Dialed Cycling Podcast
We cover all things cycling, training, fitness, nutrition, racing, and sports tech through our countless years of cycling. In short, we have seen some stuff, so we draw off our experiences as masters cyclists who have been training and racing for the better part of our adult lives. Our typical podcasts include a weekly recap of our training and racing (The Backpedal), recent cycling news (The Leadout), and a new topic for each week. Thanks for checking out the Dialed Cycling Podcast!
Dialed Cycling Podcast
Dialed Podcast 357 - Tenerife & Training Camp Strategies
Want the ultimate cycling adventure? We break down a mini training camp in Tenerife, tackling Mount Teide and riding the Masca Loop. Here’s everything you need to know—routes, costs, training strategy, and why this island should be on every cyclist’s bucket list.
Fit, Healthy & Happy PodcastWelcome to the Fit, Healthy and Happy Podcast hosted by Josh and Kyle from Colossus...
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Intro: [00:00:00] Shut up, and sit down. I'm totally gonna go vegan this season. My mind's on fire. So I'll ride my bike, I'm riding harder than a hurricane.
You shaved your legs? Does shaving your legs really make a difference? Man, shaving legs makes such a difference. Look at that guy with the hairy legs. That's where I saw the old you for a second
Intro Lady: Hi there.You are listening to The Dialed Podcast with Matt Legrand. Sir Ian Gibson. Lance Heppler. And Jake von Duering.
I'm totally going vegetarian this season. Eating is cheating, man. I think protein is really going to help me out [00:01:00] in this season. Hey man, do you have a gel?
But if you see a dog with a really good pet, yeah, look at the size of that dog's bollocks. That's a dog's bollocks. That's a dog's bollocks. And you'd be licked
Jake: Hi and welcome back to the Dialed Podcast. I'm Jake von Duering and I'm here with Lance friggin Heppler.
Lance: Lance friggin Heppler. Live and in in person.
Jake: What's up, mother [horn]
Lance:What's up, mother…
Matt: G rated, guys.
Jake: Did I just create more work for myself? That's the last thing I need right now.
Matt: Yes, you did. Oh, no.
Jake: Hey, um, you know what? He's back, by popular request. His f’ ing royal highness is back.
Ian: HRH.
Jake: The one and only Sir Ian Gibson.
Ian: Hello. Hello, mate.
Jake: Hello.
Ian: You alright?
Jake: Sweet. And finally, last but not least, everybody's favorite, Matt LeGrand.
Matt: What's up, ladies and gentlemen of the internet? You guys look [00:02:00] fantastic. Let's get rolling. Less cursing, more podcasting. More podcasting. That's a f ing deal. All right, let's do this. Hey, backpedal. Matt, go first. All right.
Matt: Just finished a run, and I've been biking every day.
Lance: Have you been biking every day? Every day. 30 right?
Matt: What? 37 bikes in a row, maybe, something like that. Yeah, buddy. Fantastic. Something like that. Yeah, yeah. Beast. How you feeling? Fine. Fine. I mean, so the first week I was like, uh oh, you know, like, I gotta take it easy.
Matt: But then, you know, I've settled in now, it's no problem.
Jake: Excellent. Which
Matt: is good. Yeah,
Ian: we got, just got back from Tenerife.
Lance: We did a, we did a week in Tenerife.
Ian: Yeah. Um, so I've been back two days now. Um, one cool thing. Yesterday I went for my DEXA scan, um, which I've been meaning to do for a few weeks. Tell us what
Lance: a DEXA scan is.
Ian: It's like a, it's kind of like an MRI type of thing. It's like a full body scan and it, it looks at your body composition. So [00:03:00] you're, percentage fat, your visceral fat, your bone density and all of that. So we've been meaning to do that since I have been on like a 10 week cut diet.
Jake: Is that something covered by health insurance?
Jake: Or is that an out of pocket?
Ian: No, I mean, it probably is if you, if they suspect low bone density or something like that, but no, in my case, it's just something out of interest.
Jake: Do you mind if I ask about how much that would cost?
Ian: It cost me 147. That's not too bad. Yeah. Yeah. And they also do, they do a package with the DEXA scan and the resting metabolic rate, um, for like 200, something like that.
Ian: So it's good if you're interested in losing weight and getting in better shape. It's, it's, it's one of those things that measures, uh, is, is a good metric to have good baseline to have. So got in there and, um. The tech asked me what my goal was and I'm like, I'd like to get down to 12 percent body fat and he's like, yeah, you're already at 11.
Ian: 6. I [00:04:00] was super psyched. Wow. Sweet. Yeah, that was cool. Frickin
Matt: rip. Buy you a cheeseburger. I'm at 33. 6. Nah, you're not. Yeah, buddy.
Ian: You're not.
Matt: I'm not buying you a cheeseburger.
Ian: Anyway. Lance can talk about Tenerife, but we had an awesome time there. Um, it was a long way, right? It was,
Lance: it was a long way. We, we had kind of a magical week, to be honest with you.
Lance: It was, it was fantastic. It was, it's difficult to get there. It takes a bit, you know, it's 25 or 30 hours of travel to get there. Um, but, uh, we all made it there. We showed up and we, I don't know. I don't even know where to start. The writing was fantastic. All three of us, uh, had a great time together. We didn't really have much trouble.
Lance: I had a little trouble on the last day. Um, but, uh, it, it was all fantastic. The roads were great. The weather, we hit a weather window that was just really nice. It was 70 degrees every day. Um, so [00:05:00] Sonny and Seventy, same here.
Jake: Hey, Matt, Matt.
EPO Chainmail: Who is he? He's an asshole, sir. What's his name? That is his name, sir.
EPO Chainmail: Asshole. Major asshole. Major asshole. How many assholes we got on this ship anyhow? Two. I knew it. I'm surrounded by assholes. That's right.
Ian: But we, we did some absolutely iconic rides, right? I mean, Mount Toadie is the, is the highest, Pave road in Europe, I believe. In Europe. Yes. The longest climb or something like that.
Ian: It's, it's 20 miles starting at sea level and you crest the, uh, crater rim. So Mount Titus is like a dormant volcano. You go over into the caldera. At 7, 000 plus feet, so it's like a two and a half hour constant climb. Was
Jake: that on RGT? Was that one of their routes?
Ian: I don't
Jake: I don't know. I think I remember something like that, now that you explain it.
Jake: I remember it was a long climb, and when you got to the top, there was like some I think there was a volcano or something up there? It could be, yeah.
Matt: I also rode through a volcano [00:06:00] this past week. Fire
Ian: and ice.
Matt: What's that? Just similar. So I had a similar week to you guys. A similar week.
Lance: Very similar. Yeah, the Mount Tatey climb, it's, it's like 22 miles and 7400 feet of climbing.
Lance: The day we did it, um, we actually, it was, it was only a 65 mile ride, but it was over 9000 feet of climbing in 65. It's 60
Ian: and we did it on my birthday. So we did, I got my 64 miles. Yes, we did. We had to make sure
Lance: we got over 64 miles. But it's also
Ian: like, it's, it's different. You can stop for coffee on the way up in several places.
Ian: Yes. You, you come across. Three or four hundred other cyclists on the road. It's just, um,
Lance: And there, and there were four or five world tour teams that had people there doing elevation camps at the time. So, I mean, we saw people from, uh, Trek Lidl and from FDJ [00:07:00] and from UAE and who else did we
Ian: see? I don't know.
Ian: I remember that last day we were sat there in Villefort and we were drinking coffee and looking out and It, the cafe is next to like a seven, 8 percent climb or something like that. This pro tour guy, I don't know who it was, came past in the big ring.
Lance: Oh, she's standing and they did ripping,
Ian: ripping. And we were already 4, 000 vertical.
Ian: Into that climb at that point. So, yeah. Yeah. They're on a different level altogether. Wow. Yeah.
Lance: But cool. So yeah, that was fantastic. Um, the Moscow Loop was pretty amazing. Um, Moss that day was also huge. It was like 75 miles and almost 11,000 feet of climbing. So lots of freaking climbing. Lot of climbing.
Ian: I think I, I think I had, in the six days I did 40,000 feet.
Ian: I added it up. 300 miles. Yes. Something like
Lance: that. Um, we rode one more, me and Sarah [00:08:00] rode one more day than Ian, and um, in the seven days we rode 391 miles, which doesn't sound like a lot in seven days, but it was 45, 000 feet of climbing. Yes. Or, or 13, 700 meters. It seems to me like you just climbed the whole time.
Ian: There is no flat stretch of road out there. It's
Matt: because I feel like those are similar. When we just rode around here and just tried to get 10, 000 feet of vert, it was just like climb the whole time. Like you were just like going and finding climbs. And I don't remember what exact numbers were, but we were around 60 something miles for 10, 000 feet.
Matt: Like, so it's like we got this
Jake: trim down to. 55, but yeah, 55 or 56 miles to get 10, 000 feet of elevation gain is what we had to do here in our little town. Which
Matt: was, and it took a little good bit of time too, cause you're just climbing.
Ian: There is, we were looking for easy rest days and there's no such thing really.
Ian: You have to climb to go anywhere on Tenerife. So it's.
Jake: No traffic circles to ride around? [00:09:00] I guess you
Ian: could, well, we came around that one traffic circle after 73 of our 75 miles and. We all thought it was a good idea to go full out sprint on this. We
Lance: did full gas sprint after 11, 000 feet of climbing
Ian: rail, the traffic circle, then broke into a sprint as you do.
Ian: Right. Anyway,
Lance: how does the rat hold up? He did great. Are you kidding me? All of us, all of us did great. It, it was pretty interesting. We, we showed up and Ian was having back trouble. He was having difficulty walking and sitting. Down on the couch and getting up from the couch
Matt: sitting on the couch. You're walking only cycling We're
Lance: like, oh no, this is gonna be trouble We very first team we we get on our bikes and we're like, okay, let's just we did our you know easy first day shakeout ride, which was 45 miles and 6, 000 feet of climbing or something and We get on the bike and Ian Drops us [00:10:00] immediately.
Lance: Right on the first climb, I'm like,
Knobs: What
Lance: is happening? I felt good. He just, he, he had had a decent rest week, and his legs were on fire. I was, we were chasing Ian most of the week, which was really quite inspiring to see. Me and Chris couldn't quite hang with Ian on these long, sustained climbs, which was fantastic.
Ian: Until the last couple of days though, Lance found his legs.
Lance: Yeah, I don't know what happened. Yeah, day six and, day five and six, man, I just felt fantastic.
Jake: Something that's pretty cool that I recommend people go check out is the little vlogs that you did while you were there on your little YouTube channel.
Jake: It's not little, it's not little anymore. It's still little. It's growing. He posted a vlog pretty much every day there, right? I did. I posted one every day. a lot of the terrain. You can see, you know, Chris and Ian and, um, Alex was there as well. So
Lance: Alex Agerby, yes. Another teammate was there. for a day or two.
Lance: For like four or five of the rides. Okay, that's great.
Jake: So [00:11:00] it was, it was fun and interesting. And then you can see, or not see, but watch Lance talk about puking on the last day.
Lance: I did kind of fall apart in the last day and I'm really not sure what happened there, but. But, uh, yeah, the weekend, the week was amazing.
Lance: It was probably one of my biggest ever TSS weeks, training stress score weeks. Um, I did over 1, 600 in a week, which it was like 1, 625 I think was my total TSS for the week, which is stupid hard. Yeah. And it may be why I was puking all over
Matt: the place.
Lance: I'm,
Matt: I'm, I'm guessing more likely you got, there's been a lot of stomach viruses going around recently, so.
Matt: Yes, um, I'm here in Tenerife.
Lance: They're big. Yeah, I'm actually pretty sure I picked something up Yeah, cuz I was sick for a couple days afterwards and now I I feel fantastic I feel great and I've actually taken like three complete rest days. I haven't done that in a while.
Ian: Yeah,
Lance: I kind of had to so for my [00:12:00] YouTube fans out there it hasn't been a video out for a couple days because I've been resting and Dealing with, I think
Ian: I really learned that the importance of, I knew the importance of resting, but I came into Tenerife with seven full days off the bike.
Outro: Yeah.
Ian: And I felt great.
Outro: Yeah.
Ian: I mean, it really, you've got to put your rest days in. Yeah. For the form to come out. Yeah.
Jake: Just don't take off 11 months or two months.
Lance: Yeah. Ian, what do you think was your highlight of the week?
Ian: That Masca ride, I believe, um, the highlight for me was the three of us, me, you and Chris climbing up out of the, uh, the northern most town.
Ian: And we had that long, long climb up to the ridge of Masca.
Lance: There's like a 12 mile climb. That was a ridge. Yeah. And
Ian: we were all riding at tempo. We were all riding. Right on each other's, we were right together, not saying a word. It just had that moment [00:13:00] of zen quality to it. And the weather was awesome. The scenery was incredible.
Ian: Um, you just had that camaraderie. You didn't even need to talk. You couldn't really speak cause you were breathing too hard, but it was great. And then, um. Yeah, that whole day was just epic. I think that loop through massacre is probably the best ride I've ever done. It's awesome. Just one
Jake: question for you.
Jake: You talked about this on one of your vlogs. Um, I'm curious if you wouldn't mind sharing with the people roughly what it costs to go do a cycling. Trip or adventure like that with a couple of your buddies,
Lance: um, we we figured out that the rough cost for the whole week for us to Travel there to stay in the place.
Lance: It cost us about three grand each
Jake: that includes your food includes the bike that you rented food Transportation did you guys fare rent a vehicle while you're there? It did not not necessary. Just road, right?
Lance: Yep.
Jake: Gotcha.
Lance: Yeah, so I used [00:14:00] Credit card miles to get my ticket so mine was about 1, 000 less than that, but the air the the plane fare was about 1, 500 bucks yeah Ian has benefits so he didn't have to do that his was much cheaper than sure but playing for is about 1, 500 bucks The apartment we rented was 20
Ian: Yeah.
Lance: 2, 800 euros. Yeah. Or is it a dollar? Yeah. It was 2, 800 euros, 2, 800 dollars that included breakfast and dinner. That's great. So it included our meals.
Jake: And I had something else completely in mind, a different mind, like with respect to what I was thinking it was going to be. And then I saw your video of you walking around the, we'll call it like a diner hall or a cafeteria or something like that.
Jake: It looked like it was really good food. The food was great. Yeah.
Lance: Yeah.
Ian: So if you compare that to like, we could have gone to Maui or somewhere like that, and it would have been quicker to get there. But I think overall it would not have been cheaper. Yeah. I mean, by the time you factor in renting a car, paying extra for groceries.[00:15:00]
Ian: All of that stuff. I mean, once you get there, it's super cheap. And not only that, so we stayed in this South Tenerife has got this expanded, super touristy area that's frankly ugly and
Lance: it's a lot,
Ian: it's just tourist city. But once you get out of there and get up into the small little towns, everything is so cheap.
Ian: I remember the last day, that last day we stopped and we had, I ordered three Cokes. I had a double espresso. A few donuts, six euros, 60 for the whole right. You ate all that in one sitting? I could have. We did it. We did a sandwiches less than two bucks.
Lance: Yeah. We did a stop where with four of us where we got four sandwiches, two Cokes, a hot chocolate and two coffees.
Lance: And it was 16 euros, 16 bucks. Wow. Maybe 17 bucks for all four of us. The dollar's
Matt: strong right now too. Yeah. Yeah. Doesn't hurt. So,
Jake: going [00:16:00] back to the cost of it, I'm sure that you guys could have spent a heck of a lot more money if you really wanted to go like, you know, all out. Is there, and you, we'll just say that you guys were like a good solid mid tier maybe?
Lance: Yes. Is there a way to do it on the cheap? Yeah, you could do it even cheaper. You could stay at a cheaper place or a hotel, um, or you could stay out of town and just Eat your food at a local, eat food yourself for local restaurants. If
Jake: it was say 3000 bucks with all the airfare stuff, how cheap do you think you could do it?
Ian: Good question. I don't know. The major point is the airfare. If you can get a good deal. Yeah. So keep an eye on that. And
Jake: maybe like to take a page out of Lance's book, if maybe if you want to do this and you can't do it right now, maybe it's a budgetary thing. Consider getting an airline card or a credit card that has airline miles that you can accrue points for.
Jake: And then, you know, look at deals and, you know, just buy your stuff in advance and See if you can do it on the cheap. If you really want to go do a nice little 10 reef trip.
Ian: There's definitely options as far as the airfare goes like this, [00:17:00] but all the airline, they don't fly every day. So if you can be flexible with your dates and arrange that around the airline schedule, uh, you can get there.
Ian: Quicker and possibly cheaper. I know, uh, United flies directly from Tenerife from the East coast of the States. Okay. Uh, you can also fly through Reykjavik with Iceland air. Um,
Jake: Does it make sense? I know that it's a lot to lug around, but maybe if you wanted to save a few bucks, if you want to take your own bike, is that a safe, cause you're gonna have to pay to fly it, but when you get there, what was the cost of rent a bike?
Jake: And is it a lot more than, you know, Paying for the, the, the travel fees.
Lance: The, the bike cost me 320 bucks for the
Jake: week. And I'm probably going to guess that it's safe to say that 75 bucks ish. If you wanted to take your bike with you on most airlines ish. Yeah, it's 150 bucks round trip. So maybe it's not worth it.
Jake: I don't think it's
Ian: worth it. And that was a good bike too. That was A [00:18:00] BMC. It was a BM
Lance: CT machines SLR oh one. It was, that was an oh one too. Yes. Oh, not oh one two. But as well components it had, it had, um, Tegra, it had Shimano Altegra on it. That sounds electronic shim Altegra electronic,
Intro: yeah.
Lance: Wow. It was all electronic, so Yeah, the bikes were, the bikes were great.
Jake: Cool. Yeah, and you just know your fit numbers, you know that bike all too well. So it's just pretty quick, simple setup for you.
Lance: The, the rental place you rent the bikes from, they, they. Demand you to tell them your fit numbers. So the bike is ready and fit and for you when you show up to pick it up. And they have a huge rental fleet because you can get several different, there was like 15 or 18 different levels of bike you could rent.
Lance: So you could get something cheaper if you want it. But I got the same bike that I ride here. So why not?
EPO Chainmail: Cool.
Jake: So, yeah. So do you think somebody could do it for sub 2000 bucks? Um, it would be tight. So we'll just say that if you play your cards right, you can maybe do it around 2, 000 on a [00:19:00] tight, tight budget.
Jake: If you played your cards right, get that credit card, get some miles, maybe you can get it cheaper than that. That's, that's a pretty solid week for that. It is. And then if you went with more people too, is there a possibility to rent something and disperse the cost of the place that you're staying? It's possible.
Ian: Yeah. We, we, there was three of us and it was a four person apartment, so we could have gone cheaper, I think.
Lance: Yeah, we, we thought it was four separate beds. It was not, it was two beds. But they were twin beds, like, put together, like, in one king bed. No, they kept them together. No, we just, we just, we just, forget it.
Lance: Who was Big Spoon? No, just me. I slept in a bed with Chris. We actually only did it for a couple nights because he was having trouble sleeping. I'm probably a terrible sleep partner. So he moved to the couch. Were you snoring? I don't snore, but, um, it was too hot in the room for him. And it is so he, we slept with the doors to our patio wide open and then he slept in front of that and he slept better.
Lance: All right. So cool. It's pretty funny. So yeah, it could be [00:20:00] cheaper. Like a week in Hawaii, if we had gone to Maui or the big Island, that'd be five grand. Yeah. You know, just because. Housing costs so much more food costs so much more in Hawaii If you did this in Arizona and like got an Airbnb or a hotel Yeah, um, you could do pretty cheap in here.
Lance: You could do that pretty cheap, but it's still going to be 2, 500 bucks just because of hotel costs if you're doing that by yourself
Jake: our team training camps though, we're not nearly that much I think it usually ends up being about a thousand ish dollars between airfare and That's
Lance: because we're splitting
Matt: costs like 18 ways for the house.
Matt: But in the food, we always do like those team dinners and those are cheap if you think about it.
Ian: You really, you can't put a price on, um, the whole experience. You have this completely different But that's what we're doing, putting a price
Matt: on it. I guess we
Ian: are, but what I'm trying to say is you have a complete change of culture.
Ian: Um, you're in your land, you're not, you're not in [00:21:00] Arizona, you're not in Hawaii, you know, you things are different and it's a great experience. It really is.
Jake: We've talked about this a bunch of times and I'm sure it's going to be more of the same, but how did motorists, um, treat cyclists on the roads there?
Jake: It's you guys have any issues?
Lance: It's, uh, it's phenomenally easy. No, there was so much respect from the, from the cars, cars. They wouldn't, if they caught you on a climb, they would. Patiently wait and drive slowly behind you until it was clear, even if we were waving them around like I can see around the corner They would mostly wait.
Lance: We had zero car issues all week. Lots of traffic on some of these roads But when we, when you get out of town on these little windy perfect pavement roads, and there's so much perfect pavement on this island I don't know if it's the I don't know if it's the weather or, but the pavement is ridiculously smooth.
Lance: It was so good, [00:22:00] but we never had a car issue anywhere. The
Ian: Talking of pavement, my, my tires on my bike came from the bike shop at like a hundred PSI or so. And I'm like, I should let some air out of these, but let me try it. And the pavement was so smooth that I'm like, the sound, this just feels good. It was smooth.
Jake: All tubed I'm guessing? Yes,
Lance: they were two. Any flats for you guys? Um, day one, Alex had a flat riding to our hotel. We swapped it and never had another flat again.
Jake: Never,
Lance: never, never lube the chain. Never put more air in the tires. All week. It was just like steady, I don't know, everything just worked out well, so.
Lance: Cool. Yeah. So it was. Good, good back pedal. It was good. It was a great trip. And then you got, and then you got sick. And then I got sick. Yeah, I don't know what happened. Um, yeah, the last, last day, I ended up, we ended up going out for one last little spin. And two miles in, I threw up six times on the side of the road.
Lance: Yeah. [00:23:00] And felt better right after that, so still did the 40 mile, 5, 000 foot ride. Uh, with Chris, but, and that was the day we were traveling, and so, um, I, the flights ended up being okay, but when I got home, I, I didn't get off the toilet for like seven hours. Jesus. So, so something hit me, I got some kind of bug or virus or something.
Lance: I don't think it was the flu, because I didn't really have body aches.
Ian: Your immune system was probably severely I'm sure my In the toilet by that time as well. We
Lance: did a lot that week. We did a lot that week. So, I was probably compromised and didn't feel all that hot. But, uh, I feel great now. But I've taken like three days completely off the bike, other than some Time trial testing, which I didn't want to talk about.
Lance: I know you see my comment.
Ian: Yeah, I was going to say the same thing. Oh,
Matt: triathlon. Triathlon season right around the corner. Yeah, I'm very excited for [00:24:00] your triathlon potential this summer. Oh
Lance: my gosh. I'm going to Arizona, um, today. I'm actually trying to leave today, but I'm having some fan trouble, and that, I'm getting that sorted out.
Lance: I noticed that, I didn't even see your car. I, I, cause I rode my bike from, from the shop here. Okay.
Intro: Yeah,
Lance: anyway, um. Uh, yeah, we're going to Arizona and we're doing, I'm doing the Valley of the Sun road stage race. Me and Ian are probably going to both do that. And so it's a, it's a three stage race. There's a time trial, a crit, and a road race.
Lance: Be careful. And so the time trial, I'm trying, I was trying to get a time trial bike to work for me. And so I'm borrowing, um, a time trial bike from a teammate who is much smaller than me. And so I'm trying to get fit on his, so I think I got it so that it'll work and I can make it work. And so I took it out on the bike, but I didn't kit up so that I overdid it.
Lance: I wore my jeans on it. [00:25:00]
Intro: Yeah,
Lance: as you do. I'm doing time trial testing and my jeans is pretty funny. I
Ian: think you should wear jeans on the day. I should wear jeans just to
Lance: screw with people. So, uh, yeah, so, uh, yeah, that's what's happening. Nice. Jake,
Jake: backpedal. 25 minutes later. Gosh. We could talk for an hour just about each ride and what happened and how fantastic
Lance: it was and so.
Lance: But, uh, go watch the videos that you'll learn more from those and you'll get to see what they look like.
Jake: I've just been riding on Zwift and, um, but, but good things are happening. Last week I was finally able to get back to my normal number of days. So I rode, uh, Tuesday through Sunday. So I got my six days in.
Jake: And I was actually able to start incorporating a little bit of interval training, a little bit of structure training to it. And I had, I actually had to take like an active recovery ride in there as well. It did some really solid zone twos. And like I said, started adding a little bit of intensity in there, which was pretty nice.
Jake: And then [00:26:00] I'm mid throws of week six. Um, and then last week I finished with about seven hours this week. I should finish with about eight hours and I'm incorporating more intensity, but longer. Just to try and build up my fitness and it's all kind of coming around. So, but sure. So I just need to get back up to that 10 hours and actually ride my bike outside.
Jake: I was going to try and do it this past, like two weeks, but we've just been so crazy busy and I was covering everything at the lab and that was an ungodly amount of hours. Then this week we had snow, so it's just been lots of train rides now, but, um, yeah, it's coming around. Excited. Fantastic. Soon enough.
Jake: We'll be there. Glad
Lance: you're feeling better and rolling it.
Jake: Yeah. It's, um, week seven now. So of being back on the bike. Kind of cool. All right, let's move on.
EPO Chainmail: Champ Alley and sports.
Matt: Let's drag champ out, drag him out. I don't know where he is. And then take your mother,
EPO Chainmail: Dorothy man tooth out for a nice seafood dinner.
Jake: Dorothy, what's up?
Lance: Champ is here. Hey, I am back. I'm here for [00:27:00] your worst cycling sports news. Um, big cyclocross world championships in Levine, France. So. Uh, there were some fun races to watch.
Lance: Let me, let
Matt: me ask you if the, my predictions that MVP was going to have some losses this season or? Uh, it did not
Lance: work.
Matt: No.
Lance: Matthew Van Der Poel, uh, he showed. He rode away
Ian: on the first lap, didn't
Lance: he? He was on the front row because he had enough points and, um, and he was the defending champion so. Um, yeah, he went to the front in like 30 seconds, within the first 30 seconds he went to the front, and he just rode away from everybody.
Lance: Did it look
Matt: like there were people that were trying to, because I saw the results, I just didn't see the race, did it look like people were like, going after him, like, we're gonna, we're gonna, or were they like, this, we're all racing for second here? No, they,
Lance: he, he gapped almost immediately. As soon as he went off the front, he [00:28:00] gapped.
Lance: There were two sections that Van Der Poel was riding, literally, Three seconds faster than everybody else. He was able to stay on his bike just a hair longer, and so, he got away. And, and, he had over a minute gap, um, coming into it, but he actually flatted. He front flatted and rode his front flat tire to the pit and still didn't lose much time by, yeah, by swapping bikes.
Lance: So yeah, he rode away from everybody. It, it was still fairly exciting racing. Um, just to see how much he just commanded that course was pretty amazing. The conditions were very challenging. They started off frozen where some stuff wasn't rideable and then low angle sun hit it. It warmed up and it, there.
Lance: There were some greasy sections that became completely unridable that were frozen beforehand. So it made it kind of interesting. Um, wow Van Aert did [00:29:00] show up. Yeah, um, and He was like on the fourth row fifth fifth row. So we he started pretty deep and dude like In the first two minutes of the race. He was in like 46th place he did not was not able to get around people very much, but
Jake: That was the race to watch that was fun watching him
Lance: work up through the field.
Lance: He just worked his way through the field. I think it was by lap three. He got to the front of the chase group and ended up gapping him. So wow, fantastically took second place at some point he crashed and the cameras didn't catch it and ripped the whole side of his shorts open. So his butt cheek was almost hanging out and, um, and he lost.
Lance: His Garmin watch also in the midst of it and a couple of kids found it and brought it back to him So that was kind of cool. Talking about watches Matthew Vanderpool wore, he just signed a contract with Richard [00:30:00] Mille. I don't know if I'm saying that right because I'm not a watch guy But he wore a 300, 000 watch during the race, during the cyclocross world championships.
Jake: Hey Matt, when are you going to review that?
Matt: They sent me a couple of them. I just gotta find time.
Lance: That's freaking more than the Lamborghinis he's driving to the race. I don't
Matt: understand this, like, people that are just like, I'm showing off all this wealth. I mean, I know that they're sponsoring him. It's just like It's not, they've the mouth.
Matt: They got press for it. Yeah. They got press. However,
Jake: how, well, it's, it's a different scenario over there, I guess. But if you think about like, who is the, the, the audience that watches cyclocross, is that more of a blue collar working class kind of crowd? Or is it like more of everybody? Cause here I would say it's more like.
Jake: You're blue cross. You're like nobody's buying a Richard
Matt: Mele watch. Exactly. Well, here's the thing. Like you said, they got, they got the word out about [00:31:00] it. Like it's not a brand that you and I were like super familiar with. Now we are. Yes, that's true. Huge. And for them, it's not, it's not a 300, 000 watch for them.
Matt: It probably costs them whatever, a couple thousand dollars to make this watch. It's worth a lot because it's, I'm sure it's like crystal, you know, front glass display and
Lance: like, I don't know what's so special about it that, that it's 300 grand, but regardless, he made the defining picture of the race was Vanderpool holding up his hands with number seven on it because he, he wore, because this was his seventh world championships.
Lance: Tying some guy from the 70s, some Dutch guy from the 70s, who nobody thought they would tie, so he's had the most World Cup, or World Championships in cyclocross in history, or he's tied with it. And he held up his hands, he held him up, his hands crossed, with the number 7 up like this. 5 and 2, yep. 5 and 2.
Lance: Did not cover the watch. And you could see the [00:32:00] watch, and his whoop strap. Ha ha ha. So both of those companies You know that that
Matt: was It was planned. Pre determined, pre planned,
Jake: yeah. Well played. Well played. So it was, it was
Lance: pretty
Jake: amazing. Curious to dig into the demographics of, uh, cyclocross there and, uh, see how many watches they sold.
Matt: I think you can't sell tons of those things, right? I think the
Lance: same company did something with Mark Cavendish and I think he wore one of their watches during a few tour de France stages. So, so they've done this before. The owner's a fan, right? And then they're just, yeah. Okay, so super exciting. Third place was taken by Thibaut Nice, um, which is great.
Lance: Sven Nice's son, I can't, I can't mention his name without ever saying that and I'm not sure why because he is becoming, his dad was a legend, his dad was a legend, that's why, so he's coming around. The women's race was very exciting. So, the women's race, uh, Femme Van Ampel was the, uh, defending champion.
Lance: Lucinda Brown has been second, like, [00:33:00] Brand, pardon me. Lucinda Brand has been second, like, three times, and she's won the world championships before on a Femme Van Ampel off year. And Puck, uh, Peters, Petersay, she has also, uh, been third place, like, a couple of times, so. The women's race came down to a duel of Fem Van Ampel and Lucinda Brand on the last lap.
Lance: They were trading leads. Um, Fem Van Ampel was just barely in front going around one corner and kind of closed the door on her. And it really upset Lucinda Brand. Granted, they're both Dutch. So, um, they're all, all these They're all on the same team, but they're, they're, they're on the same trade team, but they're like fierce competitors.
Lance: Um, and she, she kind of put up her hand, Lucinda Brand, like she was upset. And then right before the finish stretch, she was right on Fen Van Empel's [00:34:00] wheel. And there was one little like kick up that, that was not quite writable for the women. And they both had to put a foot down, but Lucinda Brand couldn't get her foot back in as quick.
Lance: And that was the race right there, right before the finishing stretch. It looked like it was going to be a sprint for the win, but uh, Van Impel, she ended up winning. And Lucinda Brand was Crushed, visibly shaken, didn't congratulate her, went right past her, had to kind of collect her thoughts. A camera got to her.
Lance: They're trying to do an interview. She, she cried through the whole thing before. It was, it was really hard on Lucinda Brand. It was a little. Crushing to see and watch. How about Americans? Um, Americans Guys and girls. Um, the, the best finisher was, um, Katie Klaus in the women's elite. That's not true. There [00:35:00] were two juniors in the top ten.
Lance: Two junior women in the top ten, which I don't know their names. But, uh, Katie Klaus in the elite women took 13th. Okay. So, that, that was, uh, very good. Kind of exciting. Um, I think that's it. That's it. That's good reporting. Um, the, perfect. One of the exciting races for the Americans, they, they do a mixed relay, which is not real.
Matt: Yeah,
Lance: yeah, yeah. And so, um, they do this mixed relay. And, uh, the Americans, their team just got off to a blazing, fantastic start. I believe it's six, is it six writers or at four? I should know all this, but I don't, cause I didn't watch the whole race, but the Americans were winning the race going into the final lap and, um, they were leading the race.
Lance: They're not even like a top 20 country in cyclocross, the Americans. And so leading this race, they were just. Overjoyed on the [00:36:00] last lap. Um, they ended up fourth. So they got past, they only were out of the wind by like eight seconds, but. Pretty, pretty amazing, they, just what they did there, so. That was fantastic, so.
Lance: The Dutch, the Dutch didn't do the team relay thing. Yes. It's like, it's like, I don't think Belgium does either. It's just like, no, we're not doing that. But. It's kind of funny, but yeah, so lots of good racing. That was very exciting. There were some road races that happened, but I didn't watch any of them.
Lance: So I don't know what happened. Cause I've been sick. So, um, I don't know what else is.
Ian: Well, we did watch pick up when they toured
Lance: the Lulu.
Ian: Yeah. Yeah. That was pretty cool.
Lance: Pitcock has started pretty hot with this new team. Dude.
Jake: He's got a whole new demeanor about himself. Yes. His disposition has completely changed and he's like.
Jake: Super thankful to be on this team. He's been super like complimentary of all of his teammates and [00:37:00] he's wanting to kind of prove something. And it seems like he's turned over a leaf and it's been fun to watch him race. He's been going, quote unquote, nuclear a couple times, which is fun to watch.
Lance: Yeah, he won two stages, and the way he won them was just fantastic.
Lance: Yeah, good on him. It was pretty unbelievable, so good on him.
Jake: Yeah, we're not going to see him at any Grand Tours, I don't believe, or at least not as of yet, because that, was it Q35? Is that the team?
Lance: It's Q35, but they might get an invite to one of the Grand Tours, based on Pitcock. Yeah, so,
Matt: interesting. So, they'll get one of those wild card picks, I bet.
Matt: Yeah. They're random. They're wild card. But, don't worry, it's going to happen. Don't happen, it's going to happen to go his way. We'll see. So, it was good. Champ out. Champ out. Thanks, Champ!
EPO Chainmail: I'm dealing with nothing but my own blood, sweat, and tears, and extra blood. People don't. Yeah. You know, this is a sport with literally hundreds of dollars on the line and dozens of fans that stakes are medium.
EPO Chainmail: Come on. How do you beat a man on [00:38:00] drugs if you're not on drugs? Wait, did you just admit to being on drugs? The EPO chain mail. Send us a text with your questions. Forward this podcast to 15 people. And you'll lose 10 pounds overnight without even trying.
Jake: That's what Ian's been doing. That is why he's so lean and lost so much weight.
Jake: He's been forwarding all the emails. He's been
Lance: forwarding the emails.
Jake: He lost that 15 pounds. Good job, Ian. Alright, you guys, um, we have more really good questions this week and that's just, we're going to tie this into our topic because we've got plenty to talk about here. So first and foremost, thank you to everybody who has been submitting questions.
Jake: There's been A pretty big selection of people. We've had some great ones and this week's no different. So we will kick it off with the first one that comes to us from a listener in Portland, Oregon. You guys know where that place is. And the question is, it's actually a really good question. The UCI world tour races are almost entirely in Europe.
Jake: Truth, right? Does the UCI need to expand geographically to spark interest in road racing more [00:39:00] globally?
Ian: I think. First of all, there's no real room in the calendar as it stands to, to add any more events in, I don't believe. It'd be very difficult. It'd be very difficult. Um, cycling's a sport of traditions and most of these races have got a lot of historical significance.
Ian: It's very hard to, So to say, oh, we're not gonna, we're not gonna run Milan Sun Remo this year. So how
Jake: do you test that out? How do you see if that's something that can work? I mean, we did have like what? The tour of Tour. Tour. The tour of California is definitely the thing. California, Utah and Colorado were three big tours.
Jake: The Amgen tour of California was probably the biggest of the three biggest one. It was, it was
Matt: the one that I watched. Yeah. And I think that that's how you test it out. Yep. And it failed. I mean, it was, it was great. I thought the races were great. I thought the climbs were amazing. I thought you had good competition.
Matt: It had all the pieces of the puzzle.
Intro: Yeah.
Matt: You even had good like viewership and you had good fans out there cheering it all. It had all the pieces of the puzzle and I don't know who pulled the plug. I'm sure someone will chime in with the [00:40:00] comments, but this is like
Jake: financially driven. They just, it wasn't like sustainable.
Jake: Now I, I'm not a hundred percent sure on this. Maybe somebody can look it up while I ask, but was that. A sanctioned UCI race, or was that just another big race that people like, Oh, let's go to California and do some bike racing? It was UCI. No,
Lance: it's UCI.
Jake: Was it? Yeah. That's an
Ian: important point. The UCI is the sanctioning body.
Ian: Sure. They rely on the individual promoters, right, too. Correct. To say, Hey, we've got a race. Can you, can we put this in the calendar, man?
Jake: Yeah, I can remember. That's kind of where Peter Sagan got kind of made a name for himself. He cut his teeth on that when he was pretty young and really came of age and, you know, got signed on to, uh, you know, multiple big teams with big contracts.
Jake: I feel like he won that, like.
Matt: Three or four years in a row or something, he did something crazy. Yeah, he did win it.
Jake: There've been a lot of pros that have done that race too, that did really well. And it was fun to watch it. It's a bummer that it's not here anymore, but to Ian's point, is it just not something that, or was it your point rather?
Jake: Is it just not something that, you know, is financially sustainable?
Lance: Hey, I [00:41:00] don't know. It depends on the, on, on the promoter and what they do. Looking at the UCI calendar, there's actually four UCI races in the U. S. in 2025.
Jake: Really? Which ones?
Lance: So, Tour of the Gila in April. Where's that? Um, it's in Arizona. I should know this.
Lance: Here we go. Your problem, problem number one. We don't know what the heck's going on. Come on, Mr.
Jake: Snowbird. You know Arizona like the back of your hand.
Lance: Uh, the Joe Martin stage race in, uh, May, uh, grand premio, New York city and the Maryland cycling classic. So there's, there's four UCI races, road races that are happening in the
Jake: US.
Jake: Yeah, you'll get some Conti pros here from the States that'll show up to those, but that time of year, you're not going to get any big teams coming over to do that. Right. I mean, unless they've got like a development team that they want to send over here to maybe Get a little bit of bike racing in.
Ian: It's basically up to you as a, or it's up to the promoters.
Ian: The UCI can say, yeah, we'll, we'll come along and, and, uh, administer and sanction your race, but if you think you can [00:42:00] make it work, if you think that there's no conflict on the calendar and it's kind of like putting a race on locally here, like, yeah, I'll put the race on, I'll, I'll take all the risks. But if it's in conflict with.
Ian: some well established race that's already happening. It's, it's, it's not going to be a financial success.
Jake: You know, it could be really difficult to make that. Make a stage race work here. What if we were to come up with just like a one day classic style race and come up with something that's very fun and challenging and beautiful, and, you know, maybe incorporate some sort of, you know, fanfare out there that people can come and be a part of, and then watch the race.
Jake: And then I don't know something along those lines. Is that something that you think that we could do? Would that be more sustainable than like a week long stage race or even like a three day race?
Ian: Um, yeah, yes. Um, however, right. You, you still got to get the whole caravan or the whole production over here.
Jake: Yeah.
Ian: Uh, from Europe, mostly central Europe. There's a nine hour [00:43:00] time difference. So. How many top pros would want to come over for a one day event, unless it was something like a, uh, world championship type of thing. Money's
Jake: going to talk. So you've got to have some big time sponsors to make it financially, you know.
Jake: But it has,
Ian: um, so the racing is basically, basically Euro centric. It's mostly in Europe, but we've just finished up with the, uh, tour down under based in Australia and the UCI, um, Cycling world championships are going to be held for the first time in Rwanda in Africa this year. So
Jake: that's, that was going to be my next point is having the world championships be here because I'd be great.
Jake: Cause why not? I mean, we did have the folks that were trying to bring it to Portland on the podcast. Three or four years ago. I can't remember. It's been a minute now, but I don't think that really ever got traction. I don't think it ever really went anywhere, but that would be pretty stinking cool to see something happen here in the Pacific Northwest at the right time of year, [00:44:00] because it's beautiful and there's some really fun stuff and you can make it pretty challenging and it would be super neat to see something, you know, finishing like a, a downtown Portland area.
Jake: If they could pull that off. I don't know if the municipalities would let that happen, but. That'd be cool. Yeah. It would
Ian: take some organized advocacy, you know, some, somebody pushing for it, somebody which talking to the local government and, and, um,
Jake: which we had, we had that. Yeah. It's just, you need to have reciprocity there.
Jake: There has to be an interest from the government. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Where would be the best place in the United States if we were to have a one day stage race? Not a one day classic, if you will, is there anything that you can think of? What
Matt: about somewhere in Southern California?
Ian: Yeah. That's what I was going to say.
Ian: Yeah.
Matt: There's some places down there for sure. San Francisco
Lance: too. Not just Southern California. San Francisco area. If you think about
Matt: having
Lance: like the, yeah, I mean, it was just, that would be amazing. Or you mean like Hills of Malibu type stuff, Southern California? Uh,
Matt: yeah.
Lance: I
Matt: was
Lance: thinking
Matt: there's some climbs and stuff.
Matt: It's all burned down right now. [00:45:00] Yeah. Good
Jake: point. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of cool stuff down there. We've done plenty of training camps and we, we know the gist of that. But. Yeah. I guess to answer the question, that would be. Cool to see it expand globally. And ideally we would love to see it here. Cause that's just going to inspire hopefully more people, but I don't see it happening unless there's a big, uh, financial, you know, infusion of money that that's like, all right, let's just make this happen, some sort of cycling initiative.
Jake: Um, the other thing is I think that we would need to develop more proteins that are here in the United States that could kind of be like the anchoring point for that. I mean, we've got EF right now, that's pretty much our only world tour team. Correct. We would probably need another two. Maybe even three that can be like, you know.
Jake: They can be firmly entrenched in the cycling communities here, have development programs attached to them and have a growing community of kids and youth that we can start to develop. And until we get that, I don't think that there's going to be a lot of buy in from the different municipalities. So
Ian: a lot of it is also the, [00:46:00] to put on a big event like that, a big race, you need the sponsors and sponsors will come if they think their product is going to get good exposure.
Ian: Right now, the amount of people that turn on the TV and can, and can watch. Bicycle racing, um, is limited. Um, they've just had this thing happen in the UK where people could access Eurosport for like 11 pounds or, you know, like 12, 13 a month. It's now gone up to 30 or 40 a month. And what people are saying is.
Ian: That's going to stop people renewing their subscription. There's going to be less people tuning in, tuning in. That's an old phrase, but, um,
Jake: streaming in, streaming in,
Ian: viewing these races. And so there's the people that are providing the financial backing. They're not going to be interested in putting their banners along the race course because there's less people there.
Ian: So they're saying that that is [00:47:00] going to kill off, uh, professional. Um, standard cycling in the UK, that's, that's the prediction. And I think it's already here in the U S there's not, you know, the, the, the people that would sponsor those races need to need to come forward. And there's no incentive for them to do that at the moment.
Lance: Yeah. Interestingly enough, I, I was trying to find the locations of those U S races where I didn't know where they were. Um, the Joe Martin stage race, that one's in Fayetteville, Arkansas. But if you recall, it didn't happen last year, it got canceled. And it, I don't know if it had to do with the promoters or with interest or what was happening, but the whole stage race, one of the few UCI stage races that were supposed to happen in 2024 got just canceled and they pushed it to 2025.
Matt: So Arkansas might be one of the arguably like. Best recommendations for locations. We were talking about California, maybe like Arizona, places like that, but Arkansas, because there's financial, there's [00:48:00] potentially financial sponsorship opportunities of or financial interest, at least in maybe the sport.
Matt: So that, that would be interesting. Sure.
Ian: I think we had, uh, we had the UCI cyclocross world championships here a couple of years ago. And maybe the, in the future I see the UCI, more UCI sanctioned gravel racing here, cause that's a big thing. This is the hotbed, yep. Yeah, as far as the road scene, who knows.
Matt: Yeah, I think that's probably the avenue, right, where you're like, road is kind of what it is. Cyclocross is a little bit, has a little bit more range. Whereas gravel, it's like that's our US potential to really push and be like, this is, this is the what we do here in the US and we do it well and this is where the big races are and we have serious contenders.
Matt: Yeah. If we lean
Jake: into that, that would be a good gateway drug to get more people involved or interested in other sports as well, so.
Matt: Hmm. Good point.
Jake: I don't know. That's, uh, I think on the question on the, the question on the surface is a good question. Like, Oh yeah, for sure. They need to come here, [00:49:00] but there's so many moving parts and other like dynamics deep to that, that make it kind of prohibitive.
Jake: But, um, I don't know if somebody knows somebody with a lot of money, I heard that maybe if a couple of years ago you submitted something to the government, they might have. We need to check for a couple billion dollars, but I don't know that I digress. Um, yeah. All right.
Lance: The tour of the Gila is in Silver City, New Mexico.
Lance: Yeah. So one, not Arizona, one state over in New Mexico.
Jake: So close. Yeah. Gotcha. All right. The next question comes to us from Los Angeles, California gives her heard of that place. City of the angels in there. Yeah, sorry. Sorry, listener. But if I never go back again, that will be too soon. Not a fan. Um, any who, uh, they were listening to the last podcast, number three 56.
Jake: And I'm just going to summarize this. And they, they were, we were talking about being a parent and all that other stuff. And they were listening to us talk about all of the time that we had sucked out of our lives, having to go and support our kids at their sports. You know, Matt going to all of his swim meets and [00:50:00] me going to all of my soccer stuff all over the world.
Jake: And Lance has been doing like the theater and soccer and all that stuff. And Ian, I don't know what you were doing with your kids, but cause you weren't at that podcast, but we were talking about how much time it took to be invested in our kids. So their question in essence was what sports can they get their kids involved so they can crush it in cycling?
Jake: Like Lance frigging Hepler. Oh,
Lance: good question. That's a good cycling. Yeah. Get your kids. Yeah, that's true. Have them
Jake: join a Zwift race league. Right,
Lance: right. Uh, that's a good question. What's a good sport to get your Dude, if your if your kids have potential in any sport, it's going to be a time suck period.
Lance: Yeah, because if they
Jake: start playing at a higher level, like you go from rec to club, I mean there's a big financial commitment there, but in addition to that You're going to need to play other teams that are as good. So there enters the whole travel bit. And you're, you're, I mean, literally with my daughter, she's a pretty good [00:51:00] soccer player.
Jake: We, we have to fly to Arizona at least once or twice a year. We have to drive to Medford, Oregon, which is what, like a four or five hour drive. Yeah. It's, it's one of those things where that's just what you do. And so you're kind of subject to having to go travel. If your kid's going to be good at sports.
Jake: If your kid sucks at sports, that kind of sucks, but in the same breath, it's kind of good for your time because rec sports are not a big ask. Usually it's like a practice or two during the week and then a game on the weekends and it's all local and you just keep on carrying it on.
Lance: But the time suck, that, that could be any of the sports, football, basketball, um, track and field, cross country, um, volleyball, swimming, I
Matt: mean, cross country is pretty.
Matt: It's not cheap. It's not cheap. You're still traveling. You're sitting with a team. You just send your kid with a team. You know, like even having, like, so we're big on swimming, which we've talked about all the time, but like for high school swim, I can just send Ethan with the high school team and be like, see you later.
Matt: Tell me about your race when you get back. That's it. So, [00:52:00] high school sports have that ability. Yes, you can go as a parent and go watch all these things and travel or whatever. But, we've got two other kids and we're going different directions. So, yeah.
Ian: I say you should probably just embrace it. It's only, it's actually.
Ian: Only a handful of years. When you think about it, it's through high school, perhaps, or middle school. Um, yeah, it doesn't last forever. And
Jake: see it as an opportunity to, if you have to travel to some of these places, take a bike with you, seriously, you go to go see some cool stuff. Now you got to play that wise because you guys still watch your kid do their thing, but you can, um, you can kind of multitask there.
Jake: Yeah.
Ian: It's kind of a, it's just the way things are. I mean, growing up in England in the seventies, like I played rugby for the school. Did my parents ever show up and come and cheer me on? Nope. It's just like they put me on the bus and I went to play, play my game on a Saturday. What position did you play?
Jake: Were you a flanker? No, uh, flanker.
Ian: No, I was a second row forward. Okay. Yeah.
Jake: Sweet. Played a little rugby back in the college days too, yeah.
Lance: Let me be [00:53:00] clear, um, when my kids were involved in all the things they were involved with, uh, in middle school and in high school, I was not Lance frigging Hepler back then.
Lance: You're Lance f ing Hepler. Totally different. I was not, I was not fast, I was, it was Lance 1. 0, it was different, and so. The Lance frigging Hepler didn't come till my kids were really gone and doing things their own. And that's, that's a function of me having kids when I was young. So, I mean, my first was born, I was 25 years old when my son was born.
Lance: And I was 30 when my last daughter was born. So that's why I'm 55 and my
Intro: kids are all
Ian: in school. Yeah, right. I was, so I was 39 when my first was born. Oh, wow. And so that my sort of mid 40s to late to mid 50s was a kind of a lost decade as far as my own [00:54:00] performance, my own recreation went. Uh, wasn't, it wasn't lost.
Ian: That sounds bad. But, um, with the kids, uh, doing their thing in school and my health issues and everything, that, that was like 10 years of my life that I did not do.
Jake: Spot. Yeah. Yeah, pretty much.
Ian: So that was a Gebo 1. 0 as well. Yeah.
Jake: Same. Or you could just switch to running like Matt, cause you're pretty good about optimizing that way.
Jake: Yeah, it's a lot easier. So much faster. Bring a pair of tennis shoes with you and run around the soccer field. Yeah,
Matt: it really is. Like, cause so, so we'd go to swim meet, we go and we drop the kids off and they go in, they do their, they do a warmup and that's like an hour block that you have. Right. And an hour's tricky on the bike, right?
Matt: Yes. You know, you gear up. Especially if you're in a location, different spot. You gear up. Yeah, you gear up. You're checking Strava, you look at your watch and you're like, half of my time is gone. Yes. Correct. 30 minutes now? No. But running is just so easy. It's a good sport. Good point.
Jake: All right. Well, that's, uh, that's a good one.
Jake: We don't [00:55:00] have a good strong answer for you on that one. I guess the
Ian: answer is cycling. If you can get them into cycling. Yep. I envy my friends whose kids are also big into bike racing. I mean, they just do so much together. They do. Yeah. It's enhances it rather than, yeah, it's just like the handles. I mean, that's like the quintessential,
Jake: like now you've got this daughter who is turned into an absolute freaking monster going to be racing at a pretty stinking high level in college.
Jake: And like, sometimes you're like, I'm having a hard time keeping up with you. But then again, And he's a fricking, an absolute beast. A monster. Yes. He's i's an anomalies and enigma . Yeah. So
Lance: Kylie did get her, uh, USAC upgrade to Cat too, so she can do all the road races with the team that she's gonna be racing with this year.
Lance: That's fantastic. Yeah, she'll be doing Reddens Classic and Cool. She's doing these other races that I'm doing as well, the.
Ian: Valley of the Sun.
Lance: Yeah, Valley of the Sun and, uh, Tucson Bicycling Classic.
Jake: Now, Dr. Hanel will be there. Did you convince him to race with you or does he not [00:56:00] want to do that? He
Lance: is not going to be there.
Lance: Oh, he's not? So I was confused. I thought he was going down, but, um, he is on other kid duty. Oh. And work while, um, while she's doing the race. Yeah, so they're, they're splitting. The mom is going down to help and support Kylie and Chris has to stay home yet.
Jake: Good luck, Kylie.
Lance: Good luck.
Jake: Ready for the last question?
Lance: Yes.
Jake: All right. The last question comes from a listener in the great state of Washington. I'm not quite sure where, but, uh, the question is, um, a question for Lance and Ian. When you receive this, you will have just finished your week long training camp in Tenerife. My question is how much structure did you try to maintain in your rides while at training camp?
Jake: Are you aiming to stick to lots of zone two power the whole time, or are you just aiming for lots of volume? Um, not a specific, uh, not with specific power targets. And they're asking, cause they're going to be doing their own little training camp and they just wanted to get an idea of like how they should structure it.
Ian: Um, The strategy was basically [00:57:00] to go out and rip each other's legs off. Yeah. And murder
Lance: each other every day. What's the point? Smart plan. Um, there, there was actually, there was a pre discussion about what we were trying to do each day, and what we kind of had planned for the week, so we, we kind of had something rolling there.
Lance: Um, uh, Ian's a coach, I'm self coached, kind of, and Chris has a coach, and Chris's coach knew that what was happening this week, and he suggested that we try to do 1, 200 TSS for the week. So we had like a, an effort Barely got it. We did 16. We way freaking overdid it. So we had a, we had like an effort goal for the week.
Lance: But, um, the other thing that Chris was trying to do was to do as much sweet spot climbing as we could. We knew that each day there would be a ton of climbing, and not to do the climbing at Zone 2, Or at [00:58:00] tempo, but try to do the climbing at sweet spot effort. And so, that, so that, that would mean you wouldn't be going quite as hard as if, as if you try to do threshold.
Lance: And so, we, we tried to kind of keep things under control on the climbs and not go too far. The first couple days That was a little more difficult because Ian and Chris were able to do their sweet spot effort. Okay, now, see, this is not, that's not what I think happened. I think Chris did sweet spot effort, and Ian was doing threshold effort.
Lance: And I stuck to my sweet spot effort, which isn't as good as Chris's, and so that's why I was off the back those first couple of climbs. But, um, but, but that was the idea, to do, try to get as much sweet spot, so if we did like a four hour ride, we were trying to do like an hour and a half of it in sweet spot, which is a lot.
Lance: Yeah. It's, it's hard to do that much, but if, if [00:59:00] you're climbing at sweet spot, and you're not climbing, so sweet spot is like 93 percent of threshold effort, so it's not at your FTP, it's, it's kind of 10 percent less, or a little bit more than that. And so the effort is difficult and hard, but not draining.
Lance: That's the beauty of kind of the sweet spot stuff. All the other stuff we tried to stay zone two ish. So the, the descent, sometimes the descents are steep. You're just frigging coasting because you're going 48 miles an hour, just coasting. Um, but the flatter rolling stuff, we more or less tried to stay.
Lance: Zone two, unless it was a short little kicker and then we all freaking out sprinted each other or tried to smoke each other. I
Ian: mean, we, we wanted to go down and do big, long epic rides. And so that kind of dictates that you're going to, you're going to be riding at an endurance pace. So what I got out of it mostly was a lot of volume, quality [01:00:00] volume for sure.
Ian: But I don't think. I don't think any of us went super crazy. And, uh, to answer the question, there was, we didn't have any interval days.
Lance: We did not.
Ian: Structured days. We did. We kind of, uh, were more disciplined than say at our regular training camp meets where we didn't, we sort of held back.
Lance: It was only three of us.
Lance: So there wasn't somebody throwing haymakers, you know, on every single ride. So that made it. Easier for us to kind of control our. But
Ian: the duration of the ride and the terrain and everything like that sort of said, you know, if you're going to complete this ride, you got to do it at sweet spot or below.
Ian: Correct. Anyway. No, no, no real structure. Just a lot of good, good quality volume.
Lance: Um, and, and I think it helped us quite a bit because on, on our, on our Queen Stage day when we did [01:01:00] Moscow, and that was, that was a six hour day and in, in hour five of that day, we did our most difficult climb of the whole week.
Lance: There's a two and a half mile segment that is 1500 feet of climbing in two and a half miles. And so it averages 11 percent for two and a half miles, which means it has ramps of 20 percent up some, some of the switchbacks and, um, I actually got to the bottom of that climb, you know, and this is day, this was day five, this was day five and we were five hours into the ride.
Lance: I got to the bottom of that climb and I felt great. And I think part of that was because of. We didn't we didn't overdo it the rest of the week. Yeah, we weren't doing threshold, you know climbing We were doing sweet spot climbing or a little bit less than that And so I mean I beat my time up that climb by like five minutes, which was which was [01:02:00] fantastic and I smoked you It was you know, it felt
Ian: Lance finds his life
Lance: and then on day six on the last day we were doing It was an easier day until we, there was one 8 mile climb segment.
Lance: It was 2300 feet of 8 miles, so it averaged roughly 6%, so not bad. And, and I completely attacked that day, knowing it was like our last hard day. And so that was a day.
Ian: That was a threshold effort.
Lance: That was a threshold effort. I tried to hold 300 watts for this whole eight mile climb as long as I possibly could.
Lance: I couldn't quite hold that high of watch, but I, but I, that was a 48 minute effort at my threshold. And so. That, um, and I felt great that day too, you know, after being that long and that deep into the whole week to be able to do an effort like that at the end of the week was great. And that was [01:03:00] a factor of us controlling ourselves earlier in the week, which was, which was good.
Lance: So.
Knobs: Cool.
Lance: Is that it? I think that's it. So yeah, so sweet spot climbing. Sweet spot climbing. Yeah. So sweet spot climbing. If you're doing a whole long week, it's, it's kind of important not to bury yourself too early in the week. Otherwise you're going to fall apart.
Jake: Cool. All right. Well, that concludes all of the questions, uh, for this week.
Jake: We do thank everybody for sending those in. And if you have a question or if you'd like to contribute something, or you just want to call somebody a jack monkey on the show, just use that little, uh, Text us button on pretty much all the platforms. If I'm not mistaken, it's on all of them. I know for sure it's on Spotify and Apple podcasts.
Jake: Um, you just hit that little button and it comes through to us and we can't see who you are. We can see what city or state you're from. And then I think we see the last four digits of your phone number, but other than that, we have no idea. So, um, More than Mary. Well, I kind of like this. I, I, I'm really digging the fact because I don't have to think too much about like, [01:04:00] what are we going to talk about this week?
Jake: So it's
Lance: been great to answer questions. We're happy to do it.
Jake: Cool. All right. I think that's it. We're going to move on to one last thing. Well, who, who goes first? I always go first. Is it Matt? Oh man. Oh man. Is that how that works?
Matt: Oh, go for it, dude. Um, I'm putting the finishing touches on the Phoenix eight, which I think a couple of you guys have, uh, after 100 days.
Matt: Yeah. Great watch. Great watch. Love it. But do you really need the microphone and speaker?
Lance: Um, haven't used it yet. Yeah, exactly. So, Mike talks to me occasionally.
Matt: So I think a Fenix 7 Pro could be a good option for people that want to save money. That don't have
Lance: the
Matt: microphone or the speaker. Interesting.
Matt: Yeah. Anyway, it's a great watch. Good watch. Yeah. Love it. Have
Jake: you used the microphone and the Uh, yes. The phone feature only for testing. Demoing
Matt: it. Demoing it to show people on within the video, and that's it. Yeah. I don't, how
Jake: well does it work when you're making a phone call or using it to make a phone call?
Jake: Um, can they hear you well and can you hear them well? Is. [01:05:00] Yeah, I mean, it's fine. Does anybody complain about the sound quality on the other end? Like, Hey, I can hear you, but it just doesn't sound good or I've done it one time to demo it. Okay. But
Matt: then the other kicker is I'm, I'm typically wearing like an Apple watch on the other wrist.
Matt: So it's just as easy for me to answer from that one. Sure. And it's a little bit more, it's a little smoother, but yeah, I don't know. I don't think that people need the microphone and speaker also has dive capabilities anyway. Well, I have a video, it's coming out, hopefully, could put it out today, but I think it's probably more likely Sunday morning that I would put it out.
Matt: Okay,
Jake: cool. Sounds good. Gibbo. One last thing.
Ian: I've just been, um, working on, uh, Michael Myers memorial time trial events. I had a meeting with, uh, washed down and Clark County and city of Vancouver yesterday and everybody's on board. So everything's going ahead. Permits in hand. Um, it's, we had to. [01:06:00] Bump the date out to March 23rd now because of a conflict with another event on our usual date But it should be a great day.
Ian: It's gonna be All day racing. We have traditional time trial categories in the morning. We have Eddie style racing on Regular road bikes in the afternoon. Um, if you're listening to this in the pacific northwest area, please come and Race sign up. We have people signed up already. It's looking good And if you're a member of dial cycling team, please hit our slack channel and look for the links to volunteer Um, to help out on the day, that'd, that'd be awesome.
Ian: I've got some, um, 10 and 12 volunteer opportunities. I'm still looking for people. Have they made
Jake: the change on the Obra calendar from the ninth? Okay. Yep. I think you might want to ask Obra to send out an email for that. Cause I've talked to quite a few people as a matter of fact, just as recent as yesterday.
Jake: I was talking with somebody [01:07:00] came in and she was all excited and like, you know, you know that we changed it or we had to move it to the 23rd. She's like, what? No, I didn't know that. And now she can't. Well, it was
Ian: live. It was on the Elba calendar for about three days for the 9th, and then we took it down.
Ian: And
Jake: I think what happened though, is a lot of people, for some reason, maybe it's not that many people, but a fair amount of people still think it's on the 9th and it might not be a bad idea just to see if they can send out an update. Did they send out the email announcing the race yet? Or is that still to come?
Ian: That's still to come.
Jake: Okay. It might not be a bad idea for them just to send something out like, Hey, some of you might've seen it on the 9th, but now it's been moved to the 23rd because. Rowing people came and took over. Any who, um, cool. Oh, I did have one person ask me a question. I'll just ask you this right now.
Jake: They want to know, and I don't know if it's really going to make that big of a difference, but they wanted to know if we would entertain putting a Clydesdale category in there. For the bigger dudes.
Ian: I don't think so. Not on a flat time trial. That's kind of what I was thinking too. I don't think you're any real handicap by being a bigger person.
Ian: I mean. [01:08:00]
Matt: That's awesome. I'm going to go double down on McDonald's after this podcast. Yeah.
Jake: There was another question too about another category, but I think it was more that, um, because we have the Eddie category and then we have the, um, Eddie's Masters and that's 40 plus, and then it goes up to 55 plus for the other one.
Jake: So somebody was wanting us to have 60, but I'm like, I think it's getting to be a little bit too much. If we had like a thousand people showing up for the race and a bunch of them were in those categories and yeah, we could entertain the thought of breaking them out, but for now it's just going to stay the same.
Jake: Jake, are you going to race? That's the plan. Yeah. Originally I wasn't going to be able to, but now that it's moved, I will actually be back in town, so the weekend works better for me too. Yeah. So, and I have heard that too, that a couple of people said it works better. So yeah, I think that there's enough
Ian: categories to go around.
Ian: It's like, it's like so many races. You can, you know, you, most people have a choice of, um, which category they want to go in. You know, like if you're a 60 year old, you could enter the [01:09:00] regular. over 60s in the morning. Yep. Um, you may be at a disadvantage if you don't have a time trial bike, but then weigh that up against who you're going to be competing with if you just waited for the afternoon races and you, people are maybe a little bit younger, but you might be more competitive there.
Ian: So
Matt: Jake Shuey podcast there live. We'll be there. That could be fun. Except Ian will be very busy. Oh. Well, maybe. We could just have him like pass by the microphone and be like, oh, you're too sensitive.
Jake: The only thing that I personally would like to see added to it would be a team time trial. I think that a team time trial would be fantastic, especially if we did it on road bikes, just to, cause everybody's got a road bike that comes out there usually.
Jake: That'd be cool. I think that that would be a blast. All right. Even if you could get just five or six teams. Let's make it happen. Connect. Connect. Connect. Hepler.
Lance: Um, thanks for everybody who's been enjoying my little, uh, YouTube channel. Quit calling it little. I have, it has gained a little traction. [01:10:00] I've gotten several hundred new subscribers, which is What's, what, tell me your
Matt: numbers.
Matt: Are you, are you 200 something? Yes, I'm 200 something. Okay, that's good. But that's it. A thousand, you get to monetize. That's right.
Lance: I'm working on getting to a thousand. But, uh, a couple of my videos have gotten quite a bit of traction, which is great, so I'm happy about that. Um, I am gonna continue with it.
Lance: I'm trying to do it every day that I train, and so, um, I try to tell some kind of story with the races and make them interesting, but I'd also like to hear what you'd like to Here about my little training sessions post a comment. Yes. I do get a lot of guys. Yes, please like and subscribe So that's good.
Lance: Other than that. I'm headed to Arizona. We're gonna try to do some road stage racing Which I'm terrible at. Today or tomorrow you're taking off. You don't know. Yeah, something like that. Probably Today. Bring in the family. Wife and dog are going with me. Okay. Yeah times So
Jake: that's fine. My one last thing is, I think I mentioned that we're going to be moving the lab.
Jake: It's going to be going into it's [01:11:00] a new shiny space here in the somewhat near future, within the next couple of months, as soon as we fill, finish all the tenant improvements, which have yet to start, but we're just about there. I'm excited about that. So in the process of moving, um, I want to move less stuff.
Jake: So for our listeners out there, if you guys want to buy anything on the website or even come by locally and use it, you can do that as well. Use the discount code dialed podcast, all one word, and you'll get a nice little discount. We'll ship you whatever it is that you want to order, order. Um, a lot of times you'll get like limits and all these other things.
Jake: We'll just pretend like. That didn't happen and it works on anything that's on the website. So that is there for you to use. And then, um, I mentioned this before, and I think Lance has already submitted his application and we will be sending it over to Matt as well. And probably even even, but, um, we've got a new affiliate program.
Jake: We're looking to work with people all over the country. One. Kind of start reaching out and branching out. And so we're looking for people that maybe have a little bit of a presence on social media or want to maybe get into that. Like Lance in [01:12:00] his little videos, whatnot. If he's using stuff, 200 subscribers, exactly.
Jake: He can use these little codes or whatnot in two different products. And it's really user friendly. It's very simple. And it's, there's a whole backend module that manages that on the website. And you can pick and choose how much or how little you do, and it manages everything, and you can see when people come through and purchase something, you just get like a nice little small chunk of change, and then you can use that.
Jake: For credit towards, you know, product, or you get a payment at the end of the month or whenever you've reached a certain threshold and just kind of like a little win win situation for everybody. So if you're interested in that, uh, there is a thing, I don't think, I don't know, I believe it's on the website now where you can, you can.
Jake: You know, request that it will be up there soon enough, but if you're interested, shoot us an email info at dialedcycling. com and we will send you that link so that you can sign yourself up and that's it. I'm done. Love it. Cool. Anything else? Nice work guys. Got to scoot. Got lots of things to do today. So, um.
Jake: Thanks for listening. We will be back next week with another one of these. And until then, bye for now.[01:13:00]
Knobs: Knob? Knob, it's It's your knob, isn't it? Yeah, it's Your penis.
Intro: Yeah.
Knobs: You say, I want me knob. You know, if you bang into a wall, or Or don't be a knob. Don't be a knob. If you think of all the penile epithets, they all have different meanings. Like if you're a prick, then you're a You prick. Yeah. stupid. But then if you're a knob, you're You are stupid, but less It's an affectionate kind of term.
Knobs: But it's nice, if you're a bit of a knob, like I'd say to you I'll stop being a knob, Henry, [01:14:00] and I wouldn't expect you to get offended, but if I called you a dick, then I'd be like, I'd be wrong, because you're not a dick. You're a lovely man.
