TL;DR…Trainer Road Works
Fall of 2024 I started listening to the Trainer Road ‘ask a cycling coach’ podcast and I was hooked. With a few local Bikepacking races (with some podiums) and zero structured training under my belt, I thought this was a good opportunity to not only take a crack at the Tour Divide, but go into it as bike-fit as I could be.
I am 36 years old and work as a firefighter in Bellingham, Washington. My recreation background is in bigwall climbing, alpinism, fast packing/trail running, and of course riding bikes. I am no stranger to sleep deprivation and long multi day pushes where physical exhaustion and high consequence decision making are the norm, so the Tour Divide seemed right up my alley…if I could muster the pedaling chops.
How I set up my ~6 month training plan: (running from December 1 2024-June 13 2025.)
I opted for a gravel, high volume, masters plan. I selected my A race as the Tour Divide with a June 13 start and posted it in my calendar as a stage race taking 18 days, with a scheduled 18 hrs a day of riding. On the TD this would average out to about 150 miles and 10,000’ of climbing a day.
Having no structured training background, I took my first ramp test on Zwift November 1 with an FTP result of 281 watts. I set trainer road to AI FTP detect, and over the next 6 months I would see an increase of 74 watts, with my FTP going into the Tour Divide sitting around 355 watts.
I ate like an absolute clydesdale during the training. I not only wanted to gain strength and power, but I also didn’t mind having some spare calories in store for what I was going to be doing. I’m 6’3” and was hovering around 15-20% body fat. I started at 235 lbs Dec 1 and by race day was 243 lbs. I was a very mortal 3.22 w/kg, and by the end of training my legs felt indestructible.
Over the next 6 months I followed the Trainer Road recommendations almost exactly, with a few ‘bikepacking’ specific adjustments which were as follows:
I added into my calendar 2 different weeklong bikepacking training trips at the ⅓ mark and ⅔ mark of my training plan (in Arizona and on Vancouver Island) both around 600 miles with about 60,000’ of climbing. These weeks did not have any Trainer Road rides planned, and I used that time to stack long days and dial in my bike setup and bivy kit, as well as work on increasing my resupply efficiency and general on-bike shenanigans and bush-mechanic aptitude.
In between each of these trips I added in 1-2 ‘big single day’ rides that were around 180-215 miles and 10-14,000’ of climbing. While they interrupted some of my training plan, I let the AI coach just adapt everything based on my TSS etc for a given period and never really got too concerned with how it changed my calendar.
Due to my 24 hour shift work as a firefighter and constantly battling bad sleep, I was very thankful I could move my workouts around all the time. I found that I had a really difficult time doing Vo2 max rides or harder on days after shift. Sometimes I was able to pull off on-shift trainer rides and would move days around to do something like James (and hopefully have minimal interruptions for calls). If I had a really bad night at work I could adjust my workouts around in the coming days and the AI would then adapt accordingly. It was incredible.
I also added in cross training any time I had the energy. I put an emphasis on yoga and bouldering in the climbing gym, but also tossed in weighted hiking, trail running, and general strength training.
There was certainly a learning curve aspect when I first got on the app. Figuring out the difference between a sweet spot 5.0 and 8.0 was eye opening, as well as when to accept an adaptation versus when to ignore. There were times I stressed about doing an indoor ride versus an outdoor, but as time went on I found a symbiotic relationship with the platform. Indoor rides gave me solid sit bones, incredibly high quality riding form, cadence drills, and consistency benefits. Knowing when to balance that with the benefits of outdoor rides was a give and take relationship I built over the first few months and came to appreciate.
After the first six months of using Trainer Road, my stats looked something like this:
4,653 miles ridden since December 1st
16 hours a week training: or 382 hours and 14 minutes total training time
193.8 miles ridden per week on average
74 watt FTP increase (from 281 watts to 355 watts)
217 miles was my longest mileage day
14,601’ was my bigliest climbing day
The route ‘Ring Around the Ritas’ in Tucson was the single burliest day
72 hrs 16 minutes for my longest training week (tucson trip)
8 hrs 42 minutes for my shortest training week (Hawaii trip for anniversary)
14 degrees : coldest temperature recorded
104 degrees : hottest temperature recorded
The days I got to be on my bicycles : funnest days!
Spoiler alert: I ended up scratching from the Divide after 11 days, due to a waterborne illness from the bacteria Campylobacter. I was on antibiotics and it took about 21 days to recover, but those 11 days on route were epic. I got sick due to my water filter having cracked, presumably on one of my earlier training trips.
My first inkling something was wrong was when I was sticking to my power/HR/nutrition/hydration plan perfectly on Day 1 and feeling incredible, but started getting sick a few hours after my first ‘wild’ water top off. I was then sick for the next 36 hours, and put my head down and pushed through. By the start of Day 3 I was feeling significantly better and started putting down bigger days to try and catch up to my original time plan. By Day 11 I had caught up to my original time plan, but the next wave of sickness hit and I was down for the count.
Some stats:
Avg daily mileage 163.1 miles
Avg daily TSS 334
Avg daily calories burned 6,279
Avg climbing per day 11,001’
and for all of you data nerds the daily stats were as follows:
Day 1: 113 miles, 11.5k
moving time 12:30, elapsed time 15 hrs
Avg speed 9.1 mph, avg power 144w, NP 195w
(nausea and vomiting started at mile 100, I stopped at 10pm on the backside of koko claims and tried to recover, vomiting started a couple of hours after my first water top-off with my cracked filter)
Day 2: 138 miles, 12.1k
moving time 14:40, elapsed time 16:50
Avg speed 9.5 mph, avg power 116w, NP 156w
(more severe nausea and vomiting, 3L water of ~600 calories consumed over the entire day)
Day 3: 160 miles, 10.5k
Moving time 14:20 elapsed time 16:40
Avg speed 9.6 mph Avg power 108w, NP 154
(felt recovered, started trying to catch up to my original timeplan)
Day 4: 148 miles, 13.8k
Moving time 16 hrs, elapsed 18:15
Avg speed 9.3 mph, avg power 120, NP 160
Day 5: 137 miles, 13.5k
Moving time 15:11, elapsed time 17:40
Avg speed 9 mph, avg power 100w, NP 157
Day 6: 165 miles, 12.1k
Moving time 15:30 elapsed time 17:15
Avg speed 10.7 mph, average power 122w, NP 172w
Day 7: 185 miles, 8.4k
Moving time 15:10 elapsed time 17:45
Average speed 12.1mph, avg power 103w NP 154w
Day 8: 135 miles, 11.2k
Moving time 14:20, elapsed time 17:20
Average speed 9.4mph, avg power 98w NP147w
Day 9: 194 miles, 9k
Moving time 15 hrs elapsed time 17 hrs
Avg speed 12.9 mph, avg power 96w NP 150w
Day 10: 146 miles, 9k
Moving time 13:22 elapsed time 16:23
Avg speed 11 mph, avg power 102w, NP 156w
Day 11: 110, 10.3k
Moving time 11:40 elapsed time 14:45
Avg speed 9.4mph, avg power 87w NP 146w
(8pm early stop in kremmling, CO and proceed to become extremely sick in a hotel room for 3 days with constant diarrhea and a fever of over 101. The initial diagnosis was giardia)
Day ‘15’: 55 miles, 4.2k
I tried to ride more and just leaked all over my chamois. I spent another few days in silverthorne trying to recover more, but I ran out of time. When I got back home and was still having issues, I finally got my test results back and it turns out it was campylobacter and so I was put on a different antibiotic that worked much better.
Starting weight: 243 lbs, weight at doctors office when I got home: 216 lbs
For the bikepacking race-plan/pacing side of things, I opted for this strategy:
I found I could hold 200w more or less indefinitely with an HR of 100 bpm. While my stats above do not reflect this per se, anytime I looked down that was the number I was shooting for, unless I was above ~7,000 (it then dropped to like 150-175w for 100 bpm) or if it was over ~85 degrees. On climbs I hovered around 250w. I had my computer setup to only show my routing map with HR and Power at the bottom. I wore a chest HR monitor and used a quarq spider PM.
Everyday I set an alarm for 5am, did all my breakfast, caffeine, packing, potty time, etc and was rolling by 6 am. I rode until 11:30pm, then set up camp wherever I ended up, and was in bed by midnight. Then up at 5 am to start it all over again.
I made this work a few ways:
-I brought a tent so i could comfortably sleep in the rain (and avoid the epic bugs) and have a dry sleeping bag
-I used a dynamo hub and could reliably charge a battery bank enough during the day to meet all of my electrical needs, so I never needed an outlet. (it was worth the 5w penalty to me)
-I carried 1 spare set of bibs and socks, and would wash the dirty pairs in gas station sinks every day and let them dry, so by the next day I could rotate into the ‘clean’ ones and then wash my now dirty ones.
-all but a couple of my resupplies were no more than 15 minutes of stopped time.
I found with this schedule my body adapted really well by day 3, and I never really buried myself, It felt surprisingly sustainable. I saw a lot of people blow themselves up having to ride until 4am because they had to get to a hotel to charge electronics or do laundry or dry their sleeping bag or whatever, and then they got all messed up on their sleep schedule. Or they had to stop early (for the above mentioned reasons) and ended up having multiple shorter days than planned. I didn’t stay in a hotel a single night and found I maintained well on having some semblance of a sleep schedule I could stick too. Had I not gotten sick the second time, I like to think I would have finished in just under 18 days, but so many other things could derail an effort like this that I don’t dare to assume.
Never in my cycling career have I put down back to back big days with this much consistency, and I believe I owe so much of that durability and repeatability to the Trainer Road programming.
Overall I was disappointed about getting sick, but so stoked that all of my training and preparation paid off immensely. I have never done anything quite like this, and it was a wild and formative experience. I am looking forward to going back some day, however, the training took a lot of time and focus and so I will not be going back in 2026 (I also would really like to stay married). Someday I will return, and I will be using Trainer Road to help me get to Antelope Wells.
If you have any questions or are curious about detailed gear lists, bike build, or personally built cue sheets, I am happy to share.
Cheers!
-Parker
I found that when I surfed these forums last year looking for bikepacking specific training tips, I came up pretty empty handed. I figured I would do my own thing and report back here on how it went, so that others can use my experience as some kind of reference or starting point.
