Fast Talk

In episode 58, we talked with Colby Pearce about what it takes to make an attempt at the hour record on the track. Not long after, Pearce set the master’s 45-49 world record with a scorching 50.245 kilometer effort. For this special episode, we caught up with him to discuss his successful attempt, the training he did, the difficulties of selecting gears and training on a track that was different f...

Today legend of the cycling industry, Lennard Zinn, shares a variety of factors in frame design including: - The concepts of fork rake, head-tube angle & trail - How these factors act together to make the bike more or less stable - The effects of wheel flop and how it impacts your ability to corner - How understanding rake, trail, and flop can have a significant impact on your performance - The ev...

THE HOUR. Those two words represent many things to many people. Some believe it to be the ultimate test of man and machine: out there on the track, with nowhere to hide, an athlete must come to terms with what he or she is truly capable of. In this episode, we sat down with Colby Pearce to dive deep into the Hour. It’s something Case knows all too well, since he too made an attempt in 2015. It’s H...

Mindset in cycling is an important and frequently neglected side of our training and racing. In reality, mindset is often all that separates the best from second best and can be the difference between reaching the podium or finishing a race. Our primary guest today is a professor of sports psychology and is a senior teaching professor at Colorado State University, Dr. Brian Butki. We also spoke wi...

Our featured guest is, of course, Dr. Stephen Seiler, a professor of sports science in Norway, where he has lived for over 20 years. He sits on the executive board of the well-respected European University College for Sports Science. It was his groundbreaking research that helped define the polarized model. We also hear from Dr. John Hawley, another prominent name in the exercise science world fro...

LAST FALL TREVOR AND I CONDUCTED a not-so-controlled study on climbing, and we had the help of a young, talented Colorado rider. His name? Sepp Kuss. At the time of our little experiment, Kuss was about to head to Europe for a training camp with his new WorldTour team, Lotto-NL Jumbo. We’ll also hear from Joe Dombrowski, a leader of the EF Education First-Drapac WorldTour team. Dombrowski was one...

Today, we’re sitting down with two guests from our sponsor NormaTec to discuss recovery in depth. NormaTec is a medical devices company that also crafts inflatable compression wear for athletes. Are they Space legs? Moon boots? Our primary guests today are two members of the NormaTec team: John Aquadro, NormaTec’s VP of Technology and Operations and Matt Curbeau. Additionally, we’ll hear from Fran...

Our featured guest is Dr. Stephen Seiler, a professor of sports science in Norway, where he has lived for 22 years. But no, that’s not a Norwegian accent. He received his Ph. D. from the University of Texas. Dr. Seiler is now on the executive board of the well-respected European University College for Sports Science. We're also joined by Grant Holicky, Andrew Randall, Steve Neal, and Larry Warbass...

This spring Joe Friel released his 5th edition of the "Cyclist's Training Bible." Trevor and I had a chance to talk with Joe about the newest edition. We came to the interview with a list of questions that we felt only touched on the key parts of the book and by the hour mark we were barely a quarter of the way through our list. In addition to Joe Friel, our guests include: Frank Overton, the owne...

In this episode, we’ll first touch upon the history of Dirty Kanza. Editor in chief Fred Dreier and Chris had a conversation in a recent VeloNews podcast about the phenomenon that is DK — why it’s become so popular, how it has grown so rapidly, and so forth, so check out that episode if you want more. Here, we’ll scratch the surface to give you a taste of the atmosphere at this race. Chris will al...

IN EPISODE 48 WE DELVE into the second part of our series on strategy and training for particular races. This episode is all about hilly road races and winning the GC at a stage race. We caught up with two members of Rally Pro Cycling. Kiel Reijnen shares thoughts on how the region you come from helps determine what style of racing you may like and Toms Skujins discusses how grand tour GC riders a...

Our guest today knows all about peaking — both as a coach and as an athlete. He’s an hour record holder, an Olympian, a thinker, a tinkerer, and someone with massive amounts of experience as an athlete. Colby Pearce’s many many qualifications are too long to list here so we’ll let Colby detail them himself in a minute. Also sharing his thoughts we have Robert Pickels and the head physiologist at P...

We’ll discuss the difference between a ketogenic diet and a high-fat/low-carbohydrate diet, and why the latter may be the more important one to discuss. Our primary guest is a researcher who has become one of the most well-known faces of the high-fat movement — Dr. Timothy Noakes. Dr. Noakes has been at the center of endurance science and sports nutrition research for decades. He wrote, among othe...

IT’S OFTEN OVERLOOKED. Sometimes forgotten. But it never should be. Recovery is just as important to strong performances as your daily workouts and weekly riding volume. Our guests today are Dr. Paul Gastin, Brent Bookwalter, Mac Cassin, and Frank Overton. We’ll also hear from Armando Mastracci, the founder of Xert training software, about the potential to use training software to give us clues ab...

This episode is all about data. Our guest is the lead engineer for TrainingPeaks and their coach-focused software package WKO4, Tim Cusick. We’ll also hear from Armando Mastracci, developer of Xert Training software; Dean Golich, a head coach at Carmichael Training Systems; and finally, we’ll touch base with Joe Dombrowski, of the EF Education First-Drapac WorldTour team, to get his take on how pr...

In this episode we take a deep dive into race strategy and tactics, and the necessary skills and training you need to excel at bike racing. In this two-part series, we’ll first touch upon flat races where the sprinter tends to win. Today we’re joined by two veterans of both European and American racing from Rally Pro Cycling - team manager Pat McCarty and one of Team Rally’s leaders, Evan Huffman....

This episode is all about power. We are lucky to have Hunter Allen, a veteran coach who, as our main guest; along with Dr. Andrew Coggan, wrote the original book on training with power in 2006: “Training and Racing with a Power Meter.” In this episode, we’ll also hear from Dean Golich, a head coach at Carmichael Training Systems who has worked for years with world champion and WorldTour-caliber cy...

This is our first edition of “Ask Fast Talk.” Because we receive so many compelling questions from Fast Talk listeners, we will begin devoting frequent episodes to answering your questions. On today’s episode, we discuss the following: the importance of aerobic threshold training and the physiological adaptations that take place from doing so; should FTP be based on one’s very best race effort or...

In this episode we take a deep dive into a subject that Case knows well, and that our guest, Lennard Zinn, has lived for the last five years: Heart arrhythmias in endurance athletes. Chris and Lennard, along with Dr. John Mandrola, wrote a book entitled “The Haywire Heart” that details how and why long-term endurance exercise could cause a variety of heart arrhythmias. We’ll also hear from Jeremy...

In this episode, we’ll look at the changes that have taken place in cycling legend Ned Overend, and how he’s been able to remain strong through the years, with an emphasis on recovery and staying healthy. In addition, we’ll hear from Dr. Jason Glowney, head of medicine at the University of Colorado Sports Medicine and Performance Center. We’ll also hear from Fast Talk regular Frank Overton, owner...

In this episode of Fast Talk, we’ll attempt to unlock the mysteries of fatigue. Is it just lactic acid pooling in your legs, as your high school coach probably told you? The answer is actually a lot more complex than you’d think. Our guests include Dr. Stephen Cheung, an exercise physiologist and professor in the kinesiology department at Brock University in St. Catherine’s, Ontario. We’ll also he...

We’re taking on the always-controversial subject of nutrition. Why is it so controversial? First, it’s very personal: Many people, trained or untrained, have strong opinions on the subject, and a lot of heated debate revolves around what is healthy and what is best for performance. We’ve had a few prominent guests on Fast Talk previously, and they’ve given their opinions on the subject. But thus f...

To start, we turned ourselves into mad scientists and convinced WorldTour pro Sepp Kuss (LottoNL-Jumbo) to join us. We rode several time trials up a few Boulder climbs in our quest for answers. Joining us for the podcast is Ryan Kohler of the University of Colorado Sports Medicine and Performance Center, who helped with the experiments on the road. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone...

This podcast covers the physiological effects of training in the cold, from muscle damage to the increased caloric demands. We also discuss tips and tricks to set up your bike, stay warm, and even keep your bottles from freezing. And if it’s just too darn cold, we explain the best way to balance time indoors on the trainer with outdoor rides. We speak with Dr. Stephen Cheung, Dr. Iñigo San Millan,...

In this episode of Fast Talk, we tackle the always-popular topic of climbing. A listener in Iowa asked if he could become a better climber. We’re joined by a collection of talented riders and coaches: Sepp Kuss, newly signed with the LottoNL-Jumbo WorldTour squad; Dr. Iñigo San Millan, director of the University of Colorado Sports Medicine and Performance Center; as well as fantastic climbers Joe...