pelvis rocks back and forth. Cam Nicholls (04:56.504) Good Neil, I only care about powertrain. Neill Stanbury (04:58.606) Power transfer. transfer. The big one. Big what? So yes, it is very inefficient. If the Q factor is grossly wrong, you can lose a lot. Most of the time the loss is in those efforts beyond about five or six minutes. So once you get beyond a VO2 effort, the efficiency becomes a really big limiting factor and the lack of glute engagement or lack of proper glute engagement. Cam Nicholls (05:01.336) care if I get injured as long as I'm produced in- Neill Stanbury (05:21.996) And the fact that your medial quad can't work properly. you're losing out in multiple different kind of kinematic areas on optimal power transfer. can say. And so I've seen plenty of people over the years where we've changed, we've fixed their Q factor as a major issue that we're solving in their position. And they've picked up like five to 10 % on a 20 minute effort in the weeks following the fit. So Q factor can be- Weeks? Close to instantaneous. Wow. Cam Nicholls (05:45.602) So instantaneous space. Neill Stanbury (05:48.846) Yeah, so I think I told this story in another video probably probably a long time ago But I have had elite level riders pick up 10 % like National Road Series type guys I had a bloke go from about a 440 watt 20 minute effort He was a big guy to a 480 watt 20 minute effort a long time ago. This was probably 10 years ago Purely with the addition of some 15 millimeter longer spindle pedals, which I'm going to show you guys in a minute. Yep, right Cam Nicholls (06:14.446) Okay, so he had a 30 millimeter increase all up in his Q factor. Yeah. And that was the outcome essentially. Neill Stanbury (06:21.012) Yeah, so he had chronic bilateral knee pain that he could never get rid of on the bike and it basically just instantly deleted his knee pain and partially you could maybe say that his power went up because he wasn't in pain potentially he could train harder, but it was real quick It was like within like a month or something his power jumped by like 40 watts across the 20 minute It was huge and so the nervous system has a lot of Safety like fail-safes in it that if you're in pain and you're damaging your limbs when you're pedaling It's gonna curtail your output to the pedals And so he probably had a neurological limiter due to the inflammation in his knees. But then you could also argue that it was just biomechanically much more efficient and he was using his glutes better and his quad better and hard to know, probably a combination of both. Yeah. Cam Nicholls (07:03.662) Yeah. The thing that comes to mind for me is, probably what you can't measure because you didn't track him over the next one to two years, but the compounding effect of actually getting it right. Yeah. Not having the knee pain, being able to train more, being able to recover. Neill Stanbury (07:16.152) Cover better consistent training. Absolutely. Yeah. Even like I've seen this in a lot of people doing big volume. Some of my world tour and my continental guys who are There's a couple. we're not allowed to mention names. Most of these guys are sort of sworn to a vow of silence with this because they're sort of contractually not. Cam Nicholls (07:26.936) world tour guides these days. Neill Stanbury (07:40.918) to come and see people like me that are outside of the team medical system. I can't mention names, but I have had plenty of people with stuff like that where you've gotten rid of chronic bilateral knee pain and suddenly a couple of months later, they're fourth in a mountain top finish and they've been mid pack. Because they've been able to consistently train without the knee pain. Cam Nicholls (08:02.414) Gosh, I feel you're fitted in. Two months later wins Melbourne to Waterpool, Australia's biggest biker. Neill Stanbury (08:06.734) World tour all the way. World tour all the way that fella. Just an unbelievable win wasn't it? Yeah that was amazing. So I'll take full credit for that. Josh probably 5 % of the credit. I'll probably say 95%. Congratulations to Josh. Cam Nicholls (08:22.286) So, you know, if I'm watching this at home, I'm like, okay, this sounds pretty important. If I feel like I'm experiencing some of these issues, like where am I going? What am I doing if I don't have access to a bike fitter like you? what can I play around with? Neill Stanbury (08:35.96) So the big risk factors for sort of guessing or sort of extrapolating the EQ factor might be a little bit too narrow. Have a look at your hip internal rotation range. This is something you can check yourself at home. Flex your leg up to 90 degrees, turn your hip into internal rotation. If you've got more than about 30 degrees, you're probably going to be okay. If you've got less than 30 degrees down towards like 10 degrees, this is a sign that your internal rotation of your hips is not that flash. And therefore it is going to be harder for you to tuck your knees tight to the frame. It's going to be more biomechanically difficult. So that's possibly a predictor that you might need to go wider in the Q factor. If you're just a heavy set, like a broad waisted person, like I'm obviously very narrow waisted. You're a bit, you're kind of middle of the bell curve. And then if you've got really big wide waist, big hips, it's much more likely that you're going to function better with a wider Q factor. have some jump on a trainer and grab some footage of yourself. Yep. from the front. So jump on a trainer directly from the front with your whole body in the shot and just look at where that foot is and where the knee is relative to the foot. We can overlay that for the entire 12 minutes. And look at that. If that knee is chopping across the line of the pedal. Cam Nicholls (09:35.989) used by footage again here. Neill Stanbury (09:45.846) on the down stroke. It is not moving straight down vertically above the center line of the pedal. If it's chopping out, especially at the top of the stroke, whipping out and then whipping across, and it's doing that potentially on both legs, but often you'll see it really bad on one and not too bad on the other because of compensatory asymmetry, you're favoring your dominant leg. But if it's happening on both sides, definitely test the effect of widening your Q factor. So if you're chopping outside the line of the pedal, that's the dead giveaway and use a really high resolution, you know, camera phone to take that footage and you should get a bit of a note. Yep. And if you want to move your feet further apart, I've got a whole bunch of options here for you and I'll run you through them quickly. There's a lot. They're all on the table in front of me. Cam Nicholls (10:24.588) I'm gonna need speed plays aren't I or what are they called these days? Neill Stanbury (10:27.24) You would, but I've got other options as well. Yeah. So let's say you need a tiny bit of Q factor increase. Shimano in their infinite wisdom is the only mainstream pedal manufacturer apart from Speedplay, the only mainstream three bolt pedal manufacturer who does make a wider spindle pedal. And they make these Ultegra and there's also a Dura Ace version, but the spindle is only four millimeters and four millimeters is not. These will do you if you're just a shade too narrow and you just need to get a little bit wider. These can be good. Four millimeters, eight millimeters on both sides, therefore, not a message. Cam Nicholls (11:01.198) you going to experience those type of symptoms or potential injuries that you described with a four millimeter each side discrepancy or is it normally got to be bigger to experience that or depends? Neill Stanbury (11:11.062) It depends on a lot of things. It will scale depending, like if it's grossly off, like you need 15 mil on each side, you'll get much worse. Okay. Typically. If you're just getting subtle symptoms of that, it could just be that you only need four mil. And unfortunately, trial and error is the only way to really know. If you come in for a fit, we do that during the fit. But if you're buying these pedals and doing it yourself at home, it can get expensive quickly to try this stuff. Yeah. Unfortunately. Second option. Let's say you want to stick with a three ball pedal system, but you are happy to use Kio. So SQ Labs, the German company that makes a whole bunch of nifty little bike fitting products and saddles and stuff, they make two different variants of this 512 race pedal, they call it. There's one with an eight millimeter longer than standard axle and one with a 15. And I use these all the time. So this is plus eight, this is plus 15. These are pretty good quality. I experienced like a very small percentage of them failing here at the pivot point with it getting a little crack in the pivot point here of the opening clip at the rear, but very, very solid pedal. I haven't had any major problems with bearings or anything. They're pretty good. Cam Nicholls (12:11.662) So plus eight and plus 15. So what if you plus 11 or 12? Neill Stanbury (12:14.688) Well, luckily you can move the cleat sideways. yeah. So you've got in a Keo cleat you got about four or five mil of lateral play. A Shimano one will give you about six. So you can fine tune it within those jumps using the lateral play. Okay. Let's say you're using the king of all pedal systems like that. the one that you love. The most adjustable but also the quirkiest pedal system. I keep a really good stock of plus nine and plus 12 millimeter titanium spindles. And this will be visible on the video, but... For those of you playing along at home, I've basically got a titanium spindle here that's just 12mm longer than the standard speed play spindle. These are about a 5 minute job to swap into the pedal. We've got a video we can link somewhere down below showing you how to do that. Very straight forward, works great. Cam Nicholls (12:55.742) Are they technically compatible with the Wahoo B-Play system? So if you put those in and you experience an issue, well, Wahoo go, no, sorry, you're using the wrong spindle. It's not possible. Neill Stanbury (13:05.902) Okay hasn't happened before but possibly not that I know of anyway, but yeah, if they were really finicky They might go all that that's a non-standard axle. Da da da speed play do actually sell these longer ones, but they are horrifically expensive Yeah, wahoo sells them. They're very expensive. I go aftermarket. Of course. Yeah, if you're using speed play again, there is a Cam Nicholls (13:18.403) Do I Neill Stanbury (13:26.326) An extender plate made by Form Bike Fitting out of the UK and this is an MLR 618. I don't know where they got these product numbers from. Ronan, let me know where you got this from. And this is a really nifty piece of gear. This replaces your standard base plate and it has a laterally drilled set of four holes. I think they're six millimeters offset. you can, depending upon which shoe you put this on, you can increase or decrease your Q factor by six mil just using that on the bottom of the shoe. Wow. That's create a bit of a funny situation where the The center of the pedal is a long way towards the medial or lateral aspect of the shoe. Not many people have a great lot of trouble with that if you've got a stiff sole shoe, but it can be a bit of a weird feeling if all the pressure is going through the outside edge or the medial edge. So if you're putting out a lot of watts, I'd probably go with the, uh, the longer spindles rather than those. Okay. But not least, let's say you're a total mess. Okay. You've got horrific hip mobility. You've got arthritis in your hips, you're six foot eight, you're broad as a brick dunny, as we say. Let's say you've got a really wide waist and you need. Cam Nicholls (14:24.024) for all these side, Neil. Neill Stanbury (14:25.198) yeah, sorry. I don't think that's common. All the empiricants at home. Brick Dunny. Brick Dunny. Let's say you've got really bad hip mobility and you're massive. A 20 millimeter pedal extender, you can get these in 16 mil longer variants, but I don't trust them. There's not enough meat in this section where the two threaded sections join for them to be really strong and safe, in my opinion. So the minimum length I would go with with these, there's a plus 20 that I'm holding here. And this is the big dog. This one is a 27 millimeter extender. That's as far as you're wanting. Because you're putting massive tangential like torsional loading on the crank face with this as you put pressure down on the pedal It's gonna be wanting to twist the crank face and they can be a bit sketchy if you've got a big heavy set dude I would be very nervous about cracking ranks. Okay all of the other systems that I just showed you right out to the plus 15 millimeter length and SQ labs pedals I've never once ever had anyone break a crank with any of it. Okay. I've actually never had anyone break a crank with a set of 20 mil extenders either, but I am led to believe that it can happen. So I'm nervous about those with big, heavy set, powerful people over a hundred kilos. And if they're using them, I usually advise them to use a solid aluminium crank like something really tough. Not a lightweight carbon crank. Yeah. So there are your options for changing your Q factor mount. And what you're looking for is the NIN more or less vertically over the center of the pedal on each side, if possible. Cam Nicholls (15:46.496) Okay. And being able to go for a two hour ride without feeling like you're going to get an injury. Neill Stanbury (15:51.266) Hopefully. Yeah. It is a very common thing. I go through probably four to five sets, four or five riders a week where I have to move their feet apart substantially. And often we're using the SQ Labs pedals because they're just a straight swap in neat solution. Cam Nicholls (16:04.942) thanks for sharing Neil. So if someone's out there listening and they want to go even deeper on this topic, we've created or you've created an online program for bike fitting called Bike Fit Fundamentals and it incorporates a lesson. Neill Stanbury (16:17.696) on this particular topic? one of the modules is all about cleat position and Q factor and that sort of stuff. So if you're looking to delve more deeply into your positional problems at home and try and nail this stuff down people, that is a highly recommended resource. It's really good. Cam Nicholls (16:30.382) We'll link it below. Thanks for your time Neil. We'll catch everyone in the next video or podcast.  
• YouTuber Mitch Boyer Shares His Coaching Journey with the RCA 16.04.2026 39min

  Podcast Summary:   In this episode, Mitch Boyer shares his journey from a casual cyclist to a more confident and skilled rider through coaching, structured training, and community engagement. Discover how personalized coaching, mental resilience, and strategic training can lead to significant performance improvements and life benefits.   RCA 12 WEEK CUSTOM PLAN; https://roadcyclingacademy.com/cycling-plan-custom/  key topics The impact of coaching on cycling performance Balancing social rides with structured training Mental resilience and motivation in cycling Chapters 00:00 Introduction to the RCA Podcast 01:02 Mitch's Cycling Journey Begins 02:13 The Decision to Get a Coach 04:09 Initial Training Experience 08:03 Key Learnings from the 12-Week Program 12:22 Building Confidence Through Training 18:09 Integrating Group Rides with Training 23:46 Long-Term Growth and Self-Discovery 28:22 Navigating Peaks and Troughs in Motivation 32:31 The Importance of Recovery 34:34 BMC Bike Discussion and Personal Preferences   Transcript:  Cam Nicholls (00:01.816) Welcome to the RCA podcast, designed for recreational and amateur road cyclists with a focus on performance. We dive into cycling training, nutrition, strength training for cyclists and even bike fitting tips, all designed to help you train smarter, ride faster and hopefully tear your mates legs off. So without further ado, let's dive into today's episode. Welcome back to the RCA Podcast where today I am joined by one of our members, Mitch Boyer, all the way from California. How you going, Mitch? Mitch Boyer (00:37.442) Good, how are doing? I'm excited to be here. Cam Nicholls (00:39.534) Excited to be here. You've got some big things happening over the next few weeks, I'm hearing. Mitch Boyer (00:44.334) Yeah, my wife and I are expecting our first child. Kind of a big thing. Thank you. Cam Nicholls (00:48.91) I if you're having a boy or a girl. A girl. I've got two of them. Mitch Boyer (00:52.334) Thanks. Any advice? That's maybe another podcast. Yeah. I'm equal parts excited and terrified, which I think is probably normal. Cam Nicholls (00:55.822) Good luck. Cam Nicholls (01:02.744) So yeah, we're not going to talk about how deeply you're into your training right now because you're no doubt that you're not really trying to peak for any events. It's probably the opposite, but I wanted to bring you on because one of the, I guess the challenges that we have as a business and I have running the business is really trying to normalise cycle coaching. Cause I think a lot of people think of it as maybe a little bit beyond them. Maybe they think it's going to be another thing in their life. Uh, you know, there's a lot of uncertainty surrounding it. So you being one of our members, know, you being in that sort of recreational amateur slash basket. I wanted to speak to you about your journey, you know, in coaching and I'm going to, you know, I would like for you to not tell everyone how good the RCA is. don't want this to be a promo for the RCA, even though it may be difficult because I know you and Ryan have a great working relationship, but more so, you know, just your experiences as, you know, just a regular Joe Blow that likes writing is bike eight to 10 hours per week when you're consistent, what your experience has been like. So maybe if we wind it right back to when you first decided to get a coach, it was pretty early days for you and your cycling journey. Yeah. Mitch Boyer (02:13.71) So I picked up, I'm a COVID baby when it comes to cycling. I picked up my first drop bar bike, I think May, 2020. And then I started working with the RCA. You guys are my first and my only. I think around November, December, 2021. So yeah, I was about a year and a half into my cycling journey. Okay. At that point. Cam Nicholls (02:37.24) which is pretty early days for somebody that steps into coaching. Normally people that do make the leap have been sitting on a performance plateau for a good three to five years. And it's just like, all right, I'm so frustrated with my mate going past me and not performing in Fundo events. I'm gonna finally make this leap of faith and they do it. Whereas you were 18 months. So why do you think it was in the scheme of the general population a lot faster for you to consider some coaching? Mitch Boyer (03:05.326) Yeah, that's good question. think in general, in my life, I'm always looking for people to mentor me. And I think there's a lot of value in having just another person who knows what they're talking about helping you, whatever it is you're doing. And so I had done that with my career in design before I had done that with, so like I have ADHD. So I had hired an ADHD coach to help me make sure I like actually do my work and stuff. So I'm always looking for coaches and everything. Cause I feel like if I don't have other people keeping me accountable, everything kind of goes haywire in my life. I think specific to cycling, I had gotten really into watching a lot of cycling YouTube and seeing what other people could do. And it kind of snowballed in that like I got a trainer and I started seeing what my power numbers were. And then there was the question of like, how high can I get my power numbers? And then just because of that. kind of history I told you about where I'm always looking for mentorship. was like, okay, like are there cycling coaches? And I think I stumbled on your videos and you know, one thing led to another and then I met you. Cam Nicholls (04:09.838) So before you met the RCA and you decided to do what was back then our 12 week up level program, what kind of training were you doing? And then do you feel like you were stuck? had you sort of performance plateaued or was more about wanting some guidance than anything? Mitch Boyer (04:27.726) Yeah, well before that point, so you know my first couple rides in 2020, it was probably similar to a lot of people. I was just getting out and riding for fun and then I noticed my rides started getting longer and longer and then further and further and in LA there's a bunch of mountains and so I started with the smaller mountains and then got bigger and bigger and bigger and I think my biggest ride at that point there's this mountain out here called Mount Wilson. It's a pretty big climb. I think it's about 5,000 feet. in climbing from if I were to go out my door and then ride to the top of this mountain. And that was the biggest ride I had ever done. And it just killed me at the end of it. I guess as far as plateaus at that point, I had no idea about pacing. I had no idea about fueling. And I thought that's the biggest ride I'm ever going to do. There's nothing any bigger than that. And then again, I was just watching other cyclists on YouTube doing these amazing long rides and I couldn't figure out how they were able to do that. as normal people and not as professionals. And I think that's probably part of it. It's been a couple of years, so I'm kind of trying to think back. the other thing is my wife and I were getting married and we had got a Peloton and I did my first FTP test on a Peloton and my FTP on the Peloton was inflated because the power meter was just wildly incorrect and it gave me an FTP above 300 watts on the Peloton. And I just forgot about this. When I put real power meter pedals on, I found out my actual FTP was like 234 Watts. So going from 317 watt FTP in my mind to that was so devastating. I was like, I got to fix this. And that's what got me to reach out to you. Cam Nicholls (06:04.814) Okay, interesting. Yeah. If the Peloton was giving you great numbers, why did you decide to get, I think you got the Astioma Power Pedals for memory? Mitch Boyer (06:12.142) Yeah, that's right. It was very, I don't know. I'd rather know how bad I am than live in delusion. Cam Nicholls (06:19.16) Which yeah, okay. Some people like living in delusion. Me sometimes. But of course you can't take the Peloton out onto the road. So did you buy the the Asiomers because you wanted... because a lot of people do that. They have the indoor trainer set up with power and then the outdoor they just they don't have power setups. Mitch Boyer (06:35.672) Yeah, I think seeing the numbers on the Peloton inspired me to get the power meter pedals because I wanted to put them on my bike. then immediately made me depressed upon seeing the reality. And then of course, every video I watched about the Asioma pedals were like, these are the most accurate pedals that you can get. Each time I watched them, I'm no. Cam Nicholls (06:53.646) Yeah, he's... Yeah, you're looking on all these forums and trying to find out maybe the Peloton is, you know, is more accurate than the Assiomus. Exactly. Maybe I can find something. Were you doing any kind of structured training before you started with us? Were you doing like, you know, exclusive zone two rides? Were you doing high intensity training sessions? Were you doing any sort of periodization or were you just riding your bike? Mitch Boyer (07:18.69) just riding my bike and then Peloton, which had like a few structured rides, but it was very rudimentary. Looking back, it was just a bunch of like junk thrown at me. Like you would like have a warmup and then basically a bunch of not even VO2 max intervals and then a cool down. So nothing like zone two training, nothing like any real structured training. All of that was new. Cam Nicholls (07:40.878) Yeah, okay. So then stepping into coaching initially, and I might be pushing the memory bank here a little bit. Maybe we need to go back and watch that video that you made after the 12 week experience with us. But can you remember what your biggest learnings were from that first 12 weeks? And what were the biggest needle movers for you in terms of fitness gains? Mitch Boyer (08:03.016) I think if I'm thinking back to then, the biggest things that I really learned was one, a reinforcement of that having somebody to coach you is incredibly valuable just from an accountability standpoint. just knowing, cause you were coaching me at the start, just knowing that like, Cam's going to be like looking at my power file encouraged me or scared me into like actually doing my best or like actually getting out the door more than once and going on the ride. Whereas if I didn't have that accountability, I know not just in those first couple of weeks, but in the years after there are plenty of times I just wouldn't have gone out and rode my bike that day. That accountability is probably the most beneficial thing for me personally. And that's something that I think only comes when you have an actual person reviewing the files. If you don't have that, then that you get a lot of the other benefits from training, but not that personal accountability. The thing I was most proud of though, when we were working together in those first 12 weeks, I remember part of the program was doing like a benchmark climb. And the benchmark climb I chose was the second half of this Griffith Park Hill climb that we have out here in LA. That's part of the Pony's group ride. And so now I ride it every single week, but that second part of the climb like kicks up. think there's like a 9 % average at the end. And I think I went from doing like 300 and something watts to almost 400 watts over the course of that, like five minutes. at the end of it and just seeing that like jump in power and seeing those numbers on the power meter in real life as opposed to the Peloton was just so exciting for me. Cam Nicholls (09:38.658) Yeah, I think for memory, had quite a big lift in your FTP and your maximum aerobic power because back then we were using the half Monty, which is an FTP testing protocol on Wahoo system or Wahoo X, I think it's called now. Obviously we've shifted now to more critical power testing, but I think you had the biggest uplift in both of those metrics because we tested halfway through around six weeks. And then the last time you tested at 12 weeks, the uptick wasn't... that significant, but what we could see from your benchmark climb and on road testing was it was kind of like you actually caught up to what your testing results were. Because a lot of people do a test and they're like, there's no way I could hold that out on the road. And you didn't say that to me specifically, but often it's the case people see these big gains in terms of the testing, but then they think to themselves, don't think I could actually hold that out on the road, which they may not be able to, but then you keep training and you keep conditioning yourself. And as we saw in your data that you kind of caught up to, you did increase your FTP and your maximum aerobic power, which is VO2 max at the end of the 12 weeks from the six week mark a little bit, but your on-road performance was vastly improved in that last six weeks. Mitch Boyer (10:48.748) Yeah, I think that was kind of a recurring thing throughout my training over the last few years is like all these little breakthroughs that like working with you and working with Ryan, a lot of the things that have helped me is whether it's deliberate or not, I assume it's deliberate. But for example, Ryan would push me to just like extend my, whether it was like an FTP effort or the O2 max effort or even like a zone two effort. At the beginning of training block, sometimes just to see those numbers a little bit higher than what I was used to. So like in an FTP effort doing a six minute interval instead of like a 12 or a 15 minute interval and seeing that those numbers up higher than I'd ever seen them before when I was doing like a FTP interval. Just seeing those numbers kind of clicked something in my mind where it's like, okay, I know I can do it. And then the rest of the training block was working up towards, you know, extending the amount of time that I could hold that power. But there was something about just unlocking that. And I guess that started with the journey with you that really, I think that's something fun about training. just seeing something that's possible and then working towards extending it. Cam Nicholls (11:55.082) Well, I mean, it's, guess what you're describing there and from a scientific standpoint is progressive overload. So, you know, the coach is slowly helping you progress, see what's possible. And then in a week's time or two weeks time, then you go out and you extend it a little bit further. And that is giving you confidence. And I recall from the early days content that, you know, there were some streets in your area that you were like, I'll never get up those. And the training gave you the confidence to go to the streets. Mitch Boyer (12:22.03) Yeah. Immediately after that 12 week training block, that's when I started doing steep streets. And for anybody who doesn't know my content, my main shtick is riding up steep streets. going and punishing myself. And there just happened to be a few of the steepest streets in the world that are in my neighborhood. Cause the part of LA that I live in, they just decided to ignore the topography of the land and just put. like straight up mountains. And yeah, if we had not, couldn't, know for a fact, cause I've seen the, like my numbers, if we had not gone through that training block, I would not have made it up those streets and I would never have even made that first episode. And yeah, I guess that's, that's a whole different trajectory than I could have ever anticipated. Cam Nicholls (13:03.502) What do you think it is? Because I think it's intertwined in training and in pushing yourself and in sort of aspiration. But like, why do you think those Steep Streets videos, obviously they're well produced. Mitch, I know you're a very good producer over there, but there's obviously, you you produce a lot of different videos and the Steep Street ones are the ones that tend to really get the views. Why do you think that is? Mitch Boyer (13:24.066) I think that, mean, this is something I've thought a lot about because I'm like, why do those videos get 10 times the views of any of my other videos? And how do I replicate that? I think, well, for one, I do fall a lot in those videos. And I think people crashing gets views, even if it's a really ugly slow motion crash on a steep hill. But I think there's the, they're short, they're generally about a minute long and there's the accomplishment at the end. People have a short attention span. It's really hard with cycling, especially road cycling. There's a lot of really long efforts and to tell a story. That's engaging where basically the beginning, middle and end happen over the course of an hour or several hours. Even if you've condensed that in a YouTube video, that's a lot of story to tell. Whereas a steep street, that's only a minute or long, a minute or so long, there's a beginning, middle and end. The payoff is really, really fast. And it's something anybody can really understand because even if they've never ridden a bike up a steep street, they've tried walking up one or driven a car up one. And everybody has an opinion. about how they've seen a street that is steeper than what they see in the video. So I think it's got a bunch of really kind of interesting points. Cam Nicholls (14:28.236) Nah, fair call. And going back to that first 12 weeks before we sort of migrate to what you've learnt with Ryan over the years, because I know you've been working with our head coach for quite a long time now. Did it feel like, in all honesty, did it, because I know there's when you're first coming on board and you've got to, you know, using different technology maybe, some people have never even had an indoor trainer before. I think you might've. purchased a new indoor trainer as you were getting set up, but how did you find that onboarding experience? Was it a lot to take on? Was it overwhelming? And then over the 12 weeks, like did the training, you you talk about accountability, did it feel like a bit of a weight on your shoulders or was it more freeing in terms of you didn't have to worry about what you were doing and you could just get on with the show? Mitch Boyer (15:13.622) that's a good question. For those initial 12 weeks. Yeah. So I started out with a tax Neo, I think. And much like the Peloton that I think the tax trainers are a lot better now, but that specific tax I had had issues with the power meter. and so I did the same thing after I'd seen the Peloton numbers be so drastically different from the Asioma pedals. put the Asioma pedals on my bike when I was on the tax trainer. Once again, the numbers were not consistent. So I ended up. giving my dad the tax trainer and then I went on and bought a Wahoo kicker. So I did get a new trainer for that. That was a little frustrating, but that was again my fault. I probably should have done a little more research. There were plenty of videos that could have warmed me about that. I think so that I mean, there's just like there's a bunch of little things anytime you try anything, but I think that's part of the journey and part of the fun. The nice thing about having the RCA and I assume any coach, but was I was able to ask you questions about that. and kind of get instant feedback on like, yeah, I'm noticing the power of data is different between these things. And having an authority figure to ask questions for me personally is very, like remove some of that stress, right? Rather than trying to bumble around and figure out and search on all the forms. And then you don't know who's actually writing on these forms. This person could sound like they know what they're doing, but they may not know what they're doing at all. So it's always nice to have somebody else that you trust to answer those questions. And I think that that really helped. Cam Nicholls (16:41.912) This podcast is brought to you by the Road Cycling Academy. If you're a recreational or amateur road cyclist and you're stuck on a frustrating performance plateau, feeling like you need some guidance, but you're not quite ready to dive straight into one-to-one coaching, at the RCA we've created something called the 12-week custom plan, which we believe would be your perfect next step. It starts off with an upfront deep dive call with your coach who will understand your goals, your riding preferences, what your not negotiable rides are. and where you want to go, then they'll create a fully tailored 12-week custom plan that is supported over the 12-week period. We believe it's the perfect intermediate step, giving you a taste of working with a coach and experiencing a customized plan without committing to full coaching. Our writers are seeing real results too, and you can go to our Google reviews to see this. Marvin recently shaved over 30 minutes off his graft into Imburel time from doing the 12-week custom plan. Adam gained 20 watts on his FTP in 12 weeks and 40 watts on his five minute power. And we have riders completing rides that they've failed in previous attempts like Peaks Challenge, all from doing this 12 week custom plan. So if you're ready to break through, head to the roadcyclingacademy.com in the menu system, you'll see our 12 week custom plan and take the first step towards that next level performance. Now let's get back to the podcast. Yeah, cool. And what about the training itself? Did it feel like, cause I think, you know, some people are worried and maybe this is more of a question because I feel like when you first started working with me, you were riding mainly solo, but as you've sort of developed as a rider over the years, I think your first bunch ride might've actually been here in Noosa where I said, come, we'll go out and do this big ride and just tag along to the first part of. the group ride, but obviously as you've gotten stronger on the bike, you've got more confidence. And I now see on your socials, you do a lot more group rides. So maybe this is more of a question about, you know, in more recent years working with Ryan, how have you felt the training and, you know, intertwining with your not negotiable rides and the rides you want to do with your friends? Do you find it's a struggle or do you find that it can work cohesively? Cause I feel like this is Cam Nicholls (18:59.566) One of the big challenges we face as well with a lot of recreational is it's like, oh, I don't want to give up my Saturday group ride. And I don't want to give up, you know, this, but because I really enjoy that. So I can't do the training where, you know, we really preach people to have the not negotiable rides, but you know, me, us preaching it and reality can be two different things. So how have you found that sort of experience blending those things together? Mitch Boyer (19:23.616) Yeah, at the beginning I was riding mostly solo and I think maybe as a result of also just coming from mostly doing my training on the trainer when I started out, I was like religious about my structure on all my rides. I forgot the word you used. I think you said like highly compliant or something like that when you were describing my training at the start, because I would just like to a T try to follow the exact training plan for every single workout, which I think was really, really good at the start of my training because I learned how to pace efforts really well. And when I went from being on the trainer to starting to train more on the road, I developed the skills to learn how to like hold an effort even on undulating terrain a lot more. So that was really, really good. The, I think my first bunch ride was with you in Noosa and that was like a gateway drug for me. Cause yeah, I do ride a bunch of group rides now and fitting them into my training. I think there's kind of like seasons to it and not like literal seasons, but just there are periods where I want to be doing more group rides and there are periods where I want to just have more structured training and I want to be riding more with myself because I'm preparing for an event or I'm just feeling like I want that sense of accomplishment that comes with like going through a big training block. And then there are other times where, yeah, I just want to be cruising around with my friends a lot. so Working with Ryan's really nice. Cause we just have open discussions about that. Like, are you feeling like you're ready for like another big training block? Or do you want to, are you feeling like you're, you want to kind of just like noodle around and, and do that. So like right now I'm kind of in one of those more like noodle around session, like periods of time. But last year I was getting ready for Phil's Fondo. And so I told Ryan, I wanted to do like a big training block and all of my training because of steep streets had really been focused on the left side of my power curve and building up. kind of that like one to five minute power. I never really worked on developing my like 20 or 30 minute power for these longer climbs that we have out here. And so we worked on that. then, so that was really great. Cause last summer I went and I ended up over the course of this, there's a big ride that goes through Malibu. You have a bunch of, it's like five or six long climbs. hit PRs on every single climb for that event because I'd like really worked with Ryan to build that part of my power. And I just, I didn't do as many bunch rides. Mitch Boyer (21:47.788) then I still would do like one or two a week, but I just had different training goals. Cam Nicholls (21:52.162) Yeah. So what you're saying though is it's you are able to blend in. You're still able like when you transition to, all right, let's get focused. You know, I've got a goal. This is what I want to achieve. You're still able to blend in those social rides on a weekly basis. Mitch Boyer (22:06.274) yeah. Yeah. There's one I do almost every week called the ponies group ride. And the nice thing about that one is it's like, there's like a 15 minute climb. And then after that, there's like a six minute client. basically depending on where I'm at in the training block, Ryan would use that as like, one of my intervals. he's like, okay, smash it on the 15 minute climb and let's see, or not even one of my intervals, more of like a test, almost like a, let's see, let's see where your power's at. But depending on where I was in the training block, he would use that group ride and that climb specifically either as a test for my fitness or just like an interval. then he'd tell me, go, you know, do a couple more climbs afterwards, that kind of thing. But yeah, he was able to fit that into the training rather than being like, go be a hermit and just ride on your own. was never, you know, that. Cam Nicholls (22:54.316) Yeah, cool. So, I mean, we've obviously we're talking about, you know, the work that you've done with Ryan. And obviously, after we initially worked together for 12 weeks, that was from a personal standpoint when I was trying to remove myself as a coach and become more of an administrator at the RCA. And, yeah, I moved you over to Ryan. And I remember it might have been a six or 12 months after you started. work or had been working with Ryan, I should say, you might've been here and he said, Cam, I hate to tell you, but Ryan's a way better coach than you. Thanks Mitch, appreciate it. But no, you're right, is. All our coaches are way better than I am, which is one of the things I'm proud about. Here at the RCA, we've got really good coaches, but I know Ryan's a top level coach. What have you discovered about yourself? Mitch Boyer (23:29.601) Okay Cam Nicholls (23:46.906) you know, over the last, what's been three years or something like that, even longer, you know, you about you through the training. And it doesn't necessarily need to be, you know, I know you made a video which had over a million views about becoming an above average cyclist and hitting over 300 Watts and, you know, for your FTP and that's great. And a lot of people have those FTP goals and nothing wrong with them, but you know, and I'm, don't want to put words in your mouth here, but you know, I read some of our Google reviews and speak to our members. on a weekly basis over many years. the training obviously helps you with your cycling performance, but sometimes it goes beyond that, there's more to it. So when I ask you this question, doesn't, it could be, maybe it is your 300 watt FTP, but feel free to go elsewhere. Mitch Boyer (24:37.772) No, that 300 watt FTP is the greatest accomplishment of my life. it's all, man. There's a lot of things, from a embarrassing standpoint, I've realized how neurotic I am just by all the notes I leave on my, on my workout things for a while. Yeah. I would leave all my notes to Ryan, like on every workout and be like, okay, this is going on. this then I feel this and that. And then Ryan was always very, consistent and calm with his responses. I think he's kind of learned like give Mitch a day or two before I respond like let him let him come back down to earth. I think every single like time I did a test like a critical power test with him I was always say something like I could have done better but you know this is this happened I'm really disappointed in myself and then he come back and be like I like you did really well actually so that kind of I'm still working on it but it's helping me to be a little bit easier on myself and just see all the the improvements. But think a big, I guess, life lesson that I think about is a lot of my breakthroughs in cycling have come down to, right, and I had a conversation about this, just increasing my tolerance for discomfort. And I think it's really empowering to push through those levels. And to a certain degree, obviously, your body's making all these like physiological changes, and it's adapting and it's becoming stronger in certain ways as you're training. But you're The breakthroughs that you make mentally can be just as beneficial or even more beneficial because those are the ones that I think like stick even more. So getting ready for this baby right now, I'm not riding as much as I was like last year when I was getting ready for and training for that Fondo, but I am so much more in tune with my body, my mind and how far I can push myself that when I do go out for a ride with friends, I still, like I haven't, I haven't dropped off as dramatically as I would think I would have. And part of that is I can really, really dig deep now. So I can bury myself for at least one ride with friends. The next day I'm cooked because I just don't have the adaptations to survive, but I can really, really dig deep. you know, I can hang out for like one big ride with my friends and then I have to recover for a couple of days, but that's doesn't just happen on the bike that happens in life. There's a lot of times where you do just have to kind of like dig deep and cycling. Mitch Boyer (27:02.432) has kind of expanded a bit of my ability there. And that sounds kind of mushy, but that's the truth that's helped me out. Cam Nicholls (27:09.112) Nah, it's not mushy. It makes a lot of sense. know, a lot of people, and you can go, not suggesting you go and read the Google reviews, Mitch, but if people want to, if you go pretty deep, a lot of people have found that the training and the improvement on the bike and feeling fitter and stronger in general just gives them more confidence. A lot of guys have broken through some mental health barriers because quite often as well, it comes with losing a bit of weight as well. So they just feel better, better in life. So you completely make sense. What did you just say? Squishy or something like that? Squishy, squishy, squishy. Not at all. So, you know, it's been a number of years. How do you work through the peaks and troughs of staying motivated? Because I know you haven't, you've worked with Ryan for a number of years, but you're not working with him week in, week out. back-to-back years, you've had some down times and you've had some periods where you don't really want to ride your bike. And then you have some periods where you're actually not ready to roll, motivated to get back into another 12 week block. So has there been anything specific that you've done to help you get that motivation back when you're feeling a little bit like you're in a trough? Mitch Boyer (28:22.734) Yeah, I think the biggest thing I've kind of learned is to give myself like permission to have those troughs. Whereas I think early on, like a year or two into training, the first time I really had one of those dips, I felt so guilty and I felt so much pressure to just push through and, you know, keep training harder or like I make YouTube videos about riding my bike. so like, have to keep doing this and I have to keep going. And what I've kind of learned is that things do ebb and flow. luckily after going through that a couple of times, I've learned, yeah, there's always like a little dip in fitness, but when I get back to it, it'll take a little bit of time, but that fitness is going to come back faster than it came the first time. And then I'm going to continue to grow in whatever area, like my sprint might not always get like. higher as I get older, but there are other areas where I can grow. So you can still find other areas of improvement. And I don't know, that's just, I guess that's kind of life, right? Cam Nicholls (29:29.55) People are worried because I feel this is a very common misconception. People are worried, particularly, and you're relatively young, but I think men, once they get into their 50s and 60s, they're worried, which is completely not the case, that if they back it off for a bit or have a week off, heaven forbid, or a couple of weeks off, they're not going to get their fitness back. Was that a concern for you when you first were losing motivation, but you didn't want to have that downtime because you didn't want to lose your fitness? Mitch Boyer (29:59.938) Yeah, that was a worry many, many times. I remember even like two years ago, I was worried that I had had a training block where I worked on my sprint. finally got over a thousand watts. I was so excited. And then I went through one of those troughs and I was like, I'm not going to ever get a stronger sprint again. And then I went through another training block and sure enough, like the sprint went up and the same thing with like my 20 minute power and the same minute thing with my five minute power. And I'm 38 years old, I'll turn 39 this year. So I'm like, you know, at the beginning stages of my middle age. And so I'm at that point where I'm starting to realize my own mortality. And then because I'm kind of neurotic, this is all, you know, ways that weighs down. And I think training has been really helpful to show, Hey, there's still stuff that can improve. And I think just finding different reasons to train really helps out with that too. Like whether it's an event or whether it's a specific goal and finding those reasons makes the training worth it. It makes just like riding a bit more fun. Cause otherwise I would just be noodling around all the time feeling sorry for myself. Like you are from Winnie the Pooh and complain about how I'm not like I used to be and I'm only 38 years old. So that's pretty sad. Cam Nicholls (31:17.678) The old back in the day son, when I used to be fit and strong. Yeah, yeah. It's, yeah, those peaks and troughs are actually, there's a big silver lining to the troughs. And that is you do come back, not only with motivation is, the big one, but, you know, you've given your body the ability to have some recuperation is that to stop stressing yourself, you know, the cardiovascular system. Mitch Boyer (31:21.595) Exactly. Cam Nicholls (31:42.402) your heart, You your heart, you know, when you're constantly taking your heart to close to max, you know, week in, week out, you know, that does stress over time. People neglect that it's a muscle. You know, the people end up in this sort of like, I'm always feeling sore in the muscles. It's like, well, you know, you're in a fatigue state and your musculoskeletal system needs a rest. And then there's a central nervous system and then there's, you know, the brain. So there's motivation. So. All those things combined, I personally find, and I've seen it so many times over the years, people fight with taking a break, but then they finally take a break. And whether that's having complete time off the bike or just backing off intensity and volume by 50 % or whatever it is, I mean, it's normally always good. When you've had a break out of curiosity, have you just backed it off or have you like literally just wrapped the bike for a week or two or even longer? Mitch Boyer (32:31.63) I've done both. Okay. Um, yeah. So last year I had a hamstring strain and so I had to be off the bike for a little bit while I was going through PT and my PT, the guys working with PT wanted me to take two weeks off the bike. So I had two weeks where I wasn't riding at all. And that was kind of terrifying, but then I ended up last year hitting like all time best power numbers when I started training again. And then I was thinking about this actually this week, cause I'm in. As we've, as we've mentioned, I'm in this like little period where I'm just kind of noodling around right now because of the, you know, have kid on the way. But even with me noodling around, my fitness right now is so much higher than it was four years ago or five years ago when we started training. And I think the consistency over years, even though within those years, there are the ups and downs and the troughs, the long-term consistency has really. paid off and I'm seeing the dividends from that even in these periods where I am kind of in a downtime. And so these dips that I'm going through now are higher than my peaks were at the start. Cam Nicholls (33:37.804) Yeah, makes sense. mean, the conditioning is a real thing. You mentioned before, I can get through a ride that I probably not conditioned for right now because of years of riding, but I'll be cooked the next day because you've shocked the system. But that's just part of the conditioning that you get with riding year on year, particularly when you're training to structure, because when you're trying to structure, you get to really know your body as well. You get to understand how to pace efforts and that body awareness as well as the... the years of conditioning, yeah, means that you can still do some pretty good things on a bike, you know, with limited training. Well, look, Mitch, thanks for sharing your journey. I appreciate it. It's something a little bit different here on the RCA podcast. We're often talking about, you know, science papers and training sessions and stuff like that, but it's good to have a real world conversation with one of our members. Before I let you go, and look, we can't, we're both ambassadors for BMC, so we can't tell everyone how good the BMCs are, but I'm curious, You've got a BMC sitting behind you there. I've got two just tucked away in the other room over there. You've ridden the road machine. You've got the SLR01. You haven't had much time in the team machine art, have you? Mitch Boyer (34:47.054) I haven't, I've actually never written the T-Machinar. yeah. Cam Nicholls (34:49.422) never in the T-Machine R. So I'm doing a project at the moment where I'm comparing the road machine, so the endurance BMC, to the T-Machine R, which is the aero bike, which is, know, sexy and cool. And I've got some big, you know, I've got a 65 millimeter rear and a 58 front. I've really sort of beefed that thing up. And I'm just going to be, I'm spoiler alert for my upcoming YouTube video. much prefer riding the road machine. Even though like the T-Machine R is cooler and you when I rocked up to the bunch ride the other day people were asking me questions about it and you know I felt like I didn't feel like a know middle-aged man in micro I felt like a cool cyclist and it descends incredibly well it's clearly faster on the descent. But outside of that I just love the road machine just it's I don't feel it's that much slower if at all on the flats. climbs well, the weight's about, I've got the weight to be about the same and the geometry just suits my old man body so I'm loving it. Mitch Boyer (35:49.366) Yeah. That's so interesting. So I've got the T-Machine SLR, the climbing bike, and then I have the road machine. Yep. And I have been riding the road machine for the last month. And then this week I just started riding the T-Machine SLR, the climbing bike again. don't know if it's cause I've got it like dialed in with a really lightweight setup, but I am loving it right now. So you feel so fast on the climbs and that it's kind of thrown a wrench because I was working on a video. Cam Nicholls (36:04.43) Okay. Mitch Boyer (36:19.264) along the lines of what you were saying. But I don't know, the road machine is so much more versatile. We have a lot of like great dirt trails around here. So I just put gravel tires on the road machine and I can ride that all over the city, over our bad pavement on the dirt trails. A couple of gravel like single track that I probably shouldn't take it on, but it's still fun. I don't know, they're different. I guess I'm at a point in my cycling journey right now where I've ridden enough bikes that it can start to tell the difference between like a bike specialized for climbing versus a bike that's like really good all around. Yep. And I'm enjoying the zippiness of a climbing bike. Yeah. But you can't be, I guess if I had to have one, the road machine is just so much more versatile. I don't know. It's hard. Cam Nicholls (37:03.916) The thing about the road machine, and maybe you've adjusted yours, but our stock out of the box, I liked it, but not nearly as much as I appreciate riding it now. The reason being it was set up for endurance. So it had more of a compact setup, gearing wise, which doesn't suit the types of rides I do, which are more fast bunch rides, do a bit of racing. And then the wheels were some good DT Swiss wheels, but it was their endurance carbon wheels. So they were a bit heavier. and it made the overall bike quite heavy. So it had heavier wheels, the gearing wasn't quite right. So I put on some nicer wheels that were much lighter and I changed the gear setup. And so then, you know, I sort of pimped it up for me. So have you done any pimping up of your road machine or you left it stock? Mitch Boyer (37:48.29) It is, I've done the same wheels, but I do have, I've got rival on my road machine and I have force on the team machine. So it's got a little bit heavier grip set. yeah, I don't know. I'll have to do a little more tests. It's still very early days on this. So I rode this road machine for like a month and now I'm back on the team machine. could just be, you know, shiny toy syndrome. And as soon as I go back on the road machine, I'm going to be thrilled about all of the trails I can ride. Cause with the The T-Machine right now with the climbing wheels, LA's roads are horrendous. I have to be really careful about which climbs I choose to do. So I zip up the climbs I can ride, but I can't ride all of them. Whereas on the road machine, I've got like 36 mil tires on there and I can ride anything I want. That's going to affect how zippy it feels as well. I don't know, maybe I want to ride the R and all of the aerobike. I have no idea. Cam Nicholls (38:41.324) You probably won't be riding any bikes over the next few weeks anyway, Mitch. Mitch Boyer (38:45.134) That's true, I need to get the trainer set up again. Cam Nicholls (38:48.33) Yeah, exactly. You can do that in like a half asleep state probably. Cool. Well, look, Mitch, thanks very much for your time and sharing your journey. Greatly appreciated. It's great to have you as part of the RCA community. And yeah, we wish you and Val all the best over the next few weeks. And then, you know, it's going to be a big change of life. yeah, wishing you all the best. Mitch Boyer (38:52.738) Yeah. Mitch Boyer (39:11.246) Thanks Cam, great talking with you. Cam Nicholls (39:12.782) We'll catch everyone in the next podcast.  
• Indoor vs Outdoor Cycling: What the Research Really Says 15.04.2026 21min

  This episode explores the differences between indoor and outdoor cycling, examining research findings, muscle activation, and practical tips for optimizing indoor training. Hosted by Cam Nicholls with expert insights from RCA coach Ben Treble, it offers valuable guidance for cyclists aiming to improve performance and understand the nuances of training environments.   Stannards: https://stannards.com.au/  RCA: https://roadcyclingacademy.com/    key topics Indoor vs outdoor cycling differences Research findings on power output Muscle activation during cycling Practical tips for indoor training Equipment and setup considerations     Chapters 00:00 Introduction to the episode and guest 00:27 Why are we discussing indoor vs outdoor cycling? 01:20 Research insights on indoor vs outdoor power output 02:09 Adjusting power zones for indoor training 03:00 Power meter differences and calibration 04:19 Key research findings on power output differences 06:43 Muscle activation differences between indoor and outdoor cycling 08:01 Summary of research and individual differences 09:52 Variability in power output and environmental factors 11:42 Practical tips for indoor training setup 14:07 Why indoor feels harder and how to adapt 16:44 Muscle activation and fatigue in indoor cycling 19:52 Key takeaways for indoor training optimization   Transcript:  Cam Nicholls (00:01.804) Welcome to the RCA podcast designed for recreational and amateur road cyclists with a focus on performance. We dive into cycling training, nutrition, strength training for cyclists and even bike fitting tips all designed to help you train smarter, ride faster and hopefully tear your mates legs off. So without further ado, let's dive into today's episode. Cam Nicholls (00:27.746) Welcome back to the RCA podcast where today I'm joined by RCA coach Ben Trevill. We're in a hotel room in Sydney. Why are we in a hotel room in Sydney, Ben? What are you doing here? Ben Treble (00:38.411) I'm here supporting the RCA Pro Velo League team for the Sydney Harbour City GP races. Cam Nicholls (00:45.602) You're doing the DS, the director's sporting. Ben Treble (00:47.667) Yeah, filling in for Ryan who's getting on the pedals. Cam Nicholls (00:51.308) Yeah. And I'm here attempting to make some content and I thought we'd use this opportunity to get together face to face and, you know, talk about some relevant topics for the audience training related, of course. The first one that I wanted to talk about is indoor versus outdoor cycling and the differences in, I guess, sensation and power output. Because I know a lot of RCA members that I've dealt with in the past and I know that you deal with do... tend to not struggle more, but they feel it's a little bit more difficult on the indoor versus the outdoor. But Yona, you've had a look at the research and the research may suggest something a little bit different. So I wanted to dig into that and hopefully we can come to some sort of conclusion at end of this discussion. I'm not sure if we will, but what's the research telling you when it comes to indoor versus outdoor? Ben Treble (01:41.486) Yeah, I think I will start by saying often when we look at research to practice, we find differences. So yeah, in practice, it's exactly what I felt personally, the feedback I get from my writers, what you've heard is that yeah, indoor training feels harder and it's kind of the perception that people even go as far to say you need to test indoors and outdoors and have different thresholds for indoors, outdoors and different zones or down adjust your zones by 5 % for indoors, for example. Cam Nicholls (02:09.198) Is that what you do with your members? Ben Treble (02:10.765) I do not know. Okay. If they need to down adjust it a couple percent for a certain session, like I'm not against it if it means they get through it, but generally, no, I don't set up separate zones for indoors outdoors. would only be if someone said to me, I'm going to do three months entirely indoors, or I want to do Zwift racing. That was their main goal. Then I would test indoors, train indoors and set zones based on indoors. Cam Nicholls (02:35.598) Okay. And what about the, this is a kind of like a, I guess a side note, but quite often, you know, people using different power meters as well. And, know, there will be even outside of the fact that the sensation feels maybe a little bit more difficult on the indoor, the indoor trainer reads a little bit lower as well. You know, like the kicker trainer or the indoor bike versus, you know, the Asioma power pedals, it might be 10, 15 Watts. So what do you do surrounding that? Ben Treble (03:00.888) first tip I give athletes when I have an onboarding with them and we chat about equipment is do you use your kicker's power meter or your trainer's power meter or do you connect your bike's power meter and use that as the power source when you do indoor training. that's what I would ask my athletes to do because then they want the same power source, you want to use the same power meter, indoors, outdoors. Where that's getting tricky though is a lot of people are moving to these sort of the Wahoo indoor bikes and the Zwift indoor bikes. Cam Nicholls (03:27.896) Got one myself. Ben Treble (03:28.78) where, you know, unless you're going to swap over your Asioma pedals or something, yet you don't get that choice. So it's important to know there are differences in power meters and a couple percent when you're doing high intensity efforts can make a big difference. Yeah. Cam Nicholls (03:42.062) Okay, so the conclusion of that is ideally use the same power meter if you can, if you can't know what the differences are and adjust accordingly. Ben Treble (03:48.782) Absolutely. So back to research, I sort of assumed I was just going to search the journals and find papers that prove that indoor and outdoor there's differences and we should have different thresholds. Fully aware I would have confirmation bias that that's what I was looking for. It's not what I found. So I was a bit surprised. Caveat, again, there's not actually a lot of research on this topic and I've only spent probably half a day digging. So there's probably a lot more out there still. But from what I found, there's a paper, a lot of people have, you we've referenced in our newsletter in the Cam Nicholls (04:17.3) Seems to be the main paper people point to. Ben Treble (04:19.214) Exactly. There's a 2022 paper from Lipski. There's two points I find interesting in this paper. One, they looked at mean maximal powers and threshold tests, indoors versus outdoors. That's probably the main component of the paper. They only looked at males. It's a small sample size. I think it was 12 and they're elite, you know, essentially world two or level athletes. So, pretty specific population group. And they found differences where... they could do better power essentially outdoors than indoors. There was a significant difference enough where they would say, yeah, this is worthwhile looking at. I think it was about 20 Watts, give or take. Cam Nicholls (04:53.39) Is it around 20 watts? Cam Nicholls (04:58.072) I'll pull it up while you keep talking then. Ben Treble (04:59.822) Yeah, so the two points I really wanted to touch on, one, the population group people need to be mindful of. It's probably not relevant to 99 % of our audience. Cam Nicholls (05:08.418) Yeah. Amateurs and recreational pro athletes. 19 watts. Ben Treble (05:11.294) Absolutely. Yeah, 19 watts, which is measurable and that's fine. But I think this is the next bit. When you dig into that paper, there's a statistical piece of analysis that they used, which it's appropriate, but I don't know if it's appropriate when we know this is high performance in small samples where individual differences matter. So we always say these people use group mains, for example, in this paper, what they did is they used a trimmed main. And they used a pretty high percentage of trimming, 20%, which means that they cut out the top 20 and the bottom 20 % of data points and their group means are only based on that middle 80%. Now, I know I looked at individual responses out of the 12, two of them did better indoors, but those data points got cut out because of the trimming. Already, if they had used total group means, like you would have had a different outcome. So, this is... Cam Nicholls (05:53.153) Okay. Wow. Ben Treble (06:04.248) just a bit of a mindful thing, I think, for people when they quote. This paper gets quoted a lot and like all papers, you get a lot of individual difference and that's probably going to be our main discussion point. Cam Nicholls (06:14.872) Yeah. Okay. So what, was there anything else that you found that was worth referencing? think the one that came to mind, which isn't so much about results, but it was more so relating to, was a paper done just recently and it wasn't, it wasn't a super comprehensive paper, but they looked at muscle activation and how your muscles respond differently on the indoor versus the outdoor, notably our calf, quadricep and shin. I'm not sure why they're measuring the shin muscle. You may have a better understanding why. I don't really think of my shin muscle and I think about cycling and the paper didn't look at glutes at all, which is probably a major oversight and probably a cost reason behind it. But it was interesting to note that a lot of people feel a different sensation when they're on the indoor and that paper is basically shining the light on, yeah, you are activating the muscles in a different way. Ben Treble (07:05.25) Yeah. think, can we finish on that paper? Cause I think it's a good way to wrap up the summary to some respect in the discussion. So when I did my little digging in the journals, I found a couple of papers and in summary, they all had a similar conclusion, which there's no measurable difference between indoors and outdoors when they looked at true threshold testing and mean maximal powers. Again, they're finding individual differences. So in the discussions, they talk about people who had more experience in indoor training, trended towards doing better on indoors than outdoors, which makes a lot of logical sense. And the people who, you know, spent 90 % of their time training outdoors, put them on indoor trainer and yeah, the RPEs went up higher and they couldn't do as, do as well as they do outdoors. So that makes sense. The papers are, if you are wondering, there's an unpublished paper coming out later this year at, science and cycling conference at the tour. So this is pre-publication paper, 2026 from Lee Inn, comparison of indoor outdoor writing ability. They looked at 18 males and 12 females. They're trained, but unprofessional. They found a moderate to high correlation between FTP results across indoor outdoor tests was 0.83. So not, I wouldn't call it a very strong correlation, but definitely not pointing the other direction enough to say there is a difference between the two. It's pushing you much more to a direction to say there's no difference. The other paper was from 23. It's a comparison of mean maximal powers. This one's probably slightly more nuanced because they looked at mean maximal powers across indoor outdoor testing. They also looked at recorded maximal powers from training data and competition data. This paper's from Sebastian Doock et al. They only looked at seven male amateurs. So again, very small sample size. Notably, the only power durations they ever really found measurable differences was a five and 15 second. So sprint power, very neuromuscular. No real measurable difference in the five and 20 minute power durations across all four of those environments or contexts. So yeah, and no significant difference in mean maximal powers for the indoor and outdoor testing at all. The only differences they really found was in within the training data, they often found higher. Ben Treble (09:24.46) sorry, lower maximal powers. And it was the race data where they were doing some of their peak powers outdoors. Okay. So a lot of context to that one. The third paper I looked at was a 2019 paper. So a bit older than the others. They did an analysis of it's the variability in power outputs. So that's where we're coming to our last discussion. During indoor outdoor cycling time trials, 20 male cyclists, no measurable difference in 20 minute time trial power between indoor and outdoor. However, What they did find was there's a greater variability in the power across the two. So in simple terms, they're finding no measurable difference in the average power for the 20 minute time trial. But if you were to look at the normalized compared to the average, you're going to expect a higher normalized for outdoors. So a greater degree of fluctuation in the power versus indoors where it's more steady state. Cam Nicholls (10:14.082) This podcast episode is brought to you by Stannards, a proud sponsor of the RCA's Pro Velo cycling team, RCA Bikes Online. And they've been a big supporter of Aussie cycling over the years. They're a Melbourne headquartered business with offices right across Australia. And they've been around since 1946, helping businesses and high net worth individuals with accounting, tax and broader business strategy. And just for a bit of transparency, I've actually known one of the partners since 1994. is a schoolmate of mine, in fact, a very good mate of mine. So I've seen firsthand how the business operates and the type of people they are. What I like about Stanars is they're not just your typical tax time accountant. They've got a fully integrated set up, so business services, audit and a strategic advisory so they can support businesses and high net worth individuals right across the whole journey. They work across a heap of different industries too. So they've got construction, manufacturing, healthcare, technology, hospitality, the list goes on and they're very accustomed to dealing with real world challenges. They've grown to over 110 people in recent times now backed by Pemba Capital Partners and they're continuing to expand. So if you're looking for a proper long-term advisory partner, not just someone to help you log your tax return, Stanarts are definitely worth a look. We'll drop a link. to their business in the podcast description and let's get back to the episode. Yep. Okay. Makes sense. Ben Treble (11:42.446) Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Cam Nicholls (11:44.302) I'm just a bit of a side note. I'm one of those rare crazy people that has actually done that one hour test. Really? Yeah. On the indoor and outside. And I did it within like a two week period. So I gave myself like a couple of weeks because I was pretty fatigued. Yeah. So this is just an interesting anecdote. So I did three, this is when I was in better form than I am now, 365 Watts for an hour. Outdoors, that's average power, it's not normalized power. And 300 and think it was 336 watts or 335 watts, somewhere around that. This is about 30 watt difference on the indoor going all out for an hour. Don't recommend it to people at home. It was the worst thing ever. My physiological stress though on the indoor was a heat. My heart rate was just going through the roof. I think I hit an all time best heart rate number. So just dropping that one in there as you're going through the research paper. Ben Treble (12:35.222) Yeah, I think, I mean, that's where the discussion is going to lead us, right? It's one thing for the research to say, here's what we see. It's another then kind of confirm or validate why is it different to what we see in practice? So currently, like from the research I've found and seen, I wouldn't expect within testing, like you should be able to do the similar power indoor outdoors. There's no difference. So then why in practice are we seeing reasonable differences? And a lot of the papers still talk about this, it's, it's again, it's environment and context, including bike setup or equipment setup. Even if you were just, for example, to go within outdoor cycling, you can change the environment and see significantly different, you know, test results. You could say, go do a one hour effort up climb and go do a one hour effort on the flat. If you go take a climber and say, go do one hour on a climb and then try to do one hour at the same power on a flat. you're probably going to see just as big variation in power output as you did with indoor outdoor. And I think that's where the discussion is going to go. So why do we see this difference? Because you do have a lot of context. How much training are you doing indoor versus outdoor? That's probably the first part. And then we're going to talk about setup. Have you got fans? Have you got air conditioning with your indoor trainer? Core body temperature slowly rising up on indoor training is probably one of the biggest key factors. as to why the RP starts to go up as you experience heart rate starts to go up, especially during maximal longer efforts. And of course the RP is going to go through the roof as a result, like your power is going to drop off. Cam Nicholls (14:07.214) Yep, that's what happened. Ben Treble (14:09.398) Yeah. I mean, what is your experience, Cam, like with some of your writers who say indoor feels harder? Cam Nicholls (14:14.87) It's probably like when I reflect, they're probably less focused on indoor training. Maybe they're just getting into it. A lot of our, you know, as you would know, a lot of people that come on board to the RCA don't necessarily, there were a lot of indoor training initially, but then they start embracing it because they recognise the benefits, particularly around doing structured training, being able to hit your targets and being efficient as well during the week. So I think a lot of them are inexperienced on the trainer and thus struggle with it a bit because they're not used to it. It's a different adaptation. But then conversely, you know, we've got some members and Thomas Martinez, the cycling tattooist on YouTube comes to mind who train with us for a bit. And he's actually stronger on the indoor trainer. His power numbers are better and he prefers the indoor, but he does most of his riding indoor. It does make a lot of sense. Ben Treble (14:59.678) That makes a lot of sense. This is back to that paper you briefly mentioned earlier. Why else would there be a difference indoors and outdoors? I think if you're a newer rider, of course, if you've never done indoors, again, one of the biggest differences, those Ergo trainers, especially if you turn Ergo on and for people listening, if you haven't done it, Ergo holds you to a certain power. So if you turn it on, it forces you to push that power. And not only do you have to push, let's just use 200 Watts as an example, it forces you no matter what your cadence is, you have to push 200 Watts evenly through the entire pedal stroke. And even if you get a very well trained cyclist and you say, do a steady state effort outdoors, if you look at the power production through the pedal stroke, it'll never be like force applied evenly through the full stroke. They might get it very good, but it's not going to be perfect. And then if you look at the indoor training, It forces you to hold it through the full pedal stroke. So what does this do as a result? Well, if you haven't done it very much, it's going to feel significantly harder because you've got to apply force evenly through the entire stroke constantly. There's no point at which you can just have that little back off at the top. Cam Nicholls (16:12.086) Yeah, or coast down the hill or like what most people do when they're outdoors. Ben Treble (16:15.31) Yeah. So suddenly this accumulates even a one hour zone two feels significantly harder than zone two outdoors. So this paper that you brought to me that started this conversation is pretty recent, 2025 or late 2025. I'll probably pronounce it wrong. Why Chi Tasi at all? Again, it's from Journal of Science and Cycling. Its focus was on not if there are differences in power necessarily, but it wanted to understand more about why is there a difference in the variability of power, which brings us back to that other paper I spoke about where they found no difference in power output. The difference they found was greater variability in power with outdoor riding. So these guys, went and did indoor outdoor testing. They've gone and essentially struck, you know, electrodes on different muscle groups to work out which groups are activating more or less at different points. And what they were finding is ultimately the quad and the calf had significantly higher activation during indoor cycling. So if you're pushing the same Watts, but you're your quads and your calves a lot more, that means you're using other muscle groups less. So you're essentially just going to work the quads, these big muscle groups more earlier and faster, which will lead to fatigue faster earlier and RPE higher. Makes a lot of sense. mean, they don't really, you know, they don't propose too much like why is that the case? They essentially just summarize with a needs more research, of course. Yes. Love our labs. Cam Nicholls (17:29.432) Yep, hiya. Ben Treble (17:41.986) I don't know what's your hypothesis. Cam Nicholls (17:43.842) I mean, I'm surprised it didn't do the glutes, but it made a lot of sense to me because it's the feedback we get from lot of amateurs that, just feels a bit more challenging on the indoor, feels harder. So yeah, I think there's a lot more to it, which we've sort of discussed during this chat. For example, know, cooling and high heart rates, but the activation side, which is what that paper is about was, yeah, just validating what I already assumed. Yeah. Ben Treble (18:08.718) And I think it's too easy on the indoor trainer. lot of people, again, this is a hypothesis. I don't have any data to support this, but N equals one. And you know, my glutes turn off. I already have glutes and I struggle to activate them on the bike and that's outdoors. And as soon as you stand up, even a couple times in a ride, you're going to activate your glutes a little bit and it just turns them on. And in indoor training, you have a tendency to sit down a lot more and you can put a lot more weights and hold your body up just using your arms and by sitting a lot easier. And you just rely on the quads and as a result, also the calves to pull through that stroke. Cause you're trying to get this, you've got this applied torque through the full stroke. So you're going to be turning off your glutes. And also I think your quads. So I think your upper body, which does take, you can be able to push some force through moving the bike sideways, which we all know. So it's just contextual. think you can't do that, which means you have to rely on these major muscle groups more. They fatigue earlier and therefore ergo, feels harder. The guys who train indoors more. They're just used to this. Yep. So they can still push the same power. It's the same quad muscle. The muscle hasn't changed. is power. Power's not changing in the same power meter. So yeah, I mean, if you get the air conditioning and the airflow with the fans right, and the context in the environment is similar, I don't see why you can't push the same output, but it's just like practicing. You give someone a bike with a different bike position where they activate the muscles slightly differently, it's going to feel totally wacko. Cam Nicholls (19:32.994) Yeah. So what would you say the key takeaway is? Because I would have thought a lot of people that are listening to this, particularly the end of the podcast, may struggle a little bit more indoors. So they've just heard all the research and they've heard some anecdotes. If they're struggling a little bit, what's the key take? And I'll start with takeaway one, make sure you're using the same power. Yeah. Ben Treble (19:52.672) That's one. Two, if you're new to indoor training, don't be afraid to down-regulate the power a couple percent. It's easy to just, I would pop the percent down a little bit if you need to. That's one until you get used to it. Now it does get easier the more you do it, but you have to do more of it to get used to it. And the third tip, which I would do actually is if you want to make this a bit easier, it'd be an interesting experiment is before you do your warmup on the bike with the indoor trainer, get an exercise band and a yoga mat next to your trainer. and spend even just five minutes, 10 minutes doing some glute activation exercises with the bands to turn your glutes and do a little bit of core work to turn your core on before you get on the indoor trainer. Okay. Cam Nicholls (20:36.466) interesting. might try that myself. I haven't heard of it. Haven't heard that one. And the fourth one I'll say is, you know, I think a lot of people get on Zwift or, you know, these indoor platforms and go, oh, that looks like a fun ride. Cause it's like they're seeing all these bars popping up and down, but it's probably a brutal ride. So, you know, as you kind of said, ease into it, start progressively on the trainer. Don't do really difficult workouts upfront. You know, pick something that looks a little bit easier and work from there. Yeah. Cool. Ben Treble (21:02.51) Definitely. Cam Nicholls (21:04.398) All right, thanks for time, Ben. Much appreciated. If you're out there listening and you're looking to integrate indoor into your training a little bit more strategically, make sure you check out the RCA's website, One-to-One Coaching. You can work with one of our coaches and get that down pat. That's at www.roadcyclingacademy.com. We'll catch everyone in the next podcast.  
• The VO2 Max Workout Most Cyclists Don't Know About 08.04.2026 11min

  Summary:   What if the best VO2 max workout… isn't the one everyone's doing? In this episode of the RCA Podcast, Cam Nicholls sits down with Head Coach Ryan Thomas to break down a lesser-known, research-backed VO2 max protocol from 2020 — and why it's been delivering serious results with RCA riders. Instead of traditional intervals like 30/15s or sustained 3-minute efforts, this session flips things on its head: 👉 Decreasing intervals 👉 Incomplete recovery 👉 More time above 90% VO2 max And that last point is key. Because in the research world, spending more time above 90% VO2 max is strongly linked to greater aerobic gains — and this workout gets you there faster, and keeps you there longer. In this episode, we cover: The 2020 research paper and what it actually found Why this "reverse" interval structure works so well How RCA adapted it into a practical workout (without destroying riders) Exact structure, power targets, and execution tips When to use this session in your training (and when NOT to) How to integrate it into a 6-week build toward a key event If you've been stuck rotating the same VO2 sessions and not seeing progress, this could be the new stimulus you've been missing.   Research paper: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00421-020-04463-w  🎯 Who this is for: Recreational and amateur cyclists looking to break through a plateau and train smarter — not just harder. 📈 The takeaway: It's not always about doing more… sometimes it's about doing it differently. Transcript:  Cam Nicholls (00:01.454) Welcome to the RCA Podcast, designed for recreational and amateur road cyclists with a focus on performance. We dive into cycling training, nutrition, strength training for cyclists and even bike fitting tips, all designed to help you train smarter, ride faster and hopefully tear your mates legs off. So without further ado, let's dive into today's episode. Ryan Thomas (00:24.91) you Cam Nicholls (00:26.124) Welcome back to the RCA podcast, which is also on YouTube. So if you're listening over audio, please excuse any visual references. Today I'm joined by the RCA's head coach, Ryan Thomas, and we're going to be talking about a different way to boost VO2 max. And it's based on research and it's a workout that's been going through the RCA ranks in recent times. We've been utilizing it with a lot of our members with great success. So Ryan, maybe we first start off by talking about the research paper. What did it say? Ryan Thomas (00:51.564) Yeah, so it's called high intensity decreasing. It was done in 2020 and they were comparing three pretty common VO2, two common VO2 workouts with this new VO2 protocol. guess what they were trying to achieve is what workout got you the most time above 90 % of VO2 max. Within the research world, if you've read research papers around VO2 max, they're trying to get to that mark. They're trying to spend a lot of time above 90 % of VO2 max. Cam Nicholls (00:53.966) Yep, we'll link it below. Cam Nicholls (01:18.52) because that's where they say the biggest gains for people. Ryan Thomas (01:20.462) Yeah, and if you're below that, you're kind of just working threshold. So you want to kind of want to get up over 90 % of VFC max and spend a lot of time there. We're comparing 3020s, which is an interesting one, but it's kind of the short intensity is what they call it. So on-off, really short on-offs. So similar to 3015s, but probably not quite as good as 3015s. We've done a bit of stuff on 3015s and I... Cam Nicholls (01:27.992) So what were the two workouts I was comparing? Cam Nicholls (01:44.492) They were trying to manipulate the paper a little bit. The 3015s were... We did a video on this by the way. We'll link it up there on the 3015s. Ryan Thomas (01:46.786) Yeah Ryan Thomas (01:51.022) There's probably a research bias there. the, yeah, they compared 30 20s, similar duration against long intensity there to workouts, which was three minute on, two minute off. So three minute VO2, quite a high percentage. Cam Nicholls (02:05.55) That's a common sustain VO2 workout. Ryan Thomas (02:08.205) Yeah, not a common recovery period. So they've done some interesting things here in comparing the protocols, but I think they were trying to manipulate the time in VO2 and actually about 90%. So they were comparing against those two. So the theory is that they're short intensity, they're really quick on-offs and then they're sustained VO2. Like what's the best with those compared to this new interval workout? And the new interval workout was kind of, was a new theory for me and a new theory for I feel the RCA coaches as well, which is why we've been using it. It's a much longer interval. that typical 30-15, you're doing like maybe seven to eight minutes there. The three minutes is obviously three minutes. So it's quite different. And this one goes for around 12 minutes, but it's a, you start with a three minute effort, then you have two minutes recovery, then a two minute effort. It's at 50 % of the power you were doing. So it's around zone. Cam Nicholls (02:54.072) full recovery though or is it? Cam Nicholls (02:58.902) Yes, I think that's when I did the work out of Worked Out About Zone 2. Ryan Thomas (03:01.566) Yeah, so it's middle of zone two roughly. So you're not completely off. I think that's why it keeps the oxygen consumption a bit higher is because you're not fully deloading. three minutes on, two minutes off, two minutes on, 80 seconds off, one minute on, 40 seconds off, 40 seconds on, 30 seconds off, 30, 20, 30, 20 until failure. That's what they did in the research. Cam Nicholls (03:23.374) Which early 20 till failure. Okay. And repeat that all that stuff. Just that one. That's it. one. Ryan Thomas (03:30.798) Right, so it's a very hard effort going to failure. Yeah, so they're trying to get the most out of it But when what they found was I'm looking at the plot now We can probably put the overlay in here is that the longer the effort that just with the with the recovery periods the vr2 was just staying over 90 % for that one essentially once you get past the two-minute recovery and you into the two-minute effort you're above 90 % and pretty close to 95 % for majority of the remainder of that effort So you're getting close to eight minutes above 90%, whereas the other efforts, it takes about half of that interval duration to get above 90%. Okay, so the theory was here that quickly you're getting up over that 90 % and you're staying there for eight to 10 minutes. The rewards, theoretically in the research, the rewards are much higher. Cam Nicholls (04:14.486) Yeah. So was the outcomes more so aligned to just spending time above VO2 or was there a testing protocol? Ryan Thomas (04:20.77) They were predominantly just looking at spending time above, they really looking at what the outcomes performance were, were looking at the actual VO2. Cam Nicholls (04:29.23) Okay. Yeah, I mean, the thing that I really enjoyed about it as somebody who's been training for a long period of time is you get to a point where you've kind of done all the workouts and, you know, we know through the research that variability in training is key to helping you, you know, extend to the next level to get that new stimulus. So I'd never done this workout before and it hurt a lot, which suggested to me that, this was a new stimulus. for the body and I think for a lot of people out there that are watching or listening, if you've done the 30-15s and you've done the sustained VO2, this is a really good one to consider for a new stimulus. let's, obviously the workout that's in the paper, it's not practical really to make people just do 30-20s until they fall off the indoor trainer or out on the road or wherever it might be. So you took the protocol and you created... you know, in an interval session, which I did, which we'll put as overlay on Training Pigs Virtual, that people can actually do. how did you dissect it and turn it into a workout? This podcast is brought to you by the Road Cycling Academy. If you're a recreational or amateur road cyclist and you're stuck on a frustrating performance plateau, feeling like you need some guidance, but you're not quite ready to dive straight into one-to-one coaching, at the RCA we've created something called the 12 Week. custom plan, which we believe would be your perfect next step. It starts off with an upfront deep dive call with your coach who will understand your goals, your riding preferences, what your not negotiable rides are and where you want to go. Then they'll create a fully tailored 12 week custom plan that is supported over the 12 week period. We believe it's the perfect intermediate step, giving you a taste of working with a coach and experiencing a customized plan without committing to full coaching. Our riders are seeing real results too and you can go to our Google reviews to see this. Marvin recently shaved over 30 minutes off his graft into Imburel time from doing the 12 week custom plan. Adam gained 20 watts on his FTP in 12 weeks and 40 watts on his five minute power. And we have riders completing rides that have failed in previous attempts like Peaks Challenge, all from doing this 12 week custom plan. So if you're ready to break through. Cam Nicholls (06:46.702) head to theroadcyclingacademy.com in the menu system, you'll see our 12 week custom plan and take the first step towards that next level performance. Now let's get back to the podcast. Ryan Thomas (06:58.926) Yeah, so was actually Carter Beddell, one of the RCA coaches who brought this paper to my attention and he created the session and we worked on it together to try and figure out. He came to me and said, this is really cool. I've created something. Can you do it just to test it out? I did it. And originally we had same up to the point of 230 20s. So we didn't go to failure. So it was the three, two, one, 40, 30 second efforts. And it was around a 12 minute effort. So we used that and originally we had it set three intervals. So I did it with three intervals and it knocked me for six. Like I got to the end of that and I was like, I was probably one of the hardest work out to ever done. So in my mind, I was like, I'm as an experienced writer myself, I was like, if I'm giving this to anyone who hasn't done proper VO2 work before, they're going to fall in a heap after it. And it's going to probably take a week to recover from it. It's not practical. So we kind of tailored it back a little bit. We stopped it once the... interval got to 30 seconds. So there's only one 30 second effort at the end in the session that I give and it's only two intervals. So it's a lot, it's tailored back quite a bit to what the research said, but you're still getting, think we're gonna highlight the effort for most people if they do it in ERG mode at 110 to 120 % of critical power is what we try to get the on bit at. If you're doing that and you're keeping the power around 65, 70 % in the off periods, you're still getting a 10 to 12 minute effort above threshold. Okay, so it's. Cam Nicholls (08:27.254) So you're prescribing it in erg mode for people on the trainer? Ryan Thomas (08:30.164) I don't like to do it in Erg personally, some people just like Erg mode because it's easy to execute. They don't have to think about it too much. So either or works. My preference is always non-Erg mode for anything in VO2, but some people it's just easier to do it in Erg mode. Cam Nicholls (08:44.53) So let's lay out what the set looks like and I'll put my overlay of me doing it on the Training Pigs virtual. So the first rep is three minutes. Ryan Thomas (08:53.358) First rep is three minutes. I think you had it set at 115 % of threshold. Yep. So that's a good place to start. 110, probably if you haven't done much VO2 work and you're trying this out, 110 is a good starting point. You can always increase it in the second rep. Two minutes. Two minute effort. Cam Nicholls (09:07.788) Okay, and then the recovery, two minutes, then the next, which is the one that hurt the most. That's the one that really hurt. Your recovery after a three minute VO2 effort and then the two minutes really not at recovery and then back to two minutes. Yeah, that last sort of 90 seconds, I remember it. And then the recovery after that, all the, yeah, and then. Ryan Thomas (09:25.762) Yeah, yeah, it hurts. 80 seconds, a 60 second effort, then 40 second recovery, 40 second effort, 30 second recovery, 30 second effort. Cam Nicholls (09:37.078) Okay, so there is if you want to do it, but the question is, when should you be doing it? Because I think the thing about these videos is people go, that's interesting. I wouldn't mind trying that. And then they'll try it for a couple of weeks and then move on. And maybe it was the wrong time to try it. Two weeks is probably not long enough to give it a fair shot. So when should people be thinking about implementing this into their training regime and how long should they do it for? Ryan Thomas (09:59.064) You want to do it pretty close to when you want to be peaking or your target event. So within that six week window of that event or target or whatever you're trying to achieve. Yeah. Yeah. Using it in within that period. So starting it pretty solid and then tapering it going into, but within that six weeks, yeah, you could do this session once a week for the six week period going into an event. Yeah. There's a good and then doing other stuff around it obviously, but you use it with that or you could interchange it with another type of interval. So what I like to do instead of giving one This just one every week for six weeks in a row is give this one week and then a different type of VO2 effort the next week and go back to that one. So change your stimulus every couple of weeks, but you don't want to be doing this like 12 weeks out for an event because it's going to get you going pretty good. It's a type of interval that's going to peak your physiology because it's a lot of time above that 90 % of VO2 max. And it's going to really sharpen you up for a testing or a race or whatever it is. So you want to be careful about doing it too far out from whatever that goal is. Cam Nicholls (10:58.252) Yeah, and if people are sort of curious as to what would come before this, we had a chat just before this one and that video will be live. So we'll link it up there. It's about periodising through the training zones. So make sure you spend plenty of time, you know, around base zone two work and sweet spot sub threshold before you start tackling this. Because if you do that work before you get to this workout, then this work out is going to yield better outcome. Ryan Thomas (11:21.758) Yes, in my opinion, yes. Cam Nicholls (11:24.194) Yep. Cool. All right. Thanks for your time, Ryan. Thanks, Cam. Much appreciated. And we'll catch everyone in next podcast.  
• The Best Supplements for Cycling (latest 2026 research) 01.04.2026 40min

  This episode provides a comprehensive review of supplementation in cycling performance, based on recent research from the UCI sports nutrition project. Cam Nicholls and RCA coach Ben Treble discuss food-first approaches, effective supplements like caffeine, creatine, beta alanine, nitrates, and more, emphasizing evidence-based choices for cyclists. Research: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12912213/  AIS: https://www.ausport.gov.au/ais/nutrition/supplements  Stanndards: https://stannards.com.au/  (podast sponsor)  Key Takeaways Prioritize whole foods for macro and micronutrients before supplements. Use the AIS framework to identify high-efficacy supplements (Group A). Caffeine can improve performance by 2-5% and should be dosed 3-6 mg/kg about an hour before effort. Sodium bicarbonate (bicarb) and beta alanine buffer muscle acidity, effective for high-intensity efforts. Nitrates from beetroot juice reduce oxygen cost of submaximal exercise, beneficial in hot conditions. Hyperhydration with glycerol or sodium can improve thermal regulation in long endurance events. Avoid unverified supplements; choose those with third-party testing and certification. Supplements like ketones currently show mixed results and are not recommended for performance enhancement. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to the episode and guest 00:26 The context of cycling performance and supplement discussion 01:28 Overview of the UCI sports nutrition project and key authors 02:53 Navigating supplement marketing noise and the food-first approach 03:43 The importance of macro and micronutrient intake from whole foods 04:49 Training on 100 grams of carbs per hour and its benefits 05:46 Using the AIS supplement framework to guide supplement choices 07:35 Key supplements in Group A: caffeine, creatine, bicarbonate, beta alanine, nitrates, hyperhydration, exogenous ketones 08:23 Caffeine: dosing, effects, and practical tips 12:24 Sodium bicarbonate: buffering capacity and application in high-intensity efforts 16:40 Beta alanine: muscle carnosine loading and effects 28:59 Nitrates from beetroot juice: reducing oxygen cost of exercise 33:27 Hyperhydration with glycerol and sodium: benefits for endurance in hot conditions 35:06 Exogenous ketones: current evidence and performance implications 39:07 Summary and practical advice on supplement strategy   Transcript: Cam Nicholls (00:01.804) Welcome to the RCA podcast designed for recreational and amateur road cyclists with a focus on performance. We dive into cycling training, nutrition, strength training for cyclists and even bike fitting tips all designed to help you train smarter, ride faster and hopefully tear your mates legs off. So without further ado, let's dive into today's episode. Welcome back to the RCA podcast where today I'm joined by RCA coach and science geek Ben Treble and we're in a hotel room in Sydney. We're here supporting the boys at the RCA Bikes Online boys at the Pro Velo. Ben, what are you doing? Ben Treble (00:40.53) I'm filling in some big shoes from Ryan, our team manager in DS and playing the DS role while Ryan's on the pedals. Cam Nicholls (00:47.458) Nice. And I'm here to try and make some content. So we thought we'd use the opportunity to get together for a couple of podcasts. And today we're to talk about a comprehensive review on supplementation in cycling performance that was released recently, February, 2026. And this was a paper that Ben brought to my attention, I think via Instagram story, I saw you share it. And I was like, that's pretty interesting. And it kind of sort of validates a lot of supplements that are you know, we know that work, but also highlights an area that I think a lot of people tend to forget about. So Ben, you've looked at the paper in detail. What do you make of it? Ben Treble (01:28.054) I love it. My caveat is, I'm, I'm, very biased on this one. So firstly, it's one paper out of, think there's 15 papers that are being slowly released. So they're not all released yet. And it's part of a much bigger project where the UCI commissioned essentially the world experts in all their different topics related to nutrition. And it's called the UCI sports nutrition project. And there are many, many papers on different topics about cycling. So. Yeah. One of the papers is the sports nutrition paper. It's on the use of sport foods and supplements to improve performance in cycling. One of the key authors is Jamie Whitfield, who was a supervisor of mine when I did placement at a lab in Melbourne. cool. I hold him in very high respect. He's, he's much smarter than myself. I would think of him more of a biochemist, sports scientist actually, but he's brilliant. You know, of course, Burke was a big part of that paper. Who's probably one of the top. I would argue the number one sports nutritionist in the world. contribution to both research and practice within Australia in a global context is phenomenal. So very good paper, highly recommend. We will link it that paper, I'm sure, for people to have a look in the potty. So what are we doing about this paper? Well, they just really want to dig into, as you all know, you probably all get bombarded on media from a hundred million companies about take this supplement, take this, take oxygenated water. There's so much noise. Out there, it's difficult for people to navigate what actually works. Cam Nicholls (02:57.422) I'm in an ad actually promoting AgeMade. guess a lot of people would have seen that ad. Ben Treble (03:02.319) I have received this head many times. I'm in my mid thirties and I've received the age mate. Cam Nicholls (03:07.926) Yeah, sorry about that. It's a good supplement though. I did my blasts, my bloods it worked for me. So, okay. I stand by that one. Okay. Ben Treble (03:14.222) Cook me up and I'll try it. Back on topic. I'm not talking about age made in my list today, just for the reference. Sorry for your plug. What this paper does is it tries to really break down what's important and what's not for people. And I think the first point that we really want to get across to the audience today is you should really try to have a food first approach, which means try to get your macros and micronutrients from, you know, like natural whole foods first. Cam Nicholls (03:45.582) Feats any supplement, hands down, every day of the Ben Treble (03:48.152) Every time the bio availability of all the important things you really need from whole foods is just so much more important than worrying about spending too much money on supplements. Yep. Good. We can agree on the first point. Did everybody hear that? Yeah. Food first approach. Yeah. Cam Nicholls (04:03.918) The last training block I did for Grafton to Indoveral, which is a big bike race here in Australia last year, was the first time I properly did train on 100 grams of carbs per hour. And I know that's not necessarily whole food, that's a lot of sugar, but it's part of the macro nutrient approach. And I'd never trained so well in my entire life and I'd never recovered so well as well. Like for example, a five hour ride, hard, on a Saturday. used to leave me like in pieces in the afternoon, fatigued, tired, grumpy, but training at 100 grams per hour, I was recovering better, I was sleeping better, I wasn't grumpy, and then the adaptation was better, and then you can take that adaptation to the next training session. So just this is one small example of getting my macronutrients right for training, made such a big difference. Ben Treble (04:49.198) Yeah, I can think of a new RCA athlete of mine and we've spent, you know, the first few weeks not even talking about power or doing fancy VO2 intervals. The entire focus has been how do we get you eating more food on the bike? And that's what's making the difference. Trying to slowly build up the ability and experimenting with different foods. Is it bars, gels, liquids? What works for her and her stomach? and what's going to help her get more fuel in to do the effort. There's no point doing the efforts until we know we can get the right fuel in. So yeah, big point on that, but we're not here to talk about that right now. We're here to talk about the juicy stuff, which is supplements. So, the first part of this conversation is what is this paper reference and what do I tell all my athletes when we first talk about food and supplements? And that's probably one of the best resources out there. Firstly, because it's free. You know, I would argue, you know, they don't have any bias because they're not leaning towards any certain company. It's published from the Australian Institute of Sport. So the AIS has a supplement framework and there's an entire team of sports scientists and researchers who are digging through the research, doing their own research. And they publish a framework where they're grading certain supplements based on their efficacy. Like does the supplement do what it's supposed to do? If they claim it has a certain performance benefit, does it actually do this? How strong is the body of research behind it that then supports that? How safe is it? And what are the downsides or the risks from an antidoping perspective or a health risk, health hazards? And they factor all that in and then they grade it. Is it an A group, which would be like the highest level? You know, this is the group that you can pretty confidently say it will do what it says it does. It's safe to take and. That's where your focus should be on this group, group A. Group B would be there's some evidence for it. It's interesting and we're keeping an eye on it. And you'll see supplements move between these groups as the research bodies grow. So an interesting one would be, you know, for example, nitrates, beetroot, that used to be a B group supplement. And as the research has grown to support it more, Ben Treble (07:06.126) It's been lifted to a group A. Supplements. That's just, they're regularly updating this framework. So I tell people to keep an eye on it. And then you've got group C and D, which are essentially supplements you should ignore in my eyes. I would just check the list because maybe you want to try something that you've got a marketing ad for. And if you see it in these groups, maybe it's a good sign to just keep an eye on it, but not touch it yet. So today we're going to focus on, we're going to talk about quite a few different supplements that are within the group A category. So I'm just going to... wrap them off real quick. The ones that we care about. Caffeine, creatine, bicarb, that includes sodium citrate, beta alanine, nitrates, hyperhydration, that's through glycerol, and then exogenous ketones are added to the list. That is a B group supplement. I've just put it there because I know it's a hot top. Cam Nicholls (07:54.866) Interesting and it's relatively new in comparison to the other ones as well. So there's a fair chance it might end up at the top of the tree, would you say? okay, interesting, I already saw that. Ben Treble (08:02.67) My view is it won't. Well, there's multiple papers now across different sports that show it actually has a detrimental effect on endurance performance. Interesting. Yeah. Cam Nicholls (08:17.102) Okay, alright, maybe that's a rabbit hole for another day. We'll leave it at that. I like that, we're on the caffeine right now. Ben Treble (08:23.672) I'm on number three for the day already and let's, it's just after nine and we've got races starting at just before lunch. So hot topic. Let's kick it off on caffeine, Ken. I don't think we need to a lot of time on this, but caffeine does what it says it does. know, caffeine at the end of the day, the primary mechanism it's via the central nervous system. It reduces your perceived effort and fatigue whilst improving focusing and pacing strategies. What I've done for this conversation is I've had a look at what was put out in the UCI paper and I've gone and, you know, cross-checked it with what's in the AIS framework from a dosing perspective. Just as a heads up to listeners, the UCI paper is, from my eyes, is fairly focused on acute dosing. Whereas if you go into the AIS framework, they often provide acute and chronic dosing strategies for these supplements. So I would actually tell people, if you see something in the UCI paper you're interested in, go check it out in the AIS framework where you can get, you know, they have these great PDF infographics on each supplement with dosing strategies and guides and things to watch out for. So I'm just Cam Nicholls (09:31.406) Just conscious a lot of our listeners are European, USA, Canada. So the AIS, which is the Australian Institute of Sport, would you say that their guidelines here would be similar to that in the US and Canada and Europe? Do they tend to be aligned or have you seen discrepancies in the past? Ben Treble (09:49.8) Not that I've done a lot of digging, but of all of my American and my European athletes I work with, none of them have ever seen anything like the AIS framework before. Okay. And they don't know of anything in their home countries. Okay. With that available. So whether they hold that information internally, because they think of it as IP or a competitive advantage, would be my guess that they probably do. And they might provide it to certain athletes and teams or performance staff. But it's probably internal only, they don't publicly share it. Okay. So then, yeah, we don't know if it's the same or not. Okay. Cam Nicholls (10:23.918) guess AIS1 though can be trusted because we all know Australians are good at sport. We know what we're doing so it's a good reference point. Ben Treble (10:31.502) Yeah. I think we're an over performer in the winter sports as well. There you go. For the size and not being a winter country. Off topic. Back to caffeine. We'll go through this one quick. Cause I think it's, everyone knows caffeine does do what it does. It works well. Main things to be aware of the dose is probably anywhere from three to six milligrams per kilogram of body mass. Ideally you take it around an hour before your exercise, or if you have a longer event, you can stagger it through the event. So you don't have a massive dose. AIS recommends a max of three milligrams. Caffeine used to be a banned substance on the anti-doping water list. It is no longer a banned substance, but it's just, you you need to keep an on that. This gets updated every year. So who knows if in two years they'd ban it again. Unlikely, but yeah. Other than that, you just probably need to be aware of if you take too much excessive use gives you anxiety, jitters and sleep disruptions, which most people are aware of. yeah. Cam Nicholls (11:24.194) Sounds like May every day. Ben Treble (11:25.87) What I thought was cool, I've never actually looked at it, but they do reference in the paper, you know, the expected performance improvement is from two to 5%. And that's been proven across multiple sports and distances. So caffeine guys, if you're not taking it, second point on caffeine I would have, I typically get my athletes to switch from coffee in terms of racing to, we call it anodos here in Australia, which would be caffeine pills. So you know exactly how much you're taking for your race if you want to take. 50 milligrams at half an hour before the line and then halfway through the race, you take the other half, whatever you want your dosing to be. Typically large people take a little bit more, but yeah, I would recommend that you switch over to pills because you know, a standard cappuccino, the range and how much caffeine you get from that varies massively. So you don't actually know how much you're taking. True. Let's move on to probably one of the supplements that Kem is a big fan of. And I'm a big fan of as well. setting by car. Yeah. Cam Nicholls (12:26.67) buffering the lactate. Yeah. Just grind at threshold all day long. Ben Treble (12:31.148) Yeah. Yeah. So this one's a good one. Sodium bicarb. Cause one it's cheap. It's easily available and accessible. Everyone's supermarket has this within the same group is sodium citrate. They're essentially the same thing for the point of this conversation. What does it do? It's, it improves your buffering capacity of the hydrogen ions. So it slows down the rate of acidity and the shifting pH as the intensity goes up. So at the end of the day, what is it doing? It delays your exercise induced. acidosis during high intensity efforts. The research shows that the performance benefits are in that like one up to 60 minute efforts, but the research is a lot less supportive the longer you go outside of that range. So when we talk about road racing or a Gran Fondo event where it's anywhere from two to four or five hours, the efficacy for using bicarb gets a lot lower. Interesting. So would I use it for a road race? Probably not, personally. Would I use it for a crit race or if you do any track cycling or sprint work, would I use it in training for a sprint session? Yes. So is it worth using in training, even if it's not going to be used in your race? Potentially. Yeah. Cam Nicholls (13:46.54) I think there's a bit of a gash prone issues that people can experience with this one as well. They need to be aware of. So like slowly dose it in kind of thing. Ben Treble (13:54.638) Yeah. So from a dosing and a risks perspective, the biggest risk on bicarb is gastro issues. I mean, at the end of the day, it's almost like the more you can take the better. But at some point you get significant gastro issues, which will stop you performing. So there's a little bit of trial and error for individuals and you can progressively, you know, train yourself to take more to reduce those gut issues. Another tactic you can do is some companies will sell bicarb in pills. even better and harder to find is they sell it in a slow release capsule. Yeah. Okay. So if you take bicarb, you know, just from the supermarket in a powder and you mix it in water or however you want to take it, it tastes terrible. If you can put it into a slow release capsule, it's probably going to help with the gastro issues. The loading protocol is typically one to three hours pre-exercise, two to 300 milligrams per kilogram of body mass. The chronic dose is big. which would be 500 milligrams per kilogram for five days. Wow. So big chronic loading dose. They also recommend that if you do that acute dose that you can either take it with fluids or take it with a carb meal. And that will help with the gastro issues. Yeah. Cam Nicholls (15:10.38) I know what got me onto it. I was at the Tour de France behind the scenes, 2024, Visma Leesa Bike and Nathan Van Hoede, something like that, who I can't pronounce his surname. He's a very good Belgian rider. He actually had a heart attack the previous year. So he was racing with Visma. He was just in the car. But he was telling me that the number one supplement that the team was using at the time that everyone loved was the Morton gel mix by carb. And I was like, Pro athletes are saying that it's the best supplement that they're using at the time. I need to get onto this. And think there was a famous scene of a, I think it's, don't know the writer's name. He was the Canadian world champ though, in a road race, actually eating bicarb because their races are like five, six hours, like halfway through the race, having a bicarb gel mix and eating it out of a tub during a race. obviously it's held in high regard, that elite level bicarb. Ben Treble (16:05.698) Yep. I mean, it works. Right. And at of the day, one of the biggest things that often holds people back during high intensity racing is, you know, their ability to clear lactate, right. And reduce acidosis. The longer you can hold that back, it's going to give you a performance gain. So cheap, accessible, safe. Just have to do a bit of trial and error for gastro issues and with your loading protocol. yeah, sodium bicarb is a really good one to jump on if you've never tried it. The other one that has a, it's a very similar outcome via a different mechanism is beta alanine. I think you tried it. Cam Nicholls (16:40.194) I use it for years. Yeah, I like that one as well. I love the little tingling sensation you get on your neck when you have it, which is so odd. But it's the only one that as soon as you take it, there's like some not within seconds, but like within five minutes, you get a little bit of a skin tingle, which is weird. Ben Treble (16:56.43) Yeah, it's a funny one. So what is beta alanine? At the end of the day, what it's doing is it tries to overload your muscle carnosine levels. And what that does is it, again, it improves the buffering of the hydrogen ions. So it holds back the acidosis. What is it good for? It's good for one to 10 minute max efforts. There's some research showing that maybe it has a better effect for longer durations than bicarb. Interesting. So this is a supplement that... I used for Grafton to Inveral. The downside to beta alanine compared to bicarb is from the research, the loading protocol to take it, there's no acute protocol because you have to flood the muscle carnivore levels and this takes weeks with very high doses. So it's very difficult because the body is very good at self-regulating these kinds of things. And so it's very difficult to get it to actually increase muscle carnivore through exogenous supplementation. So that's why the loading protocol is it's around four to six grams per day for at least four weeks. Four weeks. So I remember taking, I split that dose into four doses per day. And that was, I think it was four pills every dose. I had 12 pills to take every day and I did it for six weeks prior to my event. they say once you've done that four week loading, they say the maintenance dose is only 1.2 grams per day. So that's new since I did it. They're saying you could sort of get away with a four to six week loading protocol. And then there's a maintenance dose once you're in that saturation phase, which is only 1.2 grams per day. As you already brought up, the main downside, there's very little evidence of gastro issues, which is why some people lean towards beta alanine over bicarb. So for those of you who've tried bicarb and get really bad gastro issues, maybe give beta alanine a go. But again, yeah, this side effect is You get this tingling sort of pins and needles and people get it either all over the body or in different places. I used to get it in my cheeks and my fingertips. I didn't get it in the toes. Some people get it in the toes. You got it in your neck like, it's all, it's quite constant. And if you do this for six weeks, some people can't handle the tingles for six weeks. So maybe before you start this one, be prepared. You have to be ready to have a bit of an unusual sensation for six weeks. I swear by it. Ben Treble (19:23.296) I put down a big part of my performance for back when I was racing at Grafton down to beta alanine. Cam Nicholls (19:30.594) This podcast episode is brought to you by Stannards, a proud sponsor of the RCA's Pro Velo cycling team, RCA Bikes Online. And they've been a big supporter of Aussie cycling over the years. They're a Melbourne headquartered business with offices right across Australia. And they've been around since 1946, helping businesses and high net worth individuals with accounting, tax and broader business strategy. And just for a bit of transparency, I've actually known one of the partners since 1994. is a schoolmate of mine, in fact, a very good mate of mine. So I've seen firsthand how the business operates and the type of people they are. What I like about Stanars is they're not just your typical tax time accountant. They've got a fully integrated set up, so business services, audit, and a strategic advisory so they can support businesses and high net worth individuals right across the whole journey. They work across a heap of different industries too, so they've got... construction, manufacturing, healthcare, technology, hospitality, the list goes on and they're very accustomed to dealing with real world challenges. They've grown to over 110 people in recent times, now backed by Pemba Capital Partners and they're continuing to expand. So if you're looking for a proper long-term advisory partner, not just someone to help you lodge your tax return, Stanards are definitely worth a look. We'll drop a link to their business in the podcast description and let's get back. to the starts to come in and your power drops by 10%. I could probably go another half an hour or an hour when I was on better aniline. And that was really, really noticeable. Ben Treble (21:33.55) Yeah, I think it makes a big difference. yeah, two, there's two supplements that both work on reducing or buffering the hydrogen ions. So reducing the acidosis or prolonging it, but they're through different mechanisms. There's very little research looking at both of them together. So what happens if you combine them? So I actually think there's a potential big gain to be doing both. Yeah. So it's not well researched, but I'm for certain races. If you have like a hard start race. Cam Nicholls (21:54.659) Interesting. Ben Treble (22:01.624) I don't see why he couldn't do bike carb to sort of get through the first hour, which is usually a very key part of a race versus beta Alanin. Maybe for our listeners, if you think, for those of you who are in Australia doing a Gran Fondo Worlds at Lawn, where you had a climb, like I think it was in the first kilometre, you go up this like 15, 20 minute berg straight out the gate. Like that's where your bike carb is going to be helpful. But then in the backend of the race, like two hours later, the bike carb's probably not doing anything. Beta alanine if your muscle carnivine levels saturated that's going to help you buffer the acidosis in the second half. Cam Nicholls (22:37.518) Just phase them in though, don't be double dropping both of them. You'll be running to the toilet and tingling at the same time. Ben Treble (22:43.732) Yeah, and this was, I mean, for any of my athletes who try this and for the listeners, I trial this ideally, like at least six months prior to an event where they're thinking of using it for the first time. So, we go through a phase where we really test this out and we test it out with a race that they don't necessarily care about, a race we're using for training. And we really test out one, a protocol, and then we know for the race we care about. Okay. Did it work? Did we have gastro issues? Do we want to tweak the protocol? Did it just not work? Cause you always get some non-responders. Was it worth it? Yes or no. You can make that decision. Don't try this first time at a race you care about. No way. So two very cool supplements. I think, you know, and both of those are in the A group in the AIS framework. So yeah, we'll jump on the next one. Let's talk about creating. Okay. Group A supplement. you on the creating? Cam Nicholls (23:36.93) Yeah, I actually take it with my age mate. Splendid, do you? Yeah, so you scoop your age mate into water and then I scoop my creatine, shake it up and I drink it before I have my morning coffee. Then I run to the toilet. Yeah, so I'm on the... because there's a lot of research now that creatine isn't just good for sports performance, it's also good for just general health and wellbeing. Ben Treble (23:52.684) Is that a single or a double shot? Ben Treble (24:03.758) So jumping on the sport performance side, the paper, you know, essentially what is it supposed to do? It improves high intensity sprint performance and repeated efforts. here we're talking about fatigue resistance. And in my eyes, fatigue resistance is how many times can you repeat your like best sprint power before it drops off a cliff? Cam Nicholls (24:21.856) Yeah, it's like watching yesterday's Pro Velo race surround that crypt track. Yeah. Just neurological, you know, if it's neuromuscular, I should say. Ben Treble (24:29.474) second laps with a boot up a small hill every 30 seconds for like 60 laps. How many times can you do your best sprint if it's let's say 600 Watts? Can you do that 60 times every 30 seconds for an hour? Yeah. So that's what the paper's talking about. Obviously there's a lot of other benefits to creatine that it's not going into. How does it do that? It increases your intramuscular phosphocreatine stores. And what this does is enhance ATP, which is energy currency. resynthesis during maximal efforts. What's the loading protocol? It's quite big. It's around 20 grams a day for five to seven days. One of the risks or downside is you do initially get a water retention weight increase. So that's typically from 500 grams up to a kilo. That's in the muscle. Yeah. So as a result of having this increased creatine levels in the muscle, those creatine, you get more water molecules bonding to them. Cam Nicholls (25:16.514) muscles, yeah? Ben Treble (25:25.966) So just stores more water in the muscle than normal and water weighs. So yeah, your weight goes up as a result. There's some evidence that says once you go through a period, if you continually have a very high level of creating stores, your body will normalize and the water levels will drop back down. But particularly in that first week or two, like, yeah, don't be surprised if your body weight goes up. So if you have a very, very, you know, what's a big kilogram focused event, don't do this five days before probably, if you care about your weight. The other loading dose you could do is so around five grams, four times a day for five days, or you can do three to five grams for 20 days. So you could do a more chronic dose. And then once you've done that loading protocol, the maintenance dose is three to five grams daily. And once you stop, it takes about four weeks and your body will return back to normal baseline levels. So it has a pretty long, I would say a pretty long efficacy period. Hmm. Good. Yeah. I think it's a simple one again. Relatively cheap, not as cheap as bike up, pretty accessible. We can buy it in a supermarkets in Australia. You don't need the fancy stuff. I feel like I've seen some marketing branding for like. Cam Nicholls (26:33.198) Don't worry, I'm buying the fancy stuff. I've been sucking. Yeah, the pharmaceutical grade, you know. Ben Treble (26:35.66) Yeah Don't do what chem's doing. The only thing that's worth spending money on is making sure you get creating that's, um, you know, like has to test it in Australia or different countries around the world. have supplements that are, you know, tested by third-party labs to make sure there's no contaminants. So for those of you who race in grand Fondo events, any event that falls under UCI regulations or rules, which includes most grand fondos. I know we have a lot of those writers in our listening group. actually fall under the anti-doping rules. So. Yeah. Highly recommend that you make sure any of these supplements you take are either has to certified or sport integrity tested. They're the two big testing labels that you'll see on, on the brand. The reason for that is the large majority of doping infractions are from contaminated supplements. So they're not people doping on purpose. For example, they've gone and taken some supplement that wasn't tested and they get contaminated because they're made in a warehouse in the same warehouse often where they're brewing up, you know, pre-workout extreme mix that accidentally got a bit of meth in it. Yeah. Or speed or something. And literally it only takes a minuscule amount of that that was left in the batch tub to go into your mix, into your system. And then it comes up as a positive result in a doping test. Okay. There we go. Kradian, do you want to say anything else on it? Cam Nicholls (28:01.358) I think creatine to me is almost becoming as elevated as caffeine, I feel. Like it's really, it's been around so long now. It's so well researched. Everyone knows about it. Yeah, I just take it daily. It's part of my repertoire, whether I'm training or not. Ben Treble (28:15.981) Awesome. Yeah, to be fair, I take it. I think it's probably been a lot more common in the gym goers prior to the endurance bros. Cam Nicholls (28:23.968) I'm a bit of a gym bro though, so I can gym doing my beach weights and getting the water retention in the bicep Ben Treble (28:30.366) Kam's upper body looks as big as his legs now guys. All righty. Let's everybody go take your creatine. So next stack in the A group supplements, they call it dietary inorganic nitrates. What's that fancy for? Beetroot juice. People have probably seen like people doing these nitrate shots, drinking purple juice after races. That could also potentially just be cherry tart, which is a different supplement, but yeah, beetroot juice. and have you taken it? Yeah. Cam Nicholls (29:01.306) I remember it, but I probably didn't do it. I'm assuming there's a loading protocol. There used to be these little, and I think you still get them, the Beat It, which is like a beetroot concentrate. So I used to take when I was racing down in Caulfield, Carnegie, Glenvale on a Sunday, I'd have one of those. Never really knew if it did anything. I think when you're racing on the limit for an hour, you kind of don't know if anything's doing anything down there. yeah, so I've taken it, but not really. Unlike... you know, other supplements where there's a noticeable effect, like betalain I've noticed, bicarb I've noticed, never really noticed anything personally with. Ben Treble (29:39.512) Beats. So Beats is a interesting one because it was a B group supplement and it's moved up to the A level group because the evidence has got stronger and stronger on it. What's it supposed to do? It's supposed to reduce the oxygen cost of submaximal exercise. What does that mean? When you push the pedals and you push watts, you've got to produce that energy somehow. The effect typically you would say like for one watt you need 12 and a half. Some people might say 13, it's typically 12 and a half millilitres of oxygen. Push that one watt. So what this does is it reduces the amount of oxygen required to push that one watt. How the heck does, when I heard that, was like, how the holy heck does beetroot juice, you can't reduce the amount of oxygen it takes to push one watt. What? That's ridiculous. This stumped researchers for a long time because we kept finding the same result. You get people. On a metabolic cart, we have gas exchange and we can measure the amount of oxygen in carbon dioxide out. And you have two groups. It could be a blinded study where they think they're taking the placebo or the beetroot. And every time the group who had the beetroot, it took less oxygen to push same Watts. Okay. The math is not adding up. No. The mechanism was quite complex. I'm not going to pretend I know a ridiculous amount about it, but in brief. It came down to talk production at a muscular level and ultimately reduced, you know, the way we produce, you've got velocity times talk to produce power and the amount of talk that your muscles needed got reduced to produce the same Twitch response. And that's what the nitrates were doing. So reduced this, this level of talk required for the same Twitch response, ergo then less oxygen for same power output. it works. The research is consistent. What do we need to do? You can do an acute dose and that's six millimole of nitrate. I think it's the equivalent of around two of those beta shots, two to three hours prior. Cam Nicholls (31:42.68) I wasn't having two shots. I was just having the one shot probably an hour before. Ben Treble (31:46.53) So I would smash two shots like two, three hours when you have that last big carb meal before an event. Okay. Yep. I would be doing that. The chronic dose, three to 15 days duration and taking around 350 to 600 milligrams per day as a minimum. And then three days prior to the event, you do three to 600 milligrams and then you can do two to three days before the event. You can even ramp it up again and do just those six millimole shots. Yeah. So it's pretty big dosage, but research is good. would be doing it. That is nitrate shots are pretty expensive though. So unless you're sponsored by baited or you have a lot of funding. Roots. Yeah. This is where the AIS framework is really good. Cause they talk about the equivalence and it's, it's a lot like, you know, for one baited shot, it was like two or three entire beetroots. That's. Yeah. I don't like beetroots that much. know, or like 500 millilitres of beetroot juice for one shot. Cam Nicholls (32:27.81) What if you just ate a lot of beetroot? Cam Nicholls (32:39.008) Yeah, no thanks. Cam Nicholls (32:46.222) That's when you go to the toilet and you think you're going to the toilet, blood's coming out. Ben Treble (32:49.966) Yeah, the Beat It shots are probably the go, they're just a bit pricey. Cam Nicholls (32:54.23) Okay, cool. Yeah. How many more on the list? One more? Ben Treble (32:57.826) Yeah, there's two more, but we're just going to touch on hyperhydration quickly. This one got me because I hadn't really thought about it that much until I read about it. It does sit as a group A supplement in the AIS framework and it was in the UCI paper. So they call it hyperhydration, but it was via the use of glycerol with your fluids or sodium. So what you're trying to do is increase the total body water and plasma volume in your blood. offset the sweat loss during prolonged exercise. So it's good. This one is good for the long endurance events or hot conditions, less useful for your short high intensity sort of think track, crit racing. It's improving your thermal regulation and performance by two to 5%. Cam Nicholls (33:44.258) Wow, this is a good one for I live in the sunshine ghost where it's quite hot and humid doing these four or five hour rides where I'm cooked at the end. So that's where this sits quite nicely or a big long hot road race. Fondo event, big long Fondo event. Peaks challenge is happening today. Those guys should be doing this. Ben Treble (34:01.304) Big time. this kangaroo is on the golf course. Sorry. I'm easily distracted guys. Cam Nicholls (34:06.382) We have a lovely view from this hotel room by the way. Ben Treble (34:09.101) You have gone all out. The glycerol loading is one to one and a half grams per kilogram of body mass with fluids, or you could do that with sodium. So you could do sodium one to one and a half grams per kilogram. And you just do it pre-exercise. The risk is some people do get GI issues. So you probably want to experiment with this one in training first to find out what works for you. Some people get a body mass increase. I mean, obviously if you drink a liter of fluid. your weight's going to go up, sorry. So maybe just keep that in mind. But other than that, it's a very simple one. The performance benefit is measurable. It's cheap and accessible. So, yeah, have a read of that one, guys. I would definitely check that one out. That would be high on my list. Cam Nicholls (34:53.535) Okay, good. And what's the last one? Ben Treble (34:55.658) Last one, caveat, this is a B group. So there's mixed scientific support. It's an emerging supplements. It's probably been a hot topic. I feel like it's not that new anymore, but ketones. Yeah. Exogenous ketones went nuts a few years ago until some of the research started coming out. You know, the first papers that came out were all sponsored by, you know, the companies themselves that were selling these supplements. So in my eyes, I just don't even almost bother reading the paper. just write it off. Cam Nicholls (35:06.732) three years ago it was going nuts. Ben Treble (35:23.03) And once some actual third-party labs started looking into it, you know, the results either became so mixed that you had to really question it until they did some better repeated studies that were far more controlled. And they started finding detrimental effects of taking escogenes, ketones for endurance performance. So, I mean, why were people taking ketones? The idea is if you go into a ketatonic state, which is like a fasted state, instead of it preserves your glycogen stores for longer in the note that you you would be using more fat or ketones for energy production instead of glycogen, is your sugar stores, saving your sugar stores for later in the race. The logic makes sense. One of the problems with it is if you're in a race and you do a high intensity effort, your body can't selectively go and use ketones. It's still going to go use glycogen because the way it works is these things have a rate of synthesis to produce ATP. And, you know, when we want to do a high intensity effort, It uses an anaerobic system with glycolysis. You can't really avoid that. There's no way for your body to go use ketones to produce 400 Watts in a few seconds. Right. You've got to use phosphocreatine for the first five seconds. And then you run into your anaerobic and your glycolysis system to produce energy that quick. So, I mean, we started to have repeated evidence that shows actually people perform worse when they're taking it. So they've done blinded studies on race walkers. and Maranfonas, I think they've also now done it on cyclists and had the same result where the group that was on the ketones performed worse in their time trials. Cam Nicholls (36:58.926) us in Ben Treble (37:04.686) Cause there's still some studies that show mixed results. Like some individuals do still do better with it. And there's still, know, we're talking about small sample sizes here where there's, know, probably two, three studies that show it has a bad, a negative effect. But then there's still arguably, you know, four or five papers that show inconclusive results. And there's a couple of papers that were sponsored by the companies that showed positive results. So, so it still sits in this mixed outcomes. Or it's an emerging supplement. So we still want to keep an eye on it because it's still logic says we need to do more research. It's safe to take, it's accessible. And maybe if we do more research, we'll find something out, but I'm certainly not hopeful and I'm not taking ketones. Yeah. Cam Nicholls (37:49.334) Interesting. think when I was kind of, so I was over in sort of France the last two years with Ketone IQ actually, as a sponsor of Isma and from what I could gather, you know, that they do hold their cards slightly close to their chest, but ketones were taken more as a recovery drink than actually a performance enhancing drink. Ben Treble (38:10.542) think that's where this paper, you gotta be mindful this paper is all about performance and they're not really focused on recovery as much. So that would be also what I may expect in the future that we find out if you're doing multi-day events where recovery is really important, maybe there's a very marginal gain to be had in terms of recovery from taking ketones post-race, but not in the race or loading pre-race, expecting high power output in the race because you took ketones. The only reason you'd have this performance benefit is if it lets you recover a little bit better every day in a three week grand tour, by the end of the third week, maybe you can do a higher power output because you've been recovering better a little bit every day accumulated for three weeks. Yep. So that would be my guess as to why Yumbo taking it. Maybe it's also cause they're probably getting a lot of funding from them to take it. You know, there's always that bias. Cool. Yeah. You don't see them downing shots anymore in the ProPello. You used to see teams. smashing shots mid event. Yeah. And don't see teams and teams used to take it who weren't sponsored by ketone companies. And I think the biggest proof in the pudding here is you no longer see that happening. Or I don't, I haven't seen it. I don't see pro writers who are not sponsored by ketone company taking ketones anymore or spending their money on ketones. Cam Nicholls (39:27.182) Yeah, no, I think it's, you know, from the because we need to have a chat with the nutritionists from Visma last year. And I think they're so drilled in on calorie intake and carbohydrate intake during the race that ketones don't make the carbs are better for performance. You know, going back to the start of this conversation, get your macro nutrients right. If you want to perform in a race, know, carbs is the focus. That's a really comprehensive list, Ben. I think we'll end it there because we've been on this topic for quite a long period of time. But I think what it does shine a light on is, you if people are out there listening and they want to start, you know, implementing some supplements into their regime, do it strategically. Don't just start, as you said, grabbing anything that pops up in your marketing feed. Look at credible lists and maybe we can dump, you know, the AIS list or link. in the podcast description as well as the link to the research paper. But I think as well, like if you know, if you're working with a coach, know, Ben's an RCA coach and you know, he's working with his members, not just on training, but also on supplementation and when to bring it in and how to bring it in. So if you're looking to bring supplementation into your training, you're interested in working with a coach, make sure you check out the RCA's website, www.roadcyclingacademy.com. Check out One to One Coaching and you can find a coach there. We'll catch you all in the next podcast.  
• FTP Stuck? Follow this Simple Framework 25.03.2026 13min

  This episode explores a research-based strategy to boost FTP for cyclists by focusing on physiological system training and periodisation. It emphasises proper zone training, avoiding overtraining, and implementing structured blocks to achieve sustainable performance improvements   RCA 12 Week Custom Plan: https://roadcyclingacademy.com/cycling-plan-custom/  Research Paper referenced: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9299127/    key topics FTP and critical power explained Importance of physiological system training Periodisation and training blocks Research insights from running studies Common mistakes in cycling training Structured training plans and recovery Training zones and their physiological basis   Chapters 00:00 Introduction to the RCA Podcast 00:25 Understanding FTP and Its Importance 01:42 Common Mistakes in Training for FTP 03:14 The Role of Training Zones 04:42 Periodization in Training 05:39 Research Insights on Training Protocols 08:12 Implementing a Structured Training Plan 10:17 Blending Training Intensities 12:30 General Framework for Periodization 13:06 Conclusion and Next Steps   Transcript:  Cam Nicholls (00:01.804) Welcome to the RCA podcast designed for recreational and amateur road cyclists with a focus on performance. We dive into cycling training, nutrition, strength training for cyclists and even bike fitting tips all designed to help you train smarter, ride faster and hopefully tear your mates legs off. So without further ado, let's dive into today's episode. Ryan Thomas (00:25.313) you Cam Nicholls (00:26.606) So welcome back to the RCA podcast, which is also on YouTube. So for those audio listeners, please excuse any visual references. Today, we're be talking about a simple way to boost FTP. We're not talking about a specific workout as such, we're talking about an overall overarching strategy. But before we talk about this, which is research-based. Let's talk about what is FTP. For some people, particularly if you're new to cycling, you may still be trying to figure out what FTP is. So, Ryan, we don't actually use FTP at the RCA. We use critical power where you can get your FTP. But for those who want to know what FTP is, how you best describe it. Ryan Thomas (01:02.062) It's essentially the maximum effort that you can sustain without going over your limit. And that can be anywhere from 40 to 60 minutes, depending on what sort of testing you use to find it. But essentially we're trying to find a maximal steady Cam Nicholls (01:15.918) And we don't typically test for 40 to 60 minutes do we? We test for 20 minutes or there's a ramp test or there's an eight minute protocol. There's all sorts of variations to get your FTP. So we don't have to send somebody out and yeah, ride as hard as you can for an hour, but it's not the be all and end all, but it's important, particularly if you're trying to work out your training zones, which is what we're going to talk about shortly and target physiological systems to understand your FTP. And it's also, know, it's like we're You know, there's a gym setting behind us when people go to the gym. What's the thing that you want to promote the most? Well, how much can you bench? I guess MTP is very similar to that. So that's why people like to talk about it. When people are trying to increase their FTP for whatever reason, Ryan, where do you feel like they go wrong? Ryan Thomas (01:57.976) specific threshold testing to begin with. So setting your zones properly is the first. Cam Nicholls (02:02.7) They're an average off Garmin or Strava or one of these apps. Ryan Thomas (02:06.67) Yeah, and then most of the time I see people are training to either a threshold that's too high and it just burns them out. So you need to have that threshold set lower, even if it's a number that you might think is lower than what you want, it's accurate. Okay. you're doing the proper testing. So have that setting first. The other point is that people aren't training a physiological system. They're just training. They might go and do bunch rides or they might do a sporadic, the threshold effort one week and a VO2 effort the other week and then a tempo effort. And it's like, well, what are you actually targeting? There's no... You need a physiological target. You need to train that physiological system to see changes over time. So minimum sort of stimulus that you want to do is like, when the training peaks is set this, there's their chronic training load is based on a 42 day rolling period. when we did our training peaks university course, and we saw the training peaks in person when they came to Australia and the whole theory is that. any one physiological stimulus, takes about six weeks to see a change. You need to do that for six weeks. And if you're doing random stuff or bunch rides, it's no one physiological strong stimulus. It's just random little bits here and there that aren't really enough to see meaningful change. Cam Nicholls (03:14.158) And as the inquiry guy at the RCA still, you know, speak to lot of recreational and amateur road cyclists before they join the RCA. And the biggest thing is just training too hard too often. So it's like, it sounds so simple, but it's just the most common. It's like, I want to increase my fitness. So I'll ride harder and I'll ride more and they'll end up, you know, not only overstimulated by working all their systems, as you said, but they're also just end up in a fatigue state. Ryan Thomas (03:37.984) Yeah, usually the first thing they do is rest and take the intensity up. Cam Nicholls (03:41.344) Yeah, have a week off. People are I can't do that. It's like, no, just trust us. Yeah. What happens? They freshen up. So targeting the training zones. Why would we want it? Cause I think when people think about zone training, they just think about, well I should do a zone two ride today and let's just do zone two. And cause it's, heard about it online and it's, know, zone two it's space fitness, but it's actually rather than thinking of it as like zones, it's more like you just said, physiological systems. like why have the seven training zones? Ryan Thomas (04:09.518) That's literally why they were created is to make meaningful change of what's happening physiologically. So if you go back to when the zones were first created by Andy Colgan and Joe Friel and all those people who created, started training peaks and all the specific training physiology, was like, they knew these markers, right? They knew lactate threshold. knew like there was a fat max and a steady state area. they were like, well, how can we make this deliverable to people who don't know much about it? So they needed zones and described zones and to set training in these areas around based on physiology. Cam Nicholls (04:42.86) And what we're going to talk about as an overarching strategy is, you know, periodizing through the zones. And what is periodization? It's taking blocks and increments and improving your fitness over time. And then obviously taking a step back. But when a lot of people think of that, they don't necessarily think of it as when I increase my intensity and volume, have a specific focus on a specific physiological system or a specific zone. So before we talk about the details of what that could look like, there is a bit of research in this space. that not in cycling but in running that looked at this. Ryan Thomas (05:16.002) Yeah, so they were looking at, it was a short time trial, I was a 5K running time trial, but it's still 5K still in endurance. They looked at two types of protocols. went from polarised to pyramidal, was the first training protocol they used over a 16 week period. And then the other protocol they compared it against was pyramidal to polarised. So they were doing a lot of three, zone three, four, two, and then they went into really hard stuff, polarised training. Cam Nicholls (05:39.598) And as a breakdown for those that may not be familiar with those two methods, Polarized is 80 % like Zone 2, like base training relatively easy and 20 % quite hard, sort of over threshold and above. And Pyramidal is more of a 60-20-10 split, so 60 % easy base, 20 % in the middle and 10 % hard. Ryan Thomas (06:03.31) Yeah, that's pretty close. So they looked at that protocol and the other protocol and they found that the best protocol to see a change in this particular cohort was going from pyramidal to polarize. So going from, I would call it moderately hard training in that under threshold predominantly. then you're going into polarized training, which is really hard and really easy. And they saw that's, that is the protocol that saw the biggest change in time or performance in that 5k run. Yes, we're talking about running, but it's kind of a basis for what a lot of coaches have used for forever is just using base fitness, going through the zone, zone three, four, progressing in the threshold and above threshold, the closer you get to your target or your target event. Cam Nicholls (06:46.296) This podcast is brought to you by the Road Cycling Academy. If you're a recreational or amateur road cyclist and you're stuck on a frustrating performance plateau, feeling like you need some guidance, but you're not quite ready to dive straight into one-to-one coaching, at the RCA we've created something called the 12-week custom plan, which we believe would be your perfect next step. It starts off with an upfront deep dive call with your coach who will understand your goals, your riding preferences, what your not negotiable rides are. and where you want to go, then they'll create a fully tailored 12-week custom plan that is supported over the 12-week period. We believe it's the perfect intermediate step, giving you a taste of working with a coach and experiencing a customized plan without committing to full coaching. Our writers are seeing real results too, and you can go to our Google reviews to see this. Marvin recently shaved over 30 minutes off his graft into Imburel time from doing the 12-week custom plan. Adam gained 20 watts on his FTP in 12 weeks and 40 watts on his five minute power. And we have riders completing rides that they've failed in previous attempts like Peaks Challenge, all from doing this 12 week custom plan. So if you're ready to break through, head to the roadcyclingacademy.com in the menu system, you'll see our 12 week custom plan and take the first step towards that next level performance. Now let's get back to the podcast. So this is when I actually worked with you many years ago and we started to do it. was like, I've actually, it was a new stimulus for me. So sometimes, you know, these things are just a new stimulus for people. And by no means are we saying this is the silver bullet to increase FTP, but it's a really easy way to consider a framework on how to increase your FTP. And that is when I started working with you, I like, all right, Cam, I'd done zone two training before, like a lot of it, you know, under the polarised method of 80-20. So I'm going to spend a lot of time on in zone two, but I'd never spent. a focus block on tempo work, which is zone three. So we might've spent three to four weeks on tempo and might've played around a little bit with sweet spot and some threshold, but really sort of got that zone under control. When I say under control, like my rate of perceived exertion all of a sudden was lower for the same output. My heart rate stopped drifting as much in a tempo effort and started to reduce in terms of my average heart rate for that particular workout. And then we moved up to the next zone and we mastered that. And then we moved up to the next zone. Cam Nicholls (09:11.116) and mastered that. And obviously when I say moved up to the next side, VO2 max, you're not doing VO2 max all the time, are you? No, every session. So how would you, for somebody listening at home that might think, okay, this makes a lot of sense spending, you know, two to three week or maybe four week blocks going through the zones. Once you start bringing in a bit of tempo work and then you may be moved to a bit of subthreshold work and VO2, how do you blend it in so you're not like fatiguing yourself? Ryan Thomas (09:37.772) Yeah, so I guess this whole, this protocol is good for when I start coaching someone. This is the first process we go through because when you start with someone as a coach, don't, I can see what you've done before, but I don't know you've done the proper training to get there. So this is the first thing and then you can do other areas after, but if you're beginning in training and you don't know where to start, this is the exact way you should start. Cam Nicholls (09:59.566) Yeah, and keeping in mind 95 % of people that come to you in that basket of training too hard too often, so they're fatigued. even if they're not fatigued, they're one of the, know, one out of a hundred, it's just a robot and they just keep going. But even if they are in that category, it's still always good just to back it off a little bit. Ryan Thomas (10:17.294) That is, yeah. So it's a great strategy and what we, what I try to use and what we try to use within our off the shelf programs and try to develop within the RCA coaches is we look at, think of our three to four week block. So generally we use a step ladder approach of every three to four weeks we have an easier week. So in that three to four weeks over 12, 16 week period, what are you actually working on? So that first, let's say for the example, you've just had a week off the bike. You've just had rest, you've reset, getting into the new season. I've got four weeks of training. The first four weeks is going to be predominantly zone two work. You if you're riding five days a week, you're probably doing zone two three times a week. Okay. Or endurance three times a week. And then the other two days you're doing some short tempo work, slowly progressing and maybe doing some strength efforts or something neuromuscular to try and work that energy system. Just keep it you're at it, low fatiguing. Yeah. Cam Nicholls (11:05.358) I know a lot of our members have what we call the not negotiable rides, so you can still have a ride during the week where you can just go out and rip it and do whatever. Have some fun. Ryan Thomas (11:13.39) Yeah, so bunch rides are always included. We always want to keep it fun and sensible. So that's the first week, four weeks. And then the next four weeks, you're probably looking at doing three intensity sessions in that week. And one of those can be a bunch ride. The other two sessions, you're looking at tempo or sweet spot or low threshold area, trying to work on that energy system for three or four weeks. And you've been working on it a little bit in that first four weeks as well. there's like, there's six to eight weeks there where you're working that energy system. And then after that block, you're probably looking at scattering in a bit of sweet spot, VO2 and threshold. So we're not going to do VO2 three times a week for four weeks because that's going to hurt for someone who hasn't done much VO2 yet. So you've sprinkled in a bit of VO2 once a week and do threshold the other session and you're bunch ride. So you're trying to look at if you're riding five times a week. Once you've got that bass under control for six weeks, whatever that bass period looks like or foundation period looks like, you're doing three rides where you're focusing on quality intensity and then two endurance zone two specific work. Yeah. Cam Nicholls (12:12.172) Okay, and if you, as a general blanket, if you put a timeframe on, if someone wanted to periodize through the zones and start with zone two and work their way through, how long would you be spending? 12 weeks, 14 weeks, 16 weeks, 20 weeks? no, it depends on the individual, but everyone wants a tangible takeaway. Ryan Thomas (12:30.198) If you're starting from scratch, I'd say 16 weeks is a good mark and then you probably should have a rest. Like have a week where you reset. Yeah, around 16 weeks is usually a good mark. You can peak pretty good in 12 weeks and then you maintain for that four weeks and sharpen or you're coming into an event for example that's 16 weeks away. then you have rest. Yeah, and rest for a week and then do the same thing. Another 16 weeks is usually what I like to do. And if we're getting past that 16 week mark, we kind of flag it with the member and say, All right, we're weeks into a training block. How are you feeling? Do you feel like you need a rest? Do feel like you can keep going? So it's talking and communicating there as well. Cam Nicholls (13:06.37) Yeah, okay. And of course, this is a general framework. There are nuances. So people are training for a specific event. Obviously there's specificity that comes into play and a whole bunch of other nuances. So as a general framework, I think it's just easy for people to go, okay, there are my seven or six or five, whatever you're looking at. We use seven at the RCA training zones. I'm going to spend three weeks on here and then I'm going to move up here. and then I'm gonna move up here. And what the workouts look like specifically, that's a rabbit hole for another day. Yeah, exactly. So thanks for your time, Ryan. Much appreciated. We'll catch everyone in the next podcast.  
• Why We Started a Domestic Race Team (RCA BikesOnline) 13.03.2026 19min

  Summary This podcast features the RCA's Founder (Cam Nicholls) & Head Coach (Ryan Thomas); discussing the journey of starting an elite domestic cycling team, the challenges faced, sponsorship strategies, team dynamics, and season highlights. Gain insights into the operational, financial, and community aspects of building a successful domestic cycling team. Team & Podcast sponsor: https://onekloudx.com.au/ RCA Supporter kit: https://shorturl.at/5axJb  Takeaways A clear budget of $60-65K is essential for a competitive team. Community and personal growth are core values for RCA. Managing multiple roles in a team is challenging but rewarding. Winning Melbourne to Warrnambool in the first season exceeded expectations. Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Team Background 01:50 Funding and Sponsorship Strategies 04:03 Team Values: Personal Growth and Community 05:57 Challenges of Managing a Cycling Team 07:59 Rider Selection and Team Culture 10:51 Budget Surprises and Kit Expenses 13:02 Season Goals and Race Expectations 14:53 Season Highlights and Wins 16:47 Impact on Rider Confidence and Future Goals 18:55 Closing Remarks and Gratitude for Sponsors Cam Nicholls (00:00.078) So welcome back to the RCA podcast, where today I'm joined by the RCA's head coach, Ryan Thomas, who's also the team manager of RCA Bikes Online. We're in the middle of season. There's lots going on in the boat. But I've roped him in for a podcast because I wanted to talk about, don't know people are curious, how does the team come about? How much does it cost? What are the surprises? What are the benefits? Ryan Thomas (00:11.359) So busy. Cam Nicholls (00:27.15) winning Melbourne to Warner Wars just happened on the weekend. So that was a good one. yeah, just wanted to, because you're at the cold face, you know, I'm just the guy that's, you know, helping bring in some of the funding of our sponsors, which we're very grateful for. But, you know, what does it look like? So first question I had for you, Ryan, is how did it all come about? Starting a Pro Velo team. Ryan Thomas (00:51.278) Yeah, we were in, we were at TDU in 20, start of 2025 and we think a couple of, a couple of you were talking to a couple of brands and they were talking about the Pro Velo and then just kind of sparked, sparked your interest. And we sat down for a beer at TDU and said, what can we do this? Will you do it? And I was like, yeah, well, I'm kind of already like, I was helping out a team at the time, Tandem Co in Brisbane, and we did a couple of, a couple of. Cam Nicholls (01:17.61) like a state team. Ryan Thomas (01:18.926) Yeah, stay team. did Tour of Tassie the year before with big success. And then we did Q2 in the first year of the Pro Velo. We won teams class and finished fourth and sixth on GC. So it was a big success. So I had a bit of experience there and kind of what it would take. Yeah, I was pretty keen, actually. was like, oh, is like scratches the itch for me in terms of the high performance. Bike team, I love being a part of the team and it's just good fun going away with the boys for a weekend and getting involved in big races. Cam Nicholls (01:50.638) Yeah, although the way the Pro Velo is these days, it's not just every other weekend, it's every single weekend back to back to back. Which we're finding out, or you're finding out is quite intense. yeah, off the back of that discussion, you know, I went away and looked for some money. You told me how much budget you thought we needed for a team, which was... Ryan Thomas (02:10.862) Yeah, I did a few. The Pro Velo put out a, before the Pro Velo started, they sent out like a document saying what roughly what the budget would be. Which was around a hundred thousand. But that was with bike expenses and a lot of product and a lot of stuff that we didn't really need in there. So I went back and paid it back and looked at, we're probably looking at around 35 to $40,000 for direct expenses for flights, ACOM. staff, all of the stuff that happens around the actual event. And then you're probably looking at another 24 expenses depending on what sponsors we could get and paying for the entry for the series and some care and whatever, all the other stuff. So I was thinking around 60, 65,000 is what I think that was the goal I said to you was if we can get 60 to 65, we can make it work. we get any more than that, then it's a bonus and we can help out other areas. Cam Nicholls (03:08.62) Yep, so then I put together a little proposal took it to some brands that I've been able to establish relationships with through, you know, having my fat head on YouTube for a number of years and Yeah, cut a long story short. We're very grateful for you know, having some major sponsors and some minor sponsors. I won't go through them all Right now but you know particular, you know bikes online coming on board with the with the polygons. Yeah, huge pretty big deal creative carbon wheels Not only provided the wheels, but also the bars. We've got Insta360, so we're capturing some pretty cool footage with their cameras. Asseoma Power Pedals and Prungo, Red Light Therapy Device. They're probably the biggest sponsors and some minor ones. I'm super grateful for all of them. But I managed to secure the funding and then I'm like, are we really gonna do this? Because it's funny when you know Ryan Thomas (04:03.96) Thanks. Cam Nicholls (04:08.674) Like I'm 44 now and I've made lots of mistakes over my time thinking things aren't gonna be as much effort as they are. So now I'm always like, okay, if you think it's gonna be a big effort, times it by 10. And that's probably what it's gonna be like, which is what I did with this. And I'm like, why are we creating this team? That was like the big question when we sat down, when we were going through the RCA's core values. And we worked out our core values. as a business and there was two in particular where I was like, actually, now this team actually aligns quite nicely with what our values are at the RCA, the Road Cycling Academy. So one of them is personal growth. So we want all our members and our staff to be able to achieve personal growth through the RCA. And while this isn't so much a membership-based thing, it's more of a staff-based thing. You're getting some personal growth, learning opportunities as the head coach of the RCA through the team. We've got Dylan Proctor Parker, who's our community manager, who's got the opportunity to race in a Pro Velo cycling team this year, and that's giving him opportunities and personal growth. And Craig Wiggins, our social media manager, he's coming back for one final show to see if he can take out a sprint in maybe Sydney this weekend is a chance. Q Tour, he's a smokey. So personal growth opportunities for RCA staff, but also Ryan Thomas (05:22.69) Yeah, Sydney or Q2, Cam Nicholls (05:30.36) from a community perspective, I felt like the team could help connect the RCA community a little bit more by having somebody to follow and cheer on, turn on the Melbourne to Warrnambool on the weekend and there's the RCA. I loved how Sal, one of our members, the next day went and wore RCA at his crit and won his crit and then he tagged RCA race team. So, know. the brand being out on the road and connecting our community, I think it's done a really good job at that. And that's what we thought it might do, and it's proving to be the case. So yeah, when we stepped into this, why are we doing the team? Well, personal growth and community. So the season started, we're midway through. What's surprised you the most so far? Ryan Thomas (06:20.312) Just the amount of admin it takes to coordinate with riders and booking fights and accommodation and organizing logistics at tours. We've only done one or two tours so far, but I've also realized that trying to be a rider, a team owner and a manager is challenging. Trying to juggle three hats or put three hats on at a race is probably too hard and I probably won't do it again next season. I would probably just try and focus, put one hat on and focus on that. That's been the biggest challenge so far, would say, is trying to, yeah, can't be a rider. Cam Nicholls (06:55.528) Just be clear, you are, you are ricing as well. Ryan Thomas (06:58.402) Yes, I am racing. Yeah. So not training too much to do those races, but I wanted to be involved in the team and it's good fun. I still love racing my bike. Not at the level I once was, but still good fun to be there and be a part of the team and to fill out a roster. Our first year, I kind of wanted to need five riders to start each round without penalty within the pro velo as part of part of their regulation. trying to field five to six at each round. So that was kind of the main. go with myself racing. Cam Nicholls (07:29.102) And maybe just taking a step back. Before we continue with the podcast, I wanted to thank one of our team sponsors, One Cloud X, a company that's headquartered in the Gold Coast, Queensland, but they have a national presence and they provide software solutions to small to medium businesses that need support with financial management, planning and budgeting, advanced manufacturing, warehouse management, supply chain optimization and analytics. They also specialize in multi-entity and operationally complex environments across manufacturing, distribution, construction, education, and services. And they go beyond core enterprise resource planning solutions like NetSuite and Epicore, which they do provide. But on top of that, they're layering automation, warehouse management solutions, and AI enabled workflows to drive measurable operational outcomes. They're also a supporter of local Australian cycling, and we're very grateful for that. So if you're a... Small to medium sized business in need of what I've just described. Please check out One Cloud X and we'll drop a link to their business in the podcast description. Now, back to the podcast. How did you get the writers? Because obviously, we had that discussion. Yep, we're gonna go ahead. And then you had, you kind of already been chatting with writers. You had your own network. So how did the writers come about? Ryan Thomas (08:51.642) Yeah, so I get the a bit of it's not wasn't our main goal, but we are a coaching company at the end of the day. So we wanted to either coach the riders or be within the staff. So that was that was kind of my first priority was right. I coach a few riders and know quite a few riders that wanted to coach as well within the Brisbane cycling scene. to two main goals that I wanted was they need need to be able to coach them or help them and they need to be good people. Yeah. Cam Nicholls (09:19.99) No dickhead poll... Same as the Sydney Swans and the All Blacks? Ryan Thomas (09:20.622) No dickhead policy. So a good group of guys in the first year was obviously going to be good bike riders because they're racing a lot and we're going to help them be good bike riders. But good people get a good group that are going to have fun on tour and that's going to see success. Cam Nicholls (09:41.208) Did you, and also you mentioned earlier in the podcast, you had experience with Tandem and Co, which is a state-based team. So some of these writers are from Tandem. Ryan Thomas (09:49.582) Yeah, so last year, myself, Josh Bajkoff, Matt Lambert, Brent Reese, were all part of tandem. So four of us. So they were involved in tandem. And I knew we raced really well together. I was the director at Q2I in 2025. But Matt finished fourth on GC. Brent finished top 10. And we won teams class with those riders. So I knew that they were good quality. it good experience. Cam Nicholls (10:17.346) Dickheads. Although Brent's had a few strikes hasn't he? Ryan Thomas (10:21.65) A good group of guys, a bit of banter and fun. That's what you want in the team, right? Yeah. Yeah, so I had a good foundation there within Queensland and then we had a new out, had four or five secured pretty quickly and then it was just about filling out the other two riders. Cam Nicholls (10:37.026) Yeah, okay. Yeah, and look, you know, the team camp that we went on recently, you know, it's having a barbecue and a few beers, everyone gets along. It's a really good vibe. And it's a supportive vibe. No one's in it for themselves. Ryan Thomas (10:51.662) Yeah, and it was interesting when we asked what the goals were of the riders and what they wanted to achieve out of the series. Pretty much everyone said, like, help the team succeed. So it wasn't like a lot of it's a team mentality. It's not like I want to, I need to win this race. So it's all for me. Everyone was like, I'll put my hand up and help you help the other riders succeed at the end of the day. So it wasn't, it's not a, there's no I in team. copper mentality, it's everyone's there to race for themselves and for the team. Cam Nicholls (11:24.396) Yep. And going back to, you know, the budgets and what's required, is there anything that surprised you there? Because there was one thing that surprised that sort of made me go, I never really thought about that until now. Ryan Thomas (11:39.17) Yeah, a lot of the... Cam Nicholls (11:40.686) to do with that thing hanging up behind us here. Ryan Thomas (11:42.882) Yeah, lot of the... we didn't... I guess the assumption at the start was that we would get really good support with the kit brand, but that was one of the biggest things that we didn't quite... Cam Nicholls (11:55.458) They must get hit up so much though I reckon. They must just be so fatigued of so many little teams going, you know, we'll represent you Brian, give us free kids. Ryan Thomas (11:57.39) I think it's you. Ryan Thomas (12:04.366) And it's such a high volume thing too, right? Like if you've got seven to ten riders who all need four to five, six pieces of kit, like there's hundreds of pieces of kit coming out of factory, then it actually costs a fair bit. yeah, we ended up paying, and I think this is the case with most teams in the Pro Velo, is that they pay a reduced, it's like, I don't know, 30 to 50 % off or its cost or whatever. Cam Nicholls (12:27.118) We got a great deal through Jack Roo, which we're very proud of. We still wanted it all for free. Of course, you all do when you're trying to scrape together funds, but they dig it. Ryan Thomas (12:29.166) Yeah, Jack, we're really helpful. Ryan Thomas (12:36.91) Reach for the sky. Exactly, that's it. But yeah, we ended up spending, I think it's been $12,000 Australian dollars on kit so far. So that's a big chunk out of the budget that I'd kind of had it in the back of my mind that we may need to pay for it, but it wasn't planned upfront. luckily in the end we got a few extra minor sponsors that helped cover that as well through the actual RCA community, which was awesome. Cam Nicholls (13:02.946) So we're halfway through the season. We've got Sydney this weekend. Then it's Grafton, then it's Q Tour. And then you can lie down in a coffin. Ryan Thomas (13:12.067) Come awake? Can't have a holiday. Cam Nicholls (13:14.158) What's the expectations for the rest of the season? I'll just give you my... I just thought it would be great to have a team to be in some breakaways, maybe make a podium. But it's nice to be in the mix for the first season. And it's funny on Saturday, Cam Kim, used to run Inform Team Insight Make, which was probably one of the biggest teams for good three years. and they were in the NRS before it was called the Pro Velo for maybe five years. He rang me, because he was watching my Instagram stories, and he goes, did you just win Melbourne to Warrnambool? And I was like, yeah, like, can't believe it. He goes, do you know, we ran a team for five years and we could never win it. And you've just won it in your first season. Are you joking me? And that really put it into perspective for me because when you're in your first season, you're just kind of finding your way. You're not really thinking about it. And it's probably, you know, having a team year on year where you probably start to sharpen your goals and what you want to achieve and races you want to win. Definitely. So that really put it into perspective. Like we could just, we could wrap up the team now and it'd be a successful season. Ryan Thomas (14:26.99) 100%, yeah, 100%. Yeah, like to win the warning or the grafting, like the two big one day races, like they're arguably the hardest thing to do. I'd say if you spoke to anyone in the Pro Velo Peloton and they said, what races would you win? And they would choose either grafting or the warning. That's one of the ones because they're the most, it's like a one day race. history, Everyone knows how hard those races are and they're both equally hard. And to win one, like, yeah, I guess my goal going into the season, I knew the capability of the riders, right? I knew that we were capable of getting a podium either in a stage or at the morning of the grafting if the right situation arose. But to win, to win something like the morning, like when I found out that Josh won, like I... I was the reason I couldn't be at the warning because I was looking after my son. Cam Nicholls (15:23.926) I you a photo of him being interviewed. Ryan Thomas (15:25.996) Yeah, because the original story from the warning they put up all these standing winds and then they took it down and then they put up Josh wins because there's a fire photo finish Yeah, okay. I saw I saw the original Instagram story. No one else did so I was like nervous my second or first and then someone called me and told me that he wanted I saw a photo or refreshed and at the time I couldn't go because I was looking after my son that day my wife had to work and I couldn't I couldn't get around it so My son was in his high chair, he was having a feed and someone told me he wanted, I'm like jumping and screaming and I'm sure the neighbours probably got noise complaining. I was absolutely gone ballistic. Yeah, absolutely over the moon. That Josh's ride was unbelievable but yeah, far exceeded our expectations in the first season. Cam Nicholls (16:05.742) as you should. Cam Nicholls (16:15.234) So, but what does that do for the confidence of him and the other writers? Because I feel like, you know, just teams that I've been in in the past, when somebody elevates themselves like that, it sort of elevates everybody else. Ryan Thomas (16:27.18) Massive, yeah. I think it, honestly, I think it came off the back of Tassie and the end of Tassie. So Josh, specifically in Tassie in the first road race and even in the prologue under, he didn't meet his expectations. He was dropped 15 kilometres into the first road race in Tasmania. Cam Nicholls (16:46.253) Yes. Ryan Thomas (16:47.18) to come out the next week and win arguably the biggest race in Australia is huge. we, towards the end of that, the next day, so Josh was down, he was feeling bad, like he wasn't performing where he wanted to be. Then the next day, he rode across to the break with up the hilltop, rode across, helped Brent. Brent performed awesome, finished really good up the top of that mountain top. And it was like riding on a high. Everyone was really happy after that stage. Had a good crit, Dylan finished sixth in the crit. And so we finished that tour on a high and it was like really positive. We're in the Moors, we were aggressive, we were racing. And when I dropped Josh at the airport on Friday going down to the morning, just like, the objective was getting the Moors, be aggressive. And I said to the boys at the end of Tassie, said that the more opportunities you get in those breakaways, it's just an odds game. the more times you do it, one will succeed eventually. You just do it and do it and do it and then it'll pay off one day and the odds will be in our favor. And morning was the day. Cam Nicholls (17:44.386) Yeah, incredible. So yeah, the rest of the season, what are you thinking? Ryan Thomas (17:50.124) Yeah, I think Josh is going to be on a high. He probably still hasn't come down yet. He's probably going to be fatigued as hell going into Sydney because he's just been riding on the adrenaline. But I think it's a big confidence booster. think we'll get, we added some pretty good rides. Brent's pretty well respected in the peloton. He rides pretty assertive in the peloton. Same with Dylan, third at Nationals. So pretty respected with those couple of guys. I think... we'll be more respected in the peloton now. Even though was a breakaway win, was like a chance, like it wasn't from the peloton, I'm just sprinting right away from everyone. was a chance win, but I still think it earned a lot of respect for the team within the peloton. So Sydney's going to be awesome. I'm actually racing Sydney, so I'm keen to see what that vibe is like in the peloton, whether he get a bit more room for the sprints. And like, I think it'll give Josh a lot of confidence and the other boys a lot of confidence that we can win. Even if it is a group, we still have the opportunity. We can win. We're not an underdog team. We have some of strongest riders in the peloton, so we can win. Cam Nicholls (18:55.488) Yeah, great. Well, we'll find out. mean, by the time this podcast goes live, Sydney probably would have already been. But thank you, Tom Ryan. Yeah, interesting to share the experience with you. And you know, I'm learning a lot as I go here. And yeah, super grateful for our sponsors that have enabled this to happen. So yeah, we'll catch everyone the next podcast. Ryan Thomas (19:22.168) Yes.      
• Unpacking Josh Bekoff's Melbourne to Warrnambool Victory (Training & Race data) 04.03.2026 19min

  In this episode of the RCA podcast, the hosts discuss the impressive performance of Josh Bekoff in the Melbourne to Warrnambool race. They delve into his training regimen, performance metrics, race strategy, and the dynamics of the breakaway he was part of. The conversation highlights the importance of nutrition, pacing, and the mental aspects of racing, culminating in an analysis of the final sprint that secured Josh's victory.   Team & Podcast sponsor: https://onekloudx.com.au/ RCA Supporter kit: https://shorturl.at/5axJb  Key Takeaways Josh Bekoff is a strong sprinter with a good five-second power. Durability in long races involves pacing, nutrition, and strategy. Critical power testing showed Josh's FTP at around 320 watts. Josh's training included threshold power improvement and long rides. Race strategy involved capping power to conserve energy for the finish. Nutrition was key, with Josh hitting his carb goals during the race. The breakaway dynamics were crucial for the final outcome. Experience plays a significant role in race performance. Josh's sprint power peaked at 1,100 watts during the final sprint. The importance of teamwork and communication in breakaway situations. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to RCA Bikes Online and Josh Bekoff's Achievement 03:01 Analyzing Josh's Training and Performance Metrics 05:54 Race Day Dynamics and Strategy 09:03 Breakaway Tactics and Power Analysis 11:57 Nutrition and Endurance in Long Races 14:55 The Final Sprint and Race Conclusion   Transcript:  Cam Nicholls (00:00.034) Welcome back to the RCA podcast, which is also on YouTube. So please excuse any visual references for those listening on audio. Today I'm joined by the RCA's head coach and the team manager for RCA Bikes Online. And today we're going to be going through quite a phenomenal result by an RCA Bikes Online rider, the recent Melbourne to Warrnambool, Josh Bekoff. And we're going to break down what he did in his training at a high level before going in and then the race. breaking down the data. And Ryan, who's sitting next to me, happened to not only coach Josh, but he also coached third place. So we can sort of have a look side by side, the two of riders in the breakaway, well, that made the breakaway till the very end. So before we get into it, Ryan, Josh, just tell me a little bit about his, everyone's interested in power, to weight, and the high level stats. Tell me a little bit about Josh as a rider, high level. Ryan Thomas (00:50.702) He's a bit of a sprinter, so he loves the criteriums in Brisbane. We've got a very good criterium circuit in Brisbane and he is always on the podium. So it's very rare for Josh not be on the podium in a sprint finish or even in a little breakaway. He's got a really good five second sprint. It's not super big power, but you don't really need to be able to do super big power. It's just good for his weight at the end of a one hour trip. So that's kind of his strength. Cam Nicholls (01:16.748) We did ask for writer bios during the week and he said his best power segment was 5 seconds, 1280 watts. He also said fishing was his hidden talent. He said he's not a good f... Ryan Thomas (01:25.858) He's not a Cam Nicholls (01:28.962) Cool. And what about his FTP and his weight, like his power to weight? Ryan Thomas (01:34.638) Yeah, so we did critical power testing at the start of the year and he's sitting around 320 critical power. So 68 kilos-ish fluctuates, yeah, it's not a, critical power isn't huge by any means. So his strength really lies in that, the sprint. Cam Nicholls (01:52.206) And for those that aren't too familiar with critical power, so 320, is that also his FTP? Yeah. Ryan Thomas (01:57.368) That's what we use as his physiological threshold. Cam Nicholls (01:59.842) Yeah, okay. But obviously Melbourne to Warrnambool is a lot about durability, which you can't really measure as a tangible outcome, but clearly Josh demonstrated that he's durable. Ryan Thomas (02:03.118) Yeah. Ryan Thomas (02:11.628) Yeah, yeah, and there's a lot of like, there's a lot within the durability aspect and what came down to the end of the race and like it's an eating competition, it's pacing strategy, like how hard are you going in the first four hours? It's a six hour race, so there's a lot that comes into it, not just having a high threshold or having a high durability. There's an eating competition, it's a drinking competition, and it's conservation competition. Cam Nicholls (02:36.364) Yeah, so let's talk about Josh's training leading into Warrnambool and we could probably spend four hours on this if we really wanted to. So let's stay high level. The thing that I'm mostly curious about and I'm sure many of the listeners would be as well is, know, for those that know chronic training load, which is like a fitness score for want of a better word, what was Josh's chronic training load leading into Warrnambool? Ryan Thomas (03:01.518) On the day he was 95. Cam Nicholls (03:03.79) 95. So that's not really that significant. Ryan Thomas (03:07.406) No, well yeah, he's a full-time worker as well, right? So he has a full-time job at 99 Bikes in Brisbane. So he has a limited time to train. He's got pretty good hours around his work, but he's anywhere from two to three hours during the week, and then he fits in his big rides on the weekend and works one day on the weekend as well. And a big week he's doing 20. But most consistently around that 12 to 15 hours. Cam Nicholls (03:27.384) Yeah, so how many hours per week would he be doing? Cam Nicholls (03:34.542) Yeah, okay. Because I know as myself as a recreational amateur, I'm probably getting to 10 to 12 hours when I'm really being able to divide that and carve out my time and get to my cycling. And when I'm consistently doing 10 to 12 hours per week, for those of you who are probably unfamiliar with chronic training load, I'm probably landing around 85, maybe pushing towards 90 if I'm really consistent for a long period of time. So that's why I hear 95 and I'm like, oh. I know some amateurs that just love cycling so much, their CTOs are like 110, 120. So 95 surprising. Ryan Thomas (04:08.96) Yeah, so I'm looking at his like his duration on the bike in the last six months and his average is 12 hours 50. So there's some big weeks in there like big 20 hours, there's like probably five, six, 20 hour weeks in there. But consistency wise, it's yeah, it's pretty high and his CTL did drop a little bit coming into it was just over 100. Yep. Before SA kick it and then he got sick and a few other situations there and then his CTL actually dropped so probably freshness paid a bit there as well. Cam Nicholls (04:37.13) Okay, so he's freshened up. mean terms of the type of training he was doing was there a specific focus or was it all just like go out and do like, Melbourne to Warrnambool is a six hour race so it's just like just go and ride as much as you can which I know a lot of people for these events they think it's all about volume or was he doing specific interval training focused on specific zones? Like if you could pick out the top two to three things he was doing what were those? Ryan Thomas (05:02.028) Yeah, so two things with Josh, former specific training, we know he's a good sprinter, so we wanted to use that and that's where he was going to get theoretically, he was going to get his results was in a maybe a criteria sprint or at the end of a race like he did in a sprint, like that was going to be his biggest weapon. And we also wanted to work on his weakness a bit. So his threshold power is probably his weakest area. So we wanted to lift that a little bit and try and get him tolerable at riding around threshold. So doing five. to 10, 15 minute hill repeats just under threshold and at threshold. Try and get him, yeah, get him used to spending time at that zone. And then also we did, he did quite a few big rides as well. So was a big, quite a few five, six hour rides and big, big weekend blocks when he had the time to train. Cam Nicholls (05:46.414) Okay, that weren't specific to targeting an energy system or just go out and ride with some decent efforts in there though as well? Ryan Thomas (05:51.096) Long and hard. Usually around club racing, so you go and spend half an hour to an hour riding to the race, do the race for an hour, then go and do some efforts after or just go and do another three four hours after. So you're getting up five, six hours of riding pretty easily, but there's also quite a bit of intensity in there that makes it quite challenging. Cam Nicholls (06:13.132) I'm just going back to his rider bios. Your favorite type of ride Josh, crit plus extras. So no wonder he's been loving the training. Ryan Thomas (06:19.118) He loves local crits as they all do in Cam Nicholls (06:24.494) Yeah. So let's talk about the actual event, the day. And what's interesting is you also coach, not only do you coach Josh, but you coach Kevin Bifica, who was in the break and finished third. So it might be interesting to talk about some of the dynamics there and how they sort of compare as writers. But notably, what does the data look like? Ryan Thomas (06:52.161) It's solid, but it's not like, it doesn't jump off the page because it's, you're in a 250 kilometer breakaway, right? Like you're not going to be doing any power records doing that. And if you were, then you've raced it very wrong. So Josh's mindset, from before the race started, it was make the breakaway, get out there and just get a big gap as possible and see what happens. So we just needed to be there. And his mindset was, Cam Nicholls (07:19.406) TV time for the RCA. Ryan Thomas (07:21.358) He knew that he's been racing for a long time so he's had a couple of hiatus's from racing but Cam Nicholls (07:28.866) He had a year off racing last year, didn't he? Yeah. Ryan Thomas (07:30.83) Yeah, well, in June 2024, he discovered that he had a leg discrepancy issue. So he had iliac artery and in start of 2025, it was like, yeah, this was the diagnosis. He had surgery in July 2025. So basically he didn't ride for, it was like nine months period where he was, didn't do much from January, January 2025 to September. He didn't do much on the bike at all. So he had to recover from that major surgery. Cam Nicholls (07:59.95) and then he came in here for a bike fit earlier this year. Neil was telling me the only reason why he won was because of Neil's bike fit. Got himself sorted, positioning. Ryan Thomas (08:05.102) Yeah, that works too. Yeah, Neil can take it. But he, yeah, big, big way back. I guess the point of that was he has a lot of racing experience. So we raced together in 2015, 2016. We were racing together in a Conti team in Brisbane called Brisbane Conti, racing the pedaler together, raced with a lot of really good riders like Jordan Kirby, was an Olympian, Caden Groves, we raced with him. There's a lot of experience that Josh has that people may not be aware of. He's been racing this sort of stuff since he was 18 years old. He was quite young when he was racing this. So he has the experience, it's just not well known. So he has the engine there and he has the experience. So going into, when he made the breakaway, speaking to him after the race, I was like, what were you doing? Like how hard was people rolling? What was happening? And he was like... I just had to cap my power at 300 watts. When I'm on the front, I'm not going harder than 300 and I'm trying to get as air oil as possible. Cam Nicholls (09:03.54) Okay, so he's not going over FTP basically? Ryan Thomas (09:05.838) So that's for five hour breakaway like if you're going over thresholds and you're gonna that's it and we saw a lot of people do it Well, we saw it there was seven got seven rods in that breakaway only three stayed away Yes, I imagine that a lot of the five riders or four riders that got dropped from that breakaway were probably rolling too hard at the start Yeah, and Josh was probably in this is saying that I like to use with the riders and when you're in a breakaway You never want to show you're the strongest rider in the breakaway, particularly in the early phases. You want to hold it all back until that moment it actually counts, because it doesn't count in the first 50, 100K in the morning. The peloton decides how much the time gap is, not the breakaway. The breakaway riding a kilometer an hour faster doesn't mean you get 10 minutes versus five. It's the peloton sitting up gives you that extra time. Cam Nicholls (09:54.178) Yeah, and as far as an FTP watts per kilo, Josh compared to some of the other riders, like compared to Kevin, he's quite a fair bit lower, isn't he? 60 watts lower. Yes. Yeah, okay. Ryan Thomas (10:03.934) 60 watts. Yeah, so very, very significant, very significant. Yeah. On paper, if you looked at threshold, you'd probably say Josh is the least fit out of probably most anyone in that breakaway. Yeah, okay. And if you had to look at, if you had to line them all up and said, what's your threshold at the start, the seven riders in the breakaway, would probably almost go and tell you Josh had lowest one. He didn't. Yeah, I think he said, he actually said to me when I called him, he said, Cam Nicholls (10:27.192) but he did not roll a turn. Ryan Thomas (10:33.024) Everyone in that breakaway was so cooperative. It was just chock until he dropped. The four riders that got dropped, they just went hard until they couldn't go anymore. And the same with Ollie and Ollie standing the other on the breakaway and Kevin. Those three final three knew each other really well from racing in Brisbane. Kevin's from the Gold Coast and Ollie's based in the Sun Tone Coast. So raced together quite a lot. So they knew each other, they were chatting and it was like, all right, we're all in to make it to the line. Cam Nicholls (11:02.104) Okay. Before we continue with the podcast, I wanted to thank one of our team sponsors, One Cloud X, a company that's headquartered in the Gold Coast, Queensland, but they have a national presence and they provide software solutions to small to medium businesses that need support with financial management, planning and budgeting, advanced manufacturing, warehouse management, supply chain optimization and analytics. They also specialize in multi entity and operationally complex environments across manufacturing, distribution, construction, education, and services. And they go beyond core enterprise resource planning solutions like NetSuite and Epicore, which they do provide. But on top of that, they're layering automation, warehouse management solutions, and AI enabled workflows to drive measurable operational outcomes. They're also a supporter of local Australian cycling, and we're very grateful for that. So if you're a Small to medium sized business in need of what I've just described. Please check out One Cloud X and we'll drop a link to their business in the podcast description. Now back to the podcast. So what does the TSS look like for the ride? Do you have the overall TSS? Ryan Thomas (12:14.03) So, ride was five hours 50, 390 TSS, 260 normalised power, which was like around 80 % of his critical power. So it's pretty hot, tempo, essentially riding tempo for five hours 50 minutes, normalised power, which is hard. It's really hard. If I was to tell you to go out and do... 80 % of threshold for 60 hours. Oh yeah, that would hurt. Tell me to get stuffed. yeah. Average power was 240 watts. So 240 watts for Josh is like the very top of zone two. Okay. So average power, very top of zone two. Cam Nicholls (12:51.982) And was Kevin similar in terms of, was he about 80 % of everything? Ryan Thomas (12:55.818) His was a little bit higher. He was a similar percentage of threshold, but obviously a bit more power. And the similar weight, but I imagine Kevin was just pulling harder because he has a higher threshold. Cam Nicholls (13:06.782) Okay, a bit taller as well, would it be pushing more wind? Ryan Thomas (13:09.368) Little bit taller, yeah, so pushing, definitely pushing more wind and Josh is super aero, like he's very low, very, he's not super short, but he's just very efficient in the wind I would say. Cam Nicholls (13:19.608) Yeah, okay. So that's the average power. I'm keen to know the last part because I can't imagine, I mean, I can't sprint full stop, but I can't imagine sprinting, you know, like that on, you know, five and a half hour fatigue legs or whatever it is, six hour fatigue legs. And it, you know, I think everyone recognises how much suffering that they've been through. So when you see the sprint, doesn't look like a normal sprint. Yeah. But I'm curious to know the power numbers. Ryan Thomas (13:42.412) No. Cam Nicholls (13:46.922) And before you share that, it was funny, you rang me, because we didn't expect this at all, obviously. It was unexpected as Josh's, at the end of the race, everyone saw how emotional he was and how shocked he was. But you rang me with about, think, 15 Ks to go and you said, there's three left. One of them's Josh. I coached the other one and I know the other one and I reckon he's a chance. I'm like, you're absolutely joking me. So he was a chance and he won. And how did he win? What did the power numbers look like? Ryan Thomas (14:14.658) Yeah, so the three of them were super cooperative. They got down to three with like 50K to go. So they had four minutes. I knew that they would have been talking and they knew that they had to just go until 10K to go. And then if they had a timely up to 10K to go, they could start playing games. they knew that Josh had a sprint. Ollie knew he had a pretty good sprint and Kevin doesn't have a sprint. Kevin can't sprint at all. He's a diesel. He's really high threshold and just ride all day. So with 10k to go roughly, there was one attack that was pretty much it. So all he tried to get away with 10k to go to try and drop Josh because he Josh was quick. Cam Nicholls (14:51.042) we've got that video footage, so we'll put it up. Ryan Thomas (14:53.122) Yeah, but other than that, no, that was the one with 2k to go. there was 10k to go, was one attack. And then it was like, I reckon that attack. And it was like, no, that was really hard. That hurt us all. We're probably on the edge of cramping. So let's get to 3k to go and then fight it out. And then, yeah, Ollie went with about 3k to go. And Josh was in the footage. You can overlay the footage. Josh was looking. Cam Nicholls (14:55.118) and keep it back. Ryan Thomas (15:19.95) all the way to his right, because he's like, is, he said to me in the car when I picked him up from the airport, he said, I knew he was going to attack and I was watching the right and I looked around and I said, he said, where, oh, he's two seconds ahead. So, Ollie did a really good attack with about two, two and a half K to go. But he, everyone was in the box, right? Everyone was suffering really bad there. And Kevin closed it down. So Josh kind of played that a little bit and knew that Kevin would close it down. So that was really smart by Josh just to follow the wheel. And then we're just cutting him out for the last kilometer until 500 meters to go really. And then Ollie started sprinting. Ollie was in third wheel, came around Josh and he started sprinting really early. So 350 meters to go. Cam Nicholls (16:06.926) Is that suit Ollie though? Because he's not much of a, he's got high power but he's not like neuromuscular, he's more a grinder. Ryan Thomas (16:14.158) He needed to go long to win and he got my Josh like he almost got him. But he knew he would have known Josh has got a good sprint on him. So he's raced Josh many, many times. He knows Josh well. Josh knows Ollie well. So Josh would have known that Ollie needed to go early and Ollie would have known that if he waited too long, Josh would have got him in a pure 10 second sprint. Ollie did what he had to do to try and win. So 350 metres to go, Josh. he goes, Josh follows the wheel at a thousand watts, 1,100 watts was his peak in the spring. They were side by side. I said to Josh, why didn't you get on his wheel and wait? Because it was so early. He said, I wasn't thinking, man, I was just going. Cam Nicholls (16:49.072) to get back on the wheel. Cam Nicholls (16:58.008) The neuromuscular, no sorry, fatigue is kicked in. Ryan Thomas (17:00.952) So they were side by side, was like a mono on mono, just a pure drag race. And then Ollie reaped it out a bit. So it ended up being a 30 second sprint. So was 30 second sprint at end of. 30 seconds, his peak power was 646 watts. Cam Nicholls (17:12.376) So what was the power for that 30 second sprint? Cam Nicholls (17:18.637) Not bad after, you know, five and a half hours of swapping off in the Melbourne Awards. Ryan Thomas (17:22.578) Yeah, but if you zoom in a little bit more, it's quite interesting. He sprints at a thousand watts to get up beside Ollie and then starts fading. Ollie starts fading. He looks like his power drops off. So there's two points with like 150 meters to go where just like, his power goes to 300. He's like, I'm done. And then goes back up 650, 700. And then another point with like hundred meters to go, your power like completely drops out. Cam Nicholls (17:47.214) put this up on the screen for those watching on YouTube, but it's all over the place. Ryan Thomas (17:50.094) Yeah, full drop. He's doing 600 and then he comes down to 300. He's like, no, I'm done. Can't go. He's like, no, wait, I've got one more. And then he goes again and it's like, he's doing 500 watts across the line. So they're both in the saddle just like, reefing out everything they can. For a sprint, 500 watts is for an all out effort. It's nothing, right? Most people can do 500 watts. In the six hours, 500 watts is all you need, really. And then when three people are on their hands and knees. Cam Nicholls (18:11.726) and fresh legs for sure. Cam Nicholls (18:19.672) Yeah, so super effort by Josh. Ollie feel a little bit foreign because he was so close. A lot of the old boys on Facebook, I was reading one of the posts there saying, doesn't he know how to keep pedaling? And it's like, well, it's a bit rich when the guy's been swapping off turns for a ton. Ryan Thomas (18:33.902) He was full cramped. That's his body. He's right. You can see it. I haven't spoken to Ollie and this is just we're assuming, it looked like his body just cramped and he just couldn't pedal anymore. His body was just, he was empty. And there was a bit of, just a bit of context there is that both Kevin and Ollie were struggling to eat and drink throughout. So Kevin missed a few feeds because he didn't have a team. was an individual rider. He missed a few feeds. Cam Nicholls (18:58.638) makes it more difficult. Ryan Thomas (19:01.484) Oli I think was a little bit sick so he couldn't get as much nutrition in as he wanted so that probably played a little bit of a role in the end and we know Josh's goal was 100 grams of carbs an hour and one bottle an hour and he hit it on the dot. So he nailed his race in nutrition the whole way through. Cam Nicholls (19:17.998) Yeah, fantastic. Well, I hope you enjoyed that breakdown of the Melbourne Audible race analysis. For those of you watching on YouTube, I'll just put up, we've actually created a team supporter kit for the RCA we've launched this week. If you want to get behind the team and support from afar, we'll drop a link to that below and we'll catch everyone in the next podcast. Cheers.  
• Thank you 12.12.2025 2min

  Just a quick podcast note to say thank you for your support in 2025. This road cycling training podcast only really started 12 months ago. We've gone from 10's of downloads per episode to thousands. So now is the time for a reset and reresher, with the view to come back in 2026 with a fresh look/listen and an improved podcasting platform.  About the RCA: https://roadcyclingacademy.com/ 
• Group Rides: Boost, Burden, or Both for Your Cycling Potential? 28.11.2025 25min

  Summary The conversation delves into the significance of structured training in sports, particularly focusing on how managing intensity can lead to better performance outcomes. It highlights the importance of recovery and adaptations over time, while also addressing the complexities introduced by variability in training methods that comes with group riding.  Takeaways Structured training is essential for performance success. Managing intensity is crucial for recovery and adaptations. Variability in training can complicate performance outcomes. A well-structured plan can lead to year-on-year improvements. Intensity management should be considered in all training cycles. Coaching plays a vital role in structuring training effectively. Recovery is as important as the training itself. Performance peaks can be achieved through careful planning. Uncontrolled rides introduce variability that can hinder progress. Understanding the science behind training can enhance coaching effectiveness. Monthly coaching RCA: https://roadcyclingacademy.com/one-to-one-coaching/  Transcript:  Cam Nicholls (00:00.322) Welcome back to the RCA podcast where today I am joined by RCA coach Ben Treville, who's a science data geek or data nerd. I always forget which one it is. I think I say that every time, Who's actually in the middle of Australia at the moment, traveling with his partner in the Northern Territory. So thanks for joining us today, Ben. Alright, this podcast is brought to you by Starlink. Yeah, the internet connection is actually pretty good based off of the last podcast we did. So hopefully no issues in this one today. I wanted to talk about group rides and bunch rides because a lot of people that come to us, they're doing them and they want to incorporate them and we want them to keep doing them. We call it the not negotiable rides because we want people to continue doing the rides that they enjoy doing. you know, people also need to recognise that if you're overdoing them, which a lot of people are doing as well, you know, there's maybe some considerations you need to, you need to keep in mind. So in this chat today, I wanted to, you know, ask you with your, you know, partial science hat on, because I know there isn't a lot of science in this space specifically, this kind of indirect stuff that you've looked at, but also your anecdotal experiences as a coach, you know, working with amateurs and, and recreationalists that are doing know, group rides as part of their training, you know, how does it look? Is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? What do we need to consider? So the first thing I'm going to ask you, because you know, a lot of people come to the RCA, they're making inquiries, I'm having conversations with them, and they're like, they're worried, do I have to let go of, you know, my group ride or my social ride or my, you know, we call it in noosa, the Tuesday world champs, you know, go smash fest with your mates. Do I have to get rid of that if I want to improve Ben? Ben Treble (01:53.484) My favorite statement. depends. It's a point. I feel like I wear two hats. My lab coat as a sports scientist, and then I have my coaching cap and my sports scientist lab coat says, you know, from a technical point of view, structured training wins out. It's really about managing control and intensity and the more, even from a science or a coaching point of view that we can. I can't. Ben Treble (02:22.402) control, manage, intensity throughout a week, a block, a macro cycle, like a year on year within the plan, the better we can manage the recovery and the better that we can peak for a certain performance and find year on year adaptations. Once we add in variability, and I'm going to... call on your bunch rides as highly variable uncontrolled rides, that's when things get a bit more complicated, right? And that's when you find that it's going to be difficult to plan a little bit, right? So that's the, we can dig a little bit more into the science side, because there is some science that's, would say, directly, or sorry, indirectly related to this topic. And that would be the science around what we call training intensity. distribution, which is fancy words for, you know, how much time do we spend in each zone when we train? So I think a lot of our athletes and listeners are used to thinking about, you know, in training peaks, we can see that how many hours in a week have we spent in each zone, week on week, and you can see the general structure. The two most common would be targeting for either a pyramidal structure, where the higher the zone you go, the less time you spend. And then you have probably what's got a bit more science behind it in terms of better outcomes, which would be polarized training or the 80-20 approach where you try to spend 20 % of your time at high intensity zones. And you spend 80 % of your time at the lower zones, so zone one and two. And you spend very little time in the middle in that zone three tempo space. Can I, before you continue, can I just play a little bit of devil's advocate here because you you talk about the unpredictable nature and not being able to control what's happening in a group ride or a bunch ride and I get that but isn't that what happens in the events that a lot of people are targeting like their Fondo events or maybe they even want to go to a crit race so isn't a group ride like the perfect conditioning tool for those? Cam Nicholls (04:40.64) No, it's unpredictable. Like you don't know what you're going to get. It's like for like. This is where I put my, my coach had on. said it in our last podcast, but, I am an advocate for bunch rides in, two scenarios. One is when you have a rider that's at risk of burnout from structured training, because I think we need, we need two things long-term. The most important thing that I think we could all agree on in, in cycle training is consistency over the long-term. Right? So how do we maintain consistency on the long term? The risk to achieving that is going to be burnout that stops you from training, taking a hiatus from training, which could be from work, family, travel, whatever it is. And then you have illness and injury. How do we reduce the risk of those things interrupting training? Ben Treble (05:43.636) And I believe that you need to keep training fun and interesting. And one of the most motivating things, but nothing is more motivating really than chasing your mates. many of your PBs can a set by on your Tuesday worlds versus on the indoor trainer? it's definitely, definitely Tuesday Worlds. But I do know, I mean, that other thing that's resonating going back to something you just said is burnout. I know if I do Tuesday Worlds and maybe if I did Saturday, the Saturday group ride as well, if I did that week after week after week, I'd be probably burnout within eight weeks, maybe even six. Yeah. Because there's too much for me. I know my body well now because I'm chasing wheels and you you're pushing yourself. You said, you know, you're getting PB's and stuff. You know, if you're your one minute power and your five minute power and, you know, 20 minute power, PBs or close to every other week, there comes a point where the body's like, I know, I've had enough of that. And all of a sudden you're not even anywhere near those PBs and you're all of a sudden you're on a plateau and that's demoralizing too. So while the bunch ride is fun, when you're plateauing and your mates are going faster than you now and you can't pull turns. maybe that affects the motivation. I there's certainly been a story of my past, not so much anymore because I'm a lot smarter, I listen to people like you now, but in the past, that's where I've been. Yeah, in science, we call it social facilitation. Right? know, when you put yourself in an environment where you're surrounded by people say pushing harder than you, the sciences has researched this topic a bit and it applied to both this research on both, like, sort of real world sport and eSports. So they've had the same outcomes indoors and outdoors on this and people were able to achieve more PBs within that social Ben Treble (07:45.496) group environment than outside of it. So there's still, think there's a lot of value to be had from Bunchrides, but it comes back to the individual and I think the timing of their program. So with my writers, yeah, with my writers, what we try to do is let's say you have a goal, a target event that's in four months time. Maybe within the base training, that's the time where we're going to make space for bunch rides. It might even be, or in the off season is a good time to make space for one or two depends on the individual bunch rides. But then as we get closer to the goal, we're probably going to reduce that to one bunch ride a week. And then when we'd say two months out, I'm probably going to say, look, let's keep this focused. Let's just do solo sessions for eight weeks. And at the end of the eight weeks after the target. We have a couple of weeks where we do two social rides a week to bring back some of that. The social aspect's really important, but also it's fun and motivating, I think, bunch rides for people. Okay. So what would you say then to somebody that, you know, has not negotiable to two group rides a week, but they want to improve. And I'm going to throw a curly one at you here as well. What if, what if their goal is actually to, to beat them like that? Cause we do have people that come to the RCA and like the number one goal is I want to beat my mates in the local group ride. Like that is, that is the goal, but they're also the irony of that is they're doing group rides all the time. Cam Nicholls (09:23.746) You know what I mean? So they're probably hit a plateau because they're just doing the same thing every single time and fatiguing themselves as well. I know, like I think sometimes people forget that the heart's also a muscle. And if you're like two or three times a week going to max with your heart rate, know, stretching your heart every single week, two or three times a week, even I feel like that in itself, like there comes a point in time where it's like, well, the heart doesn't tend to ache like your muscles do and your joints do. It tends to shut down the whole body when it's fatigued. So that's a pretty serious thing. Yeah, I would agree. think what needs to happen is people have to remember that the work you do in the training isn't where you get the gains. It happens afterwards in the recovery. And if you don't get enough recovery, doesn't matter. Often you see this with the people who don't follow structured training as you're talking about, they might come to the RCA all the time and say, well, you know, I'm plateauing, but I'm doing more hours and more intensive than I ever have before. Simple answer is you're not getting enough recovery and allowing the body to adapt to that training stress response. And because that's not happening, it doesn't matter how much more you push, if anything, all that's gonna do is take you from overreaching to over training and put you in a burnout mode. right, which is what we want to avoid. So sometimes you have to go slower to get faster. I would suggest to those people, pick one bunch ride a week, skip the other one. The other thing, if we think about the polarized training model, right, 80, 20, if you're too long rides of the week, a bunch rides that are high intensity. Ben Treble (11:13.582) There's a pretty good chance that you're not doing an 80 20. You're probably doing 80 20, but the 80 is hard and the 20s AC, which is, which is not what the science supports in terms of good outcomes in the longterm. So there's a balance to be had. And at some point you need to put the ego to the side. Now, if you really can't get rid of the two rides, the next step, the next best option would be. In one of those rides, I would say one of them go hell for leather, like have a free ride, bunch ride that lets you, you know, get your fix. But the second one go on it, but you have to learn to say, okay, I have to learn how to drop the wheel or go off the front and drop back at certain points, right? So that will let you control the intensity. I remember doing bunch rides and I've had friends who were training come to bunch rides and they might go off the front and do an effort. And then they'll come back and they might just sit on the back, right, to recover. And they'll actually use the bunch dynamics. They might talk to the bunch ahead of time. And I would say it's a courtesy to tell the bunch, guys, I'm actually doing a training ride. So they don't think you're just attacking the punch. So they know if you go off the front to do an effort, they're not going to chase you and kick things off. Or if they decide to kick things off, you might need to say, I've got to have the self-control to let it go and potentially get dropped on this bunch ride. Hmm. Knowing that that will help me drop them next month when I do my free ride bunch ride. Hmm. And what sort of stuff are you, you know, and this is a pretty broad question because everyone's different and everyone comes in at different levels. But let's just say as a general blanket and maybe I paint a bit of a picture here because a lot of people that come in, you know, I'll ask them and even if you look at and you go as a coach, I know you guys go a level above this because when somebody joins us, I'll incorporate, you know, Cam Nicholls (13:19.37) import three months of historical data. And if I've been doing a lot of group rides, you can see what zones that they've really been hitting and focusing on. And quite often, because there is a lot of intensity in there, there's kind of like this gray area in the middle around sort of threshold, sweet spot. And in particular, I always ask people, do you ever do exclusive zone two? They've heard about zone two and they think they do it. But like I'm talking about, no, no, you just actually go out ride for two or three hours and you just do zone two and you don't touch threshold. You really wanna focus on just nice, consistent, constant pressure at a zone two level. wow, I've never actually done that before. So there's often like looking at the data, lot of low hanging fruit items that you can focus on. So if somebody's coming to you and they're doing a lot of group rides and say their goal is to improve in the group rides, but you've now convinced them, right, we're just gonna do one a week. What are you gonna put in sort of surrounding that, you know, in terms of training for the rest of the week? I mean, how would I plan around a single bunch ride in a week? Exactly. over a time as well, over a progressed 12 week period, how would you kind of start? let's assume that at the end of the 12 weeks, they want to now, they've been getting dropped off the back and they can't pull turns, but after 12 weeks, they want to be getting to the front and pulling turns again and feeling really strong again in their group rides and impressing their mates and doing all the things that we love to do in the group rides. Ben Treble (14:59.438) I'd spend, I'd probably spend the first block weaning them off bunch rides, to be honest. So I would let them, at least the first week, I would let them have status quo, put in a couple other structured rides and see how well they can actually hit the target intensities of a recovery ride. I often find with new riders, when I give them a recovery ride, they turn it into something else. And the TSS looks way higher than it needs to be. And they don't realize that a recovery ride is very low intensity. It's like if you were running and I said, go for a walk, that's like the equivalent of, you know, think of what is a walking pace on the bike. You might think to yourself, why would I bother? That's the right pace for your recovery ride. The point that you think, well, how am I bothering with this? That's the good intensity for recovery ride. so that's where I would start. So first block, wean them off. In the middle, I would try and even get them off bunch rides completely for at least one block. I think most people are willing to do one block with no bunch rides, just do some focused efforts. In the final block, bring them back into the bunch rides once a week, manage it. And then towards the very end of a 12 week program, give them free rein on a bunch ride and see what they can do. Okay, and what sort of training would you be prescribing if they're not doing bunch rides? Well, what are they doing then? Are they just doing recovery rides? No, no, it's going to be a mixture. ideally on the weekend, you're doing, let's say one or two long rides, but let's say you get someone who has six to eight hours a week, and we're going to target for say four rides a week. We're going to do one long one on a weekend around two and a half, three and a half hours. This will be predominantly zone two with some high talk efforts. So that's a low cadence intervals in the sort of zone three range. Ben Treble (17:00.846) Then mid-week, you probably have two full days off at least, and then split up to structured intensity days, which will most likely be a mixture of either threshold, which could be over unders, for example, or might be if we want to work on via 2 max, it could be 30 15s, for example. And then we're going to have a zone two ride and potentially a zone one recovery ride. Yep, it's interesting. And just what you've said there, I mean, there's so many people out there that don't spend that much time on structured interval training. And, you know, they wonder why they struggle with recovering from, you know, doing a turn in the local bunch ride. You know, they can't go again, or, you know, they're struggling to, you know, get up a climb in their local bunch ride. And it's like, well, when you actually step away from that environment, and you target you know, specific adaptations. So, you you're over-unders, that's gonna help you with your climbing. You've probably never done this before, because you're so focused on group rides and sporadic riding, all of a sudden you're targeting something that's gonna give you a specific outcome. The same as the, you know, VO2 max, you know, interval sessions, like 30, 15s, or whatever it is. That's gonna really help you with the ability to go really hard, come back into the bunch and recover. Go really hard, come back into the bunch and recover. And it's funny when people actually take, like what you've just described. we're gonna take a step back, we're gonna just move away from that environment for a little bit, and we're gonna do some specific things that are gonna have specific outcomes, then when you get back into the group ride, you've done all these things you've never done before that are targeted for specific adaptations. it's amazing, you know, that the feedback you hear from recreationals and amateurs that actually embrace what you've just described there, Ben, and go back into that environment like, oh, okay, I get it now. If I want to be good at this, I can't just do this all the time. Having said that, I do know there are the unique individuals out there that can just do bunch rides all the time and be good at them. We've got one locally here we call the robot. We call him the robot because he's like a robot. He's genetically a little bit different. So it can be, but more often than not, and I'm certainly one of these people, if I don't go do my... Cam Nicholls (19:17.966) some targeted stuff surrounding the group rides, do my long rides in zone two, do some structured threshold, hill repeats, whatever it might be. I won't perform as well in the group ride. that's a brief overview of how you would sort of, I guess, target or improve group rides. You don't have direct research there, but you've got some indirect stuff. What does that stuff say? Is there any enlightening things that have come out of that research? Any Ben Treble (19:56.64) Yeah, I mean, the research that comes to mind is on the topic of, we said it earlier in the podcast, training intensity distributions. Steven Seiler is probably one of the more prolific researchers out there on this topic. And he had a predominant focus on the 80-20 model. I think some would even say that he's sort of not necessarily come up with that model, but been a big driver in the, you know, the endurance sports space. trying to get people to adopt this intensity distribution model and the benefits of it. So I think it's pretty quick. Like if we, when we look at new athletes that come in, that come from this bunch riding mentality, haven't done structured training, if you look at their training history and you look at, assuming their threshold is set right, when you look at how the intensity distribution works in their history. It's very rarely is it ever 80 20. And even often it's not really a very good pyramidal structure either, which is often just, yeah, sorry. Pyramidal would be you spend the most amount of time in the lower zones. So the bottom of the pyramid is your like zone one, then you have zone two, which would be like your typical endurance zone. And then as you go up the pyramid, the higher intensities, they're the ones you spend the least amount of time. Yeah, so the main difference between pyramidal and polarized for those who may not be aware is you're spending just a little bit more time in zone two in the pyramidal, which is in essentially if you're not, most people aren't using a three zone model, which is what pyramidal and polarized use, which is the scientific zone model, which only has three zones, but zone two is more sort of like that sort of upper end aerobic sort of sweet spot. tempo area, which really isn't prescribed so much in polarised, but it is in a pyramidal format. I don't know about you, Ben, but I know a lot of the coaches at the RCA, depends on the athlete as well, probably using more of a pyramidal approach than a polarised. still, if you're doing bunch rides, it's neither of those two things. guess that's the point you're trying to make. Ben Treble (22:21.9) Yeah, there's quite a few in the research world. have what's called systematic reviews, which they systematically go out into the journal databases, pull all the research on certain topics. They try and pull all the data from each paper together in a way that lets them analyze a larger data set to see if there's any outcomes or insights. And there's quite a few, there's probably three, if not now, maybe even five. I think there was another one that just came out recently systematic reviews on training intensity distribution. People are often trying to compare pyramidal to polarized. And then they often have like threshold and some other, you know, categorizations of training intensity models. And there are certain papers that show pyramidal is better and certain that show polarized is better. There's probably more papers that support polarized over pyramidal. My hypothesis on this is that if you have less hours and you're say less trained, like an amateur recreation, you're better off with pyramidal. And the more well-trained you are, the more you need to switch into a polarized model. Hmm. Typically because the more well-trained you are the more volume you're doing and the more volume you do at a certain point You're limited by your energy, but both Cam Nicholls (23:46.798) Both these models are proven models and both of them don't align to the Buntride model, do they? No. So that's my point. come back to my first thing I said, which was that the variability that you get out of these bunch rides is uncontrolled and it's not predictable. So it's very hard to plan and do structured training and have really good outcomes. If you just do these bunch rides. The key thing here is that there's a time and place for bunch rides. The science side says solo structured training is always better, but in the long run, we know that you need to be consistent and stay motivated. So If you're in the off season or you're a bit further away from doing an event you're targeting, that's the time and place to fit in those bunch rides and get your fix. And then the closer you are to your goal, you probably need to make more space for the structured training and it's more valuable and important. Good. All right. Well, thanks for your time, Ben. If you're out there listening and you're like, well, you know, I wouldn't mind incorporating some structured training into my bunch riding schedule. And I want some support. want some guided support. know Ben's got some capacity at the moment. So if you want to work with Ben directly, you can head to the RCA website. You'll see monthly coaching there. That's our most popular option. There's also a weekly option if you want something a little bit more intimate. And there you can work one-on-one with Ben or any of our coaches to, I guess, put a plan together that works around your schedule, looks at the bunch rides that you wanna target, you wanna improve. And we can ensure that you're getting the right training to get you off the plateau because that's really a hidden motivator for a lot of road cyclists that come to us is, they wanna be better in the group rides, they wanna be better in the bunch rides. Cam Nicholls (25:36.706) but they've hit a plateau and they're not sure what to do about it. Well, that's where obviously we can support you. So head to the Road Cycling Academy website, www.roadcyclingacademy.com and you'll see a link in the menu description called hire a coach and that's where you can get started. We'll catch you in the next podcast.  
• Boost V02 Max with Decreasing Interval Training (*Research Paper) 28.11.2025 23min

  In this RCA Podcast episode, Cam Nicholls is joined by RCA coach and science expert Ben Treble, who dials in from the middle of outback Australia to unpack a brutal but fascinating VO2 max session: high-intensity decreasing interval training. This workout comes from a 2020 research paper and flips the classic VO2 script — starting with longer efforts and progressively shortening the work intervals while also reducing the "recovery" time. The goal? 👉 Spend more time above 90% VO2 max for better aerobic adaptations, without endlessly grinding through 4–5 minute repeats. Research paper here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32780251/  Cam shares his first-hand experience trying the session (including why the 2-minute rep hurt the most), and Ben breaks down: How the workout is structured and what intensities to target Why some athletes respond really well — and others… not so much Where this fits into a VO2 max "toolkit" alongside 30/15s and classic intervals How to think about specificity, timing in the season, and variety in your training Whether using ERG mode on the trainer is "cheating" (hint: it isn't) If you'd like this workout built properly into your own training, check out the RCA 12-Week Custom Plan, where you work 1:1 with an RCA coach to tailor sessions to your goals, schedule, and current fitness. Takeaways A really important part of all training is variation. People do respond differently to different workouts. You can easily keep it interesting. I call it like a VO2 max toolkit. You've got the classic four or five minute intervals. You could use these decreasing working time intervals. Variation is key for effective training. Different workouts yield different responses. VO2 max workouts can be diverse and engaging. Incorporating variety enhances performance. RCA 12 Week Plan: https://roadcyclingacademy.com/cycling-plan-custom/  Transcript:  Cam Nicholls (00:00.302) So welcome back to the RCA podcast where today I'm joined by one of the RCA coaches, Ben Treble, a science expert who's been with us many times before and is currently out on the road somewhere in the middle of Australia on some huge trip. Where are you Ben right now? It looks like you're in the middle of the country somewhere. Yeah, thanks Cam. I'm currently in the Northern Territory on one of the bigger cattle stations called Newcastle Waters. I'm just here overnight at the moment and then we'll keep heading north this afternoon towards Catherine. Yeah, nice. That room you're in looks like there might have been a few backpack backers murdered in that in the past. Looks nice and dodgy. Yeah, I won't go into it, but we're going to go through a town called Laramma that has an ongoing murder investigation. Oh, there you go. Yeah, it's a bit dodgy out that way, but it looks like you're having a good time watching your social media. So yeah, keep it up. Enjoy it. Today I wanted to talk about a science-based workout that's been going through the RCA coaching, you know, discussions recently. It was put up in our WhatsApp chat and we've created our own workout within Training Peaks that we've started to prescribe members to give a go. And I gave it a go myself this week. Cam Nicholls (01:22.234) And I've sent you the paper. I actually haven't read the paper yet. So I'm hoping you can give us a bit of background on this science-backed workout that's, guess, relatively new and there's a bit more work that needs to be done in the space. But I'll give you my thoughts on the workout. But before I do that, can you tell us, you know, what is this workout and what exactly are we looking at in terms of, you know, outcomes from a fitness adaptation perspective. There was a paper by S. Lazar and Co. It was actually published in 2020. So I wouldn't say it's that new, but possibly the adoption of it is new. So they call it high intensity decreasing interval training, which is fancy word for doing high intensity intervals. And as you progress through the intervals in the workout, they're decreasing the work duration of each interval. So the quick example. Say the first interval, you do it around three minutes. Then you have two minutes rest. Then you do a two minute interval, where that's the work duration. And then you have, say, around 80 seconds or 1 and 1.5 minutes rest. Then you do a one minute work interval, 40 seconds rest, 40 seconds down to 30 rest. And then it's 30 second work intervals until fatigue. What range are we working at? we working at VO2 max? Are we working threshold? What are we doing? Ben Treble (02:54.38) It's via to max. So the primary goal of this paper, and I guess this workout, it was to compare different interval workout types. So they had short, like classic fear to workouts. And then they had longer intervals, a reminder for the audience that anything above your threshold essentially just requires duration, but you can reach your fear to max at any intensity above threshold. it just takes longer. So if you're say, if you're 105 % above threshold, you can still reach via two max, but it might take you 25 minutes to get there. Right. And so the crux of the paper and a lot of these via two max workouts around what's the best workout to improve via two max, that's really where they come from is how do we make these interval workouts more effective? And it's based on That's a big assumption, but it's pretty validated that the more time you spend above 90 % VO2 max, the better the increase in VO2 max. So the better the adaptation outcome. And so they're trying to design and get creative around these interval workouts. What is the best interval workout structure that lets you spend more time above that 90 % VO2 max for less effort. Okay. And looking at the paper and the participants and the results, was there anything worthy to note? Yeah, yeah, it's keep in mind, it's a single paper is a pretty small sample size. So they had 12 cyclists, middle age, so around their 40s, they're moderately to well trained. So they had around a via two maxes of around 55 give or take. So that's just the population group of this study. So it's important to keep that in mind. And what they found was Ben Treble (05:01.358) that you spent significantly more time in this high intensity decreasing interval type of workout compared to small or long intervals for VO2 max. What's important though, I think in this paper is that there's a high amount of standard deviation. So for example, one of the measurements was they spent around 312 seconds. above that 90 % VO2 max, but your standard deviation was 207 seconds. So you had some responders in this sample group who might only have spent essentially what is an insignificant from a scientific standpoint, amount of time different to the other workout types. So some people had no more benefit that was measurable by doing this versus short intervals. But some people had very large responses to it compared to the short and long intervals. And this is a trend in most of these, you you and I have talked about 3015 as a really good VO2 workout before from Ben Ronestadt. And even with within that, and he's done multiple papers on it, so then the research is a bit more conclusive, I would say that it's a very good recommendation. This paper is good. And I think it's a really nice indicator to say potentially, this has a lot of good potential. But it's not a guarantee that it would work for you. Okay, so going to the workout structure and how to do it because the thing I liked about it is I'd actually never done it before. I've done a lot of VO2 max training sessions, know, 30-15s, which we talked about, I started to incorporate that a fair bit after we sort of made some content on it. And, you know, I found that to be quite effective. I hadn't done a lot of Cam Nicholls (07:00.622) 30, 15s in the past, so it was new. You get a bit of a dopamine kick out of it when you've been riding for a long period of time and it's a new workout to try. And you see a result as well, so that was good. In the past, I've done a lot of more sustained VO2 style sessions, like sustained three to four minute efforts, maybe if I'm out on the road, five minutes. But never this decreasing style session where you you start off and this is what I want to validate with you because I think maybe what I've done was, you know, Ryan, our head coach dropped it in my training peaks and he said, look, this is where you start. Because obviously there's a starting point for these workouts and you can progress from there. But it sounds like what this paper is indicating is a little bit different to what I did, which was, I guess, dipping my toe in the water with this workout where I did a warmup. I then did some activation efforts. I then got into the first set. and the first set was three minutes on, and this was, know, at, you know, VO two high VO two, two minutes, I wouldn't say recovery. It was probably, top end zone too. so for me, that was about my, was, try and operate just over 400 Watts for the three minutes. And then I came back down to two 50 ish. for two minutes. And then I did two minutes back around 400 or just over 400. And then I came back to 80 seconds at 250-ish. And then I did a minute at around, you know, just over 400. And then I think it was 40 seconds maybe, or 45 seconds, I can't recall exactly, back at 250. And then I did the 30 seconds. And then I went back down to 250 and then I did a recovery at like 150 Watts or something like that for seven minutes. And then I did a second set of that. But it sounds like in this paper, you continue on with the 30 seconds is what you said until you reach a fatigue state. Whereas I didn't do that. And I'm assuming, you know, the reason behind that is Ryan's like, well, you've never done this before. Cam Nicholls (09:26.114) And I also indicated that I've been training for a triathlon and I hadn't done much VO2 work recently. So was a little bit, know, unconditioned for VO2. So he was aware of that. So what he's prescribed to me as a starting point sounds like it's not exactly what's put in the paper. Is that correct? Yeah, you're on the money. It's probably important when we talk about the intensity in the paper, essentially they talk about the on and the off phase of the work and the rest components of those intervals. And they primarily did this using their VIA2max measurements, but they made some correlations to critical power, which they measured in the paper as well. And so the relationship that they made was that the on phase was around 117 % of critical power and the off was around 83 % of critical power. So you're pretty spot on with what Ryan had you at. So, you know, that hundred and around the 115, 120 % of threshold was the hard. So like a via two max effort, it's pretty common. And then the off phase, a high zone too, I would say it's even maybe like get reaching into zone three at 83 % of critical power for the off. So it's not an easy off. No, it's quite, it's quite key because when I first saw this and you sent it to me, my immediate thought was the recovery periods are way too long. Your heart rate will drop too much and the VO2 response will drop in those large rest periods too much. But then when I saw that the off phase was actually quite hard still at 83 % of threshold, That's what helps keep the heart rate high and it's keeping that VO2 response high through the rest period. And then obviously, as you progress through those, you know, decreasing intervals, the work period and the rest period is decreasing at the same time. And when the work and rest is both decreasing, it's just maintaining that high VO2 max percentage towards the end of the workout. Exactly as you said, yeah, the goal is, and what they did in the study is that once you got to the 30 second Ben Treble (11:41.824) interval mark, you had to repeat those until failure. So that's probably the key difference between what you did and what the paper did. But I think for our listeners, you know, you're still going to get a really good workout. If you just get to the first 30 second interval without continuing to failure, right? At the end of the day with all hit workouts, time is, know, and availability is one of the challenges for all athletes. So if you only have an hour to train and that's what you can fit in, I think it's a really good idea to give it a crack. So in the paper then, once they went to failure on the 30 seconds, did they then have a recovery period and do another set? Or is just one sequence? Ben Treble (12:33.568) No, no. So they would do, for example, they would do this when they once they got to the decreased 30 seconds, there was 20 seconds rest. And then they would do another 30 seconds. And if they can't hold the power, that's when they would kill the session. But what I'm saying is that, so once they got to that sort of failure point in those 30 second intervals, would they have a recovery period? Like I did, I had a seven minute recovery period and then I did another set. in the paper it sounds like that wasn't the case. Single set, it's interesting. So what Ryan has had prescribed me is, I guess iteration of the paper. single sets. Cam Nicholls (13:18.862) without the 30 second to failure and doing another set. And what he said he's done for a form of progression is at another set, like a third set. And he finds that that's actually really difficult. And for me, even though I haven't done a of VO2 max work, I'm relatively conditioned to interval training and I've done it for 15 years and VO2 max. And I just found those two sets really actually quite a lot of hard work to do two of those sets, know, stopping at the 30 seconds and the the hardest repetition was actually the two minute repetition, not the three minute at the start or not the 30 second at the end, because I feel like that two minute recovery that you get after the three minutes at VO2 or just a bit over. You know, at what did you say, 83 % of critical power. Yeah, which for me, 250 watts is borderline zone three in our seven zone, you power model. I did feel like I didn't get enough recovery. So when you start the, you know, the two minutes back at over 400 watts and you're not fully recovered, that two minutes goes for a very long time. Yeah, it's a it's a pretty brutal session. I mean, I'm not surprised that the first one felt okay, especially if you've done a good warm up because your via to max is still going to be ramping up. And as it's ramping up, you're going to lean on and your respiratory rate hasn't fully increased yet. Right. So it's, you can even see it in the paper as you look at the the oxygen consumption line through this decreasing intervals that in the first one, it's increasing and it it peaks at the end of that three minutes, right? And then you get the recovery. And when you start that two minute effort, you're already at like peak respiratory rate and your oxygen consumption is already very high. to me, that kind of makes a bit of sense that it feels pretty hard. All the first interval felt easier than the next one. Cam Nicholls (15:28.91) in next one. Yeah, it was actually the second repetition in the second interval. So that two minute in the second set, that was by far the most challenging because I feel like, you know, one minutes, you you can get through one minute mentally pretty easily. 30 seconds you can get through, even though it's still hurting. But yeah, two minutes can be a long time on an indoor trainer at VO2 max when you're not fully recovered. So yeah, it was. It was an interesting workout. I think it's, you know, going back to, you know, what you're saying about the paper is it didn't, you know, even though it's a small sample size and it's, you know, one paper, you know, it's, it's, you know, probably suggesting that it's not going to work for everyone, but it is going to work for, for certain people. And, you know, if you're doing VO2 max training and you're a bit sick and tired of doing your standard go-to if you've done 30-15s for a long period of time or if you've done sustained efforts. From a variability perspective, there's probably a lot of value in it just in that. What would you say to that, Yeah, I think there's a lot of value in it. You know, I had a couple key takeaways around when I read this one was that, you know, a really important part of all training is variation. And I think it's important even when we read papers, it's to remember, okay, people do respond differently to different workouts. But when we need variation, you know, you can do the 30-15s. And if you're doing a VO2 max block, You can easily keep it interesting. You can have this, I call it like a VO2 max toolkit of different VO2 max workouts where you've got, for example, the 30-15s, you've got the classic four or five minute intervals. You could use these decreasing working time intervals. And you can use one that we've done before or talked about a little bit where you have like a classic, say, four or five minute interval where the first two minutes is. Ben Treble (17:28.27) you know, around 130 % of threshold and then you go into the 120 % threshold. So you start hard and then finish not quite so hard. So I think it's nice in this sense. Like I saw it, I read about it. I think it has a lot of good potential. And based on the paper, like I will be adding it to my Fiat 2 Max toolkit. And I think everybody should consider giving it a crack. The other bit that I think is important to remember is specificity in training. So, you know, and the timing of it. So depending on the time in the season, if it's just like a capacity block and you want to build via two maxes capacity, you could throw it into the mix along with some other workouts. But as you get more specific, if you're someone who does a road race that has lots of mixed intensities, I would say there's probably some benefits of doing this decreasing interval version because you're teaching the body to work at via two max at different interval durations, right? Like two minutes, 30 seconds, two minutes, like different versions. Whereas if you're to do, something where you know you're going to do five minute efforts a lot or 10 minute efforts, then you probably want to grow yourself into those via 2Max efforts more than these. Yep. No, good point. One, one final thing that I'll add from my experiences with the workout and I'm keen to get your perspectives as a coach. Uh, so the first set, I just struggled a little bit, uh, from a mental perspective. Like I was just couldn't get the power consistent. was kind of, I was a little bit above 400, but then I'll drop down to like 380 and 370 and then I'll get back to 420. And I was all over the place and I just, I was losing a bit of concentration. think my motivation levels are a bit low as well after training for a triathlon, doing something that I didn't actually want to do. But, you know, what I did after that first set is I just locked it in erg mode. going, you know what? Like I'm not having a good time on the trainer, you know, managing this with my own, you know, my own mental capabilities right now. And I just... Cam Nicholls (19:45.646) gave control of the trainer and said, you know, I'm just going to do the rest of the new, but I did the second set where it was just like bang on 400 Watts and then bang on 250 Watts and bang on 400 Watts bang on 250 Watts and I didn't have to worry about it. So is that kind of mid workout strategy based off of my headspace at the time? Like what do you say to that? I think he did well to adapt to, you know, you had the self awareness to know, okay, this isn't going to work today, right? To do the workout off erg mode. And I think it's a exactly why we have erg mode in my view. I'm not anti erg mode. I think if you can do workouts without it, that's really good. The scientific side of me says I always like to do erg mode because then I know the workouts exactly the same. And when I compare week one to week two, I can really look at acute heart rate response and know that it's a pretty good response. The only thing I would add to that was, yeah, I mean, it's a really good idea if you're struggling for motivation when you get on the bike, because it's pretty common, especially with an indoor session. And it's winter for our Europeans and North Americans. And I know a few of my athletes have gone through this in the last couple of weeks. I find that music as well is a mood lifter. And for me, I remember when I had to do some really hard sessions on the trainer, like flicking it to erg mode and putting on those, whatever the tunes are that get you going. And then you just have to push the power. Like if that gets you through the session, I'm all for it. Good. All right. I'm glad I didn't do the wrong thing because I'm going to be making a YouTube video about this workout and I can already see the people in the comments having a crack at me for, doing it in, in erg mode. But yeah, I certainly feel there's a time and a place for it. And, and to, be, to be brutally honest, like I I'm probably more of an erg mode fan when it comes to the trainer than anything else, because it's just, it's convenience of being able to just sort of switch off a little bit from that. Cam Nicholls (21:48.59) concentrating and just letting the trainer do the work. I'm glad in this instance I get a coach's tick of approval. Thanks, Ben. I feel better about it now. No worries, Cam. Cool, well, if you're interested in learning more about this workout, we'll drop the research paper in the description. We don't currently have this workout in our off-the-shelf plans, but if you're keen to incorporate it and place it into an overall plan, check out the RCA's 12-week custom plan. You go to our website, go to the drop-down menu, you'll see the 12-week custom plan in there. You can work one-on-one with the coach. How that works is you have an upfront call. with an RCA coach to get an understanding of who you are, what your logistics are, what your riding preferences are, what you're trying to achieve. And then after that call, the coach basically puts together a 12 week custom plan and they can incorporate this workout if you wanna give it a try. In Training Peaks, so it's all loaded in there and Training Peaks connects through to all the commonly used head units such as Wahoos, WIFT. and of course training apps such as Training Peaks Virtual and Swift. So if you can give that a go, check out the RCA website. And Ben, thanks for your time. Good luck in the middle of Australia and we'll catch you in the next podcast.  
• Life as a Directeur Sportif (Matt Wilson on Orica GreenEDGE *2014-2020) 13.11.2025 33min

  Summary The conversation delves into the intricate logistics involved in organising a cycling race, particularly a Grand Tour, highlighting the challenges of managing teams and maintaining motivation in a high-performance environment. Through the lense of a Sports Director / Directeur Sportif. In this case, Matt Wilson, who was the Directeur Sportif for Orica Green Edge from 2013/14 - 2020.  Takeaways Cycling races involve complex logistics with multiple vehicles and staff. Managing a cycling team requires keeping everyone motivated and happy. Creating a cohesive vision among diverse teams is crucial for success. The environment in cycling is high-pressure and requires effective management. Logistics in cycling are more complicated than in many other sports. Team dynamics play a significant role in achieving performance goals. Each race involves staying in different hotels every night. The number of people involved in a cycling race is substantial. Maintaining a positive atmosphere is essential for team performance. The challenges of cycling logistics are often underestimated.   Transcript:  Cam Nicholls (00:00.056) Welcome back to the RCA podcast where today I am joined by Matt Wilson and Matt's a neighbour of mine and he's also co-founded the Pro Velo Super League which we just talked about in the previous podcast. If you want to hear about that, go back and listen to the last podcast. But Matt, which we didn't talk about in the last podcast, also has quite an illustrious, is that the word, cycling career and spent a lot of time as a pro and also as a DS, a director sportif. And as I'm... just starting to get a flavor for what's involved. Not that I'm doing the DS role myself, that's Ryan Thomas, the head coach at the RCA, but I'm hearing about all the things he's doing. I'm like, wow, there's a lot of work here. And Matt, you spent eight years as one. thought, why don't we just spend half an hour here or 20 minutes or half an hour. I'm just gonna take chatting about what does a DS actually do? Because you kind of watch unchained documentary, which a lot of people would have watched, and you see this guy in the car yelling at the riders. it's like, is... Is that all they do? Just tell them to ride faster. Which is clearly not the case, but I think a lot of people obviously don't have an idea and I'm curious myself to learn. But before we go into that, I do need to ask you a pretty hard hitting question here. And that is, you rode pro for a number of years. You won the Sun Tour, Australian road champion, you rode tour to France, know, top 10 at the TDU. Why do you never come to the famous Noosa Tuesday World Champs? Never seen you there. What's going on? I have done it just before your time. really? Sprint for the blue letterbox? Okay. Exactly. Yeah. Now it's the red letter box. Someone painted it a different color and you can't, it can't be changed on Strava. It's still the blue letter box. Matt Wilson (01:40.194) Yeah, right. No, no, I did it back in the day. But yeah, no, not in recent history. You just don't ride anymore, is you? I do but I'm just so busy and I sort of you know if I do ride it's 45 minutes down to Parisian and I turn around and I come back and that's it that's that that's my riding couple days a week. Not even. Two hours a week would be a really good week. So you're doing two, three hours a week? Oh. Not even? Cam Nicholls (02:08.032) Right. Do you miss it? Yeah, I do. I don't miss the professional hours and training as a job, but I miss being fit. I miss going out with the guys. I guess that single-minded focus of just all I have to worry about today is just a six hour ride and getting home smashed and just sitting in the couch and recovering and that kind of simple life. is still attractive now and you're working sort of 10, 12 hours a day and got three kids and juggling, you know, regular life stuff that people have to have to deal with. But, know, as an athlete, you don't. Yeah, okay. So you don't have any appetite to get fit enough to come do the World Champs on a Tuesday. It'd be great to see you there. Anyway, sorry. This podcast isn't about the World Champs, but it's become quite a well-known ride because I've made a lot of content on it and there's another content creator who's done a bit of content on it and yeah, gets quite a few people there now. They broke the record the other day actually. Really? Well, there was... How many guys to get? Cam Nicholls (03:14.254) There was one guy that rocked up on a TT bike with his sperm helmet and his disc wheel and he was the one that basically did it. But it's funny, like the day that happened, the whole bunch was with him. About 30 minutes prior, a whole bunch of professional triathletes went out and did the same course with six TT bikes and they went and smashed it as well. So it got smashed twice. It had been a record for like seven years and it got beaten twice in one day. yeah. Alright. Cam Nicholls (03:43.182) Your role as a DS, you were with Orica and you're a DS there from 2014 was it? To 2020-ish? Yes. Yeah. If my numbers are right. Yeah. I signed a contract when Green Edge Cycling started, Orica Green Edge, was one year sports director, sorry, one year rider, two years sports director. So I did the first year of the team, which I think was 2013, And stepped into the car. Actually at the end of 2013, I switched. So my last race was Hamburg Classic. And then the next race was the Vuelta and I was a director at the Vuelta. Yeah, okay. So as a pro rider, how long were you a pro rider for exactly? 10 or 11 years. 10 or 11 years. So you obviously exposed to the direct to sportive role during that time, you know, quite intimately. What was it about being a rider and seeing that role that made it appealing for you when you retired from being a professional cyclist? Matt Wilson (04:46.54) It was never appealing for the vast majority of my career. The vast majority of my career. Yeah. Look, last, probably the last three or four years of my career, I started to take on a more leadership role on the road and started to become that road captain. And as that started to form, I started to feel like that might be somewhere that I'm going to move into. I didn't have a clear idea of what I wanted to do when I retired around that time. Ruh! Something changed though along the way, obviously. Matt Wilson (05:15.446) So as that started to become more obvious that that was where I was going to go. And I actually, the year I signed with Orica Green Edge, I had offers from other teams as sports director as well. So that was clearly where people saw me going. And that was where I saw myself going and just sort of grew into it. at that time, believed that sitting in the car, like you said, yelling on the radio and doing the team meetings in the bus was all you saw. You you thought that was the whole job, but essentially that's the tip of the iceberg sticking out the water, you know, and when you go underneath the water, the mountain of ice is really below and that's what all the work is. What you see at the top there, that's the fun part. Right. Getting in the car. So even like the layman sitting over here watching Unchained and seeing the DS in the bus talking about the race before the race happens and then yelling in the team car, that's almost what you only saw as well as or thought as a rider as well. Sure. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, especially as an athlete, you've got tunnel vision. You see what you see in the world that you have and you think that's the world. And then when you get, when you retire, the blink has come off and you see what the real world really is. It makes a lot of sense. So maybe you could tell me, I don't know, you know, we could probably talk for hours, but is there like five, 10, know, even 15, whatever it is, like critical things you do as a DS? If you had to break down, like what are the top things you have to do in a list of five to 10? Perhaps things that people, you know, outside of yelling on the team radio and talking in the bus before the riders race, like what are you actually doing? Matt Wilson (06:59.982) Look, a good DS is a logistics guru. Right, okay. So you need to be able to work with multiple teams, 20, 30 staff, eight riders and bring that whole group together in an efficient way. When you say teams, mean like teams within your team. Teams within the team. You've got your sporting department. You've got your high performance department. You've got your mechanics. You've got your soigneurs. You've got your management group and trying to bring all that together. And, and, know, on a cycling race, especially a grand tour, you're talking about the three week map of, you know, insanity. You've got, you've got two buses, you've got two trucks. You've got, you know, maybe a dozen cars, a couple of vans, a food truck. And you're staying in a different hotel every night. Like I said, with a staff of 38 riders, it's complicated, very, very complicated logistics, more than most events. that's one part of the puzzle, which is really difficult. Keeping those teams happy, keeping those teams motivated, keeping those teams on point, those teams within the teams that I just mentioned, and bringing them all together to one vision, one cohesive vision, which is trying to get whatever result it is you're trying to get and achieve and bring that through in a happy environment, high performance environment is incredibly difficult because you're talking about a lot of different personalities, a lot of different personalities. So, and as a sports director, you're the leader of that group, of that team going to those races. So that's very difficult. Then you've got the tactical, the race tactical side. Matt Wilson (08:46.7) So understanding what's going on in the race, where are the opportunities? What are the other teams going to do today? How can we capitalize on those? What's going to help our position? What's going to help our result? Working with those riders and understanding that you've got eight individuals who've probably got individual capacity to win or desires to win motivations, what motivates those riders and trying to bring them together in a team to for one. in most cases for one or two riders to get a result. So balancing all of their ambitions and balancing it in a way that it creates a high performance environment is incredibly difficult. So they're kind of the main things that you're juggling at all times. So, and just if we can double down on that one because I find that one really interesting. Do you like going into a grand tour, you obviously have a strategy, but then I'm assuming things change very dramatically and can change very quickly. How do you, what are your tactics to deal with? you know those situations do you have before you go into a grant or do you have a plan B and a plan C and a plan D if someone has a crash or somebody does something wrong like how does how does that look Yeah, look, mean, every director's different. You know, I've come through and seen directors that I've worked with as a writer and directors that I've worked with as a director. And everyone's got different style. And you can have very authoritarian directors, which is I've got one plan. Everyone does what I want. If they don't do what I want, you're out. It's a very hard lined, immobile... Matt Wilson (10:36.974) and direct. So, you know, what me, myself, I was probably the complete opposite. So I was very open to, to feedback from riders, very open to ideas from riders. At the end of the day, the ride is the one that's on the road that sees everything. you know, when I was a captain at a bike race, I know the level of what was going on in the bunch because I was there and I remember what it was like and I knew what to do. at all times because you had all the information. You knew which way the wind was coming from. You know who'd been on the front. You know who was going well, who wasn't going well. You knew if you were going to get that break back or not. You knew everything because you had all the information in the race. As a sports director, you're 20, 30 cars back, maybe with some sketchy vision if you're lucky. And you've got riders that you can barely hear on the radio. And you've got a radio tour coming back to you with time gaps. like a little detective back there trying to figure it all out. And it's gotten better since I've retired because I speak to a lot of sports directors now with the technology they use to gather that information. essentially, you're trying to make decisions as best you can. if the plan changes, or from my side anyway, if the plan changes, I speak to the riders in the race, what are they doing? What are they going on? What do you think? And then you sit down and you work through, you know, is that right? Are trying to tell you something for their own benefit? Cause you get a lot of personalities like that. So you got to wade through the information a little bit. but I try and make the best information I could and, and, and make a plan, but you need to be able to pivot. need to be able to change. nowadays the racing seems a lot less structured than it used to be. It seems like they can attack at any point. pit they happy just to throw a carton of eggs against the wall and just see what happens. Where back in my day it was much more, know, if you had tact you had a plan why you were attacking. I don't know. Cam Nicholls (12:44.078) Oh, so now it's way more unpredictable. Way more unpredictable. Really interesting. And you can't put your finger on as to why? I don't know why, but it's a, this no plan is now plan kind of plan seems to be, it seems to be the norm, which is, which should be terribly hard as a sports director nowadays to navigate. Yeah, interesting. I interviewed a Swiss rider, his name's eluding me at the moment. He raced for 17 year pro, Mickey Shaw. Mickey Shaw, there we go. In 2022, I think I interviewed him, the year before he retired. he was, because he'd been racing for 17 years. And he was saying to me that in his time, what he'd noticed with racing is, you you'd have races where it was kind of like, you know, like Tour Down Under was just more of a warm-up race for the year. And these were more warm-up races and these were more serious races. And over the years, particularly in the last few years, he said at the time that he felt like every race had become full gas and full on, like there was no more easier races. So I don't know if that plays into what you're saying, but that was an interesting anecdote from him, I thought. No, mean, like the money's gone up incredibly. The coverage with it, the sports science has gone up. think the experience of the bunch as a whole has gone down. So if you think about it, back in my day, you'd be amateur for three or four years minimum. And in that time, you'd do 80 to 100 days of racing a year as an amateur. Matt Wilson (14:28.108) And then you would turn professional and you turn professional and you'd have two years on minimum wage and you wouldn't get a chance to win anything. You did, you did a job every day and then you slowly started to develop and you got leadership opportunities and your career sort of went on from there. So by the time you were professional, especially by the time you're professional in racing at the front of the bunch, you had done four or 500 days of racing at a high level. So you were experienced. And what age would you typically be? Like after 25? Yeah. You're probably turning pro at 22, 23 was early. Yeah. Okay. So a lot of guys, I was 24 when I turned professional. So you could, you could sign a lot later. So the average experience in the bunch was a lot higher where now there's kids turning professional at 18 years of age, 17 years of age. They've done 20 races as an amateur, as a junior. training has gone to another level. So they are physically strong. can put out as much power, know, more power than we ever could. At that age. The high performance side has gone up hugely. So you've got these huge engines with no experience thrown into a situation where they're racing, racing for sheep stations at every race. so there are no, so bunches become a lot sketchier. That's interesting. I'd never thought of that. Matt Wilson (15:57.698) Yeah, and the racing style has just become a lot more out of control. Yeah, there you go. So going back to the DS, so obviously there's a lot to manage. There's a lot of moving parts, a lot of logistics, as you said. If we break down a year, like what would a typical year look like? Because I look at professional riders and they seem to target specific races and then they may not race at certain races, they might go into training and they may come home or whatever. But I look at the... the team infrastructure that sits behind the riders, including the DS, are you just away all year? Do you ever come home? Are you just on from the time the TDU hits till whenever the last race of the year is late October or whatever? Is it just constant mayhem? What does the year look like for a DS? Yeah, look, I mean, it depends what your specific DS role is. you know, traditionally there'd be a head DS, which would be in charge of signing riders and, you know, building the team for the next season, planning out the races, planning out which riders will do which races, individual performance plans for each rider. And so that sort of role. Which was your role? Matt Wilson (17:15.018) No, I've never had DS. Okay. No. So if I talk about what my role would have been, and it's hard to sort of say when the season starts, but let's just say it starts in December of the year before. Normally you'd run a training camp sometime in that early season with the whole new team, get them in. And at that stage it's probably less about the training and more about team building and getting together. Obviously it's the training as well. But sitting down with each rider and mapping out the year. Saying, you know, what went wrong last year? What are we going to focus on for next year? What's your personal goals? What's the team goals? This is what your program is going to look like, roughly. You normally map out at least until the Giro. So you knew for sure what that early season looks like and then sort of have an idea with the middle season what it's probably going to look like and then the back end just wait. injuries, illnesses, everything changes sort of in that back end of the year. having a sit down with each one of those riders and just mapping out that whole thing, giving them the time to unload on what they really want. And you'd sit down and be all the directors, you'd have the head coach, you'd have different people from the high performance team all there sort of chiming in. So they'll get a really good idea of where that rider's at. Do those conversations always go well? I can imagine there might be bit of pushback. Yeah, but obviously you're dealing with a of personality. So do you often get pushback? Like people leave those meetings and they're frustrated because they want more out of their year versus what's been articulated from say you and the wider team? Yeah. So how do you deal with It really depends on the writer. Matt Wilson (18:56.13) Yeah, sometimes. Yeah. It really, it depends. Some writers can be, can walk in there, you know, full of, full of themselves. They're going to do this. They want to do that. they, they've surrounded themselves with people that have been telling them that. And they, and they believe they're at a different level to what, you know, we believe they're at. And that's difficult. Of course. Yeah. That's a really difficult conversation. Been telling him that. Matt Wilson (19:21.922) And there's some writers that come in and I can remember Simon Gerens as an example of this. And, you know, we had done 20 writers over the past three or four days and a lot of them come in and they're very timid because they're a bit afraid of where they're going to be sitting and what we're going to say. you know, because they're not confident in what they've done over the last couple of years. So we're kind of used to that going through. And then we got Simon Gerens and he came in and We sort of started the meeting and we're talking about how we can improve and what's happened in this season, blah, blah, blah, all that sort of stuff. And then he's basically said, you know, are you finished? And we're like, yep. And he goes, all right, well, this is where you guys can improve. And he went down and he spent half an hour going through all these things from a team side that's bad, that needs to improve. And because at the time he had such a standing, like he was still, he was 30 years old, I think at that point, but still getting better. Take and winning more races and he'd been the linchpin of the team, you know, for those first three years, especially. Right. And he had, and he, and he, I remember a few jaws hit the floor and you've walked out and we all looked at each other and went, wow, that was pretty cool. So he had a rot to be out here. Cam Nicholls (20:37.536) So it was a good constructive conversation then? Yeah! Yeah, just to see a rider coming in prepared with the intelligence and the right to go, this is how you can help me. This is how we can get results together. This how you guys need to improve. It really called out a lot of things in the team. So that was a pretty cool moment. The level head. Cam Nicholls (21:01.89) Yeah, okay. And the things that were brought to the table, were they implemented and did it cease? Absolutely. Yeah, and was it success from that? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. No, made everyone sort of check yourself and go, well, let's just be patting ourselves on the back about how well everything's going and yeah, let's try and improve. So it was good. So you have this meeting at the start of the year and then what flows on from there? Yeah, so then there'll be, during that training camp, do biomechanical stuff and measuring up on clothes. be lots of media stuff that you're doing around that. And then we'll move into a planning phase. So basically planning out logistically how everything's going to work through that early part of the season. Speaking to staff, speaking to the mechanics, and then you hit the ground with the first events. For me, was always the summer of cycling in Australia. You had national championships, Tour de Nanda, all of those races. Generally, part of the team would split then off to the Middle East, part would go back to Europe. So for me, I'd be in Australia from basically November, December through January, and then head back to Europe early February. And the season would basically run like you would as a rider. So you'd be going home, going back to races. Matt Wilson (22:26.67) But the difference was rather than going home and training and resting and preparing for the next race, you go back and you'd be planning. So creating race reports, individual rider reports, sending feedback to all the riders on their past race, then planning out the next race, what are the stages like, what's our opportunities going to be, build out a race plan, build out individual race plans as well. talk to the staff about logistics, how that was going to work and then yeah just move into that next race. Are you on all the time? do have like when you come back and you have a weekend to just to, you know, chill out and you don't look like the kind of guy that's going to chill out on a weekend. You look like you're always on like me, but you know, can you do that as a DS or you just always, because obviously riders are going to communicate with you probably on the weekend. And you know, this is probably always, I could just envisage there would always be stuff happening. Yeah, no, the whole weekend thing, didn't really get until I sort of shifted to Australia based businesses. Okay. Where there's this focus on weekends, but you know, when you're cycling, is no weekend. And look, it was busy as a director. I would never say there was complete days off. You're always on call. You're always picking up a phone. You're always on email doing something. Yeah Matt Wilson (23:50.35) But there was still plenty of downtime in between races. So, and the difference between as a writer and as a director, as a writer, you couldn't really relax at all because you had to be focused on your diet. You obviously so focused on your performance. So that was always sort of hanging over your head where as a sports director, you've got a few hours a day of solid work that you can put into planning. But you know you're going to have the afternoon free and you can go and have a few drinks and you might have to pick up the phone or something. there's a life balance in between as a sports director. Yeah, okay. Calendar year, how long, how many days would you typically be away from Australia when you were a TS? I probably do three, four to six week blocks a year in Europe. But then obviously doing time away in Australia and Asia as well. It wouldn't just be Europe. mean, generally you'd probably do away from home 120, 140 days a year. Okay. Does that, do you miss that? Or? Matt Wilson (24:56.274) Sometimes. Interesting. Yeah. I miss the travel. I don't mind traveling. I don't mind living out of a suitcase. I've got three kids and life's pretty hectic at home. So now it pretty exciting to go away for a week now. But I'd never go back. I'd never go back and do it. When COVID hit, became too impossible for me to just go head overseas anymore. Bye. Matt Wilson (25:24.11) I was living in Australia for the last sort of three, four years I was a director and just doing trips back and forth. And that was manageable. But you know, when COVID hit, I couldn't do three months in Europe without seeing the family. It's just too long. Makes sense. eight years doing this role, like what's your fondest memory? The time Simon Gerrans came in and told you how it is. Look, I've got a lot of great ones. guess the year Matt Heyman won Paris Roubaix. Yep. That sticks out in my mind. Why is that? He's a guy, you know, we're similar age. I think we're a year apart. So we had a whole cycling career together as riders. And then he came onto Green Edge when I was a sports director and we both loved the classics and I knew how much he loved Paris Roubaix. And I knew him well enough to know what the problems were with him not winning it. He always put a lot of pressure on himself. He always overthought everything. He knew every cobblestone, every corner of that race. It was unbelievable, the recall that he had of everything that had ever gone wrong and every paribas he'd ever seen, everyone that he'd ever done. I guess he saw all the problems all the time rather than just letting it go and racing. That year that he won, he broke his arm or his collarbone. Yeah. So I was sports director at the classics there and he broke his arm at, think it was Het Falk. Was it Het Falk? Yeah. can't remember. But he basically had six weeks off the bike through the whole classics period. he didn't have six weeks off the road, I should say. Yeah. He was on the bike. He's in the home training and doing Zwift and had a pretty Cam Nicholls (26:50.67) So what were you doing in the urea blimey in the car? yeah, okay Cam Nicholls (27:08.066) He was on the trino, wasn't he? Matt Wilson (27:17.132) comprehensive program. And we knew it was happening. He was telling us the whole time that he hadn't really had any time off and he was on the home trainer. But everything we knew about cycling was you had to do the classics and you had to do all the classics. These are 250 to 300 kilometer long races. You have to condition yourself. You have to do this length. And you build up through Milan-San Remo and then you do Tour of Flanders and get Wavilgem and then eventually you do Paris-Roubaix. And that's the program. condition you Matt Wilson (27:46.392) So he didn't get back on the road until a week before Paris-Roubaix. Went and did a little Spanish race and went okay. Anyway, he wanted to do Paris-Roubaix, he put his hand up for selection and we almost didn't select him. It was down to the last spot and we're like, it was him or Chris Jorgensen. And Chris Jorgensen had done every classic and finished all of them. So we knew he was going to be good for Paris-Roubaix. But Hayman had the experience. So... We kind of thought, well, Durbo's going really well. At least Heyman can help him for the first half of the race. So that was the plan. So he only just got in and we thought he'd do half a race. And he turned up and he had, normally he rides different bike, different wheels, different everything, overthinks everything. And he just said, I'm riding my standard bike with standard pressure. I don't want to talk about it. That was it. The mechanics couldn't convince him. said, no, don't talk to me. Why do you think he had that mindset? He just went into the whole thing differently for the first time. This is probably his last pair of Rebets. So you've to imagine this guy's done 18 of them. You thought the pressure was finally off his, he finally took the pressure off his shoulders. Matt Wilson (28:57.558) Took the pressure off his shoulders and he must've had a realisation that he'd just been overthinking everything. This could be his last rubay and he's just going to do it and have fun. So he just let go of everything. Didn't want to ride any different bikes. Before the race, I saw him sitting there with his feet up on the back of a stool and he was on the phone to his wife and he was just a different person. He was just laughing and having a good time. And we chatted about the race and I sort of said, well, you know, If the brake hasn't gone after 70 or 80 K, just sit on the wheel. It might be worth just going once with the brake and just seeing if you can slip into it. Because if you get up the road, you can get a good buffer and you might be there for turbo, you know, a little bit later than halfway. Who knows? So lo and behold, 80 K in, the brake hadn't gone. He came back to the car. He just chucked his jumper in. He said, I'm going to go with the brake, threw his jumper in and then just went straight up to the front. and just dove in the break and that was the break that went away. And he just, I get goosebumps every time I talk about it, but he just rode the whole race ridiculously. Like everything you shouldn't do, he did. He rode on the front sections. He attacked with 90 K to go. He was riding like a man who was, I don't know, he was so overconfident. It was, it was crazy. And I was constantly yelling it in the radio, you know, just take it easy, take it easy. You might run top 10 here, you might run top five. And then in the finish, even when he's attacking Boonin with 2k to go, I'm like, what are you attacking? You could run top three here. Like I never gave him the credit of ever winning it. And it wasn't until he hit out with 200 to go. I knew the second he hit out, went, he was always winning this. Like he was the best rider in the race from the start. So. it. Matt Wilson (30:50.926) It's just an amazing sporting story at that age to be assessed with one race and to have that moment. And it's all about athletes in the zone. And that's when you have all the experience, you have the fitness and condition and your mind doesn't think anymore. It just acts. When that mind is just taken out of it and you're just acting on instinct and that instinct is at a high level. That's when you're in the zone, when athletes are in the zone. And that one day he was in the zone. it's pretty cool Is that like, obviously you would have learned something as a DS from seeing that and witnessing that? that part of the learning for you? when you see a rider in the zone like that in the future, maybe let him off the leash a little bit more or was it something else? Absolutely. You can't control athletes too much. You you clip their wings. And I learnt that too with young riders. I remember the Yates brothers when they first came on to Green Edge. Yeah, I saw Adam riding through the junction yesterday. One of them's here at the moment, isn't he? Cam Nicholls (31:51.95) I saw in the corner of my eye, I'm like, yes, you know, some, some lame I was wearing a pro kit. And then I looked across and I'm like, no, that's actually a pro. And then I found out he was in town. Yeah. Yeah. But they turned up to that team meeting in December and basically sat down and said, so you're going to put us in a tour de France in the first year? we're going to win stages. Neo-pros from England. But they came out and they were so confident and they achieved, you know, and we didn't clip their wings. We gave them leadership roles. They deserved it and they delivered. know, yeah. learning that controlling riders and forcing them into what you think they should be and what you think they should be doing can be counterproductive a lot of times and sprinters are the best example of that. Working with sprinters is probably the most challenging area of being a sports director. It's incredibly dynamic, incredibly complicated. There's always a lot of people that can be at fault in a sprint, why the sprinter didn't win and you've got a very delicate mentality around a sprinter in terms of their confidence and ego, the aggression. They need to be able to respect the team and commit to the team and have trust in the team, but they also need to be able to decide when the team's not going to deliver for them and act on their own. So it's a very, very difficult thing and you need to make sure that you don't try and control that situation too much, I found. That's interesting. Well, that's a great note to finish on. Thanks for sharing that story. That's yeah, I mean, I knew the Matt Hayman story. I've seen it, but I didn't know some of those intricacies. So that's pretty cool. Matt Wilson (33:39.288) Yep. Also a local. Buddrum Log... Yeah, Budram. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Budram Nye, I think he's an ambassador for, I'll be doing in a week's time. So thanks for your time, Matt. Much appreciated. Hope you enjoyed that conversation with Matt Wilson. We'll catch you in the next podcast. No worries, thanks.