Jonathan Lee is a Level II USAC / USAT certified cycling coach and the host of the Ask a Cycling Coach podcast. His background in the sport of motocross has translated into a passion for cycling, mountain biking and all things training. If you have a training question, submit your question for Jonathan to answer on the next episode of TrainerRoad’s podcast.
Is it just a templated plan, and how do you know the workout is right for you? TrainerRoad simulates every workout it could give you, using your own rides, and picks the one that fits your goals and current fitness. Here is how that works with a plan, without one, and after every ride you finish.
Tobias Kongstad and Stella Hobbs won the elite races at Life Time Big Sugar Gravel 2026. Behind them, 22% of the amateur 100-mile field has a TrainerRoad account. Here is how those riders finished on the 50 and the 100, the power they held, how many made it to the finish, and the one thing that lined up with the most time saved.
Riders who followed their plan gained about 5% in 20-minute power after two months, 9% after four, and about 10% by summer. They did the workouts as written, kept going past month four, and started early. Here is what the data says about each habit, and when to start for next season.
Two routes get an age grouper to Kona: win your age group, or race close enough to the Kona Standard for a Performance Pool slot. Here is how the age-graded ranking works, what times have been getting slots, every 2027 qualifying race with its slot count, how to claim a slot, and what a qualifier’s training year looked like in TrainerRoad data.
Who gets to Kona, what the Queen K and the Hawi climb are really like, what a year of TrainerRoad is worth against aero upgrades, how hard athletes ride an IRONMAN bike leg, and how much you sweat on the lava fields.
Two hard days a week is standard for pros and commonly recommended for masters riders. In a filtered sample of more than 14,000 TrainerRoad riders on about five hours a week, riders who did three hard days improved their 5- to 60-minute power more than riders who did two, including riders in their 40s and 50s.
On long outdoor rides, riders over 5 W/kg hold Zone 2 power steady while riders under 2.5 spike and coast. The steadiness is a habit you can copy, and slower riders already ride this way on their better days.
Connect TrainerRoad and ROUVY once, and today’s workout is waiting in ROUVY, ready to ride on any route. Here’s how the new integration works.
Does lifting actually make you faster, and how often do you need to do it? Each weekly strength session held for a year was worth 1.2 to 1.6 W at every effort length we measured. Two to three sessions a week covers most cyclists, and men keep gaining past that. Spreading the same gym hours across 50 weeks instead of 10 was worth another 3.2 W at 20 minutes.
The 2026 course is shorter and the buckle cutoffs are tighter. Here’s the watts per kilogram it takes to earn each belt buckle, and how many riders have it.