Livigno has long been regarded as a training haven by riders from the Subaru-MarathonMTB.com Team. The altitude of about 1800m, with road passes to 2350m nearby, and off road passes to over 2700m means not only does it have the altitude, but also the options required for training. Even better, there is plenty of flat […]
4 reasons you might need a data holiday
Do you need data just to get you out of bed? Do you lose count of how many times a day you check Strava? Do you think about power, training load, and ramp rate more than most people would find ‘normal’? If you answered yes to any of these, but need a bit more convincing, […]
Training in Winter: Bikes or skis?
Living in Australia we are thankfully not constrained by the weather in winter. Extremely uncomfortable, maybe, but usually the worst is some driving rain or a freezing headwind. But for those living in less forgiving climates, wintertime can make riding outside near impossible. With heavy snow covering the ground, the only way to get some […]
Getting the most out of Indoor Cycle Training
Phil Welch is a well known masters athlete in Australia, with great results across events as far reaching as stage races in Poland, solo 24hr races, and the Crocodile Trophy. A recent broken wrist hasn’t really slowed him down – here’s Phil’s take on how to get the most out of training indoors, due to […]
How to coach yourself – Part 2
In the first part of this series I talked about using online training tools to coach yourself. This time I’m going to discuss training yourself from scratch. This year I’ve thrown myself in the deep end, but not without a lot of preparation. Here’s what I found most useful. Know the Basics Before you start […]
Not racing, gambling. The 2014 Eiger Bike Challenge
After racing Sudety MTB Challenge as a mixed pair, Mike and I had spent some time training in Livigno (pasta, altitude, trails, bikewash. Oh, and freezing rain), then travelled to Grindewald in Switzerland to write about MTB tourism in the area for Australian Mountain Bike magazine and race the Eiger Bike Challenge, a famous Swiss marathon […]
Sella Ronda… Zero
This blog was supposed to be a preview of the Sella Ronda Hero: the 2015 UCI World MTB Marathon Champs. On a perfect day, in perfect weather, I failed to ride around the course. So, here’s the story of what went wrong, and what’s right about that. When people find out that Mike and I […]
Preparation: Two Aussies get ready for Sudety MTB Challenge
Sudety Mountain Bike Challenge (tagline ‘no bullshit, no compromise’) starts with a prologue around Stronie Slaskie today. and Mike Blewitt and I will be racing it for Team Subaru-MarathonMTB.com in a mixed pair. Stronie Slaskie, in the picturesque Sudety mountains in Poland, is 16,000 kilometres from Sydney – so we thought it best to bring […]
Sports Massage: Myth or Magic?
Since my first 100km event as a wobbly teenager (giraffe, rollerskates, you get the picture) I’ve been amazed at the recuperating benefits of sports massage. For me it was clear, I did a long ride, I could barely walk afterwards, I got a massage, I felt relatively human again, since then I’ve never turned back! […]
Being taken out of the comfort zone
When attempting to increase physical performance, you only get fitter / faster / stronger when you push your body out of its comfort zone and force it to overcompensate. Repeated small cycles like this are what bring the big gains over the course of a season. But what about technical riding? I would argue that […]