In a lot of ways and for a lot of people, gravel is reigniting that passion for the experience that so many thought might have been lost for good. And just like you’d expect, it was always right there in front of us. It’s “just riding bikes”, after all.

Most folks get started in cycling by joining a more experienced rider on a bike ride, who can help you find the right equipment, the best roads and areas to pedal, and give you tips and tricks to getting the most out of your ride. Now with social distancing, of course, we are forced to go at it alone, unable to rely on our peers for a spare inner tube, a sip of water, or their GPS to navigate back to your starting point. So, it’s time to create a Cycling 101 checklist – a guide to getting started!

I was once what you might call a bit of a ‘reluctant flier’. While I didn’t quite have a B.A. Baracus-type of anxiety around it, it wasn’t my favorite means of transportation. I wouldn’t not fly, but I would definitely check to see how long the drive would have been, for places where I wanted to go. And while I typically ended up boarding a plane to get to those places, it was rare that I actually enjoyed myself on it. You see, I hated turbulence. The plane would start shaking, and maybe do that little drop-thing that it does, and my head would instantly go to that scene from Castaway, when the FedEx plane plunged into the Pacific.

Someday, 20-30 years from now, the next generation of endurance sport athletes, and non-athletes for that matter, will ask the million-dollar question: “What did you do during the COVID-19 Pandemic?”

As a triathlete, a cyclist, a runner trying to achieve your goals, you are most likely very driven. Your competitive spirit is brimming over the top and that motivates you to train. Add in your job/career and your family and it’s clear how busy your life is. Add in the context of a culture that glorifies busyness and has made exhaustion a status symbol. Burnout and even resentment toward your sport of choice is a very real possibility.

The new 160K course at D2R2 is an absolutely quintessential New England gravel route and is exactly the reason we fell in love with gravel and adventure riding to begin with. It was more fun and more enjoyable to ride than any of us would have ever possibly imagined – and we frankly can’t wait to ride it again.

The concept of a massive over-distance day is nothing new to endurance athletes and something many do during their overload block of training for their key race (Ironman, ultra-marathon run or ultra-distance bike race like The Dirty Kanza 200). Personally, as an athlete and as a coach I am a big fan of this for multiple reasons I’ll explain here. There’s both an equal part physical training stimulus and a mental fitness stimulus. If one has never done an extreme endurance activity it’s kind of its own rite of passage if you will – the endurance athlete’s rite of passage.

Coach Tim Snow started out writing a blog post called The Butterfly Affect, which ended up turning into something much more complex, and lengthy. It turned into something that could not really be most effectively shared in a blog-type setting. But, we wanted to make sure that it was made available to you in the typical way that you access our written content. To that end, please see, below, three different links, all of which will allow you to access the writing, in three different forms.

Caffeine can be a great tool for athletes of all abilities used to enhance performance. However, when abused (or not used as a tool), it can be a detriment to your training and racing.

Rest in peace old friend…I know nothing of the man, other than what was available, to me, on Wikipedia. He was an author, and he died in 1936. I didn’t get much further than that. Having said that, he helped me to, in a single line, sum up what coaching is really all about. At least to me, and all of us at QT2 Systems, OutRival Racing, The Run Formula, and The Cycling Formula.