The Cycling Guru! Attempt Number 3!

Björn: Welcome to the Afasteryou Podcast, where it's all about endurance sports and training. Sebastian Schluricke, Björn Kafka, and Niclas Ranker bring you valuable tips and insights to help take your performance to the next level. Welcome to a new episode of the Afasteryou Podcast. I'd call this the second attempt. We already recorded an episode two weeks ago, but it unfortunately wasn't salvageable due to internet problems. I tried a few things, but it wasn't doable. We would have gotten — in quotes — nasty comments again.

Niclas: A better microphone somewhere, guys. What are you doing? Everything's crap. Yeah. Let's drop it before it causes trouble again.

Björn: Yeah. I only upload stuff I'm sure is good. Or — what does good mean? It's not good anyway. But good for my skills.

Niclas: You just have to — for the last podcast, even 80% wasn't enough, it just wasn't good. But we had fun in that podcast.

Björn: Basically we chatted nicely for an hour. Right, it was great. We probably can't even piece it all back together. I think the episode would have been really good. It would have helped a few people. Sorry about that.

Niclas: You missed something. Email us if you want it, in pieces.

Björn: I could — I don't know — upload it to YouTube. Because on Spotify we'd get too many hate comments, and I don't want that. With the small skills I have here — I'm really not good at this stuff — and then I have to read comments that I'm just getting hated on. I don't feel like that.

Niclas: It's a non-profit thing too.

Björn: Don't forget that. It's a hobby. So we're already mid-March. People have only heard one episode from you this year, I think, where you said — we can't stand people either.

Niclas: An episode with me has a half-life of three months. Then the dose has to go back in.

Björn: How are you? How's Uno-X going? Fun? Awesome? What can you tell us?

Niclas: Yeah, fun, all awesome, it's running. That enough? No, it's really good. Awesome. Having fun. More on the road than usual. Nope, all fine. Racing — now it's really kicking off.

Björn: Yeah, well, it's started well, though I'd say — the season feels a bit like last year. Because the same riders are similarly strong. Sure, there are a few young ones shredding too, but the main protagonists are the same. Not much has changed.

Niclas: Yeah, in France we have a very fast young guy from Decathlon right now. Curious.

Björn: You have to say how much we can talk about that.

Niclas: Yeah, no. Actually we wanted to talk about training.

Björn: Actually we wanted to talk about training. Let's do that now. We won't comment on this. But actually super exciting — right before our podcast recording, Cape Epic is running. It's stage three, day four. A little halfway.

Niclas: But I wouldn't even say that, because the really hard stages are still coming.

Björn: Yeah, I'd actually say it starts today. The first long one, 134 kilometers. Yeah, but it's 1700 meters of climbing. Yeah, but still. Sure. Anyone who's ridden 134 kilometers of mountain bike in South Africa knows — it rattles. So it's not simple for the pros. But not easy. Right, exactly.

Niclas: So we were just talking and Niclas was like, oh, everything's boring, everyone's together. And I said, no, no, it's all blowing apart right now.

Björn: I prepped the podcast and wasn't on my phone anymore. About 10, 15 minutes ago I last looked at the leaderboard and it was like, okay, top 20 teams were still together after 2:40 of riding. And now Björn says, yeah, everything's blowing apart. Top.

Niclas: Yeah, let's see. Cape Epic, yeah. Always awesome. Always awesome, always good, always exciting. Marc Stutzmann is riding a good race there, currently third in GC. The Singer combo Hartmann-Seewald is unfortunately sick. Jacky got hit. What makes me really happy — Hans Becking and Toys. So cool. The late calls just show up and are now 10th in GC. I think they're going significantly further forward, because Becking is just absolute calm, has absolute experience. I have to be honest — and the way he rides, he's just super strong. I guarantee — you could pair him with anyone there right now, he'd ride into the top 3. Toys isn't quite at that level, maybe doesn't have the self-confidence. But if you consider where Toys is coming from. Sure. Last year he was going backwards because he had surgery.

Björn: No kidding, ultra cool — I've been racing against Toys for a really long time. I can still remember races at the Saarschleife where he already beat me. I thought, the Dutch always come to the Saarland, so unfair. Yeah. Move out.

Niclas: In Bavaria you have to race against Andi Seewald.

Björn: Yeah, great, super. No, really ultra cool that Toys is up there now, and Toys is always super nice, really likable guy. And I have to say — for someone from the Netherlands, really great descending skills. Rides super consistently, cleanly, fast downhill. He's a rider who just really makes few mistakes, I think. That's his strength.

Niclas: Yeah, he just can ride. He can't only ride well alone, he can also ride well in the pack. He doesn't go against other wheels, doesn't hang himself up, and so on. And he works.

Björn: And works normally.

Niclas: He still works too.

Björn: Not full-time as far as I know, but works as a normal mechanical engineer. Respect. Really good. To ride top ten at an Epic, surrounded by full-time pros — that's crazy.

Niclas: Though Hartmann also works, I think.

Björn: No idea.

Niclas: Isn't Jakob also an engineer or technician?

Björn: Jakob is definitely also a mechanical engineer. But how much he works, no idea.

Niclas: He works a bit I think, but Toys really has to go to the office regularly and work.

Björn: And then train in the cold Netherlands in bad weather. So — training. Training. Björn, what's new in the world of training? Nothing, my god. You know — I'm trying to tease something out of you.

Niclas: Come on, you can reveal something. I heard a nice comment recently, and it is what it is. There's just so much training and options, and so on. And I always have the feeling — and of course I feel it myself, it would be a lie if I said I know everything. People don't see the forest for the trees, because there's so much — here a training, there a training, what should we do, and this concept and so on. And that's it. Now nutrition comes in big. How much to eat? Things get mixed up. You want to be fit somehow, then you also want to look good. Look good? You just have to ride the bike fast. That's what I think sometimes. I just think so many concepts are floating around and they all absolutely have their merit. But where do you start as a regular person? Bluntly. For me, for example, I have no training plan. Why would I? I ride when I feel like it. You just go ride a bike. I just go ride a bike. Or I go jogging. Or I go on the rowing ergometer. Or I swing the kettlebell. That's my life. And it's okay for me. And when I notice, oh, something's not fitting, I just have to do a bit more. Simple.

Björn: You have to do more for Attersee. I built up and fitted my bike yesterday. That'll be fast.

Niclas: By the way, I've been riding a lot of gravel on my gravel bike with new wheels from Martin Kühn at Protenz, who built them for me. 40s, light as a 1. Nice tires on them too. So 40s. Tubeless was a bit of a hassle to get sealed. I had a lot of fun. But that worked too. Absolute mess. Yeah, I'm training too. I'll somehow manage for Attersee. And I also want to run a marathon. I'll figure it out.

Björn: I'd almost say that's the harder one. You think?

Niclas: For me it would definitely be the harder one. Yeah, definitely — the marathon costs more time. I have to find a combo somehow, but I'm letting it come. No, as I said, there's a ton. And then there are so many snippets — here, Pro Cycling Training, what they did, blah blah blah.

Björn: I think that's one of the main problems I see. How often I see athletes — Knowledge is Power articles, pro training — here, what did Mathieu train? What did Pogi train? People look at what pros train and want to derive things from that. So what can they train now? Folks, you're not pros. Forget the training.

Niclas: You can't do it. Even that — you can't even say, the Pogi training works for — I don't know, athlete XY, also a world-class pro. Won't work, no chance, doesn't work. Every concept is individual. There's one universal concept — lots of volume. Even if some say you don't need it. Yes, I think that's universal too. And sports science is so super young. Hardly any study is reproducible. We really don't know. We have good guesswork on what can work. But I think we're nowhere near the end of the flagpole. If you look at old... ...Soviet training science, 60s and so on. Issurin wrote a nice book about it — Advanced Athletes, Endurance Athletes, I think it was called. And you look at the old studies and realize, fuck, the things that are hype right now were already cool 40 years ago.

Björn: In the end — what they did in the GDR, for example, if we're only talking about training, wasn't bad. They just would've had to eat a ton with it.

Niclas: Mader in his book describes exactly that — he says, rowers would've had to ride such crazy mileage that every rower hits the roof. And second, at 90+ kilos, the energy turnover — you have to process it somehow. Then you also have the... ...thermogenic effect of digesting food — protein more than carbs. And how do you get that in? Nowadays, with the high-calorie stuff in training, that works much better. So. Now we have to somehow pick the listeners up. Now we're saying everything works, or nothing works.

Björn: Actually — we can just end the podcast and say, like Björn always does, all training works, you just have to fuel it properly and appropriately. Done. Now we can talk about your new gravel tires, about the weather in Munich.

Niclas: It's not really nice. It's cold. But even the couch in my background here — if I sit on it, that's training. For some. Because it's a stimulus. And the stimulus is — I'm doing nothing. That means my body either winds down, or — depending — if I've completely shot myself up for two weeks at a training camp and then sit on the sofa, it's also a stimulus that moves me forward. But if I haven't done anything before, it's a stimulus that makes me go even further backward. So look at the whole concept. Where am I coming from? How big is my engine? How efficient am I? What else is around it? How's my nutrition? Then you can start slowly. And as always — if you have a lot of time, lots of biking and fuel sensibly. But I think we wanted to talk about VO2max last time.

Björn: We actually started the whole thing because — recently there were a few new — there were articles, the studies aren't that new. I think they're from 2020 and 2022. There were studies on how best to structure VO2max intervals. And I just used it as a hook, because I said VO2max intervals always interest people. I definitely find it interesting — especially when it comes to young athletes, athletes who are newer in the sport. For them, VO2max training is still a key point — for young athletes, to build something long-term, maybe also train the heart muscle. And I wanted to talk about these two elements. Interval designs — most probably know 30-30s, 30-15s from Rønnestad are a bit newer for most, then there are classic 40-20s, which you like to use too. Then 4x4, 5x5 — 4x8 Seiler, great training, you have to have ridden it once, really fun, with only two minutes of rest in the original protocol. All that stuff exists. And we sat down again and looked at — okay, how can we improve a VO2max training even more? The goal of VO2max training is always — best case, we want to spend as much time as possible above 90% VO2max. One thing to note up front — and I think Schiffer tested this himself with his own spiro — don't forget, as you already mentioned with these sports studies, every person reacts differently. So I couldn't go to all my athletes and say, okay, you all ride 5x5 and 5x5 will work for all of you, because you have 25 minutes over 90% VO2max. That won't be the case. For — I don't know — half, 5x5 works great. For maybe two-thirds, 5x5 is even race-specific, because in MTB Marathon we often have 5-minute climbs in Germany, whatever. Then the training works very well. For the other half it doesn't take at all, because they get super little time in 90%. Schiffer, for example, also tested 30-15s once, I think — or were they 30-30s? He tested something and said, yeah, it doesn't work for him at all, forget it, he has to ride way too hard and then he can't manage it muscularly. So up front — you can't always apply these articles and studies to everyone. What they looked at was — okay, which design can we ride to spend as much time as possible above 90%? And two — well, one as the clear winner in quotes, and the other is also very good. One is preload 30-15s. Picture 30-15s — 30 seconds load, 15 seconds rest, say 13 times in a row, like Rønnestad did, and then 3 sets of that. You get, I think, somewhere around 27 minutes, 28 minutes of load time. With 5x5, say, you get 25 minutes. That's basically the threshold where you say — from 25 minutes on it becomes really effective. 90% VO2max. Especially in terms of heart muscle growth. The decisive point is — imagine you start riding in the VO2max zone. With 30-15s, it takes you 2, 3, almost 4 minutes of this interval before you even get with your oxygen uptake — you can track it well with heart rate too — into the zone where you're over 90% VO2max from breathing, how much oxygen you're taking in. Then they thought — okay, how can we adjust this so it goes faster. And now they've gone and ride, for example, two minutes really pretty hard — I think around 100 — I don't have it exactly in my head — but two minutes really hard, around 120%. Then 30 seconds rest, and you ride 10 times 30-15s on top. Through those two minutes of really hard riding, oxygen uptake shoots up directly, and you spend the entire 10 repetitions above 90% VO2max. That's basically one design they looked at. You can stretch it to 13 reps if you can manage, or just ride 4 sets, that also works well. Optimally I'd probably set it to 13 reps rather than 4. The second design is basically a HIT decreasing design. You ride 3 minutes hard, 1:30 rest, 2 minutes hard, 1 minute rest, and keep shortening the load time toward the end until you're at 30-20 at some point. And you can get up to about 45 minutes in the VO2max zone, according to this study design. Which would of course be super. The normal 5x5, where you already know, okay, that's super hard, gets you about 25. With 4x8, which was previously the longest that most rode and was effective, you get about 32 minutes. 30-15s, 13 times, gets you around 28, 29 minutes. And if you manage to spend 45 minutes in this zone, of course that's super effective. But also brutally hard — tons of energy through it, tons of carbs.

Niclas: Now the question is always — how sustainable is this? Of course. That's nice to know. Always good to know. And you take that, pack it up, and put it in your toolbox and say, I can pull that out sometime. And then you try it with a few athletes and you also know — if you have athletes with barely any anaerobic capacity, low lactate build-up, low glycolytic power. They have a relatively fast response in terms of VO2max. So they're quickly in that zone. That's also why threshold training works so well for such people. Or slightly suprathreshold training. If you have someone who's a high-glycolytic sprinter type — not at all the diesel — you can really load them up with such intervals. And it's never about what's the maximum VO2max time I can extract, but always about what's the maximum VO2max time I can spend sustainably over a period X. Because the best intervals in the world — what's the one workout worth if at the end of the day or end of the month you've only done three of them? Like dieting. Let's say, hey, you have to lose 10 kilos hard — and drop to 1000 calories. You manage two days. Then you go to 1,200. 1000 calories? Then you go to 1,500. And at some point you realize — fuck — and after two weeks the dam breaks and you're back at 4,500 calories stuffed with Ben & Jerry's and co. So what's sustainable? And then it's always — this is always funny — times are given and the VO2max responds to it, and we have 20 study participants.

Björn: That's the thing — I think in the last episode we came to the same point, and we actually wanted to do an episode on this. If you look at medical studies, real medicine studies, and you look at sports studies — it's — basically sports studies are, in quotes, nonsense.

Niclas: Sure, you have sports students, if you're lucky you have a few pros. You have 20 people, you let them train through, and X happens — 20 people is just nothing. And then you get — the measurement too — you don't even know, do they have a VO2max but... ...how many watts did they produce? How much economy is in it? Then you get a threshold. How is that derived? Then it's called VT2. Hey, fuck off. VT2 — how do you determine that? Is there a system that does it well? I know every diagnostician I know, who determines a VT2... ...and there are many I know. They're pulled out of thin air. Here's roughly VT2. Sure, you can do lactate, you can do an MLSS — but try to find a really good MLSS protocol where you're supposed to say here, 30 minutes, I'd even almost say an hour. And even for glycolytic build-up — how high is the lactate production or whatever — there are various ideas, maybe we actually have to go to 180 rpm to really figure out where it is. So it starts there — if I see VO2max is at 72 plus minus some percent, I already know — no idea, how is it composed, what does it mean, what did they produce? I'd like to know — how effective are they?

Björn: Minute steps, 30-second steps ridden.

Niclas: Exactly. And again exactly that. I want — there are just zero standards. And that's why such studies are always really annoying.

Björn: And what's also super annoying — which lactate device was used, which spiro was used. Sure, we now know — the Norwegians measure with a different spiro. They measure with — I don't even know which system. But in Germany mostly COSMED is used, for example, if things go well. But even there you might do it with a mixing chamber, have the sensor sitting directly at the mouth. All that stuff — there are deviations, and if you want to compare studies across each other, you can just stop trying.

Niclas: Yeah, I'd — I think we'd make life significantly easier if you say — we have a 5-minute all-out effort and, say, a 30-minute all-out effort. I think we'd — yeah, 30 minutes! 30 minutes all-out.

Björn: That's awesome. Yeah, it's awesome if you like really punching yourself in the face.

Niclas: Yeah, but I think first you can reach a lot of people.

Björn: You mean in terms of results?

Niclas: Let a thousand people do it. Who cares how crappy — just write it out. A thousand people, ride such-and-such protocol. Then you sort them. Throw out 30%. And you look at power meter, calibrated, etc.

Björn: I say, of a thousand people, if things go well, half of them ride the tests cleanly.

Niclas: But that's already 500 people. How crazy is that? And let the power meter be a bit plus-minus.

Björn: You have to let them all ride on one cycle.

Niclas: No, but it doesn't matter. You want to ride outside. For all I care — doesn't matter. The bigger the group, even if the discrepancy is linear, I have no stress with that. Then you know at least, aha, high oxygen uptake, or theoretically higher, and high lactate production rate. I can read that at least from 5 and 30 minutes. I can read that. And then I really know — which training works for phenotype XY. Simple. You can get much more people, and with 500 people I have significantly higher significance than with XY people. Sure, then I can say, okay. I can split the group further. Who's fit, who's not fit and so on. And yeah, it's a bigger participant count.

Björn: We need more people to participate in sports studies.

Niclas: Yeah, yeah, way more. Then real data-driven stuff comes in. I mean, what we do at Afasteryou is exactly that. We have tons of data. We have a model. That's the next thing. What do you train based on? That's always the funny thing. If we say, let an AI run over it. An AI isn't creative. No chance. If it has no model to work from, it'll just produce garbage. So sorry to say — it's garbage, and Sebastian will talk about this nicely soon, we'll have a podcast on it. We see it over and over. Nothing good comes out. Even interval detection — AI never learned it. Where would it? We're talking now, I mean... The first good models, when they learned Go, or chess, or whatever. That's a really limited playing field. Now we're talking humans with daily life, etc. You have so many parameters, you have to throw it all out. With environmental factors — bye. We have — I don't know how many millions of data points we have. Plus we have labeled tests — that's the next thing — labeled tests that have really been verified. That's well over — I think currently 20,000. And then you can say, from which training stress, from which... ...and not the score, but how much — what you call Body Reserve for example — how much energy flow to the cell with different intervals, weighted differently based on muscle fiber composition we calculated from the Powertest. From what percentage load do we get a VO2max increase? We see it in cohort XY. And then you can make something of it. And then suddenly you don't have 20 athletes, you have 7000 athletes. And then you've got something. And then you can say, okay, the training works if we have the energy flow. That's exactly how I work. I see — okay, we have the athlete, which energy flow do we need, which intervals fit, oh — then I see, oh, that's a bit much, now I have to readjust. You have to constantly readjust. Then of course you talk to these people about how they're doing, and so on. And I think that's where the journey should go. Measurements are always important and good, but if we're talking about sports science — a measurement is super important for economy and such. You can individually work on it really well. I don't know — if you measure proton leakage or some little thing, yeah, that makes total sense. But to say, in 20 people this training works super — probably only 15 of them do great, and the other 15 are thrown out, yeah. Now everyone's confused again. It's like a coach who has a question and then always says — I'm leaving with three more questions, but it was still a nice chat.

Björn: We always come back to the same point — ultimately energy flow is the key. The energy flow, how you fuel the energy flow, and how you ideally sleep, how your stress is around training — that's actually what's decisive. Not the intervals you do, but by and large you ride a constantly high volume, which you fuel consistently. If those two things fit, and you sleep well, and your life is more or less in a certain rhythm — not too little, not too much stress, but not so much stress that after six weeks you say, oof, no more, screw it — but optimally twelve months straight, years. Just train cleanly through, with a plan, not too many intervals. I don't even know with whom I — I recently took on an athlete, looked at the previous training plan, and said, yeah — I can't see a pattern. He just throws intervals in. Just ride intervals. Yeah, cool, but ultimately it's the other way around. You have 80, 90 percent base, so Zone 1 up to somewhere in Zone 2, Fatmax, whatever. And then you set targeted intervals that the athlete maybe currently needs — to put the cherry on top. But that's 10%. And it's always — when an athlete says, I aborted the intervals, I couldn't ride the intervals. So what? Doesn't matter. If three hours are on the plan, then ride your three hours of base. You had a bad day — everyone has those, I have them constantly. Then I don't ride base. I also have two weeks where I only ride base and can still pull off an awesome 12-minute test. Whatever — because energy turnover over the weeks is right. That's meanwhile... I make sure I just try, as a first foundation every week, to hit my energy turnover X. And then intervals are — in quotes — secondary. Sure, you need them somewhere to generate energy turnover too, but the most important thing first is riding the bike in the base zone, eating well with it, sleeping well, generating energy turnover, done.

Niclas: So — now of course the question is, what are they constantly talking about, energy turnover? What's that supposed to be? You can actually do it quite simply. There's the idea from Mader, back then through protein synthesis. That works, for example — if you ride a test with us, it spits out how many hours you can ride at base energy. You can calculate energy turnover from that. So you have the time, 15 hours, and you have 200 watts base — 200 watts is, I don't know, 750 kilojoules — and you take 750 kilojoules times 15 and you get your 13,000 — sorry, that was too much, but somewhere around 10,000 kilojoules energy throughput. And you know, okay, I should ride that per week, maybe not all in one piece. I start with 8,000, 10,000, then do a little overload with 12,000, the next — the fourth week I go down to, I don't know, 7,000, and done. Super simple.

Björn: Right, super simple. But I also say — if I look at the bulk of my athletes, most struggle to even hit that consistently. You have to look here and there during the weeks to even hit 10,000 kilojoules in the week, and optimally not for 6 weeks, not 8 weeks — do that for a year. Sure, you can do an off-season somewhere, take two weeks of vacation, then maybe in the weeks before, I don't know, 12,000 or so. Like you said, there can be variance in it, but ultimately, if you look at a year — ...then it comes down to — okay, did I train consistently over the year. And then such big performance jumps are achievable, if you just manage consistently over a long period to train through. That's crazy.

Niclas: Yeah, so — lots of volume, test regularly. I go eight to ten weeks between. Test again, where am I? Aha, VO2max went up, or I became more efficient. Then I ride higher base zones, always fuel well, and boom, I get better. That would be Training Rule Number One. Hold energy throughput, ride higher, test. Number 2 is — when I build in intervals, and I've kind of tinkered it together myself. Look in the rearview mirror. What did I train the last two months? Aha, lots of VO2max. What's missing? Hm, maybe I didn't train threshold. Let's do threshold. Whenever you do it, you'll get better. If you do anything you haven't done before, you'll get better. It's like strength training. Haven't done squats for a long time, you do one or a few squats, boom, after three weeks you pack 20 kilos more on top. I find it the same.

Björn: For many athletes — yeah, right. But for many athletes, I have to say in everyday life, most first have to — before they start doing lots of intervals and get an increase — first make sure they can handle and manage the basic volume at all. Because a lot of people already fail at fueling 10,000 kilojoules on top of their basal metabolism.

Niclas: I don't get that. Where's the problem? We're currently even running the strategy — hey, over-fuel in training even, then you don't have to eat as much after. Then you blast in 100 grams.

Björn: Well, the riders you work with pound over 5000 kilojoules in every session. It was 7,000 one time. I loved that post by Watscheid where he's sitting in the bus chugging chocolate drinks because he just put through 6,400 kilojoules — he'd ridden a race where he had 400 NP over 4-5 hours. Where I thought, dude.

Niclas: Yeah — so, just food. In training, don't hold back. I recently saw test data from an athlete, who did nothing else — training was actually pretty similar. She just pushed up to 100 grams. Oh, wow. VO2max, up 8%.

Björn: My legs aren't completely destroyed the next day.

Niclas: I can go up stairs without them burning. Yeah. And people wonder. And yeah, so — yeah. Right. Now we've kind of revisited this whole VO2max stuff a bit. But it's important to know — not revisited, placed it in context.

Björn: You just have to deploy it at the right time, build the house slowly. Like you've said — stone by stone. Build yourselves a good foundation with base. Just start with loose, light intensities. Slowly increase. And if you ever feel, oh, okay... ...intensities, I'm not feeling it, maybe the past days due to work, food in the cafeteria was crap, didn't fit. Yeah, go out, ride loose base. Don't get scared off if intervals don't work sometimes. Then ride your session relaxed as base. If you don't feel good, stop at a bakery or supermarket, eat something good, keep riding, drink a lot while at it — hydration is super important too — and then rather finish your base training. If you have a coach or not, you can write afterwards — hey, intervals didn't work today, but I finished my base training, fueled myself super afterwards, maybe even feel better now because I ate more. And really — in training — that's so important, to eat properly in training. That makes everything around it so much easier.

Niclas: Yeah, clean eating, eating healthy is of course important. Absolutely. But hey, fuck off. If it just doesn't fit on nutrition, you pull over and chug a jar of Nutella. Seriously, doesn't matter — energy has to go in. Nutella.

Björn: I think what people have to understand about nutrition — how the body processes energy — it makes a difference whether you fuel in training, while your cells are running, while your metabolism is running, or whether you sit on the couch in the evening with a wound-down metabolism and inhale a bag of chips. That makes a difference. So everything you eat in training, during the load, in the load — all the carbs you can, all the energy you can get in. You shouldn't eat chips in training of course, that doesn't make sense because it's super fatty.

Niclas: For me, Niclas — sorry — I have to massively disagree. For me it makes a completely different difference. The difference with ice cream or a bag of chips or a pack of Haribo or whatever. A 200 gram Marabou chocolate bar in front of the TV is a hundred times cooler than hammering intervals at threshold and ramming Haribo in. You can't convince me of that. Sorry. Yes.

Björn: You have to go through the brainwashing first.

Niclas: Yeah, that doesn't work for me. I'm kind of — I'm one of the people who tinker and build all this training stuff, and I probably belong more to those who sit up there and laugh at the others for making such a fuss about it. So — I still make a fuss about it, unfortunately, because it's really fun. It's — energy supply in training, as mentioned, makes sense, and of course it makes significantly more sense to ram in high-calorie carbs when you're really pushing hard. The engine just runs, and then everything feels better. And it's not just about the pure energy, but the energy sensation, as you'd say. That's why things like mouth rinsing with sugar work. You give a signal and your body says — okay, let's go. Yeah, like drinking a Coke — zack — oh, it's going again. And yeah, it makes sense to ram the energy in. I find it amazing how — first, it's not a... When you look at energy consumption, it's not a linear process. You can't say, 200 watts and I burn 60 grams more. It also depends on the fibers, how they're recruited, which cadence I have — and we can't all ride around with a spiro all the time. You could say, I measure lactate. Makes sense, but even there — if you're really flat and don't have enough energy, lactate goes down too, etc. But that too, sure.

Björn: Real influence on lactate values.

Niclas: Sure, less volume means lactate goes up, hemoglobin goes up, hematocrit up, all clear. If you want, you can prick your finger and measure blood sugar if you absolutely want to. Just don't clip one of those monitors on your arm — terrible. That also just drives people crazy more than being useful. Very, very crazy. And yeah, for example — we have this app where it's calculated and that works well. Especially for high intensity. And I think the much more decisive thing — people are always shocked how many grams of carbs they blast in a race. 700 grams easily go through some people in four hours. And they say, what? That's a kilo of pasta. Exactly. Totally nuts. And they stand there and say, I already tried to press in 100 grams. I say, yeah, yeah, now you really have to make up after, so it reaches everywhere. And then you do that in a hectic race. And then in a hectic stage race. Everyone talks about 120, 160 grams and it all works super. Get to reality — at some races that's not even possible. Look at Cape Epic. How are you going to fuel there? Pff.

Björn: You have to think a lot about how to fuel it properly. I remember — this actually bothered me a bit — at the last Marathon World Cup in Calpe, that toward the end — I think the last 30, 35 — no more carbs. You had to have all your carbs on board before the last 35 kilometers, because after that... ...you had no more feed zone. You only had a Technical Point, but riders weren't allowed to take bottles from their handlers there. So I said to Anna — okay, sorry, but you have to take two bottles at the last feed zone. So you have enough carbs on board, so we don't crash toward the end, so you can take in enough. That's the stuff you really have to think about. Optimally with pros, at every feed zone there are enough people, so it's no issue, you can take two bottles. But at races like Cape Epic you really have to think about it a lot, and at some water points haul a ton to be well-supplied with carbs. You see it again and again in the pro peloton — people still crash because toward the end they miscalculated, lost a bottle, zack, 120 grams gone. Then things can get tight really fast. You may not even notice on the day itself, but the day after, especially in a stage race, you notice. You go crashing, because what you didn't get in under load is really hard to make up. You really can't underestimate that. You have to really watch and fuel well. And I find it cool. I don't even know which manufacturer, but there's a sports nutrition manufacturer using a measurement method to find out how many grams of carbs you can absorb. Going toward 100 — 180 to even 200 grams is possible for riders. And that's 200 grams...

Niclas: ...absorbed that really arrive. That's crazy. We can do a nice episode on this, I'd also invite someone — the Double-Labeled Water method, so we really see, isotopes, what arrives, what doesn't. I think there's a commercial provider in the UK, as far as I know. Even there you don't know how well it really works, but that's where the whole thing will go at some point. But what I find is, people who even numerically over-fuel still feel better.

Björn: Yeah, simple. I think the limit at some point is just the GI tract. Depending on how you fuel or what you take to fuel, it depends on how well you tolerate it — do you get diarrhea, do you feel sick, and then can't absorb anymore. Or fluid volume is too low, meaning too many carbs, too little fluid. Can also be a problem. Or too few electrolytes, meaning just carbs and water, and at some point electrolytes are missing. Especially when it gets warmer.

Niclas: We also had a nice one with Raúl Celdrán, who talked a lot about this gut training. We can link it. By the way, we talked about this last time when I was in Girona at the training camp — I also met Raúl briefly. That was at Red Bull, and since we've known each other for a while, we chatted about this and that. That episode is really cool and really illuminating about gut training.

Björn: Unfortunately it's in English.

Niclas: Yeah, and?

Björn: Not for us, but there are people who find it tiring or don't understand it well.

Niclas: You have to grow into it. The argument doesn't hold for me — that you can't engage with it. Learning a language, even if hard, you can at least try. It's the same as, I'm too old to do sports. That's nonsense. If you're 80, you can still start doing deadlifts, light deadlifts. And you can learn a language at 80 too. Of course — the necessity is always the question — will I use it in my life? And if I only want to listen to an English podcast, then it doesn't make sense to learn English. But if you're interested in literature and maybe want to watch movies in the original — sorry, you can do that at 50, 60, 70, 80, whatever — or at 30, depending on where you're picking yourself up. It's all just a question of drive. If you want to, you can do it. Maybe we should do other coachings, the 5-second countdown rule.

Björn: I don't offer anything else. Yes, yes. As long as I'm riding the bike, I'm offering nothing else.

Niclas: Yes, I like live coaches — I think if we go stand in front of some big company CEOs and tell them how life works.

Björn: I don't feel like that. I'm not going to sit in front of some board with suit-wearers and tell them how life works, because then I'd rather go ride the bike.

Niclas: I think the problem there is — when you do this structural work or work with such people, you never know how much effort really stands behind it and how much luck stands behind it. Endurance sport is relatively simple — or sport generally is relatively simple. That's what I find so nice about sport, it's honest. If you do a lot, a lot comes out. In the work world it doesn't look like that. You could also say — every nurse, every caregiver, every checker at the supermarket, however — they work. Actors, book authors, whoever. Or people who volunteer at clubs, volunteer fire department. Work never gets properly rewarded. Continental teams. Continental teams, yeah, absolutely. Passion, devotion. So — effort isn't the measure of success, at least in our work world, which is of course a shame, because every woman, every mother, or every father who spends a lot of time with their kids and does a lot of care work — they don't get a dime for it. But ultimately it's the societal backbone. So you're right, and I experience it or have experienced it — when you work with people in a position where they earn a lot of money, where they believe, okay, I've made it, I maybe have people under me — then they think it'll also work that way in sport. And they often realize in reality — yeah, it doesn't matter how much money you have or how much ambition you go at it with, it doesn't come on its own. You really have to do something. It's a process. There's no salary raise that just says, hey, now you have 20% more because you negotiated well. No, that doesn't exist. You just have to work on it hard and consistently. And at some point there are only setbacks.

Björn: You won't get better at 60. Honestly said — if you look at triathletes now. I find triathlon is always such a sport — middle-aged, making good money, yeah, I'm doing triathlon now, and first the 15,000-euro bike is bought, the bikefitting done, the expensive coach. And when the hard reality comes — yeah, you have to train 15, 20 hours a week, eat properly, really do a lot to put down a decent Ironman finish — then it gets really hard for some.

Niclas: But why? Then family just has to suffer.

Björn: And colleagues. Best case you have no family, you train.

Niclas: Right, that's not training either, you just bunker down somewhere. Yeah.

Björn: You actually wanted to tell us about Raúl and eating.

Niclas: We keep going off topic. The episode is pretty good, because it's about gut training. That you train over months to be able to absorb high energy amounts. You start with high fiber content, so you take in lots of fiber. Also directly before training, so you ride around with a bloated stomach and prepare your stomach to take in high energy amounts. I have an athlete who says, I actually also like to fuel that way, because I know at home I don't have to think so much about how much I eat. Yeah, okay, works for him. VO2max rises, performance rises, all good. So yeah.

Björn: Absolutely. Absolutely. Good. Closing word? Nice closing word, because I hope we got through — the last time I think we talked even more nonsense, more anecdotes. You brought in more anecdotes and such. It was definitely, I'd almost say, more entertaining.

Niclas: Yeah, I talked about having more friends in Girona than in Munich. Because I was there. I arrived. Because of the cycling bubble? Yeah, it's totally crazy — I ranted about this cycling bubble. You're in Girona and you see, Girona is like Berlin, it's just cycling hipsters, just cycling hipsters, and I don't count myself among them. If anything, I'm a cycling guru. And even that I would — no. No, so I'm in that hipster bubble.

Björn: I have a name for the episode. I'm calling it Cycling Guru.

Niclas: Very good. At least, you're there.

Björn: Because then people have to listen for 55 minutes to get why. Yeah, that's good.

Niclas: So you're in this bubble and everyone's running around in fancy clothes. Of course pro density is relatively high too. And then I meet Hans and live with Hans, Hans Becking. And then I have my guys from Uno-X. Then I meet Thorsten Walter, the physio I hadn't seen in ages. We're sitting in some pizzeria outside of Girona, very, very cool. And then you're sitting with Hans Becking and Thorsten Walter and I'm sitting there eating. And then I meet Raúl too, who's also coincidentally there at training camp with Red Bull. And we're sitting over cake and eating for half an hour and talking about everything under the sun. Or I'm at the airport — totally insane — at the airport, checking in, and at check-in there's a guy next to me. I say, hey, I know him. I say — hey, Christian. He says — hey, hi. What are you doing here? I was working in Girona. And he's like, yeah, yeah, me too, cycling. That was a guy from Bike Magazine I hadn't seen in ten years. Crazy. How crazy is that? I meet the Bike Magazine guy. And the crazy thing is — here in Munich, in Unterföhring and surroundings, it's really like — I barely know my neighbors. And when I'm there, people literally walk into me.

Björn: I only know my neighbor because he sold me the house. Who is also a cyclist. I only know him from cycling.

Niclas: Yeah, very good. See? At least he gave you a good price.

Björn: Yeah, exactly.

Niclas: I also have some cyclist buddies — in Bavaria you'd call them buddies — who occasionally help me with things outside of cycling. Always good. Definitely. So — now we have a few — I think last time I talked about books that are great. You know what I...

Björn: ...we just have to tack this on quickly. I don't care if people are interested or not, I wanted to talk to you about it — regarding Cape Epic right now, because I had almost speculated that more 32-inch wheels would already be riding. They can't keep up, it's only Stöll, I think. It's ultimately, I think, only one of the South Africans from Honeycomb, two 2.6s. Is that Marc Pritzen? I think. It's embarrassing for me that I don't know exactly. Paul will get mad at me, because we were just talking in our Girona group — that only one rider is riding 32-inch on the Stöll, the prototype, but no other brand. And that kind of surprises me, because actually I find Cape Epic is the predestined race for 32-inch. But I've also talked to one — I'm actually not so sure about 32. It won't be for everyone anyway, and it'll probably only work super niche for cross-country riders and a few marathon riders. Because it actually only starts from 1.78, maybe 1.75 if you have long legs. Or 1.75 gets difficult — they can barely manage an M-frame. S-frame, XS-frame — won't exist, you can completely forget it. Just from M, M upward, the geometry makes sense — actually L and XL. That'd be crazy. With a unicycle at Epic. Do you think you can build an AXS shifter on a unicycle?

Niclas: I think there are shifters for unicycles.

Björn: Send Dangerholm the idea — please build a fancy unicycle.

Niclas: Yeah, do it. Can you ride a unicycle?

Björn: No.

Niclas: You missed something.

Björn: Can you ride a unicycle?

Niclas: Of course I can ride a unicycle.

Björn: Hello? You can probably also juggle and stuff. Yeah, of course you can juggle.

Niclas: I can juggle, can ride a unicycle while juggling.

Björn: Oh come on now. Really? Yeah. Of course.

Niclas: I'm just Generation X. I grew up in both worlds. I also lived analog.

Björn: Do you also accidentally knock yourself out with your toothbrush in the morning occasionally? I'm motorically — there are reasons why I just ride a bike. Just pedal. That works.

Niclas: To crack your spine occasionally.

Björn: Oof, now you're being mean.

Niclas: Well, it's fine. The tree was to blame. Oh by the way, today 32-inch won, I see. Cape Epic stage is just coming in. The stage was also absolutely predestined for it. Honeycomb 2.6ers win the stage today. What are the two riders' names?

Björn: Steely — Steely is the Swiss — and Marc Pritzen. Yeah, so I was right about Marc Pritzen riding the 32-inch Stöll.

Niclas: Awesome. So they won the stage today on Maxxis tires. Behind was Buff second, Viktoria third. So they're in the finishing thing. Oh, Matt Beers took serious time. Let's see. But I think if it stays that way, we'll get Hans Becking with Toys riding into the top 5. Awesome. That'd really make me happy for Toys. I mean, the absolute dark horses just show up and — well, you can't sell Hans Becking as a dark horse. No, of course not. Hans Becking almost won the Epic. Don't forget that. And the problem wasn't Hans Becking, the problem later was Wout Alleman, who cracked. And that's only two years ago.

Björn: So Hans is just a legend, right? You can't say anything against that. Um...

Niclas: Yeah, no, good. So what's your book recommendation? Oof, I have so many here. I had to clean up a bit here. Last time I threw out The Truth About Eve. I found that really cool. The Invention of Inequality Between Women and Men. On patriarchy and how crappy it is. He's written some good books.

Björn: I recommend Fish That Climb Trees. That sounds good too. By Sebastian Fitzek. He normally only writes thrillers and stuff.

Niclas: Right, he wrote The Swarm, didn't he?

Björn: Yeah. That was such a big hit. I think, no idea. I haven't read that by him. But Fish That Climb Trees was definitely a book that actually helped me. He writes it to basically leave a... ...guide for life for his kids, in case he dies earlier and can't teach them. It's only about 350 pages, I think. But a really cool book, I find. It's good.

Niclas: Yeah. No, Fitzek didn't write The Swarm. That was Marc — whatever he was called. The Swarm is by Marc — what's his name?

Björn: By Marc — the one who wrote The Swarm also wrote Blackout? Frank Schätzing. Okay.

Niclas: Exactly.

Björn: I think he also wrote Blackout, which is about what would happen if — that was a really cool book, by the way.

Niclas: I'm actually not — sure, I read novels too. But this Blackout book fascinated me mainly because the method, how it's built, was really cool. How the whole system collapses. That was really a good book. It worked well as an audiobook too. I just read Stuckrad-Barre's Panikherz again recently. Also works super as an audiobook because he reads it himself. If you want to really experience a good descent into drug career and how crappy it all is — but of course also with a lot of humor, but also how it really tears him apart. Really good, really good, I liked it. You can read it again and again, and he writes well. I find Deutsche unter den Opfern by him is also a really good book. There — as an old journalist — Mark Fischer, who unfortunately died too young, there's also a nice volume of his journalistic pieces. A very nice, calm, atmospheric author, always good to read. Alright, enough now.

Björn: So — happy to hear more suggestions. Just drop them in the YouTube comments or Spotify comments. What are you interested in? I don't know — race reports, training methods, nutrition, sleep, supplements, blood work, what else — equipment. Whatever. Just drop questions in and we'll pick a topic for a new episode.

Niclas: By the way, today it got really shaken up. Jay Vikes has the yellow jersey. Then second is Toyota Specialized, third is Klimatisa, fourth is Buff, fifth is Canyon, sixth is Hans Becking. Oh my god. How crazy. Like I said, what did I tell you? They'll finish top 5 in GC. That'd be so crazy for Toys. Yeah, that was crazy.

Björn: Now they've slipped to seventh, but still a really cool thing. Like top ten in — top ten, GC, Cape Epic, is really bananas.

Niclas: You just have to say that, right? Alright, let's wrap up. We'll hear each other tomorrow with Sebastian anyway.

Björn: Thanks for listening. I hope this time it's better on sound. Thanks. Ciao, ciao.