In this episode, host Craig Dalton interviews Stefan Barth, author of the book “Ultra Cycling and Bikepacking: All You Need to Know.” Stefan shares his journey into ultra cycling and bikepacking, discussing the challenges and unique aspects of these long-distance events. He highlights the importance of sleep, nutrition, and positioning in preparing for and competing in ultra cycling races. Stefan also emphasizes the need for a strong physical foundation and the role of mindset in overcoming obstacles during these demanding events.
Ultra Cycling and Bike Packing. All you need to know (Amazon link)
ISBN: 978-3-910501-03-4
Episode Sponsor: Pillar Performance (use code: CRAIG for 15% off)
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About the Guest(s): Stefan Barth is an author and coach specializing in ultra cycling and bikepacking. Based in Frankfurt, Germany, Stefan has a passion for long-distance cycling events and has participated in races such as the Race Across America and the Transcontinental. With a background in medical fitness coaching, Stefan combines his knowledge of training, nutrition, and mindset to help athletes prepare for and succeed in ultra cycling events.
Episode Summary: In this episode, host Craig Dalton interviews Stefan Barth, author of the book “Ultra Cycling and Bikepacking: All You Need to Know.” Stefan shares his journey into ultra cycling and bikepacking, discussing the challenges and unique aspects of these long-distance events. He highlights the importance of sleep, nutrition, and positioning in preparing for and competing in ultra cycling races. Stefan also emphasizes the need for a strong physical foundation and the role of mindset in overcoming obstacles during these demanding events.
Key Takeaways: Ultra cycling and bikepacking require a different approach to training compared to shorter races. Factors such as sleep, nutrition, and positioning become crucial in ensuring success. Sleep strategies vary depending on the duration of the event. While shorter races may not require sleep, longer races necessitate planned sleep breaks to maintain physical and mental well-being. Nutrition plays a vital role in sustaining energy levels during ultra cycling events. Experimenting with different foods and finding what works best for individual digestion is essential. Positioning on the bike is crucial for efficiency and energy conservation. An aggressive position, combined with flexibility and mobility training, can improve performance and reduce energy expenditure. Building endurance for ultra cycling involves training at or just below threshold levels for extended periods. Long intervals of 20-30 minutes at high intensity can help increase the ability to sustain effort near threshold. Notable Quotes: “Just because it’s possible to push through doesn’t mean it’s fun. Cutting off sleep is a sure way to get rid of the fun.” – Stefan Barth “Your base or your fundamentals are always a good physical condition. That’s what you really need to finish those events.” – Stefan Barth Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos:
[TRANSCRIPT] **** – (): . [00:00:00] – (): Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport **** – (): I’m your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don’t need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist. **** – (): This week on the podcast, I’ve got the great pleasure of welcoming author and coach Stefan Barth. He’s the author of a book called ultra cycling and bike packing. All you need to know that was recently translated from German to English. It’s a very deep technical book. About ultra cycling and these long distance events. Highlighting how different the training. Preparation and otherwise competing successfully the events. Needs to occur. **** – (): Stefan noted that in his preparation for ultrasonic. Recycling events. While he could cobble together a number of resources, podcasts, videos, et cetera. There was no singular location. That highlighted insights and philosophies and training methodologies. That he could find. So he sat on a journey to create the, this book. They look forward to jumping into the conversation with Stefan. **** – (): Okay. Before we jump in, I do need to thank pillar performance for their support of this episode. Pillars of sports, micro nutrition company. Who’s developed products that intersect between pharmaceutical intervention and sports supplements for athletes. As I mentioned previously, I’m really thinking about my overall health and wellbeing this year. **** – (): Trying to make some changes from a lackluster 2023. **** – (): My nighttime routine and sleep has become a…
Hello and welcome to the gravel ride podcast where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers event organizers and athletes who are pioneering the sport I’m your host Craig Dalton a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all
The mistakes you don’t need to make I approach each episode as a beginner to unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist this week on on the podcast I’ve got the great pleasure of welcoming author and Coach Stefon bar he’s the author of a book
Called Ultra cycling and bike packing all you need to know that was recently translated from German to English it’s a very deep technical book about ultracycling and these longdistance events highlighting how different the training preparation and otherwise competing successfully in events needs to occur Stefan noted that in his
Preparation for Ultra cycling events while he could Cobble together a number of resources podcasts videos Etc there was no singular location that highlighted insights and philosophies and training methodologies that he could find so he sat on a journey to create this this book so look forward to jumping into the conversation with
Stefan before we jump in I do need to thank pillar performance for their support of this episode pillar is a sports micronutrition company who’s developed products that intersect between pharmaceutical intervention and sports supplements for athletes as I mentioned previously I’m really thinking about my overall health and well-being
This year trying to make some changes from a lackluster 2023 my nighttime routine and sleep has become a crucial part of being able to perform my best pillar’s triple magnesium is informed by Leading heart rate variability researcher Dr Dan PL and used by many high- performing athletes Piller has recently signed on
As the official micronutrition partner of Israel premere Tech it has been integral to my end of the day routine 30 minutes before sleep I mix in one scoop of pillar’s triple magnesium powder into a glass of water to help guarantee my body spends as much time in rem and deep
Sleep as possible pillar uses a high dose of glycinate magnesium activating the parasympathetic nervous system and ensuring you fall asleep and stay in that restorative sleep phase longer and longer I’ve been tracking my HRV data each morning and it speaks volume as to what pillar triple magnesium is doing
For my recovery higher HRV and more closely linked REM and deep sleep cycles on top of that I feel better more rested and recovered if you’d like to try pillar today head on over to pillar performance. shop for us listeners you can head to thefeed.com pillar and enter the code Craig for 15%
Off that’s Craig c r a i g for 15% off all first time purchases with that behind us let’s jump right into my conversation with Stefan Stefan welcome to the show hi Craig I’m excited to get you to know you a little bit better and learn more about the book
You wrote Ultra cycling and bike packing all you need to know as we were talking about offline I think it’s a very interesting Journey where many of us onor are on as cyclists from starting to do gravel events starting to do longer gravel events getting interested in bike
Packing and I think as the the sports evolve and the science of training evolves it’s super interesting to have a discussion with someone like you who’s thought a lot about ultracycling how to train for it you’ve thought so much about it that you’ve written a book
About it yeah and glad that it got translated into English so more and more people are able to read it now so I’m really looking forward to our chat crap yeah it’s so maybe that’s a good point to let’s let’s set the stage where are you located and maybe follow that on by
Where did you grow up and how did you discover cycling in the first place okay yes I’m from from Germany and I’m located in Frankfurt here and yeah so the book is about Ultra cycling and bike packing and that actually is where I started my cycling career so it was like
Always I was I was driven to the to the longer longer events and even when I started cycling as a teenager it was always okay I want to go the for the 100 kilometers to the town that is a little bit farther away and uh most of my
Friends they were not able to reach these towns even by the bus and I was feeling very very cool just to be able to go there by bike and somehow this this got my addiction to long-distance cycling starting and yeah it developed from that so I’m probably a young
Starter so I think it was like with 14 years that I did my first free day ride and yeah then it escalated quickly and did you ever get drawn into kind of more traditional bike racing or was touring and long-distance riding always your true yeah only for a short time I I had
Like a triatlon time so I had a couple of years when I was more doing Ironman distance triatlon races and that was the time when I got more professional in cycling as well because I got more yeah I focused more on competitive cycling and during that time I did a couple of
Criteria races but it never really catched me so it’s not yeah it was not to my taste to to ride in a in a bunch and to always uh have this fear of of of a crash and I’m not the the guy made for speed but rather for for long stretches
And to to feel like the the exhaustion creep into your legs but because of the duration and not because of the intensity got it and where did your sort of professional life and uh and cycling start to intersect a couple of years ago it was like really the time when I when
I did those Iron Man distance races that was like the beginning of putting more thought into how should I prepare my body how should I prepare my mind what do I need to do with nutrition to get better on those races and yeah that’s probably where I started to think okay I
Could or this is my passion and I will well I want to do something in my professional career in this area in the long term and soon afterwards I started to go part-time as a coach and I did like in Germany it’s called medical Fitness coaching so I started in an area
Where you put a lot of weight into how to coach athletes but at the same time how to do rehab and prehab yes and this I did some years in part-time and I had a full-time job in the finance sector and when I published the book or the
German edition of the book Ultra cycling and bike packing at that time I had to make a decision because both careers would have been yeah one career would compromise the other one and then I decided or it was pretty easy for me actually to decide that I want to to
Have a job that is my passion at the same time and so I decided to go all in in coach in and writing about coaching that’s super interesting and it it makes sense given some of the very technical elements of the book around physiology that you lean into that we can talk a
Little bit about later and it also makes sense that Iron Man Journey which you and I share I I feel like as athletes Iron Man it’s one of those disciplines that highlights your deficiency of preparation very quickly both physically nutrition and all kinds of things so I’m
Curious you know building off upon that when did you start getting drawn into the more ultra distance cycling events soon soon after my first Iron Man actually and at that time I did like big bike pecking trips as like Bas mile training for Iron Man’s as well so I I
Always try to have one vacation in summer and be like three or four weeks with my bicycle and ride as m miles as possible to build a strong or a strong foundation for the Iron Man training and during that time I noticed that there’s a crazy race in America called the Race
Across America I think it was some time about 2013 probably something like that when I heard the first time about this Race Across America and that there is an Austrian guy called kristofh stasa who’s not living too far away from from here who was really good at it and I was like
Okay he’s crossing the whole continent in 10 days this is crazy and that’s what I want to do and yeah that’s that’s how I got drawn into this longdistance cycling and I think that actually kicked off here in Europe quite a Fascination for this sport in general especially in
Germany and Austria and there popped up a more and more 24-hour cycling event and that was the beginning for me then I started to uh to participate at these 24-hour events and yeah just looked how how much can I do or how long can I go
In 24 hours and then this evolved into supported races so I did a couple of races Ultra cycling races where I had my own support crew which is quite expansive and at the same time more and more bike P bike pecking events up here in Europe like transcontinental and more
More smaller ones and yeah then I switched you were talking about the Transcontinental and some of these other Ultra endurance Road cycling events how many days were those events taking yeah I think the the first when I when I started the the smaller ones were two or
Three day rides and my longest one was uh nine nine days one hour so this is uh a bit more than 3 and a half thousand kilomet it’s always super interesting to me when you kind of transcend that single day racing format to multi-day format to just understand
The mentality and I know some of this is included in the book but I think it’s great background before we get there how do you handle kind of sleep along the way in those events yeah it it differs between like Ultra cycling is not Ultra cycling but
It’s important to make this this to distinguish between how long or is it a multi-day race or is it just 24 hours because I think in in a 24 hours uh race at least for me there’s no difficulty in uh no sleep at all so if you’re doing a
24-hour race it’s okay to have a stop time about 15 to 20 minutes only and in a 48 hour race it’s still works for me without sleep but just if you are practice at it and everything Beyond 48 hours is where it gets really tough and where I think you
Just have to sleep you probably can go with a napping strategy but it’s way more fun if you sleep and that’s something I think that some people underestimate the first time just because it’s possible to push through doesn’t mean it’s fun and to cut off the
Sleeping time is a sure way to to get rid of the fun that’s for sure as you were as you were pursuing these new and different style races were you able to find the resources you needed to understand how to train and prepare for them or was it more trial and error
Along the way it was a lot trial and error and yes there was I think nowadays it’s easier 10 10 years later there’s a lot of more content on the internet and you have podcasts that go into different topics of ultra cycling and you have bloggers that post a lot but still
There’s not too much scientific background of it and when I started I tried a lot by trial and error and I also tried to find people obviously who have done it before uh try to talk with them connect with them on social media and at the events use the time to to
Have a couple of words with them but it was very uh sometimes frustrating way because you had to invest a lot of time and you could not be sure that you yeah you get a return on your investment because yeah then you you tried something out uh for example nutrition
And I had like one huge mistake I made when I tried to copy the nutrition nutrition strategy of Christof stasa from his race cross America and he had like some I don’t know if it’s it’s sponsored product but like some fluid nutrition and he was always telling okay
He drinks like 200 milliliters of this uh fluid per hour and that works fine for him and I was okay if it works for him I should try it as well and I did it during a race and this was probably really one of my biggest mistakes because I totally underestimated that
He’s probably something like 40 pounds heavier than me because I’m quite short and he puts in a lot of more power and I totally underestimated how this power and this body weight Factor correspond on your nutrition needs and I drank way too much and I consumed way too much
Energy which yeah ended in me at the roadside feeling very very sick and yeah I had to do a complete restart so I I did finish the race but after lying in the ditch for for I don’t know 30 40 minutes I had to to to build in a period
Drinking only water don’t eating anything and just have a complete reset for my body and my mind and then I could start again but yeah that’s that’s the mistakes that I made on the road and that’s what the book is about that not everybody has to lie in this ditch and
Make the same mistakes all over again you sort of alluded to this in in your answer there but if we go back to sort of what inspired you to write a book I’m just curious how you would answer that question yeah it’s at the beginning I
Was not planning on writing a book so um probably this is the the most important part because when I started it was more like okay I I had a lot of conversations and I have tried a lot of things and I wanted to write write it down for myself
First so it was was not planned to to make a book out of it but rather a compendium for myself for future events and also when I thought about starting a coaching business business this was like a blueprint for my clients and then I started to talk to other athletes about
What I had until that moment and they were really really interested in this whole topic and to have a compendium for how to best prepare for ultracycling events and yeah then I started thinking okay maybe I should look up into more and more papers and maybe I should add
Some some new chapters to it and at that time I started with the interviews so the book incorporates a couple of of interviews or a couple of interviews I did with other athletes and I started with those who are my friends obviously and with we just sat uh at a table for I
Think with Marti kuster I set for almost eight hours and we talked the whole day about what are topics that he’s interested in and then I used these yeah guideline or these topics that we discussed that day to go to other athletes also to some yeah some very
Reowned athletes and just to ask them about their their experiences to in these top PS and somehow the interest was yeah overwhelming because when I started I started with people I know and at the end I talked to LEL Wilcox and at the beginning I would not would not have
Thought that I will be talking to someone like LEL Wilcox about her racing experiences and be able to incorporate them into into my book so yeah it was a process and it almost took four years from the beginning of when I started to write down the first sentences until I
Finished the book in German it’s almost four years so it was probably way longer than normal normally an author would take to write one book got it super interesting obviously there’s a lot of information about cycling training out there when you talk about maybe road racing or traditional mountain bike
Racing and as we’ve mentioned there hasn’t been a lot documented about training for ultracycling and bike packing if there were a couple areas that you would highlight that are dramatically different from shorter races to longer races um yeah we talked about one which is like sleep something that is completely unimportant for
Normal sports or which is only important when you talk about uh recovery but there’s no need to cut sleep during doing races and of course nutrition is a big big part because nutrition becomes even more important the longer the race is also the whole part efficiency and
How you sit on your bike how it gets way more important because you develop more problems with your neck with your shoulders with your lower back than if you are just riding your bike for five or six hours and also the training aspect is different so it’s not just
About pushing your lactate threshold or your your or getting more power to the pedal because at the end it’s not necessarily the athlet with the most power or the best power to weight ratio that wins the races but it’s the one that has the best overall ability to
Ride the bike as long as possible and with as few breaks as possible so many questions are coming to mind way more important on this oh okay so let’s go give it a go through some of those a little bit one by one so we talked a
Little bit about sleep obviously most of us we try to get eight hours of sleep a night when we’re at home try to do rides well rested every time in order to compete in some of these events and in order to even maybe just do them you
Need to be able to sleep outside you need to be able to sleep on the go when you maybe it’s easiest if we talk about a a four day long event for example what is a sleep strategy that maybe someone newer to the sport could could realize and and and
Approach yeah yeah at the beginning I would always recommend to have like a longer sleeping break every night something like maybe three hours or or three hours sleeping time which will translate into something like four or four and a half hours stopping time and the important thing is to know sleep
Cycles you know because your your body or your mind your brain goes through different sleep stages during the course of the night and I think a lot of people already heard this that it’s easier to wake up if your total sleeping time can be divided by 90 minutes and this
Reflects those sleep cycles it’s easier to or you have one you have four four sleep stages and one of them is where you are sleeping really really deep and if you wake up or if you get woken by your alarm clock or friends whatever during this really deep sleep this will
Be very confusing and you can actually if if it is combined with the physical exhaustion it can happen that you wake up and you’re feeling disoriented and you don’t really know where am I am I racing or what’s going on so it’s good to know your own uh sleep cycles because
They defer from this 90 minutes a little bit and they get like they get each time you go through them during the night they uh get a little bit longer so so if you are trying to sleep 3 hours around 3 hours the for most people it’s better to
Sleep for example 3 hours and 10 minutes um which reduces already the risk of waking up from this deep sleep stage and then I would always recommend to have routines if you’re going for a four or five day ride it’s way easier to go to bed around the same time every evening
And to wake up around the same time every morning it’s a little bit like in your everyday life if you’re working on shifts and yeah you have to uh someday you waking up at 6:00 a.m. sometimes you have to wake up at 10: a.m. then it gets
Really really hard to to be fit in the morning and uh during the event it’s the same it’s way easier to have a a routine and also transfer this routine as or as much as possible to to the whole cycling event for example also it’s a good idea
To have you a lunch break around the same time each each day which makes life way easier especially for begin yeah I imagine so one of the things I wanted to highlight which I thought was interesting you mentioned you know if you’re intending for a three-hour sleep
You probably need a 4-Hour window of time and as someone with a limited amount of bike packing experience I I can I I understand that because you need to get off the bike you need to cool down you might need to change to get comfort able you have to lay out your
Sleep gear and then you have to do all that in Reverse to get yourself back going so it’s interesting to to hear you highlight that which makes sense as you’ve said it yes and that’s also one uh very very good advice which I learned from from one of my interviews because a
Lot of us we are quite organized and we like like it structured and so a lot of people when they do their first bike packing experiences and they have this sleep break they like they uh arrange their whole equipment so that after their sleep break they can be moving as
Fast or yeah yeah as fast as possible so like you’re already putting out the the gear that you’re needing after your sleep break and that oftentimes is a huge mistake actually because if you push your your your limits a little bit then you are already a bit sleep
Deprived maybe and you’re physical pH physically completely ex exhausted when you have been writing for maybe 15 hours this day and then you are trying to make decisions before you go to sleep and oftentimes you need way longer to make decisions and then those decisions are not always the best ones because after
You wake up you notice ah it’s way colder than I expected or I feel way colder because just my yeah my my heart rate is really really slow after after sleeping but I already packed my my warm clothes at the complete uh yeah the most down downward uh in my in my bike
Packing bags and so it’s a good good advice to just grab your sleeping bag grab your mattress or whatever you you use your BV bag and just close your eyes try to fall asleep immediately don’t forget to put your alarm clock but uh the whole equipment thing and
Arrangement you can do this All after you have slept and you will notice that you’re way more alert you are awake and you will make better decisions the second thing you mentioned to drill into was nutrition and again many of us have done gravel events 100 mile maybe 200
Mile and we sort of know oh we can get by with Sports Nutrition all day long how do how do we need to think about it differently if we’re extending to that exam Apple 4 Day event also there’s yeah there’s some parts are for nutrition some parts are the same like in normal
Cycling especially during training so it’s you have the same amounts of carbs per hour that you try to get in during your training rides for example so that you get the best physical adaptions but at the same time you need to plan ahead and think about what can you get during
A bike packing trip because you’re are limited often times to gas station food or uh if you’re doing races in remote places like the Silk Road Mountain race or the Atlas mountain race uh well you have to eat what you can get there so it’s always good advice to experiment a
Lot with nutrition so that you know uh which kind of food can I take down which kind of food can I stomach and what do I like probably because yeah if you are used to going with Sports Nutrition or with sweets I don’t know if you ever
Tried to to survive on those Sports Nutrition gills and bars for for eight hours yeah it does add up and you do get quite sick of them by the end of the day yeah and I think you you get a feeling in your mouth that’s like sticky and
Doesn’t feel feel very nice so yeah it’s good to know this in advance and to experiment with other Foods also with solid foods that you can buy like cheese or like sandwiches and like uh like rice and stuff like this if just to try it
Out and to learn can you digest it does it taste good for you during writing so this this would be like the first step to to get a bit more experience with different kinds of foods and then another part is like proteins you need proteins on a longer ride uh even though
You don’t need them during short rides because your body is not or it’s it’s easier for your body to to transform carbs into energy but during a 4-day ride you also need proteins for your recovery periods especially if you plan on sleeping three hours every night because then your body
Actually has the time to recover a little bit from day to day where in your opinion where’s the cut off point for needing protein in your cycling nutrition in terms of hours would you need it in a in a in a 15-hour day or does it not come into play until you’re
24 hours that’s a difficult question and I’m not sure if there’s like scientific proof for when it gets uh beneficial but I would always already included if you go beyond those recommended durations for cycling because like if you’re right is longer than 5 6 hours this is already
Almost a little bit too long to build up endurance and if you stretch these these time frames I think it’s beneficial to add up some some proteins as well and definitely if you go beyond beyond those 15 hours um and it’s individual you will probably notice it for example when I
Eat two or when I limit myself to to carbs during a ride at some point I will get a headache I need some fats or some protein otherwise my body tells me okay this is this is just too restricted to to carbohydrates um so if you notice
Something like this it can be the solution to eat something with fats and proteins and then there’s also especially with proteins a huge difference between male and female athletes because there’s yeah like males are way more or it’s it’s they are way more dependent on carbohydrates on carbs during during activity and female
Athlets they are more dependent on carbs after the activity for Recovery purposes so female athlets they also need a little bit more protein or already during their R interesting and then on to the next subject of positioning interesting that you highlight that as a key area of consideration can you talk through sort
Of some of the differences one might want to consider in their position as they go longer and longer in duration yes because the longer the duration gets the more efficient you need to be because if you can save only 10 watts or every day for a riding time
Of maybe 16 hours each day you really save a lot and you really gain a lot of speed and at the same time you reduce your energy expenditure and energy expenditure is like one of the key limiters in Ultra cycling because it’s simply it’s it’s really really difficult
To get in enough energy for what you are burning and so if you can reach the same speed with less energy expenditure this already is a huge huge benefit and so it’s a good thing to have an aggressive position on your bike actually in Ultra cycling and not being too focused on
Comfort because this is something many beginners are doing because bike Fitters also are promoting this if you’re going for longer rides try to get your position on the bike more comfortable and my Approach is a little bit different because I think you can you can have an aggressive position on your
Bike which is at the same time comfortable if you are putting the energy or the uh time into your own flexibility Mobility and strength training because most of the time the effet is the limiter and not the bike and so this is what I call efficiency in
The book like the the position on your bike is is detrimental for your efficiency and you can gain a lot of efficiency by yeah optimize your own your own flexibility mobility and strength yeah I know you you go into sort of great technical detail on how to improve your strength and flexibility
And mobility and I would agree that those are critical elements for any cyclist whether you’re trying to get a more aggressive position or not I can only speak to my own limitations which are definitely hindered by the lack of mobility and I I spend a lot of energy
These days trying to increase my Mobility to have that all day long Comfort because I I I don’t currently have that right now in my cycling you know as I go longer and longer eventually my lower back’s going to start to hurt and it becomes quite a
Limiting factor in my own personal case yeah and I think cycling is like a limiting sports or a limiting type of sports because we have we don’t have a lot of different movements we only have one type of movement because the the bike completely determines how your body
Moves and so the body is limited to to there’s no rotational movement there’s no sideways movement there’s nothing more dimensional this is only happening in one in one plane and that triggers a lot of adaptations in our body that are not that good and in combination with
With a lot of jobs where we are sitting like eight hours in front of a desk and then we go home and then we sit two hours on the roller or in on the bike and actually we are only sitting so there is a reason why cyclings or
Cyclists chose a sports where you are sitting because we don’t like to move too much so is there any is there any like sort of Silver Bullet in terms of Mobility exercises that are your favorite go-tos yes definitely because like the the disadvantage of the bike giving you
Or limiting your your mobility and your your range of motion during during riding is also kind of an advantage at least from my coaching perspective because you can be pretty sure that almost every cyclist has the same problems because we all have exactly the same movement if you compare this to
Other sports like like football or ice or something like this like there’s a lot of potential injuries and um sources of injuries and because every athlet is moving in a different different way but cyclists they are all moving in the same way so we are having the same trouble
And um one of those troubles is that we are losing the flexibility in our posterior chain so like the um the pedal stroke is highly dependent on your quads so this is where the power comes from so you get really really strong strong quads and your body uh needs to
Compensate this because the quads they are they are pulling at your at your hips and at your pelvis so you need the same amount of force at at the back of of your body at the posterior chain and since we don’t have strong backs of the
Legs because this is just pulling up the pedal again and this is like the recovery phase of the pedal stroke what your body does is it tightens the hamstrings because tight is like the compromise you if you if you don’t have muscles you get tight muscles just to
Have like this counterbalance to the very strong quad s so it’s always the first part of a Mobility flexibility training for cyclists is always gaining more flexibility in the in the hamstrings in the backs of the legs and afterwards strengthening these body parts that you have a counterbalance to
To the quads interesting that’s helpful the final area you touched on and I’m I’m going to add an additional component to it you you talking about training and you were talking about how simple power to R weight ratio which may be sort of the predominant metric in Road cycling
Is not necessarily going to make or break your success as a Ultra endurance cyclist so if you could talk a little bit about that and then I would add on just a question around mindset yes so I think in long-distance cycling it’s more important to to increase the capability to cycle at or
Just a little bit below your threshold so if you if you started with maybe you can ride four hours at 50% of your threshold then it would be a very very good or a huge benefit if you increase this this uh capability to 60 or 65% of your threshold and your threshold can
Actually stay the same the whole season it does not necessarily need to to go up all the time but it’s it’s very important that you that you can sustain uh huge amounts of time near your threshold or that you that you can gain yeah that you can push up those those
Percentages so this is what I try to with my coaches most of the time in training to to increase their ability to to get to those 60 or 70% in a in a 24-hour race and what kind of uh training efforts help to that end it’s a
Lot of steady state writing so a lot of writing a little bit below your threshold but doing this for for longer periods of time for example if you are looking in the typical uh training plans generated by straa or by Swift you will
See a lot of a lot of efforts a lot of intervals that are lasting only a couple of minutes and I also I’m a big fan of having those long interval of 20 minutes sometimes or even 25 minutes almost at your threshold and that’s a very good
Way to get better at at riding near your threshold because your body gets very very good at eliminating the lactate from your blood while pushing hard so you you red reduce the the level of lactate that is building up in the in the intervals gotcha so if you were out on a
On a Training Day day for one of your athletes would it be something like you know two or three 20 minute intervals at 65% of threshold with 10 minute break in between something like that yes but way more than 65% of threshold it’s more like 90% of threshold for 20 minutes
Then okay so it’s like but it’s a slow buildup if you start with this kind of training and you’re going maybe with eight minutes in each interval and do this three or four times then you are this is a good start and if you do this
A couple of weeks at some point this will it will make it will make uh like you put a put put a switch on and it will be you will be able to go for 20 or 30 minute intervals yeah as you’re thinking about for your athletes these
Longer events and selfishly I’m thinking about my own 200 mile or 360 kilometer aspirations this year obviously in a lot of the training plans you might see you might have a six-hour training ride or an 8 Hour training ride these events are going to last longer than that you know
It might be a 15h hour day for me and certainly for a 24h hour 4 Day event you’re talking about thousands of kilometers how do you in training kind of build up to that capacity to continue on for these distances yeah um you need to stretch the traditional cycling distance from
Time to time because um I like to I I call this challenges um because you you need to know how your body reacts to those long rides they are not very efficient in building up endurance like I said earlier there’s like five to six hours if you are already a very good
Cyclist maybe you even benefit from a seven hour endurance right but everything that is longer than that just yeah just you need more recovery time afterwards but you don’t get the physical adaptation or not more physical adaptation than from a four or five hour ride but in Ultra cycling or also in
What you’re are doing on the gravel bike you need sometimes a ride that lasts 10 or 12 hours just so that you know okay how will I feel when I’m really exhausted and how will I cope with nutrition will I be able to eat at the end because I think that’s something
Probably you know it from your Tri time eating gets difficult the longer you are you are um active so you really need to know okay does the food that I can stomach after 5 hours can I still stomach it after 10 hours and how how does my butt hurt after 10 hours because
This will hurt different than after five hours and it’s good to know how this feels and how you can cope with it and then you can you can think about a strategy how you would will how you will tackle this problems during Unbound so yes I I incorporate rights that are longer than
10 hours from time to time but limited not it’s not it’s no good if you do this every weekend a couple questions that came up after your last comment Stefan around training so I remember from marathon training like we’d only run 22 miles and we’d never run that full
Distance thinking you’ll be able to get there race day the second thing for my ultramarathon training was we would often do a long day on Saturday and then follow it up by a medium Day on Sunday and my understanding of that philosophy was hey we can’t beat you guys up and we
Can’t have you running 35 mile days quite regularly but we can do a 22 Mile day on Saturday and a 15 mile Day on Sunday to try to kind of make the body feel like it’s done this long event does any of that track with the type of
Training that makes sense for Ultra Mar Ultra cycling yeah yeah yeah exactly and the final thing I wanted to touch on and I mentioned it a bit earlier was just sort of mindset and I thought about this a lot as we were talking about sleeping and waking up from a a three-hour sleep
Having to get your gear ready and get going again I could just see in myself struggling to kind of put put pedal in front of pedal after you know just sleeping for three hours so can you talk about the importance of mindset and maybe if there are any tips and tricks
That one can learn to keep keep pedaling forward yes definitely because you you need to find like a sweet spot between recovery and exhaust exhaustion during training so I also like to do those backtack sessions for example also with those long interval sessions we spoke of earlier
That I am doing like maybe on Friday some really long and hard intervals followed by a long ride on Saturday followed by a short ride on Sunday to build up this this exhaustion over the weekend but still without compromising your recovery completely so yeah that’s that’s a good way for for those working
Effets interesting I mean it sounds like with all this you know preparation with and doing the work leading up to your event is key it’s probably a trit thing to say but I think that work for Ultra cycling clearly is a lot longer than it is for shorter events because I do think
You need to prepare yourself mentally for all the inrees around your sleep system and getting up and preparing the different types of nutritional needs as you’ve you’ve outlined and there just a different mindset you need to go going into these events yes there’s there’s a couple of
Of little hacks that I I like to include or that I included in the book Because when it comes to mindset I have a little bit a different opinion than a lot of people out there I think because from my point of view the mindset is a little
Bit overestimated when it comes to ultracycling or some Ultra Adventures whatever you call it because in their general public it always comes down too much to the mindset and from my point of view your base or your your fundamentals are always a good physical condition and that’s what you really need to finish
Those events and of course you can finish an ultracycling event or a bike packing event just by mindset and by Iron willpower but this will mean that you will do sacrifices and maybe even sacrifice your health in in some situations and I don’t like that too much about this Sports and
I don’t like that in the general public people focus so much on this so from my point of view it’s always more important to build up your physical capacity and then mindset is important of course because like you said you go out there and you will have uncomfortable
Situations but then it’s more uh willpower what you need you need to like you need small life hacks that will that will keep you going and I like to to dig a little bit into how our brain works in these parts because our brain is like still the same brain that we had
Thousands of years ago and it’s divided into parts that are focused on emotional Fe or on emotions on feelings and you have Parts in your brain that are focused on the rational thinking there’s a couple of tricks to better get those rational thinking Parts in your brain
Working and this will help you a lot in ultracycling events because yeah you will trigger a lot of those those those feelings that are very ancient in in humans and your brain will correspond with reactions that are also very ancient and those are oftentimes not the best the best reactions so it’s
Important to to keep rational and to keep your thinking going so one life hack for example is very very easy and that’s the the stop button you can visualize a stop button uh once you notice that your thoughts are dysfunctional and this stop button or
The sign like on the road sides on the highways I’m not sure how they are looking in the US but here in Europe this like a big red sign where in white there’s written stop on it and just by visualizing this sign which is a very very easy picture to visualize you can
You can stop those emotional Parts in your brain from taking over completely and you gain a few seconds and this is oftentimes enough to start rational thinking and once you start rational thinking you will notice that you you are way or you are better able to keep your
Willpower because you keep yourself in control yeah and it’s it’s a difference between motivation and willpower so like motivation is the thing that uh gets you going in the preparation and which is probably the the reason why you signed up for the event and which which is the
Reason why you are willing to put in all those training hours and then during the event itself you need will power that’s the thing that will bring you to the Finish Line yeah 100% I think Stefan that’s a good place to end it I appreciate the time this evening calling
In from Germany appreciate you taking the time and effort to document everything in this very thorough book on Ultra cycling and bike packing I think you did a great service to that community in the world and we certainly put links to uh how to find the US
Version of the book in the show notes of this podcast yeah that’s great thanks for your invitation Craig cheers that’s going to do it for this week’s edition of the gravel ride podcast big thanks to Stefon for joining the show that’s going to do it for this week’s edition of the gravel ride
Podcast big thanks to Stefon for joining the show it’s so fascinating for me to think about these Ultra cycling events and the differences it would require in order to be successful there if you’re interested and able to support the show ratings and reviews are hugely appreciated or if you want to contribute
Financially please visit buac coffee.com slthe gravel ride until next time here’s to finding some dirt under your wheels