The Paceline Cycling Podcast

Selene and Patrick have been away riding. For Selene, last weekend was the nearly annual Bicycling Magazine Fall Classic. Unfortunately, even in organized rides, things don't always go according to plan. Or the advertising. So what do you do when the aid stations don't provide enough aid? Patrick spent eight days riding down the coast of California with the Arthritis Foundation in the California C...

This week Selene takes on weight loss once again. She addresses the problems with seeing that as necessary as well as seeing cycling as a vehicle for it, rather than an end in itself. And yet, she still accepts that it is an important goal to many people and she's a great guide for how to do it, so it may be that some of the issue here is her role as a fitness writer and making peace with providin...

This week Selene takes on a reader question about how exercise affects alcohol and how alcohol affects hydration. It turns out that this is a more complicated interaction than most folks understand. Alcohol affects how your body deals with lactate, your ability to ride hard after having a few beers or drinks and even how your body recovers. Of course, it's possible to minimize the negative effects...

My guest today is frame builder David Wages of Ellis Cycles. There was a time when the most common career path for a frame builder was to put in solid years building bikes for a brand that sold bikes in production sizing. Only after having put in a couple of decades at the bench was a builder established enough in reputation to venture out and order decals with his nam. David Wages may be among th...

We've gone from "'cross is coming," to "'cross is here." In a fair number of locations around the country, the season's first cyclocross races were held last weekend. Selene is excited for her local series to start. Are you ready? With fall right around the corner, or more unofficially, it's already here, this is a great time to consider your next bike purchase. Why? Patrick explains that bike com...

This week my guest is writer and flow state expert Steven Kotler. Kotler is a New York Times-bestselling author known for his work decoding the neurochemistry of flow. What began as a series of articles for Discover Magazine led to his first book of nonfiction, West of Jesus, a tale of surfing, spirituality and a reappraisal of mystical states. His book The Rise of Superman explores how flow state...

This week Selene takes on the subject of finding a coach specifically for mountain biking. What should you look for? Coaches aren't all the same and it's important to find the right coach for you. Selene breaks down some of the considerations, as well as some of the answers. We talk about flow states with some regularity here on the Paceline. Because it's been a while since we've discussed the nit...

My guest this week is the former executive director of the National Interscholastic Cycling Association, the organization that oversees, administers and fosters mountain bike racing for high school kids. McInerny has been involved with the organization almost since its inception and became the executive director in 2012. At the time, McInerny told the board he planned to do the job for three to fi...

Selene takes on a reader question regarding fasted riding for women riders because her previous advice didn't entirely jive with the advice of another expert on training for women, and there's an interesting point of intersection between the two. Last weekend she was in Steamboat Springs for a new gravel event that drew big guns for a big purse. And some 1500 people registered for the three distan...

This week my guest is sports psychologist Dr. Kristin Keim. Keim came to my attention several years ago when I began to see her posts on social media reshared by friends of mine in the bike racing world. Her posts were fonts of positivity rooted in practices that can bring about real change in a person’s life. I began to follow her as well and quickly realized hers was an outlook built on a backbo...

This week I’m taking a slightly different tack and am interviewing an academic. My guest is sociologist Ben Brewer of James Madison University. Brewer picked up the cycling bug in the 1980s as a teenager and had the good sense never to lose his interest in the sport. Like many cycling enthusiasts, he appreciates a great custom frame; Brewer has owned several, including a Land Shark. As an academic...

This week Selene takes on another reader question, this time about keto diets and their value, as well as their downsides. She also shares her experience teaching teen girls mountain biking skills for the upcoming NICA race season. Patrick talks bodywork and what a difference physical therapy and massage have made in his upper body and his ability to ride without pain. 

Selene is back from PPARC where she and her comrades across Pennsylvania raised more than $300,000. That works out to more than $4000 per rider, which is a staggering sum. She talks about the riding, the mission and the people. This week she takes up a reader question regarding his falloff in power over a long ride. Our intrepid reader saw a falloff of more than 25 percent over a nine-hour ride. T...

My guest this week is frame builder Mike Desalvo of Desalvo Custom Cycles. Desalvo is part of what I refer to as the second generation of American builders, those craftsmen who got their start as builders in the 1990s. Many of these builders learned their craft in part or in whole from the builders who were working in the 1970s and ‘80s. Desalvo stepped into that tradition of builders teaching bui...

Selene is about to ride clear across Pennsylvania in the PPRAC: The Pennsylvania Perimeter Ride Against Cancer. This is the 18th edition of the ride and Selene, along with her husband Dave, have done the last nine editions of the semiannual event. This year's ride is nearing it's goal to raise $300,000, all of which go to the charities that benefit from the event; they don't pull out a single doll...

My guest this week is painter Rudi Jung of Black Magic Paint. Jung caught my eye in 2017 with a frame he painted for Chris Bishop. It was a mostly black frame and fork, but had a red-orange-yellow fade through a design that had the look of wood grain. It’s was eye-catching in the extreme. Making the bike even more notable was the fact that the Bishop down tube logo featured gold leaf. I’d only see...

This week Selene takes on coaching and the difference in interacting with an actual human coach vs. an AI one like with VeloPro, which Patrick just reviewed this week. It turns out, Selene does better with a real human. Patrick finally caught up with Dirty Kanza's Chief Gravel Officer, Jim Cummins to talk about his experience at the race and the way the event is evolving. 

My guest this week is frame builder Frank Wadleton, better known in the industry as Frank the Welder. Wadleton, or FTW as he was often referred to, was a household name to mountain bike action readers back in the late 1980s and into the 1990s. Wadleton made his name initially with Yeti where he helped design an ultra-light aluminum frame, the ARC, that’s A R C, that was ridden to a number of stars...

It's summer in Pennsylvania! This week we tackle a Paceline-style PSA in the form of CPR training. Selene has quite the story. Riding eMTBs on singletrack is an activity that can elicit some strong opinions. Patrick takes on the use of these bikes on singletrack in the various kinds of parks (state, regional, city) found in California and how the bike industry is or is not helping their acceptance...

My guest this week is someone that you likely haven’t heard of before. His name is Ryan Johnson, but his resume is arguably one of the most interesting I’ve come across in the bike industry. For anyone who wants to know how the bike industry works, Johnson is someone who has seen almost every nook and cranny of the bike industry, save maybe finance. From working on bikes to writing marketing copy...

Say you're going on vacation, because it's summer, and say you're taking your bike, because duh bikes. And say you're going someplace mountainous. Also, say you live at sea level. Will the altitude ruin your riding? Selene talked to some experts to see just how much the reduced oxygen will hurt your performance. There are, however, things you can do to take care of yourself and limit the effects o...

This week our show is an appreciation of frame builder Bruce Gordon who passed away June 7th at the age of 71. Gordon was one of the most experienced and talented frame builders ever to pick up a torch. He learned the craft from Albert Eisentraut in the first frame building class he taught after moving to Oakland from Chicago. He went on to invest in Eisentraut’s business and became production man...

We begin with a reader question about how to rescue a day that doesn't seem to be going according to plan. You're not as fast as you thought, don't have the power you anticipated, your gut rots or maybe you're just bonking. What do you do? Selene sets off for vacation in a couple of days. By her reckoning, it has been a fair number of years since she last took a trip in which she wasn't either wor...

First up, thanks for enduring this several-week break due to my travels. I would have loved to get an episode squeezed in there somehow, but today’s show required a fair bit of tending to create; it wasn’t the simple conversation that so many of these interviews are. So this week’s show is part two of my long-awaited follow up to my interview with Paul Sadoff. As happens from time to time, I’ll ge...

Selene is tough. We all knew that. But last weekend, she went to Oklahoma for an event known as Tulsa Tough. The question of the day? Which is tougher: Tulsa, or Selene? Patrick's idea of a hard ride has been downgraded since Dirty Kanza. He's still in serious recovery mode more than 10 days after the event. He's contemplating new recovery strategies like vampirism and caffeine drips.  We also jus...