The perfect taper?

I’ve tried a number of different approaches to tapering for a big event. Take days off completely. Lower the volume but keep some intensity. Don’t do anything different at all.
What I really like to do is to throw a race in between some easy days. Just enough to keep race-sharp, but [...]

You say Ver-sales

Before leaving for the Ohio time trial championship in Versailles, my son informed me of the correct way to pronounce where I would be going.
“It’s Ver-sales”, he said. “They don’t like it when you say it like the French city.” As a college student at a small Ohio liberal arts school, he now apparently [...]

Chasing myself

I can understand how some pro riders feel pressure to dope.  I don’t agree with it, but I can understand it.
After a bad race, and then another, you start to have doubts.  When you’re doing this “just for fun”, it’s not such a big deal (though it doesn’t feel that way).But if you’re a professional, [...]

More Mind Games

Someone recently told me that riding a time trial is like riding a knife’s edge.  Just a little too much in either direction and you fall off.
This is one of the aspects that attracts me.  The time  trial is known as the ‘race of truth’: there is no drafting, no wheels to follow, nobody to [...]

TT Training Tricks

Yogi Berra said, “90% of baseball is mental; the other half is physical”.  Like many other “Yogiisms”, though logically incorrect, this one has an odd, zen-like quality.
He could easily be talking about riding time trials.  You might have a good engine but if you don’t master the mental aspect, then it’s just …  suffering.    Actually [...]