// TOPICS COVERED
00:00:00 Welcome!
00:00:16 Big Sugar Weekend Recap
00:00:57 Meeting Fans and Funny Moments
00:02:45 Sophia and Keegan’s Performance
00:04:24 How Gravel Racing is Completely Changing
00:11:18 New Equipment and Strategy in Gravel Racing
00:17:20 Kona IRONMAN World Championships Discussion
00:25:47 Which Race Should the Podcast Do in 2025??
00:30:58 Why Calculating Caloric Burn Is Harder Than You Think
00:38:54 Why is Cramping Becoming More Common in 2024?
00:50:50 Heart Rate and Fitness: Myths and Realities
01:05:22 New TrainerRoad Features
Have you done anything on rest day cramps? It is a problem that a small number of cyclists suffer from and makes any light exercise, such as walking, paralysing for those affected. The only solution I’ve found for it is intense cycling without any warm up and then I am back to normal.
Still working my way through the episode but just dropping into say that I enjoy the in person podcasts so much more. I really love the old vibe of just talking training and biking. Hope to see more in the future!
On another note… are @Nate_Pearson & @Jonathan going to start a flat bar movement in gravel next year?
Interesting. I was getting this every rest week as a Triathlete when I trained 7 days a week but would take a day off in rest weeks. The cramping would lock me up late in the rest week sometimes early into the next week. Every rest week. Also happened twice in a race coming off a taper. Always the same type of muscle cramp in my calfs or glutes it feels different than over utilization cramps and always super early into a bike ride. I’ve heard perhaps it’s from overcompensation of glycogen storage but can’t remember the source for that.
Now that I mainly just cycle I’ve been riding 6 days a week and never have that issue. Not sure if perhaps the slightly more rest each week helps. Or just the one sport simplification.
My friend (former boss, actually) was out there for Little Sugar, Big Sugar, and some shakeout rides in between. He only rode his mountain bike as he was trying to find a gravel bike to buy. He posted a picture riding with Matt Beers, as well as some others. My friend is about 6’6", so I asked him if he let Beers draft off of him. He said they just rode side-by-side some, but he tried to tell Beers that it would be easier for Beers to sell him his bike than to carry it back home. End of the story is he bought Matt Beers’s bike!
We haven’t, but most of the research I see on non-athletic oriented cramps tend to lead to very general things like inadequate hydration, sodium/potassium levels, etc.
I’ll look into the latest research to see what I can find!
This is an interesting theory. Not sure how that would cause cramps, but will follow that thread as well!
This is wild! . Pretty rare to find somebody that can fit on Matt’s bikes!
Thanks, would be very interested to hear your thoughts on it. It seems to be a fairly unique in humans that cycle, but there is a very similar problem in horses ‘Monday morning syndrome’ Equine polysaccharide storage myopathy - Wikipedia
“A horse ideally should receive exercise once, or possibly twice a day, every day, to prevent the recurrence of ER. If possible, avoid breaks in the horse’s exercise schedule.”
“Horses generally have fewer clinical signs when asked to perform short bouts of work at maximal activity level (anaerobic exercise)” and “They have more muscle damage when asked to perform lower intensity activity over a longer period of time (aerobic activity)”
The significance of this study on calorie tracking seems to be underestimated by pretty much everyone, including the study authors, other than @Jonathan .
If the numbers are even correct within 50%, this represents probably the most overlooked aspect of endurance training in my 25 years in the sport.
The study suggests that it is possible athletes with high-volume training, despite diligent BMR estimation and calorie tracking including using a power meter, could be underestimating caloric burn and nutritional requirements to an extent that it is a gating issue on performance and recovery.
Sometimes we have “good legs” and sometimes we have “bad legs”. Is this why?