Cycling

I want to separate the sport from my specific experience. Cycling as a discipline is genuinely compelling — the cadence over gear, the depth of FTP, the freedom of long endurance rides. All of that is real and valuable. My gym, however, has been mediocre. Coaching quality varies session to session …

I've done gym, running clubs, and team sports. The Cycling community is different. There's something about shared struggle around cleat positioning and FTP that creates a genuine bond. People at my gym remember everyone's name. Higher belts and better athletes make time for beginners. first sportiv…

Around the 15-month mark in Cycling I hit a wall. My progress with drafting in a group wasn't improving and I felt like I was spinning wheels. It's apparently common but that didn't make it less frustrating. What helped: going back to fundamentals with my coach, spending more time drilling FTP slow…

I started Cycling six months ago with zero background in the sport. The first few weeks were humbling — I couldn't do climbing seated vs. standing properly and had no idea what tubeless tyres even meant. My coach kept pulling me back to fundamentals, which was frustrating at the time but clearly the…

I'd been training Cycling for two years when I picked up an injury that kept me out for four months. Coming back was harder mentally than physically. My descending technique had regressed and FTP I'd taken for granted needed rebuilding. the freedom of long endurance rides was what brought me back t…

I track everything, so here are actual results after 12 months of Cycling: significantly improved cardiovascular fitness, noticeable strength gains, and a flexibility improvement I didn't expect. None of that came from a gym program — it came from learning cadence over gear and understanding FTP. d…