Articles

Because Everyone Asks

How to Beat People 20 Years Younger Than You

The oldest Tour de France winner was 36. If you glance around the pro peloton, you’ll notice that few cyclists are sporting terrible Just For

January 19, 2023

Because Everyone Asks

How To Not F%&k Up Your Holiday Training

The Holidays are here. If you haven’t started working on your Christmas list yet, yes, you should begin to panic. Christmas cards may have been

December 16, 2022

Controversial Opinion

Maybe Stop Sandbagging Your Goals

“Hadley has been asking about death a lot lately. Asking who is going to die first and if she’ll die.” “Yeah. So, what do you

November 3, 2022

Since No One Asked

And Just Like That, It’s Over

I just finished my last race of the season and promptly transitioned from obsessing over training, equipment, nutrition, vices, and other scheming to remaining only

October 27, 2022

Mindset

How to Develop Your Athletic Sh**t Detector

In my coaching practice, I demand that I talk to my athletes monthly. Often, and with some horror, I’ll find that they’ve entirely changed some

October 27, 2022

Gravel Racing

I Didn’t Screw up Red Granite Grinder Again

Red Granite Grinder 2022 “OK, what’s our strategy?” Forest said. “Here’s what I’m thinking. I’m going to go freaking bananas on Rib and try to annihilate the

October 20, 2022

Since No One Asked

The Tyranny of Irony in Cycling

There’s this thing that cyclists do that drives me nuts. They train their asses off. They do all this planning. They pay the race fees

October 6, 2022

Gravel Racing

I Screwed Up the Ironhorse Classic So You Don’t Have To

After looking at Ned for one second, I knew he would smoke me. His hair was mostly gray, nearly white, and he had the face of someone approaching their 70s, but his frame was that of gnarled oak, hard, trim, his calves ripping with the torment of fifty years of pedaling.

September 29, 2022

Stories

The Double Day 13 – The Hangover

What did we do today? What was it like? After the race, we drove from Silver City to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where my mother-in-law lives.

May 5, 2022

Stories

The Double Day 12 – “I like the way you die, boy”

What did we do today? What was it like? Tour of the Gila, the Gila Monster stage, which is like being woken up in the

May 2, 2022

Stories

The Double Day 11 – “How do you get excited for crits?”

What did we do today? What was it like? The Tour of the Gila Silver City Criterium, which is like blasting your way up a

May 1, 2022

Stories

The Double Day 10 – “I’m not sure what an 18 HRV means”

What did we do today? What was it like? Tour of the Gila Stage 3: the Tyrone Time Trial, which is like sprinting to the

April 30, 2022

Stories

The Double Day 9 – “Why are you guttering us for 60th place?”

What did we do today? What was it like? Tour of the Gila Stage 2: Inner Loop Road Race, which, if you’re having a bad

April 29, 2022

Stories

The Double Day 8 – “Check yourself before you wreck yourself”

What did we do today? What was it like? Tour of the Gila stage 1: the Mogollon, which is 90 miles of downhills and rollers

April 28, 2022

Stories

The Double Day 6 – “You just got to bool, bro.”

What did we do today? What was it like? We drove 10 hours from Redlands to Gila. And by ‘we’ I mean Tyrel, who doesn’t

April 25, 2022

Stories

The Double Day 5 – “Rolly Gang Rolly Gang Rolly Gang”

What did we do today? What was it like? Sunset road race, which is like jumping on a treadmill going 20 mph followed by luging

April 25, 2022

Stories

The Double Day 4 – “Sheeesh”

What did we do today? What was it like? Redlands criterium race, which is the equivalent of doing a crit race with a layout designed

April 24, 2022

Stories

The Double Day 3 – “Yield to tonnage”

What did we do today? What was it like? Route 66 time trial, which is the absurd cycling spectacle of hundreds of cyclists squeezed into

April 22, 2022

Stories

The Double Day 2 – “Thiccc is kwik”

April 21, 2022 What we did today/what is that like? Yuipica road race, which is six laps of a 14-mile circuit screaming downhill with 152

April 21, 2022

Stories

The Double Day 1 – “Save some spray”

April 20, 2022 What we did today/what is that like? Highlands Circuit Race, which is 20 laps of a 5-mile circuit with a gigantic hill.

April 20, 2022

Because Everyone Asks

What is HRV and why should I care?

What the hell is HRV? Heart rate variability, or HRV for short, is the rhythm of your heartbeats. It turns out that the heart doesn’t

March 24, 2022

Training

How To Do Workouts The Right Way

Workout success or failure starts well before you hit the start button on your device, sometimes days or weeks before the workout begins. Executing a

February 9, 2022

Mindset

Your Frame Is All There Is

Not everyone is the same as you. This realization hits around the age of two and is why toddlers go through the terrible twos and

January 20, 2022

Mindset

To Make It Count, Flip the Switch

Some mornings when you wake, you can feel yourself leaving another you behind. Have you felt that lately? Since it’s January, it’s my duty to

January 15, 2022

Controversial Opinion

No One Cares If You’re Bored

Coaches in the circles I run in often joke that they wouldn’t have a job if athletes figured out that all they need to do

January 6, 2022

Controversial Opinion

Gratitude and Toilet Bowls

The best Thanksgiving I ever had, I began wrapped around the toilet of our Airbnb until 3:45 am, spewing out every mouthful of curry I’d

November 24, 2021

Gravel Racing

I Screwed Up SBT GRVL So You Don’t Have To

“So, what are your goals for SBT GRVL?” my wife asks. “Well, I’d love to make it ten minutes into the race without a catastrophic

November 24, 2021

Because Everyone Asks

How to Achieve Your Goals and Stop Ruining Your Dreams

It’s dreaming season. Many of my athletes are coming off a break from training, spending every pedal stroke on their bike thinking about the races

November 18, 2021

Gravel Racing

I Didn’t Screw Up Red Granite Grinder and Neither Do You

“Matttttti?” My mom called. “Something just happened to your bike? Come up here and take a look.” I was half-naked in the basement bedroom, ready

October 21, 2021

Since No One Asked

If You Really Want to Race Bikes Fast, Train Your Heart

This year has been rough. Someone asked me what success would look like on the bike in 2021, and I said: “earn one upgrade point”

October 7, 2021

Mindset

How to Manage Dopamine to be a Better Cyclist

Dopamine is a neuromodulator, which means that it affects many neurons in your nervous system. Dopamine influences neural circuits involved in pleasure, motivation, craving, movement,

September 30, 2021

Gravel Racing

I Screwed Up Gunni Grinder So You Don’t Have To

I took a wrong turn, not that it mattered. Until my technical ability rises above a garbage truck, I will never do well in gravel

September 16, 2021

Nutrition

How to Hydrate for Gravel Cycling Races

I’ve been in this movie before. In the guts of Kanza, it took 100 miles. In Belgian Waffle Ride, I managed to delay it until

September 5, 2021

Gravel Racing

I Screwed Up Unbound Gravel 200 So You Don’t Have To

For no reason, I started screaming. No one heard my screams. I was 168 miles into Unbound 200, and by this time, the 960 or

August 17, 2021

Gravel Racing

I Screwed Up Belgian Waffle Ride So You Don’t Have To

After the Black Canyon Climb, about halfway Belgian Waffle Ride, I stopped and grabbed a water bottle from a small aid station. Two women suddenly

August 11, 2021

Mindset

The Jester Precedes the King

In 2014, I made a critical error that haunts me – I didn’t do a local cyclocross race. Both of my roommates were doing it.

May 14, 2021

Mindset

You Know People Remember How You Race, Right?

Storytime. Something happened recently that none of you know about because you don’t follow obscure European sports on pirated foreign feeds using VPNs to avoid

March 18, 2021

Since No One Asked

5 ways to Become a Power Meter Clown

It’s no secret that power meters have fundamentally changed the way cyclists train, and why not? Used correctly, they can be an incredible tool to

March 11, 2021

Mindset

The More You Take, the Faster You Get.

I downed the last sip of my espresso, threw on my shoes, and opened the basement door. It was 6:14 am, and if I was

March 6, 2021

Mindset

If You’re Not Talented, You Should Probably Quit

Do you want to know how far you can go as a cyclist? It’s easy: Go to a cycling testing lab. Pedal Really Hard Wait

March 3, 2021

Nutrition

Your Eating Habits Are Killing Your Performance

People start riding bikes because it’s the closest you can get to heaven without dying. Then, like watching your beautiful child grow up from a

February 18, 2021

Training

You Don’t Need To Bike To Bike Fast

Jake Boyce was my least favorite person on the Nordic ski team at St. Olaf College. I roller skied all Fall. Jake didn’t touch his.

February 11, 2021

Because Everyone Asks

Because Everyone Asks – Does Beer Make You Slow?

Good God, yes, drinking makes you slow. Are you kidding me? Booze is literally poison! The moment your body recognizes that you’ve swallowed a river

February 2, 2021

Controversial Opinion

Controversial Opinion – Your FTP Does Matter.

The emergence of data analytic tools like WKO and Golden Cheetah allows coaches to analyze an athlete’s power duration curve and obtain that athlete’s phenotype.

January 28, 2021

Since No One Asked

Since No One Asked – Why did Dumoulin retire? He just wants to eat some cheese.

The internet just exploded because Tom Dumoulin, a grand tour contender for Lotto Jumbo Visma, said he was stepping away from the sport for an

January 25, 2021

Controversial Opinion

Controversial Opinion – You don’t need a power meter to be fast.

You don’t know the fastest cyclist in New Mexico, do you? If I offered you $1,000 to find out in the next 20 minutes, what

January 20, 2021

Mindset

The Tao of Tom

We hadn’t even cleared the train tracks in Northfield, NM, and already Tom was lagging. It was a Tuesday, which meant it was an easy

January 19, 2021

Strength

So why do you skip strength training?

Twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two… I closed my eyes into the sensations of my abdomen ripping apart under the strain of a few bicycle situps. Suddenly,

January 19, 2021

Since No One Asked

Since No One Asked – My take on WHOOP

If you’ve been out on a group ride lately you may have noticed a couple of people with an understated black band around their wrists.

January 19, 2021

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Matti Rowe

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