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Your first century: 100 miles, and how to arrive with legs left
Build the long ride to about 120 km, ride the first two hours slower than feels necessary, eat from the first hour and sit in the group. A race-prep guide to 161 km that finishes well rather than merely finishes.
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The triathlon bike leg: pacing so you can still run
The bike is the only leg where holding back makes you faster. How to pick a power target for your distance, why draft-legal racing changes everything, and what the run will tell you.
Pre-race nerves: a routine that works in the last hour
You cannot switch the nerves off, but you can point them somewhere. A last-hour routine built on reappraisal, slow breathing, a proper warm-up and two sentences of self-talk.
After the crash: what to check, when to ride again
Head first, then neck, then everything else. What the concussion consensus, the UCI protocol and the fracture literature say about getting back on the bike, and why a doctor decides.
The first 48 hours after a big event: recovery that speeds up the next one
Eat promptly, eat again, drink more than you lost, sleep twice. What the evidence supports in the two days after a gran fondo, and the ice bath, beer and Monday ride that undo it.
Climbing in a bunch: where to sit before the road goes up
The climb rarely loses the race; the two kilometres before it do. Why drafting fades as the road steepens, what the surge at the base costs in W′, and where to be when it starts.
Cornering under pressure: the racing lines nobody practises
A bad corner costs you twice: once in it, again on the exit. The physics of lean and grip, where to look, how to countersteer on purpose, and the race-day corners you can only learn by doing.
Riding the Étape or the Marmotte: what the profile doesn't show
Both profiles are accurate and both hide the things that end riders' days: altitude on the Galibier, three climates, a 47 km descent, cut-offs, tunnels and feed queues. Official figures throughout.
The pre-event mechanical checklist, by when to do it
Mechanical problems ruin more amateur events than fitness does, and nearly all of them were visible days earlier. Organised by timing, because most of these checks are useless on race morning — not because they do not matter, but because by then you cannot act on them.
The week before: everything that is not training
The physiology of the taper is a solved problem. This is the other half — admin, travel, packing and the sequence of small decisions that decides whether you reach the start line calm or already tired.
Racing abroad: six things that are not like home
The riding is the familiar part. Licences, race manuals, bunch culture, terrain you cannot rehearse, heat and altitude — and the alpine descent that riders underestimate far more often than the climb.
Hill climb events: eight minutes of honesty
One road, one clock, nowhere to hide — and the one event where power-to-weight genuinely dominates. Pacing by duration, what is worth stripping off the bike and what absolutely is not, and the warm-up mistake half the field makes.
Racing in the heat: pace it differently or pay for it
Riders rebuild a training plan over a 3% change in threshold, then ride a 34°C event on their April pacing plan. What heat does to your engine, which cooling tricks are worth doing, and the signs that mean stop immediately.
Pacing a gran fondo with power: the first climb is the trap
The purest pacing test in amateur cycling. Target bands by event length, the four rules that decide the day, and why the number that ruins fondos is almost never the average.
Your first criterium: position, corners and the accordion effect
A crit's average power is often below your FTP, which tells you nothing. What actually decides your first one is where you sit in the bunch — and why the rider at the back is doing a completely different race at the same speed.
How to taper for a big ride: the last two weeks
The event is booked and the training is done — the last two weeks are where riders either bank their fitness or quietly throw it away. Drop the volume, keep the intensity, and follow a day-by-day fortnight that arrives at the start line fresh instead of flat.
Everesting indoors: how to climb 8,848 m without leaving your pain cave
One climb, repeated until you've ascended the height of Everest — indoors, where there's no weather, no traffic, and absolutely nowhere to hide. The gradient maths, the pacing (it's an eating contest with pedalling attached), the two-fan setup, and the fitness you honestly need before you try.
How to preview a race course indoors before you ride it
The best way to know a course is to have ridden it. Here's how to preview a race course indoors — corner by corner, climb by climb — from its GPX file, in 3D, on your smart trainer, weeks before the start line.
The warm-up, matched to the ride you're about to do
The shorter and harder the effort, the longer the warm-up — and vice versa. Four protocols, from a 10-minute roll-out to a full pre-race routine, plus what to stop doing beforehand.
How to build a sprint that actually wins things
Almost every race finishes in a scramble, and the sprint is the least-trained quality in amateur cycling. The four phases, five sessions, and the recovery mistake that ruins most of them.
How to train for your first gran fondo (a 12-week plan you can actually follow)
A gran fondo is a long day in the saddle — but it's very doable with the right build. Here's a realistic 12-week plan, the key workouts, and how to pace and fuel the big day.
From zero to your first 100 km: a beginner's roadmap
A hundred kilometres feels huge until you have a plan. Here's a friendly, week-by-week roadmap that takes a new rider from short spins to a confident first century.
Your first cyclocross race: 60 minutes of the hardest fun in cycling
An hour of starting, surging and running with your bike on your shoulder, in the mud, in November. What the power profile of a lap actually looks like, the three skills that beat fitness, and how little kit you really need for race one.
Race day nutrition plan: hour by hour
Breakfast, the hour before, the start, and every hour after that. A concrete fuelling timeline for a two-hour race and a six-hour one, with the carbohydrate and fluid numbers the research supports.
How to pace a time trial with power
The first two minutes decide most time trials, and usually badly. How to pick a target, why even pacing wins on flat courses but not hilly ones, and how to spend your energy above threshold deliberately.
Your first road race: what actually happens, and how to not get dropped
A road race is not a hard group ride — it's several hundred surges with recoveries you don't control. What the power profile of a bunch race looks like, why the first ten minutes hurt most, and how to prepare for it.
How to peak twice in one season
A taper buys you a window of a couple of weeks, not a summer. How long a peak really holds, what the mid-season rebuild between two targets looks like, and the minimum spacing that makes two peaks realistic.
How to ride a hilly sportive you're underprepared for
Four weeks out and short of training? The fitness is what it is — but pacing, gearing and fuelling are all still in play, and together they matter more on the day than the training you didn't do.
Pre-race openers: the day-before session that wakes your legs up
Complete rest the day before an event often leaves you feeling flat. What an opener session does, what it should look like, and how long before the start it's worth doing.
Gravel racing: how it's different, and what to train for
Longer, lonelier and far more variable than a road race, with no feed zones and no team car. Why durability beats a sprint, how to fuel when nobody is handing you anything, and the tyre decision that ends more races than fitness does.
Race weight: how to get lean without losing power
Watts per kilo has a numerator as well as a denominator, and cutting weight during a build block usually damages the numerator. Safe rates of loss, when in the season to do it, and the warning signs to stop.
Racing in the cold and wet: staying warm enough to still be racing
Cold rain ends races for riders who were fit enough to finish them, and it usually does it on the descent rather than the climb. Losing your hands before you lose your legs, and the clothing decisions that are really race decisions.
Racing on consecutive days: how to recover between stages
The refuelling rules you can safely ignore in a normal training week become the whole game when you race again in eighteen hours. Glycogen arithmetic, what sleep is worth, and which recovery gadgets survive contact with the evidence.
How a breakaway actually works (and how to be in the right one)
Four riders should not be able to hold off sixty, and yet it happens every weekend. The drafting arithmetic that explains it, how to read which move has the right riders in it, and the through-and-off technique that keeps a group alive.
Your first track session: the boards, the fixed gear and the rules
No brakes, no freewheel, and a line painted on the boards that decides where you are allowed to ride. What an accreditation session involves, the two road-rider habits that catch everyone out, and why the banking holds you up.
Ultra-distance racing: sleep, pacing and the first 24 hours
Past about a day, the limiter stops being your legs. Sleep strategy and what deprivation actually costs you, pacing far below threshold, and the saddle and nerve problems that end more ultras than fitness ever does.
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