Dialed Podcast 352 - How last year will shape this year | Goals | Festive "500?"

We discuss how 2024 will potentially affect our goals and plans for 2025, answer some listener texts, run through the cycling news, and question the Festive 500.  Enjoy the podcast!

Fit, Healthy & Happy Podcast
Welcome to the Fit, Healthy and Happy Podcast hosted by Josh and Kyle from Colossus...

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Chapters

• 1:08 Intro
• 3:40 Backpedal / Festive 500
• 20:26 Leadout News
• 23:07 [Ad] Fit, Healthy & Happy Podcast
• 23:54 (Cont.) Leadout News
• 31:54 "EPO Chainmail" - Listener Texts
• 51:34 2025 Goals
• 1:21:04 One Last Thing

Transcript

Jake: [00:00:00] Hi, welcome back to the Dialed Podcast. I'm Jake von Duering, and I’m here with Lance Frickin Heppler.

Lance: Lance Frickin Heppler. Frick you, you Frickin Frickers. Frickin live. Frickin live. 

Jake: To his right, Sir Ian Gibson. 

Matt: We all bow during this, usually. We always take a knee. I'm 

Ian: here, I'm here. 

Jake: All right, now you're gone.

Jake: And finally, last but not least, Mr. Matt Legrand. 

Matt: What's up, ladies and gentlemen of the internet? You guys look fan freaking tastic. Way to go, gentlemen. Way to go. 

Jake: Yeah, it's good times. Uh, happy, uh, belated Christmas. 

Lance: Happy belated Christmas. Last podcast of the year. Last podcast of the year. It is, what's the date?

Lance: The 27th? December 27th. Stuck in like 

Jake: a time vortex. It's like I've lost sense of all like days and time and I have no idea what's going on. I 

Ian: swear I've been getting crap for saying happy Christmas. My family's like, we say merry in the U. S. Merry New Year! 

Jake: Is that what they say in England? [00:01:00] Happy Christmas?

Ian: Means the same thing. 

Matt: That's trading places. Did we talk about 

Lance: that in the last podcast? So good. 

Jake: Cool. 

Lance: My Christmas was awesome. I'm just gonna say it because all my kids were home, all their partners were with them. We all got to spend a couple days together. It really, there were no fights, there were no blowups, there were no breakdowns.

Lance: What's going on with the new house? Have you been working on the new house? My girls have moved out. Actually, everybody left like the day after Christmas and I sat in my room and cried. Were you like buck naked? Like, I can do whatever I want. Well, I was happy about that. But yeah, it was such a good like three or four days with everybody home.

Lance: Like my, all my adult kids and their partners and we love their partners and they're all good people and they're just fun to hang out with and we play Quiplash if you know what that is. And it's a, just a rude game that you play on TV and make, make really bad, [00:02:00] anyway, it's a fun game. People probably know what Quiplash is.

Lance: Some people do. But, uh, we just had a great time. So, I'm just really happy that, I have my kids in my life. They're just made everything awesome. Yes, my daughters have moved into their house They're all set up. They have moved out. They like it. They love it. They're right there down in Washougal It's a great little spot where they're at.

Lance: So 

Matt: nice. Not too 

Lance: far from home. Not too far from you guys They're like 10 minutes from our house. So no, not too far. It's far enough where they'll you know That they'll drop their dog off every day. Oh. So that we can dog sit when they go to work. Perfect. 

Ian: Is that what's happening? That's what's 

Lance: happening.

Lance: Which is fine, which is great. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Sorry. Is that how you backpedal? Yes. 

Jake: Anything that you'd like to backpedal 

Matt: there? Any biking? Did you do any biking? 

Lance: I, uh, yeah, I biked way too freaking much. I'm doing this stupid Rafa five, festive 500. [00:03:00] I do it every year, and. I am at 488 kilometers as of this morning, so I've ridden You couldn't push 

Ian: out that last 12Ks?

Lance: I ran out of time to make it here on time. So, uh, yeah, I'm really close. I will probably do an outside ride today to try to pull this off. I have ridden outside a couple of times. So, break 

Jake: down the rides that you've done so 

Lance: far. How many outside versus how many inside? Um, let's see, I have done two outside rides, and, oh my gosh, yeah, one, two, three, four.

Lance: Four inside rides. So there was one day I did two separate Zwift rides. Gotcha. Since 

Jake: Tuesday. Just three separate. Out of curiosity, the two outside rides you did, what was your average speed? 

Lance: Um, my average speed yesterday. You 

Jake: know where this is going too, by the way, but. I 

Lance: do. Uh, my average speed yesterday, I did 74 miles in four hours and my average speed was 18.

Lance: 3 miles per hour [00:04:00] by myself. Pretty good. 

Jake: Yeah. It's good. Zone two stuff right there. 

Lance: That was just kind of cranking along zone two. Uh, the other one was at night looking at Christmas lights and that was like 17 miles an hour. That's still pretty fast going at night looking at Christmas lights. Yes. Uh, my Zwift rides, my average speed amongst all four Zwift rides I've done.

Lance: 47 miles an hour. Has been 24. 5 miles per hour average. 

Jake: I'm curious what your average watt output is. Like your normalized power for the two or your average power for the two, what those look like. The point being is like. If they're going to do the Festa 500, it's great that they allow you to use the trainer, but there needs to be some sort of like a, like a, I don't know, percentage change there.

Jake: I mean, cause like, it's like accruing years in cat years, you know what I mean? When you're accruing those miles, it's like every mile you put in, you're getting like. to maybe three miles on, maybe not that much, but quite a bit more. It's more like one and a half or something, but one and a quarter. It's a significant amount too, so.

Jake: Plus, how many coffee [00:05:00] breaks did you take? 

Lance: Today, in a two hour and 15 minute ride, I took three coffee breaks. 

Jake: So that's another nine minutes right there that you didn't have to do anything. However, riding indoors on a trainer sucks because there's no, like, real coasting. I think you're getting accused of sandbagging.

Jake: No, this is exactly what's happening. I think what's going on here, this is, 

Matt: I mean, Jake, I'm interviewing, I'm going to intervene right now. 

Lance: Let this guy, let this guy have a look. we're fighting. Okay, my four, my four hour ride yesterday, I averaged 210 watts for four hours, which is pretty good for me. Uh, my ride this morning, for two hours, I think I averaged 185.

Lance: Okay. Still not bad. Now, 

Jake: at the end of the day, this is not Lance's fault. It's not the 500's fault, it's Zwift's fault. They need to, Change their physics. 

Matt: Yeah. And you, did you just find a pack and you 

Lance: just 

Matt: get 

Lance: pulled along? I rode with a, uh, I rode with a pacer bot that had 250 people riding with it. 

Ian (2): Yeah.

Lance: On Tempest Fugit. They don't always go on Tempest Fugit. And it's [00:06:00] dead flat. Tempest Fugit is dead flat. So, you average 25 miles an hour. You can sit in at 190 watts and do pretty much anything. 25 plus miles an hour. It's a 

Jake: fantastic workout. I just, I don't know, whenever there's anything to do with like competition or like trying to like achieve like something that has some sort of like quantifiable like result to it, and it's involved with Zwift, I'm not in.

Jake: Except 

Matt: for now. There's this rough 500 thing. It doesn't really have any sort of real value. It loses a digital badge now We remember you used to get like a patch or something You used 

Lance: to get an actual patch they would send you and a discount code Yeah, you get a discount code to buy something from Rafa and a digital roundel now, whatever the crap that is 

Ian: I mean, I agree with you that Swift definitely over Overshoots when it comes to speed and all of that stuff, but I think You I mean, in reality doing 25 miles on Zwift is probably more challenging than doing 20 miles outside just because [00:07:00] you, you don't, you know, you got the normal factors of being stuck on the trainer and cycling in circles going nowhere.

Ian: So in terms of the actual 

Matt: mental mental 

Ian: thing, then I mean, I, I tend to just forgive it. It's, it's, um, downsides because it's brought so much to the indoor training experience. I'm not 

Jake: arguing with that at all. I think it's fantastic. And it doesn't suck. Yeah. But at the same time, are you getting a fantastic workout?

Jake: Sure. 

Jake (2): Yeah. 

Jake: But when you're talking about competition, you're trying to like measure one thing against another, like outdoor versus indoor. I mean, it's two totally separate things. And yes, you know, I've been on Zwift for 10 years now, or however long it's been almost 10 years. I have still never done a race and it's just because it's just not normal race craft.

Jake: It's just completely like wrong and the numbers are wrong and people can go in there and cheat too easily. And there's just so many variables about it. Like, all right, it's just not for me. If you 

Matt: think about it, if Lance was riding in a Peloton and Somewhere out flat [00:08:00] in Arizona somewhere and he was with a big old pack of 200 people I'd be under 200 watts going 25 miles an hour.

Matt: Yeah, 

Jake: I don't know if you'd be fine quite that fast But yeah, you'd be moving. It'd be a lot more stress. I mean, it would be more like a lot more stress I'd be 

Lance: much more engaged You're 

Jake: 75 mile ride that you did that you said you averaged 18. 8 or 9 over 8. 2 or a 2. 2 Okay, so if you were riding with a group of people So you probably would have been a mile, mile and a half an hour faster on this.

Jake: Yes. So if you were, if you're mining your P's and Q's trying to stay in that zone. I was 

Lance: trying to keep it flat too. So 

Ian: another thing about the discrepancy was swift, um, mileage and so on and the power. So we, we established last week that you, you end up, uh, your FTP is generally quite a bit lower on the indoor trainer.

Ian: So what that does is kind of skews your, um, metrics when you. Ride outside, you know, all of my outside rides are like, Oh yeah. You know, 250 [00:09:00] TSS. Well, that's because of that, that difference, you know, between the, cause my. FTP is set to my trainer FTP. So when I'm riding outside, it thinks, my God, you're, you'd be interesting.

Ian: It'd 

Matt: be interesting if there was a platform like, um, training peaks or something like that, where they would be like your indoor FTP and your outdoor FTP. And then it would calculate TSS, all those metrics based on whether you went indoor or outdoor. Cause you're right. For, for me, it was like, usually for people, it's like 10 Watts or something.

Matt: And for me, it was like 20 or something. I mean, it's just a massive difference for indoor riding. I just. I'm weak minded. I think it really comes down to that. Like I get on the indoor trainer and I'm like, check out. And just soft pedal all the time. And I try and do 

Lance: a workout and I'm 

Matt: like, 

Lance: ugh, no. Well riding outside too, like one roller, I can hit 800 watts fairly easy just trying to go up a roller and keep my momentum going.

Lance: On Zwift, I'm not getting over 350 [00:10:00] watts because You're like, ooh, 400. Whoa, look at that. Look at me go. So it's just different, that real word feeling of keeping your momentum and your speed going. What do you ride at home? What's your indoor setup? I have a Zwift bike, the version two. Okay. Yeah. Kicker bike.

Lance: Kicker bike. Pardon me. Not a Zwift bike, a kicker bike. Wahoo kicker. Cool. Sweet. I love it. It's been treating me very well. It makes it really 

Jake: easy. We hijacked your back pedal. You want to finish up? 

Lance: Oh, No, that's it. 

Matt: But this is the best part. What else was there? This is what I like about podcasts, when they just kind of go off into the ether.

Jake: And we are very good at that. I like it. I like it. 

Lance: It's my favorite part. I'm just about to cross over 11, 000 miles for the year. Okay. Again, skewed from indoor trainer rides. Yeah. 

Jake: It is what it is, I guess. And you just have to factor that in and know that, you know, there's a difference between the two, but it sure would be nice if they would just figure that out, make it all more on par with each other.

Jake: So it's more realistic, just by two cents, but [00:11:00] Gibbo. 

Ian: Yeah, I too had a good Christmas. It was great to have both of my Girls back home, uh, from, my youngest is in, uh, college in Eugene, my eldest lives in Salt Lake City. They both came home for Christmas. So we had a good, good family time. Sweet. Yeah. I mean, we were kind of stuck indoors.

Ian: It was raining and raining again and raining every day. Looking 

Matt: outside right now. It's raining. It's coming down pretty hard. But 

Ian: I've been out. Uh, walking around the neighborhoods and I too spent a bunch of time on 

Jake (2): Zwift. 

Ian: So writing wise, I did some of the same thing, but no, uh, no festive 500 for me, basically Um, I'm still on this weight loss kick, still trying to drop a few pounds.

Ian: So I've been, a lot of my rides have been, um, putting calories in the bank. Yeah. [00:12:00] Endurance zone stuff, not like 

Lance: high intensity stuff. Yeah. 

Ian: So aside from that, how much value my, uh, rides have given me in terms of my training, I don't know. But, um, anyway, getting there. Cool. I got a, yeah, niggly things, part of getting old, like my knee is restricting me on What kind of writing I can do right now.

Ian: My shoulder is restricting me on what I can do in the gym right now. Poor old brother. Poor old sod. We're all falling apart. 

Matt: I 

Ian: am feel like I'm falling apart. Just going to get better. Cool. 

Matt: Well, Grant, I don't have anything huge to talk about. Christmas was amazing for us. Like staying home for Christmas with the family was.

Matt: Choice like it's my favorite to be home and it did not disappoint kids had a blast It's very chill very relaxing I think my wife and I still each got out for a run, you know Cuz we that's like one of just what we like to do We like to get around one of the things we do one of our family [00:13:00] traditions is to do a Christmas scavenger hunt So we went out the Christmas Eve night and went Um, yeah, went around and found 50 candy canes and, you know, all the things that we put on our scavenger hunt.

Matt: We do something similar. It's 

Jake: not a scavenger hunt, but we'll get in the car to go look at Christmas lights. And we'll usually drive around for 30, 60 minutes, somewhere in there. Yeah. And I'll put out there, What's the over under on the number of grinches we'll see buddy the elves and just so on and so forth.

Jake: We'll try and come up with some obscure things. We'll just drive around different routes and that just gets the kids like really tuned in. They're looking everywhere. Cause everybody's trying to win this competition because they're calling their shots. So it's a lot of fun. 

Matt: Yeah. So we had fun. We, we made hot chocolate and then we went out and went out on the, went out on the town, if you will.

Matt: And then otherwise I've been on Zwift a couple of times. It's been good. And, um, I don't think I've ridden outside, but, uh, running on the trails all the time and probably just like a single swim. I'm basically swimming like once a week, which it's [00:14:00] not that good, but it's something. So did you, I'm coaching swimming.

Matt: Did you get socks and underwear for Christmas? I got socks. I got cycling gloves that I was really excited about because they're like nice, thick, solid, like Castelli cycling gloves. They're nice. Oh, nice. Um, I got, um, socks are, I think there's like the thing that I, I, I needed socks and I got socks and I like got them.

Matt: I basically picked out the socks that I wanted, which I, here's the thing. I think like socks is the perfect Christmas gift. That's my two cents. As long as 

Ian: they're white and aero. 

Matt: Aero. Um, I 

Jake: own zero pairs of white socks. Zero. Yeah. Go for it. Yeah. So 

Matt: Christmas was awesome. Christmas awesome. Jake, did you get anything cool for Christmas?

Matt: Did you get any, uh, camera stuff? 

Jake: Um, I don't know. Did not. I didn't really, I mean, I generally don't, don't really get much for Christmas. Um, my kids though all kind of pulled up some money and they got some, because my wife and I, we go to a lot of like sporting events, games. My son plays football in the fall into the winter.

Jake: So it's [00:15:00] kind of gets cold and wet and out there. My daughter plays soccer year round, which is like, it can get pretty foul out there. And it's always kind of a challenge sometimes to stay warm because you're sitting on the sidelines for an hour and a half. And so they'll, pooled their money together and they got each of us those heated vests that you can, it's like that little battery charger thing.

Jake: I'm like, yeah, it's kind of cool. It's a good idea. Yeah. So that on underneath some of your clothes and stay even warmer. 

Matt: That's actually, yeah, I haven't, I haven't seen that. That's cool. 

Jake: Pretty slick. So, but, um, outside of that, I don't really get too much. Right. And I don't want anything to be completely honest with you.

Jake: I'd like to, you already have 

Matt: what you, what you want. 

Jake: Yeah. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Jake: If I need something, I'll go get it. I kind of 

Matt: bought stuff and then like just had my family, like I had a monopod, which I haven't had before. Okay. Okay. And I got, um, I think sometimes my wife just grabs stuff that's like coming and then like, like what is this?

Matt: All right. Just wrap this up and put it on the tree. like not knowing what it is. Yeah. Um, like this little, like, um, they have those batteries, but you can plug 'em into the wall. I don't know what they call 'em, but like you can plug, put it into your camera and it has a cord that comes out and goes directly to the wall.

Matt: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. What do they call that? 

Jake: Um, it's like a dummy battery. Yeah. Something [00:16:00] like that. Did you get one from small rig? 

Matt: Is that what it is? No, it's some off brand or whatever. I got one of those too. But yeah. Anyway. I figured you had one. Yeah, but I figured like anytime I'm like, I got this, I, I figured Jake's already got, like, we have all the same camera stuff, so Yeah.

Matt: Matt 

Jake: uses his a lot more than I do though. Um, maybe, maybe in 2025. Although I, in my defense, I just don't post a lot of stuff. Like Yeah. I, I've, I went back and looked and at the end of the year, every single year, like, you'll go and say, all right. Um, whatever this app is, one of my best nine Instagram posts from the year.

Matt: And then it'll give you like this little grid and everybody posts that. Speaking of which, one of your Instagram posts was sunrise with Mount Hood. Yeah, it was stunning. 

Jake: That was Christmas morning. That was 

Matt: phenomenal. Like one of my favorite photos I've seen in a long time. And it's funny, 

Jake: you mentioned that because that's kind of like, Kind of what I was thinking, like, Oh, I'll post this up.

Jake: I wonder what my, my top nine is going to be for the year. Oh, crap. Only posted five pictures. Sure. I can't even make a grid. So, um, I don't know. Maybe I got to get too busy, get to work and post a bunch of pictures over the next couple of days. So yeah, you could do it, but, um, yeah. Um, but going [00:17:00] back to the Christmas question, like I don't really get much.

Jake: My wife and I, we don't buy gifts for each other. We'll usually like once Christmas is said and done, we'll maybe like. Like, like go out and get something for each other, like that we want, you know, collectively, that could even be like a trip somewhere or something along those lines. We'll kind of like just treat ourselves if you need something, but I don't need anything.

Jake: But I usually, my Christmas is around Black Friday, Cyber Monday, that, that time of year. And if I need something, that's probably usually just jump in and find the deal and get what I need for myself. So. Yep. My own personal Santa Claus. 

Matt: Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. Anyhow. What about you? Did you, have you been on the bike?

Jake: Not yet. 

Matt: Not yet? Okay. I 

Jake: got, I don't know if we talked about this last week, I can't remember. Um, you know, two things. Kind of cleared. Okay. Well, technically, I could possibly start now. I just haven't, cause I've been so stinking busy, but the doctor did say you don't need to wait until the end of January.

Jake: And after I poked and prodded and like asked all the qualifying questions, he said, I don't see any reason why you can't get started at the beginning of January so that I can, Get off this new year without like being a month already [00:18:00] more on the whole, which is going to be nice. So, um, I might jump on the bike a couple of times between now and then just to see how my body responds after like 10, 15, 20 minutes.

Jake: And then I give it a day or two and then just like reassess and like, all right, if that wasn't that bad, maybe try and add just a little bit more. It won't be any kind of a workout. I'll just be sitting on the bike and seeing if it's going to cause any more issue and then go from there. So yeah, 

Matt: sounds 

Jake: promising to the festive five.

Jake: The festive five, five, the 5. 0. Yeah. So anyway, um, other than that, it was good. Christmas had to have fun. Um, it was one of those Christmases where we usually are all over the place. We're going to like in laws house. We drive up North, uh, to get Carver Washington to go see my, my mom and my sister. And, um, everybody canceled everything on us this year.

Jake: Um, for a multitude of reasons, like my mom had a little fall and broke her leg. And so they had to like kind of reshuffle the deck. So we didn't go up there. And then we were usually go over to my in laws house for like Christmas even do a bunch of stuff over there. And, um, my mother in law heard her back and, and she was feeling stressed.

Jake: And so we ended up [00:19:00] taking over everything and did everything here. So we did, you know, Christmas Eve and Christmas dinner here. And yeah, it was fun. So it's 

Matt: nice 

Jake: having all the kids home. Oh, it's fantastic. Yeah. When I got my tribe at home. Everybody's under one roof. That that's a good feeling. And it's surreal though, that it's still has it's come to that, but it is what it is.

Jake: So anyhow, Champ Bailey here. 

Matt: Is he around? Can we bring him in from outside? Hey champ, turn off the cyclocross. Get over here. 

Jake: And then take your mother Dorothy Mantooth out for a nice seafood dinner and never call her again! Yes, Champ is here. I'm never 

Lance: calling her again. Yes, um, there's lots of racing. We are in the midst of the cursed period in Belgium.

Lance: Um, which means a cyclocross race almost every day. So Uh, the big news is, is that, uh, Vanderpool, Matthew Vanderpool has begun to line up. Wait, how are, how are my predictions doing that he wasn't going to win every 

Matt: race and that Wout has a chance? How am I doing? Terrible. How am I doing? Terrible, [00:20:00] terrible, terrible.

Lance: Matthew has won every single race. I think I'm going to owe you a beer for that. The first race, Zonhoven, is just this incredible venue with this, like, sand Amphitheater where you have to ride down this very steep sand pit like into this pit and Vanderpool started on the third row and it took him one minute and 12 seconds to get to the front And by the time he got to the front One minute, 12 seconds into the race, he was going downhill and he went down this sand descent so much faster than everybody else.

Lance: He was gone. That was it. 

Jake: When he starts in the third row and he's working his way up that fast, is he that good? Or do you think people are like, oh, that's Vanderpoel, I gotta get out of his way? No, 

Lance: he's that good. Just that good? Or he just has extra watts. Yeah. And he, he, is as good of a bike handler as there is on the planet.

Lance: And so How many 

Matt: extra 

Lance: watts do you think he has? How much do you think 

Matt: he has? Do you think it's like he's 

Lance: got 20 extra [00:21:00] watts on people? He probably has 20 extra watts or maybe more. He's just, he's just more powerful. So, and he really, you know, he went into that race, just kind of wanted to test his legs.

Lance: And geez, he was like off the front. He actually like dialed it back a little bit because he was almost two minutes up. Why do you need to win by three when you have, 

Jake: You know, that many more races to go. You might as well just like start recovering. That's 

Matt: a huge advantage when you're racing the same people day after day, after day, when you've got eight races in three days, you've got, you know, the guy that can, the guy that can kind of chill out, it's going to have an advantage.

Matt: Versus everyone else. Yeah. It's 

Ian: not just his power and fitness, I would say he's, his technical, his riding is, is better than everybody else's as well. Smooth and efficient. I'm sure. Like you said on, on the, um, on the sand, but the other day, on the mud as well, he, he rode stuff that other people didn't run off and riding, running and, and even when he is running, he's just running more efficiently.

Ian: Yeah. Seems like. 

Lance: Yeah, [00:22:00] he's quite good. Amazing. The next day, what was the second race? Uh, uh, mole. Zilvermere cross. I'm sure I nailed that pronunciation. Don't worry about it. But in this race He sat in for 20 minutes. He waited to lap four, but he'd like sat in like third place Until like lap four and then he just like

Lance: Did he literally put in like a 30 second gap In like, in like, in like a quarter mile. He just like, he's like, okay, I'm going to go now and see how it goes. He still won that race by over a minute. So, it was really pretty incredible. The first, uh, race that he was supposed to, um, do with Wout van Aert. Wout did not show up, he was sick.

Lance: Yeah. And so, that was yesterday. So he was not feeling well, uh, but still he went out and it was a really muddier, nastier race, but he still, and he had trouble in the beginning. He didn't, [00:23:00] Yesterday's race it 

Matt: was, or was it 

Lance: Gavir? 

Matt: I was thinking it was today's race that he got like tangled up or something.

Lance: Um, today's race was Lauenhout. Okay. I'm sure I'm, nailed it, nailed it. Keep moving, keep going. So today's race was Lauenhout. Yes, uh, Wout van Aert lined up. So Wout's first race, uh, van der Poel's first race. Wout gets the whole shot. Today and leads almost the whole first lap Wowt does. Okay, and then just like muffed a corner like went around a corner in a weird line and just boom hit the deck Wowt did and Thibaut Nisse went past him and then Vanderbilt just brrp brrp brrp Same old same old Just took off So but he didn't like get completely away from everybody Um, and who was it?

Lance: It was Thibaut Nice, Laurence Sweek, who's been racing great all week. He Laurence Sweek actually hung with Van Der Poel on the second [00:24:00] race, like, for three laps before he finally gapped off. He, like, stayed with him for, like, three laps, like, on his wheel. They were together off the front. But, uh, Laurence Sweek and Thibaut Nice Um, we're, we're all with Wout van Aert and it came down to the last lap and all three of them were battling for position.

Lance: Wout's in the lead, Thibaut Nice in second, uh, Laurence Sweek in third. Wout took a corner not real good and Thibaut Nice dive bombed him on the inside, got the line and Wout went down. So it wasn't, it wasn't bad racing. It wasn't like he took him out. He just, it was just cyclocross racing. Yeah. So 

Ian: it's really good to get that, that kind of detail about the race.

Ian: So I really don't have to spend any time at all today in front of the TV. I 

Lance: completely ruined it for you. You haven't watched the race yet. Ian hasn't watched the race yet today. And he likes to watch the race. I like how he's like, don't tell me 

Matt: what's going to happen. We're like, cool. [00:25:00] You 

Ian (2): could add into more detail though, just in case there's some subtlety that I, you know, would otherwise miss.

Lance: What you did miss is, uh, yesterday, uh, Vanderpool showed up in his orange, uh, Lamborghini and today he showed up in his black Lamborghini. So that's what you, that's what you'll be able to see. Uh, so anyway, um, Vanderpool won again. See 

Jake: Spongebob? 

Lance: Maybe I don't know, you know, it was funny. Um, wow. I noticed that Vanderpool does not race with a computer or a watch.

Lance: Most everybody keeps what, you know, their watch on or they don't use bike computers because they're swapping bikes, you know, in the pits, but they usually use a watch and Vanderpool just has a wet whoop strap. So clearly he's sponsored by it. Whoop. Yeah. He's 

Ian: probably got some kind of implant that broadcast telemetry to his pit crew.

Lance: Today, unlike the seventh lap, his whoop strap like popped off and he didn't want [00:26:00] to lose it. So he grabbed it off the ground and put it in his mouth and he held it in his mouth until he passed the pits. Mid race. Mid race. Stops, 

Jake: picks up the whoop, throws it in his mouth, and he's like, 

Lance: Yeah, and he's, he's got it in his mouth until he gets to the pit and then he throws it to his picker.

Lance: Oh my lord. Wow. So Whoop got some, uh, got some TV time today. Except for people are gonna be like, that Whoop strap won't stay on. It won't stay on. Not getting that thing. It's just funny that he doesn't like ride with a computer or a watch at all. And I noticed he does still wear a Whoop strap. So clearly he's sponsored by Whoop.

Lance: Yeah. I don't know. That's all I got. That's it, huh? That's it. Nothing else. Thanks for that. The women's race, not, not everybody's showing up at every race and so it's been a, a pretty stretch. Okay, so I can still 

Ian: watch the women's race? You can 

Lance: still watch, I'm not, I won't spoil the women's race for you. How many more races do we have left again in this, uh, Christmas series?

Lance: Another five? Uh, another, there's, I think there's ten races. Okay. And so there's six more races. Okay. Oh my gosh. 

Jake: Which ones are, like, the key ones that [00:27:00] people might want to, you know, watch? Consider tuning in to watch. 

Lance: Well, Deagum is always a blast to watch. It is a night race. It is on Monday. So it's at night.

Lance: It is very cool. However, Vanderpool and about neither of them are going to that race. Yeah. So, um, I, I don't know if it will be as popular to watch because neither of them are going to that race. But, uh, that is an exciting race to watch. I think the organizers for Digum are desperately trying to come up with some show up money.

Lance: Yeah, to lure one of them out there. To lure one of them to come. Well played. They're hoping they can get Wout to come because he, Wout's only doing like four races. Yeah. But he missed his first one because he was sick, and so they're hoping they can get him to Deegan. Yeah, there you go. Um, 

Jake: and just out of curiosity too, if somebody wanted to go watch these races on the old television, Right.

Jake: Where's a good spot? I was like, I need, 

Lance: I need links, man. I need links. I need links. It is, yeah. It's confusing. The UCI races, all the UCI races are [00:28:00] on YouTube, on UCI's channel. YouTube channel live or no, they're not live but live would mean like 2 a. m. For us. I'm up

Lance: So usually by 7 or 8 in the morning They've posted a three hour video that has both the women's and the men's race in it All right, so that's that's kind of good on UCS, but the other races the The super prestige. I believe you can get those on YouTube, but you have to wait several hours later. Today's race Lauenhout is an exact cross race.

Lance: And those were shown on max. Okay. So if you have max, um, it didn't work on, it was supposed to be on flow bikes, but it was regionally blocked out. So it was on max. So yeah, it's kind of bouncing back and forth. I had I have to look every time. Where do you go to look? I just I just google it. Okay. I was just gonna say how [00:29:00] do I watch?

Lance: Low and exact cross low and out. Okay. I'll figure out what you can you can google the schedule the Creased period, Cyclocross, and it will show all ten races, and then you can pick one and say, How do you watch this race? And then it'll give you 

Matt: a couple options. Alright, that's what I need to know. That, that was, yes.

Matt: That's, that's the critical information I was, I was literally gonna text you yesterday and be like, I need this, I need this. Where do I go? Mostly, mostly YouTube. Because it's when I'm on the trainer, it's 

Lance: like, you want to just have something to Yes. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lance: Which is what I, that's why I was riding on the trainer this morning, because I wanted to watch this Lohen Cross, or this Lohenhout race, which was on Max, it wasn't even on YouTube.

Lance: Still. 

Matt: That's good. I got, I got Max, I can use that. 

Lance (2): Champ out! 

Matt: Champ out. Anything else? Any other transfer news? Any cycling other than cyclocross? Cyclocross is the thing right now. Yeah, cyclocross is the thing right now. It's definitely a quiet time of year. Quite a time of year for everything. 

Jake (2): Yeah. 

Matt: Good stuff.

Matt: Thank you, champ. Yeah. [00:30:00] 

Jake: Jmail babies. Jmail. Oh my gosh, babies, brothers, guys. However, a couple of things on that note. Um, there was the, was it we spoke thing? I'm going to turn this music down a little bit. They came up last week and like, Hey, what about that for name? So we're kind of going back and forth.

Jake: The people spoke. We get a lot of messages about people saying no keep the chainmail. I like we spoke, but we're gonna keep the chainmail However, there is one caveat to that Um, it's gonna get a slight modification now because something made me fall off my chair laughing my ass off when this person sent in Um their little quip on this thing and it was stick with the chainmail.

Jake: It's already a phrase. So it's easy to remember Unless you want to use electronic post office, aka EPO. EPO! As cyclists, if you don't use EPO, are you even trying? As a podcast, obviously. Um, so, we're gonna do the The EPO chain mail. EPO chain mail. That's what we're going to call it. The electronic post office chain mail.

Jake: Oh, that's perfect. The EPO [00:31:00] chain 

Lance: mail. 

Jake: Um, listener who sent that in from Portland. Thank you very much. Uh, we greatly appreciate that. And I do thank you for the chuckle. I needed that. No joke. I needed that right then and there. That was pretty funny. Um, then we had, it turns down just a little bit more. Oh, okay.

Jake: So we've got a listener from, uh, Idaho that had a question for Lance. And the question is, um, He basically said, I know that Lance has been using TrainerRo for quite some time and recently changed to another program. How about a recap of how structured training helped him and what the shortcomings are on, of the indoor trainer?

Jake: There's a lot to this question. It's a lot longer than I was thinking and music even ran out on that. Um, He does a large variety of cycling and racing. And since it's winter again, with many of us indoors, listening to his experience in, um, has been helpful. I recently purchased a Wahoo kicker and started structure training with trainer road.

Jake: And I'm enjoying your podcast while I'm sweating indoors. Keep up the good work. So did you catch the question in there? There's 

Lance: the question, there's better things to listen to than us. Did you switch [00:32:00] away from trainer 

Matt: road? I 

Lance: did, 

Matt: almost a year ago. But you're, but you're using, I can't remember. It's like the cycling coaching platform.

Matt: I can't remember the name of 

Lance: it. 

Matt: Fastcat. 

Lance: Fastcat, that's right. I'm using Fastcat, which is, which is Frank Overton's program. So Frank Overton is a very well known cycling coach. He is Phil Geimann's coach. He's coached a lot of different athletes. I met him in, at BWR Scottsdale and at Where else? Steamboat this year.

Lance: So I've had some conversations with him, had some meals with him, had some We've done some rides with him. He finally sold you on his platform. Well, I started using it Uh, I just, I, I haven't hired one of their coaches. I'm just using their software platform. 

Matt: One water down. 

Lance: So it's been, um, it's been good. I, it, it, it is AI based, but the AI is based on Frank Overton's personality and training techniques.

Matt: [00:33:00] Okay. 

Lance: So, I don't know. 

Matt: And are you still paying for TrainerRoad? No. Finally. Do you miss TrainerRoad? 

Lance: No. 

Matt: No. 

Lance: Okay. That's good to know. TrainerRoad is on the verge of linking up with Zwift so that you can do TrainerRoad's workouts on Zwift. That has not been a thing since the beginning of TrainerRoad. What was that?

Lance: Forever ago. Seven years ago TrainerRoad started and you could not do TrainerRoad's been around for a long time. Maybe longer than that. But they, they're both mutually exclusive things, Zwift and TrainerRoad. You had to pick one or the other unless you were running two different programs at once. Which we Which we figured out you could do.

Lance: Which we've done, yes. But, um, all the TrainerRoad, um, all the guys who run TrainerRoad have all been posting Zwift workouts. And they have announced on their podcast that, that integration is forthcoming very soon, but it's just not out yet. How's their podcast doing? I have no idea. 

Matt: I used to listen to it.

Matt: It was so good. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not. Sometimes I feel like it kind of like [00:34:00] some of the like when they change hosts and things like that. I feel like I was like, Oh, I'm not as interested in this anymore. Jonathan Lee has been 

Lance: the same host for quite some time. He works for trainer road.

Lance: He's, he's a great guy. He's a great athlete. He's got young kids, so he's a busy father. So he's got real world stuff. 

Ian: How much do you pay for your first cut program? 

Lance: I think I pay 150. 350 bucks a year. Oh, that's pretty good. Yeah, that is a that is a Black Friday deal It's normally 300 bucks a year So it's pretty cheap if I wanted to hire one of their coaches.

Lance: We do have teammates who have hired their coaches And I have considered it, but I have never pulled the trigger because it's 350 bucks a year A month. A month. Yeah. Yes. Wow. So, and what, what, what an actual live coach would do would, um, would tweak your workouts a little [00:35:00] bit better and they would look at all your workouts a little bit better more than just what I'm getting from the AI.

Lance: Because the AI looks at every single one of my rides and said, Hey idiot, you're doing too much. And so 

Ian: You need a real person to say, hey idiot. 

Lance: That's what a real person would say too. Hey, you're doing too much. But, um, I just haven't pulled the trigger on 350 bucks a month. Ian, you're a much better value than what you would get from, from, uh, Fastcat.

Matt: I, I think that you should stick to, uh, A program that you can ignore the advice because you're biking for fun and you want to like in When it's rainy and cold and gross and nasty out and you decide you get a little fire in your pants and you're like, I'm going to go for a four hour ride, then you're going to do that.

Matt: Even if it's not the smartest plan, 

Lance: even with fast cat, it's, it's AI based. I can say, Hey, I'm doing the festive 500. I can't keep, I keep [00:36:00] tapping on the table. I'm going to do the festive 500. So please add workouts to my calendar. That will include me getting, doing the festive 500 and it does it. It says, okay, we'll happily do that.

Lance: This is what this day is going to be zone two. This day is going to be zone two, but this day you're doing a three hour workout and an hour and a half of it is in sweet spot intervals. So it still tries to prep me for the race on my calendar, which. was Belgian waffle ride Scottsdale, which I'm not even doing because it conflicts with our training camp this year, but that's a whole nother deal.

Lance: You're training for training camp. I'm training for training camp. Might as well just leave that calendar date there, since you're training for training camp, 

Matt: so. Well, 

Lance: me and Ian are probably going to be doing some road, uh, stage races in Arizona in February. Oh, cool. There's two different road stage races in February.

Lance: And I think Ian and I are both going to go do them as training races type thing. That'll be fun. To get ready for training camp. To get ready for training camp. So, yeah. So, [00:37:00] so that's, I do like the AI part of it in that, um, If I ignore it, I don't feel guilty. Yeah, exactly. If I'm ignoring, like, an actual message from a coach that I'm paying 350 a month for, I would feel extremely guilty, and I'd probably be a better athlete if I used a live, real coach, but I'm doing this for fun.

Lance: I raced 55 days last year. That's stupid. But I had a blast. It's nice. I loved doing it. I realized that I would have been much better at a few certain races if I had focused on a few certain races, but that's not what I wanted to do last year. 

Matt: It's nice that the AI can quickly rearrange your calendar so easily to accommodate something like the Festive 500.

Matt: That's, that's putting AI to good use. 

Lance: Well, and just like, just like Training Peaks, I can, if I run out of time to do a certain workout, I can just drag and drop it to a different day. You can do that with Training Peaks too. You can do that with. [00:38:00] If Ian's your coach, you can say, Ian, I'm not going to do that on Tuesday.

Lance: I think I have more time on Wednesday to do that. And so things can be rearranged. You 

Ian: can still, even, even with a coach, you can, unless the coach locks that workout, then you, you can move it around, but it's not always optimal to do that because each workout is partially based on what you're supposed to do the next day or the previous day.

Ian: Yeah. Previous to that. So it's not always good to make your own edits, I guess. 

Lance: Now I realize I am trying to do a lot of volume so that I feel like I have the endurance to do well at these races, but I sign up for these training plans so that I have workouts scheduled that are progressive, get progressively.

Lance: harder that have sweet spot work. And then as the race season starts, it has more VO two work and sprint work. I want those workouts to, I don't want to have to go search for a workout on the day. I'm trying to [00:39:00] go do workout. I want it to be in my calendar somewhere so I can just hit, yes, I'm going to do that workout today.

Lance: And with both of those plans, same with training peaks, same with. With TrainerRoad, same with, with Fast Cat, you can push those, those workouts straight to your head unit on your bike. So you can do them outdoors, or you can push them right to Zwift and do them on your Wahoo Edge. Ace. My element ace.

Lance: Element ace, sorry. 

Matt: Edge, Edge's Garmin. I still think 

Ian: though that even like if you were to pay full price for that AI based plan. Yeah. Versus finding a coach with a bespoke train, you know, um, more of a, uh, variable adaptable plan. 

Lance (2): Yeah. 

Ian: At the lower end. Um, if, if you add it all together, there's probably. Not a whole lot [00:40:00] in the price difference.

Ian: Yeah, maybe. Is it, is it? I don't know. It depends, I guess. I'm just trying to plug my own. 

Lance: Well, you should. Because what, what you would give an athlete is, is way more personalized than what I'm getting. 

Ian: You, you basically pay your money and you take your choice. You get, you get so much more if you have a relationship with a human, with a coach who looks at every one of your workouts and then decides whether to add more, take some away, talk to you, get feedback, see how it's going.

Ian: Um, make decisions on the fly, adapt to your own work schedule, family schedule, holiday schedule. All of this stuff. So, but you, you're going to pay a premium for that. No, no doubt about it. Yeah. Is it effective? Yes. I've got to say that. And being beholden to a person versus an algorithm. [00:41:00] That's there's a lot of value.

Ian: That's way more motivating than what I'm 

Lance: doing. Yeah. I'm just, I'm, I have no allegiance to the fast cat AI. He's called coach cat. But 

Ian: I was talking to somebody about this this morning and you. You have these goals and this focus and you know where you want to get to. And so you have your own discipline.

Ian: You're, it works for you because you follow it largely, 

Lance: mostly, 

Ian: and you have your, you have a strong motivation. Anyway, you don't need a cheerleader every, every day you go out to ride, like you'll go out and do a ride in the pouring rain for three hours. Like you did yesterday. Some people that haven't got that much motivation.

Ian: So 

Lance: it was nobody on the road yesterday. 

Ian: Yeah, 

Matt: no, it's all to yourself. 

Lance: Yes. 

Matt: I've got this place all to myself. [00:42:00] 

Lance: Did I answer the question? 

Matt: Nailed it. One of them. There was a couple of 

Jake: questions in there. So how about real quick, just very concise, um, the next part of it was like, how about a recap of how structure training has helped you with your training for all of these different disciplines that you like to do?

Lance: Uh, well, it's, It clearly by doing the structured training in the right times, like I do a lot of sweet spot in the fall and winter, knowing that it will build my aerobic engine a little bit quicker than just doing other types of work. And so that I'm more prepped for those early season races, I have a very important race, but I'm going to do five, four or five races before my first very important race, which isn't until March.

Lance: And so, um, it, that helps me early doing that structured stuff. 

Jake: And then what about the shortcomings? I'm guessing that this is with respect to the training program. So what are the shortcomings of doing these workouts on the trainer? 

Lance: Um, it's just way fricking harder on the trainer, especially. If you've ever done a very difficult [00:43:00] trainer session in erg mode on the trainer and you start to die in erg mode or can't hold the wattage, you guys, you guys know what I'm talking about.

Lance: It is spiral. It is. Yes. I'm sure there's other nicknames for it. But death spiral is about right where you just quit. It's the, the trainer's trying to keep it going at a certain wattage and you just can't push the watts anymore. And it goes from 80 RPM to 60 RPM. To 20 RPM and you're, you fall off the bike, just have to stop completely.

Lance: It's not pretty. So, um, you sweat more, you can't quite do the same Watts on the indoor trainer. Those are the issues I have with doing them all on the indoor train. It's much harder, but if you know, if you're in a cold part of Idaho, That might be your only option. Although Idaho is sunnier than yeah, just make sure you get your 

Jake: FTP set up right.

Jake: And just try to push through and keep building on it. Don't get discouraged. Just keep building on it and you'll come out the backside pretty stinking strong. Yeah. So, 

Ian: and [00:44:00] if you do those, sometimes you do those, um, interval sessions on a trainer, it's easier. Mentally, you don't have to focus as much. You just sit there and do them.

Ian: Whereas unless you have very simple sort of, I don't know, like say three by 10 minute FTP sessions, which you can do out on the road. No problem, but you need a 

Lance: long, flat stretch. You need that 

Ian: for sure. 

Lance: And if you don't have that nearby, you hit one, like sustained downhill. It's really hard to keep at F at threshold.

Lance: You hit one really strong. Deep uphill, you can't stay at threshold. You're going to go over threshold. It's really hard to be at threshold when you're sitting at a stoplight. Correct. Or you hit, you hit a light. Gotta find those spots. Yeah. So doing those on the trainer is much more effective. Yeah, yeah, 

Jake: yeah, for sure.

Jake: Gotcha. All right. Oh, that's good. Good feedback there. Uh, we have another question though. Okay, from a listener in Joplin, Missouri, um, listener writes in and says, how in the world do you stay in zone two on a group ride where everyone's FTP and Watts per kilogram is [00:45:00] most almost certainly pretty different?

Lance: Okay. That's the easy answer is you don't, you don't, it's 

Jake: not, it's not a perfect science, but there's a lot of ways that you can manipulate that to your advantage based on whether or not the group rides a lot faster than you're able to, or if the group's riding a lot slower and everything in between, you can, you can kind of play with that.

Jake: Go ahead and tell them Lance. 

Lance: You just have to, you have to gauge it. Um, and, and hopefully the, if you're in a group of seven or eight people last Saturday, it was advertised as a zone two ride. We did 60 miles. Um, everybody's at a different point in their training program and everybody's at a different point with their FTP.

Lance: And right now I'm mine is a little bit higher than some of the guys I was riding with. So I sat on the front for like 90 percent of the ride last Saturday. Because I knew that that would be the right effort that I was trying to do. And everybody else were kind of, kind of stacked up in line behind us.

Lance: If we started going up a hill and I was [00:46:00] going, my wattage was a little too much for everybody else. They just trailed off. And once they trailed off and I got to the top of the hill. 

Lance (2): I just 

Lance: stopped and waited, or I, or I turned around and rode back down to the last person and rode up with the last person.

Lance: So that's the trick is, and I think you naturally start to gravitate towards people who have similar abilities as you do. So when. When, when Jake is fit, um, if, if he's riding zone two, I'm riding sweet spot. I can't, I'm pushing way bigger watts to stay with sweet, unless I'm on Jake's wheel, and then it's okay.

Lance: It just means we can't ride side by side. Because we're getting to, we're working two different systems. 

Ian: But then Jake senses you're on his wheel and then he ups it 

Lance: even more. Correct. Top of zone two. I'm sorry. So you just kind of, you start to [00:47:00] gravitate towards people who have similar abilities and then you.

Lance: And then I ride with those people more often. Mm 

Jake: hmm. Cool. Well, I think you pretty much nailed that. A little fun fact about Joplin, Missouri. I've got a friend of mine who was like, one of my best friends growing up, and our senior year of high school left where we lived in Southern California and moved to Joplin.

Lance: Joplin? Yes, in Missouri. Is that where that is? 

Jake: No, and he just went there for a senior year of high school and then ultimately ended up moving back here. And then while he was there, they, I think he was on, well, I know he was on the same football team as Grant Windstrom. You guys have no idea who that is, but like he was a, an absolute legend in college, played for University of Nebraska, which is my most favorite college football team.

Jake: Then he went on to play for the Seahawks. I'm not mistaken. I think so. And well, he played for the Rams and the Seahawks and he was like a renowned, um, defensive player. So I don't know. This person probably knows, maybe even knows him who knows, but it's kind of a cool thing. But I saw that. I'm like, Hey, I've heard of that town.

Jake: Never been there, but 

Lance: I still only think it's our friends and family who listened to this podcast. Hi mom. [00:48:00] Thanks for listening mom. I would say hi mom, but I don't think she's listened to one of them. 

Jake: I think I've told my mom that Got a podcast going for like seven almost seven years now a couple times.

Jake: Yeah, she still forgets that it even exists I have a large 

Matt: number of family members that confuse the fact that I have a podcast in the YouTube channel Uh huh, like how's the podcasting stuff going? You mean the YouTube channel? Yeah, I don't know. It's all the same, really. Yeah. 

Jake: So anyway, um, I, there was a few other questions, but it was mostly not questions.

Jake: It was just like, you know, thanks for the podcast. So we appreciate that feedback and telling us to keep the chain mail. Um, one person did make a comment that they. Uh, they picked up on the fact that there was an ad that was spliced in. There was 

Lance: an ad last week. 

Jake: So I pushed something, I'm just to try it out.

Jake: And I thought I was going to get this like sample thing to listen to, to see how it would go. And I was expecting them to send me an email, but it, I guess it inadvertently just turned it on. So it just was kind of in there. So. And it was an 

Lance: ad for another podcast, [00:49:00] 

Jake: which is not uncommon. So the way that this works is they bring people to you that you can like say, yes, I want this to be a part of our podcast or it's not.

Jake: Um, we just set that up and we just had one option. I'm like, Oh, let's just check this out. I thought it was in like, Kind of like tested out phase. I didn't think it was actually going to go in there. And then I don't know. Then I haven't got back to play. Probably 

Matt: get a lot of advertising for like old man ointments.

Matt: A lot of things I can imagine. Lots of things like that. Got 

Lance: some salves and some body creams. 

Jake: We'll 

Matt: make our own ads. We're 

Lance: already, we got this 

Matt: for 

Jake: nothing. We just might, because we have that, we have that option. We can add some, so anyhow, all right, let's move on our topic for this week. It's the end of the year.

Jake: And it's just one of those, that time of year where, you know, everybody and his brothers doing the, like, you know, what's your goals for 2025. And that will be kind of an undertone here, but I wanted to ask a question of you guys, like, What did you learn from 2024 and how is that going to affect your 2025?

Jake: And then subsequent to that, what kind of goals are you going to be setting that might play [00:50:00] off of that? So I suck at 

Lance: climbing. I need to lose 15 pounds, but that's too hard at my age. So I'm going to suck next year at climbing too. There you go. 

Jake: Oh, do you guys have anything like any learning moments, any aha moments or anything that you learned about yourself or things that you tinkered with and you're going to like, you know, Fully like just unloaded on 2025.

Jake: Matt, you got any big plans for the YouTube channel? I mean, there's lots and lots of things. 

Matt: Uh, I think I'm going to, well, one of my plans, I shouldn't talk about things that may or may not happen, but I want to do a series, um, that has like a regular release cycle, like a, you know. I don't know. It might only be like three, three episodes or something like that.

Matt: Maybe like I would ideal would be something like a five episodes, like with these release release dates and do something interesting that way. Talking about the goal is to talk about like the technology behind stuff. Like, you know, um, Batteries, like kind of a deep dive on batteries or a deep dive on, um, GPS as a technology, like history of GPS and how [00:51:00] you would be 

Jake: exceptional at that.

Jake: I think it'd be really, really well. And not only would you do a good job of explaining it in a very thorough and concise and entertaining way, the graphics that you would come up in the way that you would lay the video out there and show it. So it makes visual sense. I think you'd do awesome. I think 

Matt: putting together that.

Matt: stuff and the way I want to do it. It's just going to take a massive amount of time. So I don't know, that'll probably that, that hopefully that happens next year. I'm guessing it'll be February timeframe. If I can get to it, we'll see, we'll see. That's something that's really fun that I'm, I've already got like the whole, like the one that I'll probably start with is the GPS technology and the history of how it came about.

Matt: And it's like this wild story about like, you know, how the GPS technology Some of the, like how it became like this, it was started as military technology and like how that started. And then also like the switch where they were like, Oh, we're going to open this up to the whole world. Like there was like this plane that like flew in the wrong spot and got shot down.

Matt: Like it was just a wild story. So I'm excited about this like telling of a story as opposed to [00:52:00] Reviewing a product you can get 

Jake: into like the alien technology that the government has been using in the slow trickle effect because they couldn't Put it all out there at one time because it would blow our heads off.

Jake: But that's why things have right velcro, right? Technology, of course. Yeah, talk about the plasmoids out there right now. Yeah. Yeah giving us cool stuff jello that whole food product That's all that's alien technology How about this too, um, before we get into all of this other stuff, Ian, do you want to get into like goals in general?

Jake: And you've heard this a million times and people like, what goals are you going to set? And are you going to have any resolutions? I mean, I don't think we've ever really subscribed to the whole resolution thing saying something that you're going to do because 99. 9 percent of the time you fail at that, but it's okay to set goals.

Jake: But you should probably take a certain approach to that. And we've discussed this before in years past, but a little refresh course would be good. So how would you, uh, 

Ian: first of all, it's, I would say that it's, um, probably one of the, the most, uh, important things when you, when you, when you're setting up Your [00:53:00] program or your, um, your, your, your program of racing, say for next year, or the things you want to achieve is to lay that out.

Ian: Exactly. What is it? Where, where are you going with this? Right? So, um, goals, anybody that's ever been to a, uh, sort of, um, studied any business knows about smart goals, right? So, um, So what are the SMART goals? It's um, what? 

Matt: I'm trying to remember. One of them is like, R is like realistic or obtainable.

Matt: Specific. Specific. There you go. 

Ian: Measurable. 

Matt: Achievable. 

Ian: Achievable. 

Matt: Realistic. 

Ian: Realistic. And time constraint. Someone's going to 

Matt: correct us on that if we're wrong. Yeah. But please let us know. 

Ian: Specific is nothing too vague. I just want to get fitter next year. 

Jake: Yeah. What does that mean? 

Ian: What does that mean?

Ian: Exactly. How about something more specific? I want to achieve four Watts per kilogram FTP. 

Jake (2): [00:54:00] All right. 

Ian: Right. That'd be a specific goal. Measurable. That'd be a measurable goal. So you can actually. Figure that out. You get on your trainer and do an FTP test and see where you're at. So, yeah. 

Jake: Cool. All right. So what goals do you have set for 2025?

Jake: And is any of that coming from what you learned about yourself in 2024? 

Ian: Yeah, I guess. Like I was thinking about this and one of the things I learned, you know, and I don't know, you may contradict me on this, but I, I really learned that as you get older, as you get senior, um, you have to kind of temper your goals.

Ian: Like it's, it's okay. Your performances, my performance, the things I can measure about my cycling have, I'm not as strong as they were, uh, at one point. So, so you're kind of 

Jake: like glancing yourself, AKA sandbagging a little bit. That's my [00:55:00] goals. No, I 

Ian: think my, my goals at this point are just to stem the destruction, to stem the tide, to, to not lose any fitness, to keep on doing what I'm doing and be as competitive as I can be.

Ian: Sure. But realistically, am I going to get to new heights of performance? Probably not. 

Jake: Yeah. Well, I met you, I think we're coming up on nine years ago and you're faster today than when I first met you. Now, you know, you were still kind of making your journey back into this whole cycling thing, but you know, think of it from that perspective too.

Jake: It's been almost a decade and you're faster than you were a decade ago. That's something to be said. Yeah, definitely. 

Ian: Definitely faster than I was in my. Yeah. 

Jake: And you know, you're going to have a full year now of being fully retired and fully just going crazy on the whole training thing. Yeah. It's 

Ian: strange, right?

Ian: So I thought retirement and I would, one of my goals that I put down, it was in, you know, you [00:56:00] set a goal in Strava and I was going to do 10, 000 miles this year. I haven't come anywhere close to that. Yeah. I figured I would do. Yeah. This would be a major mileage year. And when I think about it, I'm like, well, what's the point?

Ian: You know, if you, if, if those miles are not getting me anywhere, uh, you know, I'm not, I'm just putting in miles for the sake of it. Then what's the point in that? 

Jake: Well, going back to the first part of the question, like, what did you learn from 2024? A good question for you is what have you learned about retirement with respect to yourself?

Jake: Anything there that you're like, Oh my gosh, this is fantastic. And this is what I've learned from that. Or just maybe some takeaways from that. He doesn't do mornings anymore. 

Ian: I don't do mornings anymore. I love being retired. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I've got more time than I ever dreamt I would have. Yeah.

Ian: Gone on some great trips. We've been to Tenerife to the Alps and California and all these things. You know, I've just, it's been good. Wouldn't be able to come here and do this podcast if I wasn't retired. 

Jake: Was there [00:57:00] anything about retirement that you weren't expecting? Anything that kind of came at you for like, Oh.

Jake: That's a pleasant surprise or a thing, maybe anything negative. Was there anything negative that came out of retirement other than like, yeah, I don't have as much money to spend on 

Jake (2): bikes. 

Ian: I haven't bought one thing for my bicycle apart from a chain and a couple of tires the whole year. So anyway, I think as far as goals are concerned, I do have goals.

Ian: For certain events, like I want to, I want to come first place in the Gorge gravel grinder. I want to, um, win again at PIR, you know, I mean, those, those are goals, but I would argue that. Real goals should be, you know, sort of personal performance goals. Like the, like the aforementioned, what's per kilogram or I want to achieve a certain body weight or 

Jake: yeah.

Jake: Winning a race. There's a lot of variables that are out of your control. So most of this out of your 

Ian: control. So it's good to have a mixture [00:58:00] of. Performance based goals and objects like, like, uh, podium spots and so on. It's good to have those in, but just realize that there's a lot more than, like you said, there's a lot, a lot that's out of your control.

Jake: Gotcha. How about you, LeGrand, anything you, uh, any takeaways from 2024 that will help you kind of shape your 2025? 

Matt: Um, I, nothing comes to mind specifically. Um, there's a lot of like, you know, life balance stuff with coaching and things like that, that I think I'm tweaking each year and getting better and better at, like, it's such a massive commitment, but I think that, you know, each time do it.

Matt: You're you have last year to lean on. Sure. So there's, there's all for probably any of us that work in any field, right? You're like, you can look back at last year. You can be like, okay, next time this happens. Next time I'm faced with this situation, I know how to handle it better. Yeah. So Lots of stuff like that.

Matt: Um, as far [00:59:00] as training goes, I'm pretty happy kind of just like, you know, swimming, biking, or running kind of each day and enjoying it and not having super structured stuff. Um, I would love to do a triathlon next, you know, spring or next summer or something like that. I don't, I don't want to have any super competitive goals with it, but just to participate is super fun.

Matt: So yeah, that kind of stuff. 

Jake: So just more of the same kind of for you and just make everything that you've been doing, maybe just a percentage or two better, just keep enjoying it. So you're kind of in the situation of your life where you're just super busy. I mean, you've got your work stuff, you've got your YouTube stuff and get to come up here and do this.

Jake: Dog and pony show. And then you're coaching and kids swimming is 

Matt: ridiculous. They're, they're doing great with their swimming. So I'm enjoying that. And it's weird coaching swimming. I'm coaching swimming this year. I coached a little bit last year, but now I'm like more full time, not full time, but you know what I mean?

Matt: Like I'm, I'm coaching every day as opposed to, you know, more like a substitute coach, so that's [01:00:00] interesting. I, yeah. So, and then the track program. So it's, it's almost turning into like a year round. Full coaching stuff. You know, some people will look at it like that. 

Jake: That's just too much or, you know, you'll totally love it.

Jake: And like, you're not giving myself enough time to, to train and do all the things that it just, it's relevant to the person yet, but at the same time, even for that person that's saying that I'm going to focus on more of the training stuff, like You're going to blink your eyes and that time is just going to be gone.

Jake: I mean, you're going to, your kids are going to be gone doing other things. And all of a sudden you're going to have all the time in the world. And like, you're going to miss that. And if you were busy training 10, 15, 20 hours a week, you're going to miss out on a lot of opportunities, which I've done, right?

Matt: Like train, train for triathlon stuff was massive amounts of hours. And my kids were little and I was like, Oh, okay. You miss, you miss a lot of stuff. And you know, right now they are so competitive with their swimming that every weekend we're going to do swim stuff and it's been pretty fun. Cause we're.

Matt: It's a big part of that team and it's fun. It's enjoyable. 

Jake: You know, it's, it's fun to be plugged into that, into that eight, 10, 12 years, whatever ends [01:01:00] up being that like cumulative amount of time is fantastic to be able to like experience all of that. If you could just figure out the secret sauce to pause the whole aging thing so that you could pick up where you left off and not have to worry about like, Oh crap, everything's falling apart.

Jake: That's the 

Matt: thing is like you get back on the trainer. And so I'll probably go rides with this afternoon cause it looks pretty rainy out there, but it's like. you get on there and you're like, Oh, my Watts are gone. They're just like, you're like, did I lose 50 Watts? Like it's insane how much 

Ian: this is. This is part of, of having achievable and realistic goals, right?

Ian: None of us are professional athletes here. Like you could say, Oh, my goal is to, is to work out 20 hours a week now. But Hey, if you're a dad, right. If you're sorry, a parent, if you're, uh, going, having to go to work, you know, if you've got other things going on. That's, that's not a realistic goal. So keep in mind that we're amateur athletes.

Ian: Mm-hmm . Um, trying to do the best we can. Yeah. 

Jake: But you still do [01:02:00] need to find that, that base minimum and be able to work off of that. 'cause I know for me, if I don't get. You know, eight hours in a week that I'm just not going to be able to achieve what I want to do. I can't commit to doing 15, 20, 25 hours because I've got too many other responsibilities in life.

Jake: I could do it, but all those other things would fall to crap and you just, you just can't do it. So you just have to find that little sweet spot. So for me, if I can, I, I know based on my schedule, if I carve out 10 hours, I can make that happen and the world's not gonna fall apart. Yeah. So yeah. 

Ian: Eight to 12 hours, some right in there.

Ian: Yeah. Is, is what most people, I would say, most people, a lot of people can, can realistically do that. Sure. And, and as long as you make the most of that time and not just go out for another bike ride, if you, then you can achieve those other goals. Yeah. 

Jake: It's relative to what your goals are too. Like if your goal are just to have fun and enjoy riding a bike and get fit.

Jake: While you're doing that, and you don't care about the race metrics, it could be. It just depends on the person. So, you know, maybe they're going from nothing to [01:03:00] something. So who knows? Um, how 

Lance: about you have, um, I've really struggled with, uh, deciding what my goals are for 2025, 2024. I had very specific goals in mind.

Lance: I was trying to win that XC mountain bike series. I was trying to win the Oregon bar and I had three, four really big events during the year that I wanted to be fit for. I was doing unbound gravel, 100. I did the Oregon trail gravel grinder. I did steamboat. Um, and I, I rode the white rim in Moab on my mountain bike.

Lance: So I had these, all of these big. Big things happening, and I have none of that next year. I don't have a big race on my calendar. Like a, I don't have one yet. I don't have a big national, like, gravel race. 

Jake: Is there a reason for that? Do you think you experienced a little bit of burnout? No, it's because all 

Lance: my buddies who I go do these races with, none of them wanted to do it next year.

Lance: And so I just didn't either. So you're just gonna go wherever the wind blows you. Yes, that's right. That's correct. Which might [01:04:00] work out. That could be fun too. Yeah. And, and things are changing with my, I realized last year, one thing I did learn from last year is that out of all the different disciplines of racing, I am best at mountain biking, which I wouldn't have thought that like five years ago, I would have thought it was cyclocross or I would have thought it would be crit racing.

Lance: And it's, it's not, I'm actually best at mountain biking. When you take all My skills and my attributes and what my power can do. That's usually where I kind of do the best. And so I've had two phenomenal mountain bike race years, and it's going to be harder this next year because I'm being catted up, which is the.

Lance: Which I need to, I can't sandbag my entire life, although I've been trying for a long time. So I'm not really sure when I'm going to do as far as goals next year. I'd love to make a podium in one of those cat one 50 plus races. And I think [01:05:00] there's a shot at that, but again, it just depends on who else shows up.

Lance: Senior games, senior games. I doubt I'm going to, I don't know if Brandy goes and I'm going to be there. I'll I'll line up and do the races, but, um, but I don't know about big races. Um, cyclocross, uh, I had a blast this last year and had no outcome goals at all. None. It was just go have fun races, hard and fast as I can.

Lance: Every cyclocross race I did was just like a bonus race for the year. It wasn't like the focus of my year. And I'll probably. do the same thing with that next year. I can't compete with the open category in the 50 plus field in cyclocross. There's just too many really, really fast guys, which is great.

Lance: That's why we do this kind of stuff. So, so I'm struggling with my goals and my calendar for next year. So I'm not really. I think it'll work out if 

Ian: you, if you went to one of those races and your primary goal of getting on the podium didn't [01:06:00] work out, what would be a secondary goal? What would you be happy with?

Ian: Just 

Lance: don't fall apart in a race. Uh 

Ian: huh. So like, like riding a smart race. Yes. Finish getting off the bike and going, you know what? I executed that perfectly. It just wasn't my day to win. Somebody did it better than me. But if you did it, if you executed your ID, you got your nutrition bang on your, your tactics bang on.

Ian: Yeah. Your equipment preparation bang on, um, you would, you would be happy. You'd come away with satisfied 

Lance: there. There was a race last year. Um, I did the cactus cup in, in, um, in Scottsdale, Arizona. It's a mountain bike race. It was a 40 mile mountain bike race. It was the longest mountain bike race I did all year.

Lance: So that, that's a three hour race for me, which is a lot. And, uh, I got off to a fantastic start and like tried to gauge it really well and literally with three miles to go, I got caught by a guy and, um, he sat on my wheel [01:07:00] through this like technical two mile section and then just blew me away at the, At the finish line stretch.

Lance: But I was completely proud of my race, even though he smoked me because I couldn't have done that race any faster. That's at the limit of my mountain bike racing ability. You know, three hours is a lot. And so for that to happen and walk away from that, and I think I was. 8th overall. I wasn't even close to the podium.

Lance: It was a gigantic field. There was like 115 people in that race, you know, 50 year olds in that race. So the fact that that guy caught me, it was not like, it didn't destroy me. I was really proud of how that race go. And so if I can, if I can have those types of, like, Experiences in racing, all these cat one races, then I'll be happy with my year where I, where I feel like I execute things.

Lance: Well, I don't make a dumb mistake. Like don't eat enough calories during a long race. Um, [01:08:00] you're going to crash. There's crashes in mountain bike racing. That's just the way it happens is, you know, and I just hope I don't get hurt during those crashes and whatnot. So, 

Ian: or you look back and analyze your race, you know, you look at the data and you go.

Ian: You know, it's 280 watt normalized power 

Lance: for three hours. 

Ian: I've never seen that before. That's great. So that's 

Lance: another good thing. So 

Matt: I think it'll work out. How about you, Jake? 

Jake: Um, that's a very loaded question. I always have like goals of things that I want to do and, and I just, I've, I've learned a lot about myself this past year, um, believe it or not.

Jake: And it's the, the really thing, the one thing that I can boil it down to the most is, um, um, How much I need cycling in my life. And it's, it's kind of hard to like wrap your head around until you start to like, like just kind of sit there and like reflect on, you know, not only like the things that you missed out on and the things that you wish you were doing and the fact that you're not able to do the thing that you love, but you start to think about all of the other ways that it [01:09:00] impacts your life when you do it.

Jake: Don't have that. And so I learned a lot about myself, not necessarily, not for the first time, because I've been through my fair share of injuries, I usually snap back from things really quickly. I mean, I broke my hip and I was doing 150 miles over two days, three weeks later, after having three titanium screws put into my hip and, you know, I just bounce back from these kinds of things and, um, you know, It really kind of all started when I got hit by the car in 2018 and you learn a lot about yourself, but I was in such an acute amount of pain and, and having to go through all these surgeries.

Jake: Like you, you kind of don't realize how much it's, um, taking what, what it's taking away from you, not being able to go outside to ride when you're in that moment, because you're just trying to get to the next day and not have pain and get to the next surgery and trying to rehab. And then There was a station where I'm like, all right, I can actually get back on the bike and ride.

Jake: So when you look at the cumulative collective amount of time that I was off the bike, it really wasn't that much because I was back on the trainer. I think it was like September and it happened in June. So it wasn't a big chunk of time. And given the sheer number of injuries that [01:10:00] I had and the fact that I was able to get back out on the ride 

Ian: six years ago, six and a half years ago.

Ian: Yeah. 

Jake: Um, And I was able to get back on the bike and I was able to slowly work my way back and start to get to a certain amount of fitness. And then probably like a year or two later, I was feeling really good. I still had a lot of limitations and I was never going to be my same self, but I was able to get back and be fit.

Jake: And then I had another fricking injury. Um, when I had the little like washout landed on my hip, that was just a slow burn that caught up with me over the course of time. And so I dealt with that a lot. Um, all of last year for the most part, I think I missed. 11 months of writing because of that, because I needed to take time off.

Jake: I was trying to figure out what was going on with me. I was trying to come back and tinker with it and it just wasn't working. And finally got things lined up right with the doctors and all that stuff. And, you know, in that time though, you start to realize like, man, there's a lot of things that are affecting you.

Jake: And it's not just like, Oh, that you're losing Watts and your FTP and you're losing your, um, you know, your overall fitness and you're, you're gaining weight and you're doing things. There's a lot of things that happen to you, psychologically speaking, that really. Kind of like, I don't know, you don't realize it until somebody kind of brings it to your attention.

Jake: And usually it's like a spouse or a loved [01:11:00] one. Like, you know, you're a little bit this, or you're a little bit that, and you just realize, all right, the cycling, when I have that in my life and I am making that a priority, not like over everything else, but a priority. Like, I'm going to get this done. I'm going to get my volume in and I'm going to do all the things and be competitive and I get to go blow the cobwebs off of like everything that's going on or get to like decompress.

Jake: Or you get to go out there and. Um, you know, just feel good or have conversations and connect with your people. There's so much value in that. And I was able to get back to starting writing, I think it was in May of this year and slowly built my way up. And by the end of the summer, it's feeling pretty good.

Jake: I was starting to get my fitness back. I dropped a bunch of weight and, um, was thinking like, all right, this is going to be it, I'm going to have a really solid off season and we're going to build up and in 2025 is going to be the year. And I, that was my goal. And it was going along fine until all of a sudden you're like, your doctor's like, yeah, you gotta have surgery.

Jake: That was not my bingo card for the year. Um, so anyway, I did that. And then I've been off the bike now for four or five weeks again. And you start to feel those things creep back in and you're like, [01:12:00] crap, go again. And it's just like, all right, for sure. For sure. I know that that cycling, not having that, having that, that outlet, um, is causing change.

Jake: with you, whether it be physiologically or mentally and all the other things. I just, I need that in my life. So I've for sure, for sure. Know that about myself. And I know that I need to have that so that I can manage and do better and be a better person. But it also helps me from a productive production standpoint, not just on the bike, but off the bike, I can get so much more done during the course of a day, if I just Factor in like a ride, even if it's just for an hour or even up to three or four hours, it doesn't matter.

Jake: I still hit a lot more done. I just have more energy, more mental clarity, you know, the, the, my ability to sit down on the bike and ride and just kind of systematically work through some thoughts and coming up with ideas and trying to game plan and trying to figure out like business stuff and all of these things, like they just kind of come to you and you just.

Jake: Can go out and ride and kind of be with yourself or your friends and just really just focusing on that stuff. So at the end of the day, I need to, I need to figure out a way to stay healthy [01:13:00] and not get hurt. So that can be, you can call that a goal, but there's things that are out of your control. So my goal is just hopefully to find the cycling.

Jake: In whatever form that is. And hopefully when I get back on the bike, be able to be consistent with that. And then if I can be consistent with that, then I'll slowly add in like the, the structured workouts so that I can get back to being myself. It's a lot of stuff just to kind of puke out there and tell you all about.

Jake: But, um, yeah, that's kind of where we're at, but 

Lance: we have no control over unforeseen health issues and some that's going to happen to one of us at this table this next year, something will happen. Some health issue will come up for one of the four of us. We were not planning on, or you didn't foresee, it just happens.

Jake: So, you know, and it can be a myriad of things. It could be, you get hit by a freaking car. That wasn't, I wasn't planning on that. I was training to go win a state championship road race, and I think I had a pretty good shot at it. And then the next thing you know, you're like in a hospital for a week and you're just trying to like, you know, figure out like, am I ever going to be myself again?

Jake: So, you know, things can happen and don't get scared. Cause you. 

Ian: [01:14:00] You 

Jake: can crash your mountain bike, right? 

Ian: In some ways it is scary to think that So much of I can say this personally so much of my identity and and personality and everything is tied up with cycling, which seems crazy. I mean, it's such a simple thing to do and yet it it's Makes you the person you are and if you take that away, then there's rocks 

Matt: What's that?

Lance: There's always rocks. 

Matt: Yeah. It takes cycling. There's always rocks. Rock hounding. Going big 2025. Big rock hounding. It affects 

Ian: you. It affects everybody around you. Yeah. So I definitely understand what you're saying. 

Jake: You know, it's funny too. You would think that like, all right, you're, you're not riding. You, you've got an extra 10 hours in your schedule.

Jake: Like my personality is I need something. I need to be plugged in. I need to be doing, cause my mind just doesn't sit down. It doesn't relax. And. If I have the cycling, it keeps that kind of at bay and it kind of forces me to have that. But if I'm not, then I get back into doing too much. All of the time. And then, you know, [01:15:00] you factor in like the fact that I don't sleep well and I'm up at the ass crack at dawn every single day.

Jake: Um, I, you know, one of the things I've dealt with this, this last quarter of the year is like just mental burnout. Like my brain physically hurts some days. I'm not kidding you. Like behind my eyes, I've just got like pressure. I'm like, Oh my God. And like, if you just like, kind of like, all right, I need to disconnect from everything.

Jake: And then you feel that just kind of come down and you can relax a little bit. Um, I, but when I have. The cycling in my life, I don't feel that, I mean, it will happen from time to time, but that it just kind of all makes it goes away. And it's just not like a daily perpetual problem. And that's a real thing.

Jake: Like getting burned out and just not feeling like you've got like any energy in your, you know, your, your stresses up and your endorphins are down. And you're just, you feel like you just want to like, turn the lights off on everything and just like go crawl in a hole. Be away from that. I'm not saying that I'm depressed or anything like that, but it's just one of those things like you feel that it's real.

Jake: So I need to get back on the bike so that I can manage all that stuff and I can get back to being myself of going a [01:16:00] million miles an hour and enjoying it and not getting burned out.

Jake: Anyway, um, that's, that was a lot. Can I tie a goal to that? I don't know. I don't know what this juncture, other than just being able to get back into consistently writing. I don't know if that's measurable enough for you, sir, Ian, but, um, that's just going to be my goal and then slowly work up to that and it's all 

Ian: measurable.

Ian: Yeah. Now, right. You can, you can look back on, you can get to this point in 2025, late December, and look back on your stats and go, did I achieve that? Did I. Did I, was I able to get where I wanted to be? Yeah. How did, how did my past season look? 

Jake: Yeah. Well, I didn't really have a season and that was by choice.

Jake: I wasn't going to race this year just because I needed to focus on getting myself fit. But there was a silver lining to all this, even though I had to take some time off and it just kind of like, you know, Not fell off a cliff, but it just like slowly went to nothing before the end of the year I can look back at that chunk of time from the beginning of may to September and I looked at the [01:17:00] fact like all right when I first got started it was ugly It was bad, but I just kept putting in the work going out every single week It was a slow ramp up and I was able to get back to being Relatively fit in a reasonable amount of time like, all right, that's easy.

Jake: This time you're only off for two months. Last time it was 11 months and you know what you need to do and you need to work that in there. And you've got this one medical thing out of the way. It should be attainable. I should be able to not die at training camp if I may only get down there. So, you know, that's, well, maybe, 

Ian: maybe that's your specific goal.

Ian: Not die at training camp. Would you be bold enough to say, um, there's an event or a race or something that you want to compete in that do, or is that 

Jake: I had to be honest with you? And this is on purpose. I have not looked at the race calendar at all to see what's out there. Cause I don't want to think that yet.

Jake: I don't want to get ahead of myself and get excited about something and then not be able to do it. Like I've registered for the gorge gravel grinder, the last. Two or three years. I haven't been able to do it between being sick or being injured. I'm like, all right, I'm just not going to put anything on the [01:18:00] calendar.

Jake: Don't want to have to deal with that. And then if it comes out to where I'm like, all right, I'm feeling good. Numbers are looking good. There's, there's, there's something here that I can go do a race with. Let's see what's on the calendar and what's in a reasonable amount of time to go out there and do. I would love to go do, um, A gravel race.

Jake: I love it. I mean, something in that 40 to 60 mile range to start would be fantastic. Um, I would probably love to be able to go do your Barton park race because that that's one of those fun races, even though that fricking walls SOB, but you know, it's just to go out there and have fun doing that. And I do need to get a mountain bike.

Jake: That is a goal that I can put out there. Purchase a fricking mountain bike and I'd love to be able to go do that and get back to my roots because that's where it all kind of started. So. Just my, my little thing there. Um, anything else that you guys want to add to that? Any other, any funny goals? Any podcast goals you guys have?

Matt: Oh, let's put out a show every week. Okay. Let's bring on some guests, maybe. Yeah. 

Jake: Oh, I'm going to save this for my last thing. 

Ian: Find something witty to [01:19:00] say. During my introduction, I 

Jake: think I have enough where I can make something for you now. So, um, all right, well, um, that's all fine and well, anything else you guys want to add there?

Jake: Otherwise let's, let's move on. Let's move on. All right, let's do it. Last thing, Matt LeGrand. I like 

Matt: how everyone just looks at me like, You will be going first. 

Jake: You always know what you have to say. 

Matt: Um, that's because I always talk about videos that I've been up to. Each week I try to put out a video.

Matt: Roughly, it's kind of been slacking a little bit more than once or twice. How many did you put out in 2024 roughly? I don't know. Forty something. Forty something. That's great. Yeah, I think so. I could look back and give you an exact number. Um, Last week I posted the Apple watch series 10 after a hundred days.

Matt: That video is done quite well. And then this coming up video, the next video coming up is going to be called trends for GPS watches in 2025. So yeah, there's some cool stuff that I'm kind of looking forward to next year as far as like gear gear [01:20:00] wise, what I think watches will do, what these companies are kind of trending towards.

Matt: Some of the ideas that I'll float out there in the video are like stuff that are really obvious. Like there's obviously a trend towards more Amoled watches versus memory and pixel display watches. Uh, but some of the other stuff is like. This might not ever happen. Um, there's like a micro led technology that I'm for displays that I would love to see make their way into, 

Jake: would that be more battery efficient?

Jake: Yes. Okay. It'd 

Matt: be battery efficient and it's, it's even sharper and you know, brighter than. Even better contrast and stuff like that compared to AMOLED. So hopefully that comes, it may be another two years away, but that's the kind of stuff that I am hoping to talk about in the video that will be coming out whenever I can get it together.

Matt: Any 

Jake: purchase goals for 2025? Um, 

Matt: you know, I'm kind of, I wouldn't mind having a gravel bike or something like that, but I kind of have everything that I need. I need a gravel bike. I know. I think you do. A gravel bike would be really fun. [01:21:00] Um, yeah, so, maybe. I think I can, I'm, I'm patient enough that I can just wait for like a deal on something.

Matt: And I feel like I know enough people that are, that move through bikes well enough that I can just snag someone's old gravel bike or something like that. Or not, you know, it'll be just as 

Jake: for sale probably in like a week or two. So I just need to be able to find the time to finish cleaning it up, but it's got a bunch of new crap on it and just trying to get it all dolled up.

Jake: But 

Matt: yeah, 

Jake: neither here nor there. Um, yeah. Lance's got one too, I think. 

Matt: I do. There's lots of good bikes out there. Um, yeah. And, and then, uh, I feel like I'm in a good spot with like camera gear. I don't know if you feel the same way, kind of. 

Jake: Yeah. There's always something else that you want. I'd love lenses cause that can change things so much.

Jake: And there are a couple that I'm like, I really wish I had one of those. I 

Matt: really, I would love a good 50 mil, 50 mil lens. Cause that's what I use for like all my talking head stuff. I would love. Telephoto. We've talked about that. Yeah. There's stuff that I would like to get. And then there's always new announcements of new products and stuff that I get excited about.

Matt: [01:22:00] So my action cameras are kind of getting old at this point. So a 

Jake: little bit, there's been. I don't know, there hasn't been like, quantum changes. Right. Well, I mean, I think that, When we first started collecting gear, there was like, 

Matt: every, there was new stuff every week. It was like, whoa, this is crazy big. And now it's not quite as much.

Matt: Insta360 and 

Jake: DJI are making the most advancements. I think that GoPro, I'm, I'm, Yeah, curious if they're going to be a company in the next couple of years. That's just my question. But, um, we'll see, but again, even though that whole marketplace, I just haven't seen anything that's really knocked my socks off and like, I was excited when the new Insta360 and the new DJI, um, Osmo released, I think that's, is it the Osmo?

Jake: But, um, and then you start to see some of the videos and like, that just doesn't look good. I mean, if you look at the, the produced stuff where they're, you know, they're, everything's absolutely perfect. And then you look at like how it just normally is. I'm like, it kind of has, and I 

Matt: still feel like we're so far away from something big, like eight K.

Matt: Like that's just not even on the radar anymore. It's like, yeah, that's just so like so much, so many pixels, so [01:23:00] much processing computers would just, so much data, having memory cards for all that stuff. It's like, Oh man. But like, that's kind of like the technology that I'm waiting for. So it might be waiting for the next like five years or something like that.

Matt: When it's like, then if everything's AK, then my whole workflow would change, right? Where that would be interesting to me. Whereas right now I'm like, meh. There's nothing big. 

Jake: I think the next DJI iteration might be my time to jump over to them. Yeah. Switch over to DJI. 10 bit and if they can get a little bit better dynamic range and better low light performance, that would be like chef's kiss right there.

Jake: And that's camera talk. 

Lance (2): I don't understand anything you guys just said. 

Matt: That has been camera talk. Camera talk. You guys got rock talk, we got camera talk. Gibbo! 

Ian: My one last thing is, uh, I'm counting down the freaking days till I can go ride my bike in the sunshine again. This has been, this is a challenging time of year.

Jake: It's rained 

Ian: consistently for the last 

Jake: three or four weeks. It's pretty good. Like that, that [01:24:00] Christmas morning I woke up and I'm like, Oh, it's, it's going to be sunny out. And then I, I, I, Look out the window. I'm like, Holy crap. Look at that sunrise. And like, I literally, I ran upstairs and, um, into my daughter's room.

Jake: I tore the screen off of her window. Cause her room has just this magical view of Mount hood. And she's like, what are you doing? I'm like, did you not look outside? And I'm out there with my camera and I'm taking pictures and like, all right. So, and it was beautiful. And I, you 

Matt: didn't take that with the drone.

Jake: No, it was upstairs taken with my Sony. And then I, you know, came back downstairs and I put it on the computer just cause I wanted to like kind of pixel people a little bit. And then I went and looked outside again. And I'm like, Well, that's gone. It went from like beautiful, majestic to like dark, cloudy, you know, just overcast, not overcast, but almost like a foggy misty and just pouring, pouring rain.

Jake: And it just 

Ian: didn't stop raining. It just rained. I did not go outside the house all day on Christmas Day. Did you? Yeah. No. It just pissed down. I usually get out around the neighborhood for a walk at least, but yeah, no, so, um, yeah, it's, it's hard this time of year. It gets dark early and it [01:25:00] rains a lot and that's just where we live, I guess.

Ian: Yeah. 

Lance (2): Four weeks. Four weeks. We fly to Tenerife in four weeks. Yeah, baby. We're going to Spain. Nice. Four weeks from today, sir. 

Jake: What's his name? That is. Major Asshole. Major Asshole. Four. We have four. Thank you very much. Yup. Sure are. Anything 

Lance: else? Is that it, Ian? That's it. Lance, what about you? Alright, so we have a new challenge starting January 1st.

Lance: It is the Dialed 100 Challenge. So we've normally done a hundred day streak riding challenge. Oh yeah. Um, but uh, we are starting one this year, but from January 1st until April 10th. Yep. So that's the challenge. Um, Randy, Ian or I remember doing this. Yeah. Jake has, it's a super fun done this last few years.

Lance: But, uh, Randy Frost, um, a listener and a teammate, he has kind of stepped up and [01:26:00] wants to kind of push this. And so, um, 

Jake: he's been bugging about me about this and it's my fault. I'm like, I'm, I'm all in, we're going to do it this year. And then I ended up not being able to, because like time got away from me.

Jake: I'm like, we usually start middle of August and we finished on Thanksgiving. That's what we've done several times. And then, um, I am like, all right, we kind of missed the window. There's not enough time to put this out there to everybody. I want to give a minute to kind of like mentally prepare. I'm like, all right, we'll, we'll change the date and we'll have it finished on January 1st.

Jake: And then I'm like, Oh crap, I have to have surgery. This isn't going to happen. I just kind of let, let it go. And then Randy's always asking me, Hey, we're going to do it. We're going to do it. And then like, he just hit me up out of nowhere. He's like, Hey, do you mind if I take it over from me? Yes, please. That would be fantastic.

Jake: So he wants to start up on January 1st, January 

Lance: 1st, uh, to April 10th, uh, try to ride a hundred days in a row. The rules are, you know, the rules. Um, each ride must be a minimum of one hour, and it doesn't have to be one hour and one ride. You have to ride each day for at least an hour. You could do two commutes or a Zwift ride or an outdoor ride or whatever, but it has to be at [01:27:00] least an hour.

Lance: It needs to be uploaded to Strava, and it has to be hashtagged, hashtag dialed 100. So put that into the description, hashtag dialed 100. It'd also be good to show that this is day eight out of a hundred or something like 

Jake: that. 

Lance: Yeah, we always did that 

Jake: and, um, just when, when, when you get to a hundred, stop, just, just stop.

Jake: You take a break. You did a whole 

Matt: year one time? 

Jake: Oh, he did like 500 days. Oh yeah, that's a lot. 501 days. 

Matt: I must forget, like. Stupid. 

Lance: I did a year. I did 365 days. Yeah. The same time they were doing it. It was too much. Yeah. Don't be stupid. It was too much. So let's do this. Dial 100. Okay. At least an hour a day.

Lance (2): January 

Jake: 1st. I could do that. I could do a bunch of like five minute rides maybe. Don't decide. Don't decide anything right now. Don't decide. You got plenty of time. You can wait. We'll see. Maybe that'll be my triumphant return. But anywho, um, cool. Anything else? [01:28:00] Nope. Cool. Thank you. Thank you for, uh, asking about that, Randy.

Jake: And Lance, thanks for using that as one last thing. My one last thing is the podcast. Um, I want to ask a big favor of people to go out and give us a review. We haven't had a review in a while, so we could give us a review, whatever platform it is that you use. Go give us a review. Cause that does go a long way.

Jake: Um, the other things we want to hear from you, this whole EPO chain mail thing. I fricking love it. And I love hearing from people. So, you know, reach out to us and just, you know, give us some feedback, tell us that you hate us or tell us who we want to hear, or if you have a suggestion or whatever, just.

Jake: Just, you know, it just kind of gets us excited and it's something fun to talk about. And we want to hear from you all over the place. Um, and then another thing is like, if there's a particular guest that you would like to try and, or us to try and get to have on the podcast, let us know. And I will. sick Lance on him.

Jake: All right. Between all of us, I'm sure we can try and get some, uh, some notable people on here. I mean, I'm sure Todd is not going to come on, but, um, what, if you can get them on here, that he's a listener, he's a loyal [01:29:00] listener and you know, it's just everybody that listens to the show. I'm just so thankful.

Jake: Um, it, it still blows my mind. Like I said, we switched over to this new platform and I can see things in greater detail now than the way that we were doing it before. And it just blows my mind. Um, How many different countries have tuned in to listen to us in the last six or five or six weeks, however, it has been since we got started, how many different countries do you think have listened in the last, I think it's since like the middle of November, if I'm not mistaken, eight, eight.

Jake: Okay. Ian 37. 

Matt: Ooh, I'll go. 21. 

Jake: That's the closest. 23 different countries. Wow. Okay. It's pretty bonkers. I mean, if you listen to us from We've got people like in Belgium and Thailand and New Zealand and Denmark and the UAE and South Africa and Dominica and Austria and Spain, Nigeria. It just goes on. If you're in one of those countries and you're listening to the show, let us hear from you.

Jake: We want to know why. Why are you listening to us? And then, you know, just kind of We can use Google Translate. There you go. Send us 

Lance (2): something. 

Jake: Yeah. Um, you know, there's a lot of people from the UK. Just, uh, [01:30:00] just, I think it was just last week, there was 18 people that They're probably very offended because we've got our 

Matt: UK conver our talks, and we've got our knight knighthood stuff.

Matt: If you're from the UK and you are offended, send us a message. 

Jake: F you. Anyway, just stay connected, share the podcast. Thank you for listening. Appreciate it. All right, boys. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. All right, everybody. Merry New Year. Yeah, be safe. Do, do good things. And, um, if you've got any goals as well for this next year, let us know.

Jake: Or if you've got any big takeaways or some favorite things, uh, that you had happen this year, let us know. Stay 

Ian: healthy and don't crash your bikes. All 

Jake: right. Cool. All right. On that note, we are done. We will be back next year and next week with another one of these. And until then, bye for now.