Fast Talk

We have another fantastic Q&A episode for you today, with a diverse range of questions.  Our guest coach this week is Julie Young, who has appeared before on Fast Talk—episode 91, to be exact. Julie is a former professional cyclist turned coach. Her road racing career stretched over a decade with teams including Saturn and Timex. She continues to race today at a very high level across multiple dis...

You’ve heard us talk about so-called “big gear” training on the program before. Many of you probably incorporate it into your riding, and for a variety of reasons.   What’s surprising is how little research has been done on this low-cadence, high-torque riding. Even the definition of what constitutes “low-cadence” remains hazy. And there are as many ways of incorporating this into your workouts as...

Hello and welcome to Fast Talk, your source for the science of cycling performance! I'm your host Chris Case. Today, we’re digging into the archive for some season-planning knowledge. Why now when our seasons have been demolished? Because it’s never too early to start soaking in the wisdom of seasoned veterans on how to best map out any season, particularly next year’s.  Trevor did several great i...

Have you ever woken up early in the morning to go for a ride, skipped breakfast, and thought, “I wonder if that was bad for my training? Or maybe it was good?!” In today’s episode, we try to decipher if there are any advantages or disadvantages to occasionally riding, or exercising in general, in a fasted state. What does “fasted” actually mean, in this context? How’s that help, or hurt, my traini...

Today, Coach Connor and I discuss something that comes up nearly every time we receive an email from one of our devoted listeners, from you. (By the way, please keep sending us questions and voice memos—we love them.)    So, what is it that is nearly universally included in every piece of correspondence we receive? Well, it’s some indication of a listener’s “threshold.” Often that figure is stated...

Hello and welcome to Fast Talk, your source for the science of cycling performance! I'm your host Chris Case.    I’ll set the stage for today’s episode with an analogy. And apologies to those of you who don’t enjoy our car engine analogies; alas, we’re sticking with it on this episode. We ask the simple question: Which has the greatest chance of consistently producing the best performances: a powe...

Hello and welcome to Fast Talk, your source for the science of cycling performance! I'm your host Chris Case, and today Coach Connor and I are joined by Coach Steve Neal of The Cycling Gym, which now resides exclusively in the virtual world: https://online.thecyclinggym.com/.  Let’s get into the questions.  Our first question comes from Dan S., as a follow-up to episode 113 on recovery period leng...

Which cycling shoes should I buy? This may seem like a straightforward question. But the better thing to ask is: Which shoes are right for my feet? If you’ve been a professional cyclist with extensive experience as a bike fitter, like show host Colby Pearce, the answer to that more complex question becomes an hour-long podcast, filled with the nuances of human anatomy. There are several questions...

Today we’re taking a good long look at training metrics. We’ve released previous episodes on how to use different numbers, what many of them mean, and how they’re calculated. Today, we tie it together into one package, with a master of data analytics, Tim Cusick, who is not only the product leader for TrainingPeaks’ WKO platform, but also an elite cycling coach of athletes including Amber Neben an...

In today’s Q&A episode we invited coach and co-owner of Forever Endurance, Grant Holicky, to join us for a lengthy discussion on a myriad of topics.   First, we converse about sweat rates. Ernest Boskovic references our discussion in episode 111 with Dr. Cheung, and asks several intriguing questions. (It makes us believe we’ll soon invite Dr. Cheung back to the program for a full episode on the su...

Long-time friends, training partners, and competitors, Jonathan Vaughters and Colby Pearce have a deep racing history and relationship. With decades of experience in pro cycling, they have gained many insights about training, coaching, and the trajectory of the sport.  Colby and JV first discuss their early training techniques, taught to them by their first cycling coach, Adrie Van Diemen, a Dutch...

Today we’ll hit the subjects of cornering and descending from many sides. Our main guest is Emile Abraham, who has racked up numerous wins because of his cornering and descending prowess, having grown up riding the twisty, steep roads of Trinidad and Tobago. Also in today’s episode, we hear from our friend and podcast colleague Colby Pearce, Petr Vakoc of the Alpecin-Fenix pro team, professional m...

In today’s episode, we’ve invited Rambleur Rising coach and elite gravel racer Kristen Legan to help answer your many insightful questions. To give you a broader range of coaching opinions, Kristen joins Trevor and me to talk about the art of listening to your body, ketogenic diets, glucose transport, and much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're all about off-road today! Our all-star MTB lineup includes: - Payson McElveen, 2x cross-country marathon Ntl. champ & host of The Adventure Stache podcast - Geoff Kabush, 3x Olympian, 9x World Cup podium finisher & 9x Canadian cross-country Ntl. Champ - Joe Lawwill, raced MTB as a pro for 10 years & is now Shimano’s North American MTB marketing manager as well as an MTB skills coach - Steve...

On today’s Q&A episode, we cover a broad spectrum of topics including sugar consumption and its health effects, safe rates to increase volume, the pros and cons of group rides, the efficacy of topical bicarbonate products, and much more. Reminder, you can record a question for us on a voice memo app on your phone and then email it to us at fasttalk@fastlabs.com. Learn more about your ad choices. V...

We’ll start today’s show with a simple question, one that few athletes ask themselves: why do we have rest periods at all? Then Trevor and I will discuss the metabolic milieu that is “perturbed” during intervals. Our main guest is Sebastian Weber of INSCYD, and we’ll also hear from national champion Ruth Winder, Dr. Stephen Cheung, and Jared Berg. Sebastian is creating a webinar that will compleme...

Colby Pearce interviewing Dr. Allen Lim, founder of Skratch Labs, is today’s esteemed philosopher. REFERENCES: LUX camp is June 15th to July 15th. Dr. Allen Lim https://www.doctorallenlim.com Skratch Labs https://www.skratchlabs.com/ Dr. Stacy Sims https://www.drstacysims.com/ Chek https://chekinstitute.com/product/holistic-health-and-performance-for-women-e-learning/ Instagram: https://www.instag...

Today, we’ll address several questions that we received from listeners via email, voicemail, and Twitter. The first question Coach Connor addresses is about interval work and HIIT exercises, which we use as a springboard to talk about the difference between HIIT and HIT workouts. Please take a moment to take our survey. As we consider the potential for new subscription offerings, we want to hear f...

I’m your host, Colby Pearce. My goal is to help people express their highest potential by illuminating a path that enables alignment with truth. Ultimately, through this podcast, I aspire to provide a platform for useful insight and discussion around cycling and holistic health. Resources: www.industrytap.com/knowledge-doubling-every-12-months-soon-to-be-every-12-hours/3950 Learn more about your a...

We’re joined by Dr. Stephen Cheung, a professor in the kinesiology department of Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario. He is one of the world’s preeminent environmental physiologists, and studies how humans perform in extreme conditions. We’ll also hear from Nick Legan, Shimano’s road brand manager, and Whitney Garcia, former pro triathlete. In this time of online symposiums, Dr. Cheung is...

Hey Fast Talk listeners. We're proud to introduce the latest addition to Fast Labs. The Cycling in Alignment podcast is the brainchild of Colby Pearce, U.S. Olympic track cyclist and Hour Record holder. Colby has been a Steve Hogg Certified bike fitter for the past decade, working with elite athletes and teams. The minutiae of cycling and riding technique are just part of the story he shares. Alig...

Getting off our bikes is the last thing most cyclists want to do. That, however, is just what we’re recommending in today’s episode of Fast Talk. We'll hear from former pro and longtime endurance coach Julie Young; RedBull athlete, MTB marathon national champ, and host of The Adventure Stache podcast, Payson McElveen; Petr Vakoc of the Alepcin-Fenix team; and Steve Neal, endurance coach and the co...

Today we have a classic, complex, Coach Connor special. We ask a question not many other physiologists are asking: Is an amateur’s zone 2 ride (in a five-zone model) as physiologically taxing as a pro’s zone 2 ride? We’ll discuss what that means in much more detail with today’s main guest Dr. Iñigo San Millan, lead physiologist for the UAE-Emirates WorldTour team. We’ll also hear from physiologist...

We have received so many great questions about TSS, or Training Stress Score, that we wanted to look at this popular metric from several angles. Most of today’s episode is devoted to those questions, and stay tuned for a future episode where we’ll take an even closer look at TSS. There isn’t a single answer as to the best use of TSS, or how effective it is for your overall planning. Some people mi...

Today, we take a step away from the science, and talk tactics. When we’ll race again no one really knows. So we thought it would a great time to help our listeners at least daydream about racing with this episode. Specifically, we’re discussing how to be aggressive, when to be aggressive, in races. And we’re doing it with none other than the current national road champion, Ruth Winder, who we caug...