THE HOUR. Those two words represent many things to many people. Some believe it to be the ultimate test of man and machine: out there on the track, with nowhere to hide, an athlete must come to terms with what he or she is truly capable of. Others know it as a form of torture, a crucible for understanding one’s ability to cope with pain, suffering, or madness. If you’re lucky, the Hour is a hard way to reach a form of cycling-inspired, dizzying nirvana.
Many of the greatest cyclists in history have made attempts or held the Hour record. Most of them then crawled off their bikes never to ride on a track again. With UCI rule changes several years ago came a resurgence in interest in the event. Eventually, Bradley Wiggins smashed the record, hitting 54.526 kilometers in June 2015.
And the obsession lives on. There are few people in the world who know both the agony and ecstasy of the Hour as well as Colby Pearce, our main guest today and someone who has attempted more Hour records than almost anyone else, save for maybe the great Graeme Obree. Last week, Pearce set a new master’s world record in the 45-49 age category, riding a remarkable 50.245 kilometers, 833 meters farther than the previous record held by Kent Bostick.
In this episode, we sat down with Pearce to dive deep into the Hour. It’s something Case knows all too well, since he too made an attempt in 2015.
In addition to their personal experiences, in this episode, you’ll hear a discussion of:
- A brief history of the Hour
- Why it’s so hard and, therefore, special. Is it the hardest thing you can do on a bike? We ask the question.
It then jumps into a discussion on how to prepare for the Hour:
- The 80/20 principle and getting caught up in numbers
- Training at 90 percent of threshold
- The importance of focusing on form
- The crucial mental preparation it takes to tackle this event
Then, gear and aerodynamics, from frontal area to the finest of gains to be had from chain friction to sock length. Finally, we break it down. Ultimately, it all comes down to executing on the track:
- The nuances of pacing, and the dynamic of the track, the rhythm, and the added forces
- Gearing and cadence
- Mindset: chunking, and proactive vs. reactive thought patterns
Pearce’s wealth of knowledge on the Hour is unsurpassed, and we’ll hear a lot from him in this episode. We’re also lucky enough to hear from two other Hour veterans. When Case was preparing for his Hour attempt in 2015, he had the pleasure of chatting with Rohan Dennis, who briefly held the Hour record that year. (As an aside, just days ago Dennis won the world time trial championship in Innsbruck.) Back in 2015, Case also spoke with Dennis’s coach, Neal Henderson. Both of them have interesting thoughts on the Hour.
So, zip up the excruciatingly tight skinsuit. Check to make sure your power meter is on. Pull the aero socks high. It’s Hour Record week at Fast Talk. Let’s make you fast.
Primary Guests
Colby Pearce: World master’s hour record holder, coach, and fit guru
Episode Transcript
00:00
Welcome to Fast Talk the Vela news podcast and everything you need to know to write.
Chris Case 00:11
Hello, welcome to Fast Talk. I’m Chris case managing editor of velonews joined by the always on time Coach Trevor Connor, the hour. Those two words represent many things to many people. Some believe it to be the ultimate test of man and machine out there on the track, nowhere to hide. An athlete must come to terms with what they’re truly capable of. Others know it as a form of torture, a crucible for understanding one’s ability to cope with pain, suffering, or madness. If you’re lucky, the hour is a hard way to reach a form of cycling inspired dizzying Nirvana. Many of the greatest cyclists in history have made attempts or held the our record. Most of them then crawled off their bikes never dried on a track again. With UCI rule changes several years ago came a resurgence in interest in the event. Eventually, Bradley Wiggins smashed the record hitting 54.5 to six kilometers in June 2015. The obsession lives on there are a few people in the world who know both the agony and the ecstasy of the hour as well as our guest today, Colby Pierce. He is someone who has attempted more our records than anyone else I can think of just days ago, he set a new masters world record in the 45 to 49 age group category, writing a remarkable 50.245 kilometers a full 833 meters farther than the previous record held by Ken Wasik. In this episode, we sat down with Colby to take a deep dive into the hour. It’s something I know all too well. Since I made an attempt in 2015. I lived barely, but I digress. In addition to our personal experiences, in this episode, we will discuss a brief history of the hour. Why it’s so hard, therefore special. Is it the hardest thing you can do on a bike? We asked the question. We then jump into a discussion on how to prepare for the hour, just in case you were to suddenly find yourself craving hot spiky pain in every orifice. It includes the 8020 principle and getting caught up in numbers training at 90% of threshold, the importance of focusing on form the crucial mental preparation it takes to tackle this event. Next, we jump into the gear and aerodynamics from frontal area to the finest of gains to be had from chain friction and suckling. Finally break it down. Ultimately, this event all comes down to executing on the track. We discuss the nuances of pacing and the dynamics of riding on the track the rhythm, the added forces, gearing and cadence choices. Finally, mindset, chunky and proactive versus reactive thought patterns called these colbys wealth knowledge on the hour is unsurpassed, and we’ll hear a lot from him in this episode. We’re also lucky enough to hear from two other our veterans On today’s episode. When I was preparing for my our attempt in 2015, I had the pleasure of chatting with Roland Dennis, who briefly held the record that year. As an aside just days ago, Rohan won the World Time Trial championship in Innsbruck back in 2015. I also spoke with Rowan’s coach Neil Henderson. Both of them have interesting thoughts on the hour, and we’ll share those today. So, zip up the excruciating Lee tight skinsuit check to make sure your power meter is on. Pull the arrow socks. Hi, it’s our record week at fast dock. Let’s make you fast.
Trevor Connor 03:59
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Trevor Connor 04:35
So I think the place to start here is talking with the two of you because both of you have some real personal experience with the our record which I have basically none of and very different experience Colby you might very well be the most experienced hour record person in the world. You argue against that, but for some reason you keep putting yourself through that pain and you’re planning on doing it again, Chris So the three of us wrote an article together about the hour record and Chris was the guinea pig for this. So basically, what five weeks before you made the attempt? You got on an aero bike for the first time you got on the track for the first time and being a punchy climber decided, I’m gonna go do a really steady one hour effort. So it was kind of a shock to the system for you. But
Chris Case 05:24
no exaggeration. Probably a month before I actually made the attempt. I went out to the track the boulder Valley velodrome with Colby to step onto a track for the first time in my life and be on a track bike for the first time in my life. That’s so from from zero to 46 k ish, in a month
Colby Pearce 05:47
that start somewhere.
Trevor Connor 05:49
So why don’t you guys talk a little bit about your experience with this curse. And I know there’s something you want to start with?
Chris Case 05:54
Well, I was rereading the article amateur hour that I wrote, and part experiential, from my point of view, apart physiology from Trevor’s point of view, a lot of great input from from Colby and others, and we’ll talk about some of that in the in the bit. But so I was rereading this in preparation for this episode, and it just brought it right back to me. So I thought I’d reread or I’d read the introductory scene in paragraph from this piece. Just to set the mood for what we’re going to talk about. It might be a little bit dramatic. I might be dying. The corners of my vision are turning dark vignetted like an old photograph. Someone or something seems to be persistently pushing the front of my head downward and my neck muscles no longer have the strength to fight back. I have a sickening feeling of panic inside. I can’t do this anymore. I don’t know how I’m going to do this anymore. I can’t do five more minutes 10 more minutes buddy come on up up up your Camille’s from my Pacer mechanic and friend, Nick league and trackside. Oh, did he just say 10 minutes. I really really thought he was going to say five. Oh, I’m at the absolute bottom feeling of deep despair sweeps over me. I feel so alone. But none of that matters. Now. I’m in the midst of indescribable agony. The black line is wandering beneath my wheels. My head keeps dropping further, more frequently. Fast feet fast feet. I repeatedly hear on the exit of turn to the clinking clacking of cowbells ring in turn for my brain is only absorbing a fraction of these sporadic sensations. All I want is to rest my head. It’s getting dangerous out here. I might crash I could very well crash. I can’t even control this bike anymore. Especially not while steering with my elbows. Instead of looking 10 feet ahead, I’m staring over the tip of my nose. All I see is a blur of sunset gray. I’m hearing the yells to hold the line stay smooth, keep my form. But, but I’m having irresponsible and involuntary urges to sit up. Something inside is driving but it doesn’t feel like it’s me. I’m angry because I’m not in command. I’m scared because I’m out of control. And then the gun goes off. It’s over. Head up, head up y’all fans and friends trackside. I’m depleted destroyed and heading straight for the lap counter at the edge of the track at almost 30 miles per hour. I correct myself as I wildly veer away from the infield wall back up the steep banking of the first corner than down to the Blue Apron of the track again, I’m alive. I don’t fully believe it yet. But it’s all over. Now. There are enough expletives to describe what I had just put myself through while riding in circles pushing as hard and as fast as I could with every atom of energy in order to finish right back where I started. That’s the hour. So just
Trevor Connor 08:44
to give some time. Just to give some context, this is a point where we came up to Chris and said buddy, the warm up Silver’s.
Chris Case 08:53
Man, I only wish no that was um, I think you’re going to hear from me a lot about a very painful experience. I think Colby has had probably some painful moments out there but just just a very different experience as a whole. If you’ve ever thought about man, I I really want to try the hour or do the hour. Don’t necessarily listen to everything I have to say because I feel like I really almost died. Goldie Colby will tell you a slightly different tale. But do you want to talk a little bit about all that experience? I mean, yeah, okay, Graeme Obree has done the hour, quite a number of times, but then I honestly feel like you’re you’ve got to be in the top three people that have taken on this challenge this god awful, incredible challenge at its core, it’s pretty simple. Um, well, where to begin? Yes, it’s an hour. Tell us about your first attempt. Well, my
Colby Pearce 09:50
first one was a religare credit. JV down the bottom. So we’re coming up with the idea he and I were training buddies and we were pretty young and and we both sort of emulated these two time trial gods in the in the US Time Trial scene in the who are really the the guys to beat in around the late 80s, early 90s. And these guys were john fry and Ken Bostic, and I eventually ended up being teammates with Ken on Shockwave for a number of years. And these guys were just the original Uber dorks. I mean, they wrote these bikes that were made by this company called hooker. And they were, they look like traditional bikes, but they’ve been flattened in a vise, but I mean, much more sophisticated in that, but that’s fundamentally what it was. Everything was just as narrow as possible. That was their, their line of attack. And they had Aero brake calipers, narrow hubs, like 16 millimeter hubs, or 40 millimeter hubs or something crazy in the front, and these Aero fork blades and the super crazy handlebars and these guys wrote these things, and they were riding Aero helmets and Aero water bottles, I mean, stuff that just didn’t exist, then they were way ahead of the curve. And, and they had each won multiple national titles and, and were very successful and kind of emulated them. And john fry had the US our record, when I was in the early 90s. I don’t recall what year he said it. But he also he and Kant both had respective 40 k records they’d set on the the fastest course in the country at the time, which was in Moriarty, New Mexico. It’s where most of the national records still are set today.
11:17
And,
Colby Pearce 11:18
you know, Jonathan said, Well, at some point, you should go for fries record, it’s kind of a thing you should do. And I was like, I thought about it and kind of in the back of my head, sort of accumulating masses, as a time trial is starting to get better and better. And then we started doing some testing and then I went to the springs had the velodrome kind of in our backyard, I lived in Boulder grew up in Boulder. So started going on there and doing testing, and it seemed like it was in striking distance. So 95, I decided was going to be my goal. And went down in September and pull it off. I wrote. So Fry’s record was 49.494. I want to say, kilometers. And I get this question all the time. And what was your time? One hour? 60 minutes?
Chris Case 11:56
Yeah, exactly.
Colby Pearce 11:57
Oh, right. It’s a little bit different than most of the time Charles went, and I went 50.191. k. Amazing. It was a solid ride. I was pretty happy with it. Honestly. I was but yeah, it’s all relative. It is.
Chris Case 12:12
It’s all relative. And that was on. Just not too dark out too. too deep. Yeah. Yeah.
Colby Pearce 12:17
I was on your load is no, it’s worth it. And we have to explain the rules a little bit because people get confused because I’ve been so many. Yeah, turns with it. So back then it was anything goes. This was the ovary era. This was 95, like 9394 is when he was doing Superman positions. And then the UCI was starting to clamp down on things because they really didn’t like how radical his position was becoming. In my opinion, one of the key pivotal moments was when he won, I believe it was pursuit worlds in 93. And no Hamar Norway, if I remember correctly. He was celebrating on his victory lap after the final and he almost took himself out in the banking because he was on the egg position. And that bike is amazingly difficult to ride like a normal bike share. And I’m sure that that had an impact. Anyway, that’s just conjecture on my part, but he watched the video and you’re like, oh, that that’s not what you want to see a little champion doing that one? Well, I’m gonna take myself. Yeah. So anyway, Graham, huge innovator, and just crazy respect to that guy, because he threw down in the most insane ways possible.
13:16
So your Lotus bike. Thanks.
Colby Pearce 13:19
So yeah, you’d see me drifting in thought there. Yeah, so that was anything go. So I wrote the Lotus, which is still hanging at the Brooklyn Museum. Currently, if people want to check it out, they did a really cool video on it. But it’s a super cool bike, I had Scott 100 k extreme Aero bars, which are like the ones where your hands are completely together. And the hundred k version was super, super narrow. I think the widest point was probably about 30 centimetres wide, if I remember correctly, so you really couldn’t do a standing start, you sort of did this weird dead fish flopping around, out of a starting gate kind of thing to get going. The guy Jonathan was there and his girlfriend at the time Carrie was there. And they helped me we’d like did the math and like printed out their spreadsheet and calculate where I should be for each split and was 112 kilos was exactly 50 k an hour. And that was the target. And so I knew I knew where I was the whole time. And that, that write down right there boils down to the single, most, in my opinion, the most significant data point you can have during our record, because, as you mentioned, Chris, it’s so easy to get lost. Yeah. But if you have a target and you understand where you are relative to a pace you’re trying to achieve or a record you’re trying to break or distance you’re trying to go further than then that single point of focus can make all the difference between just like wanting to stab yourself in the eyeball or curl yourself into the banking on purpose versus I can keep doing this.
Trevor Connor 14:42
So I guess I have a question for both of you not having to experience this. You’ve had guys like Eddie Merckx and Bradley Wiggins who have won grand tours. These are guys who know how to suffer. They have done one attempt at the they our record and when they were done, they just went never again. Is this the hardest thing to do in cycling?
Chris Case 15:03
It is amongst the hardest things I’ve ever done. It’s, it’s I think it’s hard for people to wrap their heads around it a bit because it’s an hour long. How hard could it be? It just one of the best quotes that Kobe gave me for the for the piece I wrote is about the fact that you’re essentially a contortionist. When you’re a good time trial list, and you’re rolling yourself up into a super tight ball, at the same time, trying to access every ounce of power that you have in a very smooth manner, and not moving from that position basically, at all. And it just accumulates the first half hour, you probably are like, this isn’t that bad, I can do this 45 minutes into the into it. And then things change. And then for me, the last 10 minutes, were absolutely excruciating. You don’t understand where these muscles and aches could be emanating from, but they start to appear. And the only thing you want to do, like I was mentioning is stand up and stretch just and you could do that you’ll sacrifice something and you I think you saw yen’s do that a little bit in the end of his attempt. But you’re also like now I got to hold this position hold this position, it just accumulates and then you’re in my case, as well as my the the back of my neck was so fatigued from from shrugging your shoulders to get arrow and and lifting your neck to peer up onto the track. At some point, those muscles were literally failing on me and it got dangerous. So for all those reasons, would would I do it again, I really really really wouldn’t want to
Trevor Connor 16:56
roll hot Dennis a world tour rider with BMC racing is no stranger to the hour, setting a world record of 52.491 kilometers at the time in February of 2015. Chris interviewed Ron about his attempt and how he dealt with the pain. Rojas touches on a lot of concepts we’ll cover during this podcast,
17:17
one of the most painful was still right up there. As one of the worst experiences on the bike I’ve ever had, you could say timewise but what I’m judging it off of more so is how filling the next day. So obviously the legs are sore and everything but it was nothing like halfway through a grant or or, or, or even a week or two where I’ve gone full gas every day and I was on a limb I wasn’t fit. It wasn’t like that. I shouldn’t feel too bad. And I probably put it down to the day No, not a whole lot different strain was to a one off Tom sharp. Initially you’ve got you start off, you’re on your pace for the first half while I was in the hour, and it slowly builds up after that and the last 2015 and especially 10 minutes is like help you’ve actually got you’ve got nothing left and you just going all out thinking well, if I go any hard on I’m gonna fall over I’m gonna drop so at the time. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done but physically didn’t destroy my body like like a week long or even a three week long tour.
Chris Case 18:43
And I remember you saying that the the sense that Oh shit, this is hell like came on pretty quickly. Like in an instant you went from feeling pretty good to feeling pair of petrified? Is that true?
18:57
Yeah, it was around at 20 minutes to go. So the first the first time that I noticed that my mental concentration was wavering was around about 20 minutes ago. And I could started noticing things that sort of my little bubble of what I was doing. I started noticing snows of obviously people cooking in the velodrome preferred obviously the spectators made it third. I noticed that this counted on the saddle, and then all of a sudden I wasn’t I wasn’t comfortable in the position and then the pain came on in the legs. When you snap out of your when she zoned out for most of it. And then once you you come out of that meditation sort of zone. That’s when things start to go downhill.
Chris Case 19:49
Is there any secret to how you finished off those 20 minutes? Or is was it just like you know what this sucks, but I’m doing it.
19:57
Just put your head down. Yeah Just put your head down. And I just tried to keep nil at the exact schedules partially sitting on and I bedside on the walls up on on the on the record. So that sort of kept my, um, my morale up, especially in the last 10 minutes, I will say, look, let’s just go as hard as you can route. It’s all or nothing besides just baseline, especially payments to go and environments. Yeah, you just have to make sure you stay on the spot and don’t fall over. And you’ve you’ve got this record. That was sort of the survival mode kicking in I think, yeah, that’s pretty well, or it was keeping me going. If it’s always down, down the record, Eric, morale would have things take into the ground pretty, pretty heavily. And it would have would have heard a lot knowing that knows nothing at the end of the tunnel right after the hour. So that I think that that was a huge motivator.
Trevor Connor 21:03
Let’s get back to Colby and talk with him about why this event is so hard. Well, some of the things that’s interesting when you look at this from a physiological standpoint, when we talk about fatigue, we’ve discussed this before in the podcast that fatigue is really about losing homeostasis. And when you talk about the limits of homeostasis, you never run out of fat effectively when you’re exercising. So you’re really looking at your your glycogen stores, and they say you have about enough glycogen to last you an hour. Other things that we look at in terms of just what’s the max point at which you can maintain homeostasis, you’re talking about maintaining lactate levels, you also brought up a bit of the the positional issues, and the fatigue there. This is really a effort where you are pushing yourself right to the absolute limit of homeostasis for about how long the top end to homeostasis can last. And your body is going to react to that it’s going to react a lot.
Chris Case 22:03
Yeah, I think Colby can add to this. I think, though, I don’t want to do it again. I’m extremely happy that happy might not be the best word. But I’m really glad that I did this because I can’t think of a better crucible for understanding your capabilities. It’s a perfect. I mean, it’s FTP. It really is. In a virtual world. It’s you It’s a bike, it’s a track, and it’s really effing hard. And you understand a lot about yourself and where you can go by doing it.
22:44
Well,
Colby Pearce 22:44
yes, with some caveats. But there are a few technical points that really bring out the challenge of the hour. And I think this probably explains why people like any mercs who clearly does not suffer when you exam when you break it down. You look at the differences between an hour a really long climb in the tour like a 40 k climber 30 k climb, I mean, those can easily take an hour. So what’s the difference? Well, the most obvious differences you’ve got people around you’ve got peloton to race against. And psychologically they’re they’re two different types of racers, and most of them are in the category of their better racing in a group that great race others they can race against others more effectively. Right? I’m in the minority I especially my younger part of my career career I use that loosely Clint ever. Like I was I was a better time troughs, I was better at racing myself. And I think I’m I’ve never seen any sciences support this, but I’m pretty sure that’s the minority most people naturally tend to race better when they’re around a group of others and they can go recent the climb, wasn’t as interested in that, for whatever reason, psychologically, I was better at at torturing myself. And then I had to learn to race in a group and learn to push myself around other athletes a little better in that developed as I went down the path of cycling. So that’s one aspect. A few other aspects are if you look at, say a 40 k TT on the road, which can take depending on the course can easily take close to an hour for some riders, or back in the older days, where they have a lot of longer TTS 5055 60 K. So I’m sure one of the primary differences there is that you have even on the flattest road in the world about some angulation in terrain, and that leads to some external distraction and also a point of reference. That’s number one. Number two is when you’re riding down a road. No one people don’t really talk about this. And I’ve often wondered this but if the distance is 40 k let’s say you’ve got a certified course it’s exactly 20 K to the turnaround like Moriarty and exactly 20 k back it’s been homologated if you weave down the road back and forth, because you’ve got a 700 seat front desk on you very possibly could actually ride 40 point share two K, you could write an extra hundred or 200 meters, especially if you’re really weaving around. What’s cool about track cycling is I tell my clients all the time, even once you do points races in normal normal races. airports, is that tracks like The only sport I know where it’s actually legal to cut the course. Right? Right. And to explain this, when you do an hour record, if you’re on a 250 meter velodrome the black line at the bottom of the track is exactly 250 meters in length on homologated velodrome and they put sponges up in the corners, which are a physical deterrent to you actually cutting the course, if you were going fast enough, and you try to cut the corner too much, you would hit the apron, because the aprons not at the same angle as the polling, you probably crash. But that doesn’t mean some writers wouldn’t try it. But they but more to the point is they don’t put the sponges right up to the black line, you get about 10 centimeters of leeway there, which means if you’re a really good bike handler, you can actually ride less than 250 meters in one lap. And it’s considered legal. So you could theoretically you would get a certain distance, but you could ride less to get there. Right? Right, that would work out in theory.
Chris Case 25:49
And on the flip side, you could ride a lot more
Colby Pearce 25:52
if you were up at the top of if you’re riding around in the red line, you’re adding meters to every rap. So you’re doing more work than you’re getting credit for. Right. And so your line. So one thing about track is that it’s hyper hyper critical, because you’re turning so often, that you really, really have to pay attention to your line, you can’t just control down the road and go hard and stereo power meter and weave within the double yellow line and the side of the road, you don’t have a right foot window, you’ve got about a six inch window.
Chris Case 26:18
And I think that’s one of the critical things that comes with a lot of track experience, which I had, yes, virtually none of and at the end of the race of the race, the attempt, it was extremely apparent to everyone that I was not able to hold the straight line and certainly wasn’t even trying to get close to the black on line because that that apron sucks you down. In a sense, it gets scary if you hit that.
Colby Pearce 26:44
So the other aspect to track that makes it quite a bit different whether there are two other technical points that I’ll mention that I think are really significant in the back to the point of you know why someone like any mercs would do an hour record and say never again. One is that on climb when you’re racing other people. In theory, when you’re full pressure, your effort is relatively constant. Now, Chris, I know you mentioned that your power meter got turned off or your head unit got turned off when you did your our temperatures really unfortunate did. But I’m sure you saw lots of training data and probably you noticed immediately like I did that you got in a 40 k TT or 20 k time trial or hillclimb Time Trial doesn’t really matter, your power, more or less stays relatively constant, it’s got some natural sort of transition elements and fluctuations based on the physiology of the rider how you push in. But on the track, you get a very clear wave like line. And that’s mostly due to physics. When you go into the corner, of course, your center of gravity falls. And when you’re when your center of gravity falls, you accelerate and ideally your we’ll stay attached your center gravity because if they did, right, bad happened, so then your then your center gravity is actually doing a smaller, shorter circle on on the in the corner, then your wheels are so your wheels up, do this extra circle, which means of course, they’re gonna accelerate. So when when you’re in one gear, and it’s a fixed gear, Mm hmm. Then as your center Gravity Falls, and you accelerate in the corner, naturally, your power tends to drop unless you’re intentionally doing otherwise. And then as your center gravity comes up right in the straight, right, and you become more vertical, then you’re going to slow down. So you’re feeling you’re hitting a little wall. And then you sort of sense that naturally, especially if you just tell someone to go ride the track, and they’ve never ridden before, that’s exactly what you’ll see, the power will go up as they feel their cadence dropping the push against those pedals. And so you get this very wave like function. So that means that if your FTP is whatever, we’ll use the generic example of 300 watts, if you did an hour flat on the track, you might have very, very few one second data points, actually, at 300 watts, it might be at 240 in the corners, and 320 or 340 in the streets. And so what that amounts to is a giant pile of microbursts there. So that’s one other factor and then another factor on top of that, and I interrupt you for just a second,
Chris Case 28:53
I want to say that maybe maybe Kobe isn’t the most experienced, he’s close to one of the most experienced our record attempters if that’s a word in the world, but you can tell he’s got to be the person that’s thought about this the most.
29:09
You thought about this endlessly. I’ve been accused of thinking too much. It’s happened. Okay, back to what you were gonna say.
Colby Pearce 29:16
So the other factor is that when you’re in the corners and your center Gravity Falls, of course, you’re experiencing increased centrifugal force. Mm hmm. That’s the G’s that you’re experiencing that are smashing your head down and fatiguing your neck muscles. You’ve got ride your arrow bars with your arrow helmet on for two or three hours and go, yeah, my next little sore, but when you’re going through the banking, and so if you’re riding 50 k an hour, that’s about 200 laps on a 250 meter velodrome over a period of an hour right. So that’s 400 corners, and the corners are about four or five seconds each depending on what lap pace you’re doing. It adds up. It adds up really quickly. The other one that people get is massive amounts of foot swelling because all the blood goes to your extremities and it just gets jammed down into your feet and your feet swell And then it’s just like when you’re in a really hot road ride. And for those of you have written and shoes or size, half size too small, or whatever you bought the summer, in the winter, they’re fine. And then the summer you got one big climate, it’s really hot, you go, I can’t wear these anymore, I’m gonna go home and attack them with a pair of scissors. Because your feet swell, and then you can’t push it down. Because when you push on the pedals, of course, it makes your problem worse. So you got all these little technical pieces between following the black line closely, so you don’t add distance, the increased g forces and then the wave like pattern of power, that really make it very, very different than just riding up a climb hard for an hour, which is quite challenging in and of itself.
Trevor Connor 30:33
Yep, it also means that somebody has a really good time trial, this is us to get on that flat course where you just put your head down and go if they think they’re gonna get on the track and do this. And it’s the same thing. They’re, they’re in for a shock.
Chris Case 30:44
And it brings me back to that point that I made at the beginning, which is the beauty of the our record to me is its simplicity. It’s a it’s a bike, it’s a writer, it’s a track, the complexity comes from all of these nuances that you have to engage your brain to think about a lot of things when you’re out there to be as successful, as successful as you want to be. Yeah. So yeah, you’re at threshold, your brain is being smashed into the track. Yet, you have to think about all these things holding the line and everything. So it gets hard out there.
Colby Pearce 31:22
It does it just I think the word that keeps coming to mind. The magic for me is relentless. It’s just relentless pressure. Yeah, that’s what it comes down to.
Chris Case 31:29
Absolutely, yeah.
Trevor Connor 31:31
So why don’t we jump into how to prepare for an hour record attempt. And we talked a little bit about this in the article. So I think a good place to start is with this 8020 principle. So in cycling, generally, we’re going to say, it’s just like business, focus on what produces 80% of the results, which is fitness. Having a functioning bike, those sorts of things don’t get too caught up in the minutiae, because it really doesn’t make that much of a difference. This is the opposite. When they do studies on cycling to figure out formulas for aerodynamics, or what sort of speed certain power translates into, they do it on the track, because it’s so simplified, it’s so controlled, you really don’t have much of a wind, you don’t have road conditions, anything like that. So here, you can actually do calculations to say, reducing this amount of friction in the frame or in the wheels, or the chain is going to produce 20 meters, getting this little bit more aerodynamic is going to produce 40 more meters, you can actually do those calculations here. So it seems like that extra 20% is important here. But when asked you in that preparation, can you get too caught up in that? Or do you really just need to focus equally on 100%?
Colby Pearce 32:48
Yeah, of course, it’s possible to get too caught up in anything, right?
Chris Case 32:52
I think I, you need to take this one away, because you’ve clear like, you’ve clearly thought about this, you’ve done this. You’ve obsessed over this. Right? Am I right? Yeah. You need to I think that’s what my point is. Yeah. If you want to eke out every last meter, this we’re talking about to the thousandth of a meter, right? 10s hundreds, thousands. Yeah, then then 100%. I mean, okay. You don’t have to obsess over it to the point where you fatigue yourself. But right, it’s worth considering all of the things because they’re all going to add up to make it 2040 100 meters, 250 meters,
Colby Pearce 33:33
you got to turn all the
Chris Case 33:34
stones over, you look at what Wiggins did to select his chain. And the company that worked with him, you know, they threw out these ridiculous numbers on how much money they spent to find the chain. And it maybe gained him a lap. That would be an enormous figuri an enormous figure. But that’s what they threw out there. You know, but every detail so
33:56
yeah, yeah, I
Colby Pearce 33:57
mean, it’s pretty simple. Like, yeah, you you pick the best bearings, you can you go with the most airframe, you can most everything has got to be optimized, right. skinsuit obviously, super important helmets, super important. And then it’s training. It’s pedals, it’s aerodynamics of shoes, it’s everything get away with to the to the limit. When I do this attempt in September, I’m going to be going for Ken Bostic, our record, he’s in the 45 to 40 million category, and it’s currently 49.3 K. He said that in Manchester back in 99, I believe. So it’s been around for a long time. And I’m going to Aguascalientes. So I’ve got a big advantage on cat right out of the blocks in that I was is
Chris Case 34:36
Yeah, I can. Let me read you something from the piece that puts this into context. So we’re talking about the difference in air density between Manchester and Aguascalientes, which is at 60 to 100 feet 60 to 100 feet, excuse me. So air density determines the mass of air that you displace as you ride through it. So for example, a cubic meter of air at the velodrome and Aguascalientes which sits at that almost 6200 feet mark is about point nine, six kilograms at sea level. It’s about 1.2 kilograms. So that’s the difference of a quarter of a kilogram for every cubic meter of air that you’re displacing over 60 minutes. That’s a big deal. Yep. So that’s what you mean when you say you’re at it. You have that as an as a big advantage just going in off the top.
Trevor Connor 35:22
Yes. So a good example of this is when Wiggins went for his record, when they got there, they measured the humidity and air pressure. And it wasn’t what they had anticipated. And unfortunately, it wasn’t what they anticipated in the wrong direction. So they actually before the race, discussed it with Wiggins and adjusted his target, knowing that he could no longer hit what he had planned in hitting.
Chris Case 35:46
Yeah, yeah, hotter air is faster and moisture, air is faster,
Colby Pearce 35:50
when you have a control velodrome to avoid setting yes to a point, like an indoor velodrome. So you take out wind, and really then it’s environmental factors, humidity, temperature, pressure, and then you could do the math. It’s just, they know exactly what Brad’s CDA is how many grams of dragging next, so it’s not
Chris Case 36:05
explained, explain that a little bit the CDI for people out there.
Colby Pearce 36:08
So it’s just simply the amount of air that you push out of the way, when you’re riding your bike, the less air you push, the faster you’ll go. So people look at watts per kilogram as a comparative way to measure one rider next to the other. And that’s a valid model. But it’s very limited in the real world, because it’s considering how much power you’re making in a vacuum. And it pays no attention at all to aerodynamics. And almost every bike race is impacted by aerodynamics. Even the steepest hill climbs have a tiny fraction that are impacted by aerodynamics. On the flip side, if you look at grams of drag produced by the rider versus how much wattage they’re producing, then you’re more in the ballpark of what someone’s going to do be able to predict how far they could go in an hour record, which is of course on a flat coarser. Well, technically speaking, not completely flat, but yes, right. Really the only other factors there are your coefficient of friction from your tires and your the friction, you’re losing in your bearings and drive train. And what else am I forgetting?
Trevor Connor 37:06
There’s a lot of details that go into the hour. In his interview with Chris Roja. Dennis describes just some of the preparation you did in the week leading up to his attempt, including setting the temperature of the track
Chris Case 37:17
if you if you don’t mind sharing a little bit about the week beforehand, actually,
37:22
while I was in Switzerland for a week and a half before, initially, it was trying to find out some more data of my position and my, my setup and everything on the, on that villager villager is different, we needed to find out what types would be ideal for me for power, and everything. So we’re doing a lot of CDI testing. So that’s a red rag test. And then we’re doing five or 10 Ks run set at various speeds and just above our state, so planning to go obviously, faster than ricepaper at the end of the hour. And the biggest thing I think I did was for four days out I did a half an hour test and did it as if it was right that writing was right size for it. And from there it was just it was pretty specific. Just like hey, we’ll just keep the motor going. We don’t want to shut down and then we go over to the tank on on race day.
Chris Case 38:26
What about height like did you hyper hydrate the night before or the morning of or anything like that? Yeah, so
38:33
the whole time, we were making sure that I was getting plenty of floated I had someone as stupid as it may sound pretty well holding a button next to me whenever I needed it. We even put a small, small amount of bicarb in before the start of the race Diane the trial just just above that initial lifestyle a little bit on the start. Down thing we did was really cold because it was quite hot in the track. those assets, water I did have was a slushy for the start. So internal calling. And we tried to keep it pretty simple, really. We didn’t want to vote it was scientific but not to the gram or ordered millimeter milliliter of water needed to be consumed with salt and all this other stuff. That was
Chris Case 39:29
how warm Did you have the velodrome that I assume it was controlled? You could
39:34
get it 26 degrees was supposed to be at 25 I think it was but it was it was said 25 before anybody got in there. Right right actually bumped up to 26 star which is what we’re expecting at the later end of the hour. So that was when I first walked in on our mission because we hadn’t been training and hate in the battle. I’m not bad here anyway, initially, it’s hard. I’m not sure what the ideal temperature is for now, I know some guys have pumped it up to 2020 odd degrees. But they just depends on what what you can handle and what’s comfortable for you.
Chris Case 40:17
Right? What was your warm up right before the hour,
40:21
this one I was gonna take a walk. So I did a couple of builds up the threshold. Nothing too stupid, you could say because obviously, you don’t want to empty the tank, you just want to open, open the engine up a little bit and get a warm, yeah, we actually go out there and use that energy on the track. So it’s a fine line between overclocking, and not doing enough, you want to be going well style as well. So we did a few accelerations, just short the colors, just to make sure your body is ready to go 678 hundred watts at the start line. Alright,
Trevor Connor 41:01
let’s get back to Colby. So it’s pretty obvious that you can really get into the weeds on the details when it comes to going for an hour at attempt. And in this case, you’ve heard me be the retro grouch and gonna hammer against it and just ride your your 1994 huffy. And this is a place where I’m going to say Yeah, you got to go into the weeds, but at the end of the day, still, the 80% is the training. And there. This is a very specialized event. So I know certainly with Chris The training was quite specialized. So why don’t we dig into if you’re going to go for the outer record? What’s your approach to training? Well,
Colby Pearce 41:44
in 95, I really focused on just timed events in general time trials on the road and I did a lot of did a lot of five minute vo twos, a lot of 20 and 25 minute low cadence, so targeted around 6050 to 60 RPM, kind of what we call today’s sweet spot intervals back then I call them sub lt and I lifted a lot in the winter, a lot of leg press, just traditional weight, anything below below the belt traditional like pressing a leg, leg press hamstring curls, stuff like that. Then I would do that and we’ve gotten to vo twos and then the the sweetspot interval slowly getting started getting longer worked up to a couple 30 minutes a couple 40 minutes and then some 50 minute ones remember doing back in the day I would start at the bottom left hand and go up Jamestown and then at the top of super James and that took me about 15 minutes at the time plus or minus to get to the the cross there. Now my programs you know it’s really not that different fundamentally um the changes are I have access to a local folder i’m i’ve got boulder Valley boulder on this writing distance from my house. So instead of doing a 15 minute lt up James down, I may go out to the track and do laps, I’ll do 10 K or 20 k effort out there. And then go in and rehydrate and then go do it again. So I’ve been doing some of those I’ve been focusing on v2, you got to lift the ceiling to raise a level whole house right. So kind of for me, I would say vo two is my biggest point that I needed to work on at this at this juncture. It’s sort of the personally it’s the training cross section of training that I don’t tend to do very often left to my own sort of, Hey, this is fun, I’ll do this type of writing. And it’s one of my weaker points physiologically, so I really have to train a lot to make it good. And so that’s gonna be a focus of mine for for the next bit and then doing laps, you got to be conditioned to handle the pressure just the other day I went out and did. I did 30 minutes just in the poll, but it wasn’t really going for pace. I was just kind of riding my legs were a bit shot from some other work, but I was like I’m just going to do this. And even at the end of 30 minutes at around, I think I averaged 220 watts. So I’d end up being close to 40 to 43 k an hour. I was like I’m feeling this I’m feeling the pressure I felt my feet expanding. felt my just my arms and shoulders start to feel the load. You know you’re wrestling with that black line and bulevar velodromes not insanely smooth. It’s it’s a really nice track but it’s got some bumps and a few challenges and then you’re out there you get the wind. I swear sometimes the wind literally goes in your face on both streets.
44:04
It’s bizarre. You like
Colby Pearce 44:05
whips around the corner it’s
Chris Case 44:06
pretty crazy. It’s probably why nobody should actually try for an hour record at that track but
Colby Pearce 44:12
when it’s very close and they are extremely accommodating then you don’t need it. It’s awesome to have it is and that’s one thing I’ll mention about doing an hour on outdoor tracks is the weather will make you insane because you start to do the math and realize that even at five mile an hour wind will absolutely annihilate your distance and then you start obsessing over weather and then
Chris Case 44:31
and I did I did
Colby Pearce 44:34
man I day or night this day that day in 2019. I went through that with the springs and it just after a while you just go with it. I just got to go. Yeah, it is what it is. And you just do a little rain dancer, better weather bands.
Trevor Connor 44:48
So we were training Chris. I mean here we’re dealing with somebody who five six weeks beforehand goes to the track and goes oh, that’s what aerobars on the track. So we had a couple Things that we had to focus on one was trying to get it obviously as FTP power as hard as high as we could for the event. So we’re not really focused on big jumps, we’re not really focused on big endurance here. So it was actually low volume training. But the other side was that sustainability be able to sit in that position on the track for an hour, which is tough.
Chris Case 45:21
So what we did, this was actually designed by Neil Henderson was a sequence of intervals. And Neil had just coached Roland Dennis to his record. Yeah, Raj doesn’t stand anymore. But it was a very impressive ride and time or distance stories.
Trevor Connor 45:36
And what it was, is having Chris do time, and it wasn’t actually at FTP, it was 90% of FTP. So we measured Chris’s FTP at the time at about 275. So he’s doing his intervals at about 260 watts, the reason being, you’re trying to hit that aerobic system, and if you try to ride right up at that threshold, there’s too much of a risk of actually training more your anaerobic system, which is not going to benefit you in this event. And there’s also been a lot of research showing that the, you maximize lactate clearance at about 90 95% of threshold. So that’s where we wanted to train, Chris. And here was kind of the sequence which he ended up doing most of it on the track, it was really two workouts a week, rest of his time, the week was pretty easy or off, I’ll just kind of run through the sequence. And so if I say for example, six by five by two, that means six, four minute, or sorry, six, five minute intervals with a two minute recovery. So we started with short, it was six by five by two as the example I just gave, then he bumped up to four by eight by about four, then four by 10 by three. So you can see it’s adding more and more time at that that 90% threshold, then it was four by 12 by three, then three by 15 by five, two by 20 Plus One more, one more 10 minute interval with five minute recoveries, then a 30 plus a 20 with a five minute recovery. So now he’s getting close to actually do it an hour with very little recovery in between. And then finally, as we’re getting close to the event three by 20 by five, and two by 30 by five so his last one, he actually did an hour he just took a five minute rest in between. And that was the one that we were really looking at to say, How close are you? What sort of power Are you able to generate so that we could estimate? Here’s what gear you need to be on the track and here’s what you need to be targeting.
Trevor Connor 47:37
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Colby Pearce 48:27
I feel like our our two preparation programs were actually relatively similar. I mean, you weren’t as focused on co2, you were a little more sweetspot 90% the thing I’ll add to that is threshold. For me. You know, there’s a lot of discussion and podcasts and literature about how much threshold to have in training programs. A lot of people have different opinions on this. I like to equate threshold to frosting on a cake. A little bit at the right moment brings the whole thing together it’s just perfect or salt in the soup. But if you hammer that soul soup I remember this soup analogies are
Chris Case 48:57
super now last time Yeah, the viewers out there probably remember the soup analogies and the salt is a soup.
Trevor Connor 49:03
For now on anytime you’re on the show, we have to have a soup and salt analogy. Okay, you have to figure out how to
49:09
I think it was the same story.
49:12
Okay, so go ahead and
Colby Pearce 49:13
read I like it. I like it. I’m repeating myself well, so if you’re making a soup, you put your vegetables in, you put your stock in your bison, yeah, your device and whatever you’re putting in there, right. If you’re trying to lose weight, you’re putting your celery in there, and you got to add some salt and a little bit of salt will bring everything together brings all the flavor out the soup makes it a proper recipe and then when you sit down to enjoy it, it’s a real meal. But if you don’t have a jar salt in there, you’re gonna ruin the whole thing. And that’s the way threshold is for me special training. At the right time in a program I can really tie things together and and stimulate the system in the right way. But if you sprinkle threshold all over the place all the time, you just end up wearing out the athlete it comes at such high oxidative stress and borderline anaerobic stress. It requires so much recovery from the athlete off the bike to manage all that load and it just sort of Here’s you down. And also, there’s a very in my, from my experience, not for everyone. But for many athletes, there’s a very diminishing point of return where you keep adding threshold and the recipe and they don’t really get any better. They just sort of get after time, they get nonresponsive and then keep going after that, they get really tired and trashed and flat. So it’s, it’s the magic kind of sprinkling of salt that you got to appear at the right time.
Trevor Connor 50:22
Neal Henderson is the founder of Apex coaching here in Colorado, one of the top coaches in the US, he coach Ron Dennis, first, our attempt and his recent win the world’s Time Trial championships. This interview is for when Henderson was helping Chris with his our attempt, use it a lactate curve, and sorry, you can’t see it. Heather’s thing is a fantastic explanation of why you want to train a little under threshold.
50:49
Just like when we talk about threshold training, which we haven’t even gotten into which this is a threshold effort, right? We look at the physiology of you know, kind of what happens with progressive exercise, threshold, whatever you want to call that, there’s going to be somewhere near where this really rapid rise in lactate occurs. So we would look at the associated power. At this point. If we are looking to improve what I have seen, the best training is going to be just below that rise. The key thing is how you identify this rise. So if you’re off by 10% on that value, then you’re way off on those training levels, because this is basically within 10% rollback rate points staying under as opposed to over Okay, when you hit this threshold, there’s a lot of things that happen, one of the consequences of crossing over that threshold is you have an increase in your sympathetic nervous system activation, that increases the use of carbohydrate as a fuel add increase all the stress, hormones, catecholamines, etc. Just slightly above is much more costly than just slightly below. If we think of what causes this kind of break in terms of you know, kind of looking at some of the physiology, there’s an appearance of lactate and a clearance of lactate. As we begin exercise, we can actually see a drop in overall lactate concentrations, because we actually can oxidize and use lactate as fuel part actually prefers lactate as a fuel, that is its number one fuel to use oxidative to use oxygen to break down lactate, okay, there comes a point where we may be producing a little bit more lactate here, but our clearance is even greater. So it actually shows a net in the blood level dropping it, as we continue along, it may be stable, and then they’ll start to see rises, because the production now starts to go up a little bit. This breakpoint occurs when there’s an imbalance between the production and basically the clearance and re uptake right of lactate. And so your production continues to go higher above it. But the clearance rate is already at basically its peak rate of disappearance is probably absolutely at a max about where that threshold is. So we’re trying to stimulate a re uptake, instead of flooding the system and going over if we stay just under that we’re near that kind of maximum parents rate. And so doing your efforts specific to the hour right here is going to be better than being at or even above your threshold. Because you can recover from it more quickly. And you can progressively build on training. So one of the things would be you know, just having some systematic progression of total time that you’re spending near that threshold that we’re really trying to stay under, you can look at the power and I would also look at the associated heart rate. So heart rate has a fairly linear and you can associate the heart rate with that heart rate does have a day to day variation, hydration, and caffeine, all of those things, having an effect on that. So a given day, you’re going to have to then use one other thing, which would be your perceived effort. You know, if we do a zero to 10, on a perceived effort, typically this is somewhere between a six and an eight on the rpd. For you it is what it is, I can’t tell you where that number is. But where that threshold is, is going to be fairly consistent as a perceived effort over time, or under and over. Very clearly, very much better. How many times I can say that, yeah, that is the biggest mistake that I see amateur athletes make.
54:34
They figure harder I go the better I’m gonna get it. They look at their
54:37
20 their highest ever 20 minute power and they’re like, yeah, that’s my threshold. Mm hmm. It’s not 20 minute power was never threshold for anyone ever. Mm. 20 minute is close to threshold, but it’s in excess of threshold. It is depending on the person anywhere from five to 15% over threshold, especially a one off 20 minute effort. All right, let’s
Chris Case 54:58
get back to the show. One thing I’ll say too about the numbers we were working with is that on a climb or something, my FTP or my numbers are completely different. I with so little experience in an arrow position, I’m not saying this to make excuses for a low number or anything, it was just significantly lower than what you would see on my road bike. So I don’t know, do you? What are your numbers look like today, I noticed someone like rohana, I happen to actually ride, go for a road ride. Not long after he had maybe a couple months after he had done the record, he was in Boulder. And I was asking him about how the attempt when and in the conversation, he actually revealed to me that his numbers are better on a track bike than they are on the road, which to me is Yeah, you know, abnormal.
Colby Pearce 55:50
I would say it’s pretty common for people to lose some FTP power when they go from road to arrow bike. Yeah, for sure. And if you think about the reasons for that, I mean, the biggest thing one is when you’re riding on the road bike, most of the time we ride on the hoods, and you’ve got that point to stabilize, you’re making power with your, your distal segments, your feet, and all that power has got to be stabilized by your hips and torso. And part of that stabilization happens by your hands grabbing the hoods. So when you grab the hoods, that gives you that long lever your forearm plus your upper arm to help stabilize the torso for moving around too much. Or if you want to have a rhythmic movement, for example, up a steep part of a climb, you can do that in your arms kind of counterpose, that force and it all sort of flows. When you’re in arrow bars are of course pinned to the elbows. So it’s like effectively, it’s like narrowing your stance a lot. So you’ve increased your balance challenge, you’ve increased the challenge of stabilizing the torso and a lot of riders really struggle with that.
Chris Case 56:41
Then leverage, just leverage,
Colby Pearce 56:43
yeah, less leverage and less muscles to actually stabilize everything, all that motion, and then you add all the GS again, from the corners. So all kinds of adds up on the track. For me, I found that my my power numbers are pretty close to road and track once I’m fully adapted to track aerobars. And I’ve been riding for a while, I would say I’m not quite there right now. But
Chris Case 57:01
you are extremely flexible too. And when you ride a road bike, you’re so bent over that your feet shorter than people you ride next to even though when you were, you know, you’re not any shorter than them, right, which most people don’t have that luxury, I don’t think
Colby Pearce 57:18
Yeah. And I get comments about it all the time on group rides, and people complain about being behind me and pursuits and pointers, no, no draft, pretty old joke. But some people are born with the actual big deal to mourn with and get it right. But I will say the flexibility, you know, comes at a cost. I mean, not that long ago, I listened to a lecture from the famous triathlon coach Bobby McGee, and he said, Show me a really flexible athlete, I’ll show you a terrible runner. So when you’re generating force, the elastic component of your soft tissue, your fascia is what contains or directs that force. So so people who are really highly mobile have trouble generating high amounts of force, because you don’t have this the the facial system to kind of contain or direct that motion to organize that motion as much, it’s easier for your motion to go all over the place it like the difference between a hard tail and a full system. Like, you know,
58:09
yeah, that’s a good analogy. Yeah. Um, so you can use that for your next lecture.
Colby Pearce 58:13
Thanks for that.
Trevor Connor 58:15
So another thing that’s important here with this is xo, all muscles have an optimal length. So if you think about your bicep, you’re right at that when your elbows at that 90 degree angle, the weight that you can lift in that position is much higher than what you can lift when you are starting out. Which is why you see a lot of people in the weight rooms sit there and only go through like two inches of movement, because they want to show how much they can lift. So we have the same thing with our legs and on an aero bike to get in the most Aero position. It’s actually for most people taking a lot of their muscles, particularly your hamstrings and your calves out of their optimal length. So they can’t actually produce as much strength. If you’re highly flexible. That’s actually not the case, right? You get in that more Aero position, and you’re actually putting those muscles into their optimal length position. Right,
Colby Pearce 59:05
right. Yep. And I would say I’ve noticed that in some general kind of phenotyping observations I’ve done with athletes, and when I do bike fits is that there’s some athletes who are under pressure, how I term it is they tend to prefer a more extended position, a longer spine, maybe a little bit longer reach. And there are other athletes too, as they go harder. They kind of ball up. Yeah, right, curl up into a ball rolling pulley. And so I sort of try to suss that out when I’m fitting and look at it, because you got to understand if you if you make someone’s reach a little bit optimistic and an arrow bike, and they’re and then you don’t see that when they go hard, they’re going to turn into a ball meatball, then they’re going to have this wrestling match where they’re going to come forward on the saddle, and then they’re not going to be making enough power. So then they’re going to have that type of is what I call typewriter anything deep out to the end of the saddle and then go back
59:51
out there. No, I like that
Colby Pearce 59:52
and they won’t know what’s going on. But so and so you do this correction where you scoot your bike back, right and then you work your way out of the saddle.
Chris Case 59:59
Yeah, yeah, I really clean when I go hard. I’m on the rivet. That’s where that you know, you go to the front of your ear, your butt is just on the tip of your saddle and I’m just like flexing and yeah. clenched and that’s, that’s me and my power position, Geraint this year at the tour. Yeah, although he’s changed. He didn’t used to
Trevor Connor 1:00:16
look like that. But anyway, that is still one of the biggest challenges on the TT bike. When I’m going hard. You just slide to the front side. I’m termer. Who was but one of the top time travelers in the world apparently, actually tried putting Velcro. I think it was Tony or Tony. Tony Martin.
1:00:30
Yeah, grip grip tape, any grip through his shorts, by the end of the attempt. My take on that for the record is that that’s the wrong wrong solution. You need a different subtle you need Yeah, there’s something
Chris Case 1:00:39
else going on there. They also make those those saddles with a little suction, but prologo makes them with with a tiny little. Yeah, that’d be a better idea. grip tape from your son’s skateboard.
Trevor Connor 1:00:51
So one last thing in terms of the the execution? You know, we’ve talked about, there’s a lot of my new show a lot of little details. But on the flip side, it’s quite a simple bike. You have one gear, and it seems like the gear you select and the cadence is critical. So can you talk a little bit about that?
Colby Pearce 1:01:09
Yeah, the math is critical. You have to know you have to be realistic about your pace. And then you have to know as a rider, what is your optimal cadence. And you can look at some data on that most most of the time, we’ve got good data support that but you also just kind of know it. I mean, it’s not rocket science. If you go out and do intervals on the road all the time, on a flat road, what is your preferred cadence, you’re going to start to figure that out for me, it was really close to 100 rpm. I’m a I’m a little gear guy. So I worked towards that when I did the 95 hour record, I wrote a 5514. And I believe I was like 100.2 RPM average or something like that, if I remember correctly, it was pretty darn close. And I shoot for your that, that cades for my records. And I’ll do that again.
Chris Case 1:01:52
Whenever I was for sure. Yeah, when I was was preparing I spoke with Neil Henderson rowhomes coach, Rowan Rowan Rowan Rowan Rowan Brown, Dennis Rowan. Um, and yeah, he was addition with this podcast is to mispronounce every single pros name we have been spot on
1:02:10
so far.
Chris Case 1:02:12
Yeah, but Mo, I think the data that he had was that that hundred RPM is, is a good target, even 105 some people shoot for, but you really don’t want to go lower than that too much. And there’s a physiological reason for that.
Colby Pearce 1:02:30
Yes, although one of my athletes that I’ve been working with for a few years, Morgan helling is she’s a gear monster. She’s a mutant seemingly has no bottom to arcades. So we’re literally the limiting factor for her is finding big enough. chainrings. Wow,
Chris Case 1:02:43
she’s going for an attempt as well in September. Is that correct?
Colby Pearce 1:02:46
Yep. And she was there last year, and I was some road over 47. And I forget the day to be sure. But she’s in the low 80s for cadence average, which is like, way off the chart. But she’s Molly, she’s amazing athlete has some sort of crazy capacity to generate high torque for a long period of time. Interesting.
Trevor Connor 1:03:03
Yeah. But it was interesting. You pointed out in there, that was three only three times as the our record ever been set at under 100 rpm. And one of them was like 98. Yeah.
Chris Case 1:03:14
In terms of finding the right gear that you should run on race day. It’s just a math formula. It’s just too
Colby Pearce 1:03:19
much. Yeah. Because, you know, I mean, Well, okay, the limiting factor there is, I have spoken to some athletes who don’t have access to a track, but they want to go do an hour record or even they want to go to masters roles in Los Angeles, and do you know, two or three K. And if they live in, I have one guy lives in Central California. And he’s he’s five, six hours from LA. So we don’t have a lot of data. So then it gets a little trickier because it’s like, well, what cadence is actually going to be optimal for this guy when he goes to the track. And the best case scenario is for you to go to the velodrome and do a bunch of testing, try different gears, different efforts, trying to reverse order one day, you know, bigger, smaller, smarter, bigger, put all the data in a pile, if you get enough data, and you’ll you’ll be able to figure it out. And then you coordinate that with your notes, careful note taking and your own perception. And you might be surprised at what you find most the time there’s a correlation. You go, Okay, this gear feels about right. And then you look at the time so you go Yep, sure enough, I was getting my most consistent times at this rpm. And for pursuit, those RPMs would normally be quite a bit higher because you’re making higher power. But that’s if you’ve got access to your track, you just go out there and you’re doing 1020 minute efforts. It’s an outdoor track, you have to factor in wind. And of course, you have to factor in weather, right? Yep, temperature, pressure, humidity. Yeah, then you can just find an online gear cadence calculator, there’s a bunch of them out there. There are a lot of apps that will calculate your cadence from your hearing and your speed and your tire size. So it’s pretty simple.
Trevor Connor 1:04:34
An important thing to think about here is you know, some of you might read an article somewhere saying that 105 RPM is optimal. okoli It was great that you said you really need to understand what’s what’s right for you, because when you hit that 30 minute mark and you’re really starting to hurt, and your natural cadence is 95 you’re gonna start going to your natural natural cadence whether 105 is proven to be the best or not, and you’re not going to realize it cuz you don’t have a computer on your handlebars telling you, your Kayden just dropped 10 RPM Yep.
Colby Pearce 1:05:06
And when you’re tired, it’s hard to feel that. So that’s an added challenge. I mean, you’d see it lab splits, and then you figure it out. But
Chris Case 1:05:13
that’s when you start searching, though to if you drop and then pick it up, and then you go over, and then you go under. And that’s when things go haywire.
Colby Pearce 1:05:20
Just the constant pressure that you’ve got to maintain as a stable constant pressure.
Trevor Connor 1:05:25
Okay, so we’ve done all our preparation, and you are now on the start line of the track getting ready for your our record. And I should point out for anybody who hasn’t done this before, you’re not going to have a big Garmin 1000 with all the data. Some of the purity here is I believe, you can’t have any data correct?
Colby Pearce 1:05:42
Well, you can get data from an outside source or coach or lab splits, etc. But yes, that’s correct. You can’t have you can’t have a radio. And you can have anything on your handlebars, right? So there’s no display allowed. You can record data, but it’s got to be somewhere where you can’t see it. Usually people writers put the head unit under their seat.
Trevor Connor 1:05:57
Okay. So this is I truly you against the clock. Yep. What do you do? How do you pace yourself? What’s the strategy here?
Colby Pearce 1:06:06
Well, Someone once asked me like, That’s incredible. You set the record. Thanks, man. What, at what point did you just just stand up and goes all the way from the from there to the finish. And I said at the start, which was pretty much true. But I mean, when I did it in 95, again, I had an exact schedule. So I knew how many seconds I was up on fries mathematical place, explains the scheduling to Pete for people out there that aren’t familiar with
1:06:32
Yeah, tracking experience, you know.
Colby Pearce 1:06:33
So it’s pretty simple on the track, you just take lap times to the 10th of a second. And then you have a cumulative time and you have an hour record, you have markers. So I knew that example, at five K, fries time was x. So it’s pretty simple. If I had crossed five K, three seconds before Friday, then I knew I was up three seconds. And that is about how it went. I was up 345 1012, etc. And again, when you’re in the deep in the pain cave, those seconds can make all
Chris Case 1:06:58
those little cues. accuser is our magical carrot. And your coach will sometimes they’ll either give you a thumbs up or a down or they’ll stand relative to align to indicate whether you’re up on somebody or behind.
Colby Pearce 1:07:14
Yeah, so like that. Well, the British team I believe innovated that particular method of communication, because in training, it’s common for coaches to yell splits in an athlete, whether you’re doing an individual pursuit, or you’re doing training for an hour record or a 4k team pursuit, for example, or three kt pursuit. Depending on gender and distance and age, you would get splits. And so the writer, the coach would simply say the last two significant digits, which, if you’re doing a 16.0 second lap tents are very important in a team pursuit. It’s one in lost by thousands. So he would say, six zero, which means 16.0 seconds. And with that update, you know the exact schedule as writer, you’re know, exactly you’ve talked about with your coach in advance where you should be. And so you have an idea of who I’m supposed to be writing five nines a month down, or Oh, on six twos, I’m a little bit hot. So you course correct based on the that information, and you get that information every lap normally in a timed event on the track. So you have very up to date information and an hour record, it would be a bit laborious for a coach to shout every single split for every single lap, because you’re doing around about 200 laps depend on a 250 depending on your distance. So there are other ways to do it. How we did it with in 95 is they simply gave me they had a chalkboard and tie and they wrote on there, I think it was a big whiteboard. And they wrote plus five plus six, which meant I was six seconds ahead of john fry, the walking example you refer to Chris, it was derived when people realize that, for example, in Manchester City, which is sold out I think about 6000 seats, the British are in the team to final, no writer going to hear anything at coach, right The crowd is going insane. So they had to do come up with a visual system of telling the team what pace they were on. And so the system they developed was when they were on schedule, the coach did exactly on the Start finish line of the event of the where they started. Yep, for every step forward, he took into the first turn, they were second ahead for every step backward. He took towards turn four. Sorry, step was a 10th of a second there should be 10 steps away if they were a second up or down. And then the riders knew exactly where they were.
Trevor Connor 1:09:11
So Chris, since you didn’t have a target. There wasn’t somebody time that you were trying to beat. How were you paced? Well,
Chris Case 1:09:16
I had a target in that based on calculations. I knew how far I thought I could go given, you know, not perfect conditions, but great conditions. So based on that, and based I knew what laptimes I was supposed to hit and I actually had my friend and mechanic Nick league in at trackside the whole time and he was yelling out track laptimes on every lap. I think what’s interesting to note for for my attempt is that given my lack of experience on the track and on a fixed gear bike, he ended up cheating a little bit so that I wouldn’t surge so much. If I was down on time. On a lap time. He might tell me that I was only getting A little bit so I wouldn’t try to like pick it up too much because you on that fixed your bike, it just the momentum of it, it just acts differently from what you’re used to, if
Colby Pearce 1:10:09
you’re come from a road bike, he was he was smoothing the day, he was smoothing the data, so to speak, and you know, trying to psychologically influence me a little bit as well, so that I didn’t overdo it, or under do it? Well, in the first 2030 minutes of an hour, you don’t want big accelerations or changes of pace, because that’s going to come at a high metabolic cost, it’s going to come at a price and you’re gonna have to carry the load of that effort the rest of the hour. So if you really want me Rohan, Dennis is one of the world’s best add metering his effort during a time trial, he rides in a very, very narrow power range. And he does that specifically because he doesn’t want to tap into the the anaerobic system or the glycolytic system at all and cause some damage that he’s going to have to carry around for the rest of a TT, you’ve got a few bullets to use. And if you spent them on the wrong part part, it’s like putting too much soup in there.
1:10:55
It’s the mercs membership in the salt.
Trevor Connor 1:10:57
Yeah, this is a really important point. Because since you are on a fixed gear bike, this isn’t like doing a hillclimb time trial where you might push a little bit to get over that 12% grade, but then you can ease up and recover. There’s zero recovery here, right? Yes,
Colby Pearce 1:11:11
yes, exactly. You’re dead in the wind, you’re just,
Chris Case 1:11:15
you’re so exposed out there. That’s why in that, when I read that opening paragraph, like I’ve really felt all alone out there, you are so alone, so exposed, and there’s nothing you can do about it. When you start feeling that pain creep in. You can’t stop it.
Colby Pearce 1:11:28
I really think you gave yourself a bit of an ice skating uphill challenge in the sense that you set on this quest to do this our record, and you had a projected pace. But there was no steak. There was really well, yeah. And so the last 20 minutes of that record, when it really, really started to hurt. I mean, what gets you through those moments is the Karen. And for me when I did the 95 record, I had that carry a record. Exactly. And that man, like I was saying before that light at the end of the tunnel is so powerful. You didn’t have that. And so it’s so
Trevor Connor 1:12:01
it’s probably a bit of a negative carrot. But you did have the carrot of this is an article and a lot of people are
Colby Pearce 1:12:07
gonna read this. So you knew you had to finish it. But you also want to finish that. Yeah, but yeah, but right. So you probably felt some public pressure as we all do. And we race our bikes and pin on a number. Yeah, whatever we’re doing. It’s a very,
Chris Case 1:12:20
it’s a very good point I did there was no legitimate official official is a better word record out there for me to be striving for a race race just yet. No, but this reffer fun, so to speak.
Trevor Connor 1:12:31
Yeah, this is also a big one for me, because it’s the positive versus a negative goal, you are going for a record. That’s a real positive goal. Chris was going for, I don’t want to embarrass myself when we publish this, which is a bit of a negative goal. And I’m a big believer in yahsat goals are far more effective. And
Colby Pearce 1:12:48
that’s that’s my point. You Yeah, you’ve had some external factors, maybe potentially working against you. And it just was what it was to beat the dead horse. It’s like you didn’t have a bar to jump over. You had your projected pace, which was what By the way, what was your your projected?
Chris Case 1:13:03
It was right around 40? I mean, I basically hit it right around 46.
Colby Pearce 1:13:07
Yeah. And you went 45 94899. So yeah, you were you were really close to that pace. So the math ended up being about right for you based on the numbers you had in the training and stuff. But if you knew that you were going to get a national record. That was previously you know, 44, eight or whatever, then that’s a bigger fire. Or if it was even more significantly, if it was 46. Two or 46. Four, right, you probably could have, it would have been a very different perspective on your ride as my point mm,
Chris Case 1:13:36
most likely, in in in fairness, I did hat there is a record out there. But I knew that no matter what if I wrote 49 it wasn’t going to be an official record. Right? Because I didn’t you know, pay the original fees to get the official so yeah,
Trevor Connor 1:13:52
yeah, that’s an important thing. If you’re going for this and you want it to be official, you have to pay for the UCI officials to come and certify it.
Colby Pearce 1:14:00
And then if you get a world record, you have to pay for anti doping. Yep, yes. Yeah, there’s
Chris Case 1:14:05
there’s there’s some some things you have to do B before you can get your your name. Officially in the record books. I got mine in a magazine called velonews.
Trevor Connor 1:14:17
Official is like,
Chris Case 1:14:20
I feel like I remember you telling me a story once about how one of your attempts went so well, that you were seeing colors or your music was I don’t know. It was just like a magical experience for you. That’s on the flip side. Yes. Can you maybe just give us a taste of that experience? That surreal experience?
Colby Pearce 1:14:37
Yeah, that was that was 95. Probably what I was talking about was like, I’m a very musical person. And I pretty much always have music playing in my head. There’s a constant soundtrack and
1:14:47
what’s playing right now? Royce.
Chris Case 1:14:50
Okay, wow, good answer.
Trevor Connor 1:14:52
Yeah. Scotland for Berlin. You take my breath away. That’s fine. We’ll go with
Colby Pearce 1:14:58
some Royce in some diseases. Well, actually, okay, combination of those two going on. But so, uh, yeah, I’m awake guy. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to sort of associate the music that’s playing in my head, the tune that I have, which, with my state of focus, my state of being my state of happiness to get a little out there. People talk colloquially, colloquially about how you get a bad soundtrack stuck in your head, and it ruins your day. Right? For me, that’s a really intensely personal experience. I’ve had that many times when I was younger. And so I think some of it’s about mindfulness and letting go. And in the last about 25 minutes of the 95 hour record, I was able to select tracks at will, almost in a playful way. Wow. And it’s not only about selecting the tracks it’s about, it’s about having access to the library in the sense that I’m, like, I’m just such that person that in my head, I can play like the other day, a YouTube song came on. And it was the first like two chords of this barely this guitar. And I asked everyone around me to name it, and no one could, and I knew it immediately. It’s because I’ve listened to it like 15 million times in high school. And it just brought me right back to high school. But I hadn’t heard the song in 10 years. But of course, I can play the whole thing. So I have that autoplay button that happens and, and that library was accessible to me in that moment of that hour. It’s like I hit some to music clarification that I hit a flow state, you know, a very rhythmic state where I was just performing at a very high level, both physically and mentally, I guess,
Trevor Connor 1:16:25
if Kobe and Chris haven’t made it clear yet, and our attempt is is really mentally as it is physically. Feel Henderson talked with Chris about the importance of training the mental side,
1:16:35
no matter what if you got extraordinarily fit, and we got you to a certain sustainable power, but your heavy head is not ready for it, then you would not access that capacity. So keep in mind, what you’re doing, in some cases, is going to be giving you the confidence that you can do this and sustain this effort. Again, aside from the physiology, but you cannot separate those two and an hour. It is a psychologically challenging effort that you’re going into so so make sure that that aspect is addressed as well. One point on that.
Chris Case 1:17:05
Well, in Romans case, I know you’ve been with him. Yeah. Does he see us does BMC have a sports psychologist that worked with him kind of on the psychological element, or he’s a pro, kind of assume he used to
1:17:18
Yeah, that was something that I was actually putting into his schedule, actually doing periods of actually visualization. And I actually put together a video of point of view, riding the track at that speed, that he could just play on loop, sit there, watching it with nothing else, no anything else, and just kind of get into whatever you want to call it meditation, a mindset, a focus a concentration. And that’s something that we did with increasing frequency in a couple weeks, leading into it, having that play, and, and setting aside time, several days a week to do some mental training as part of it, just like physical, physiological training, it doesn’t just happen. A lot of people out there a lot of athletes believe you’re either strong or you’re weak. And you know, it’s just, it’s there because you want it to be there. Not really, you got to train it. Again, people who have those skills have developed those skills over time by paying attention and doing things. And what that is, everyone’s a little bit different.
Trevor Connor 1:18:25
When we did our research for that episode on the mindset of cycling, they actually had a, there was a whole study talking about pacing strategies about mindset for performance, and they use Bradley Wiggins, our attempt, they actually worked with him while he was doing that, to see what his mindset was, how he was, what sort of mental games he was playing with himself to get through it. There were a couple things he did one, which I’m a big believer in is what they call chunking. Which is break it into segments. Yep. And that’s I, anybody who does a time trial, would you’re going to start hurting five minutes off the blocks. At any moment you think to yourself, I’m hurting, there’s 55 minutes to go. You’re gonna quit?
Chris Case 1:19:08
Yeah, you’re screwed.
Trevor Connor 1:19:08
So think about what do I need to be doing for the next 510 minutes, if you think of it in terms of, he used 12 minutes seconds. And all he did was focusing on finished that 12 minute segment, then he worried about the next 12 minute segment. And you can always sit there and go, I can suffer through 12 minutes, no matter how much it hurts. But if you’re thinking I have to suffer through another 55 minutes, much, much harder.
Chris Case 1:19:29
And for each of those different segments, he focused on different aspects.
Trevor Connor 1:19:33
Correct. So this was the really interesting part of this study was they talked about? You hear a lot of sports psychologists talk about ego versus task oriented thinking. So ego is focusing on your performance, focusing on what’s going on inside your body focusing on how you’re feeling, but it’s very internal focus on you. task oriented is much more focusing on what You need to do. So it’s what gear should I be in? Is my cadence dropping that sort of thing. So somebody who’s very, very ego motivated, and they’re going up a climb, and they’re hurting, what’s motivating for them is to look and go, Oh, I’m kicking this guy’s butt he’s dropping,
Colby Pearce 1:20:15
he’s hurting more than me. Right?
Trevor Connor 1:20:17
I feel good, right? So that’s very ego driven. The task oriented person is just thinking, Okay, my cadence started drop, I need to get a gear lower. Okay, let’s look at my heart rate. I need to keep my heart rate right about here, I need to keep my power right, right here, but they’re just focusing on accomplishing the task. So Wigan strategy was to start by being much more ego driven. So they were actually in the study calling it being reactive. Yep. So when it wasn’t hurting that bad he was focusing on? Where’s my pain level? How does this feel? You know, what’s, how’s my breathing? That sort of thing? It was all very internally focused, sensation
Chris Case 1:20:55
oriented, right?
Trevor Connor 1:20:56
Where it wasn’t, he wasn’t hurting so much that that his answer would just be Oh, my God, this hurts, right? As he got later into the our record where it really started to hurt, he did much more task oriented things to actually distract himself from the pain. So it’s things like sequencing his his cadence with the banks, because you were talking about that whole effect of increasing and decreasing power. So that because you’re an effects here, it also means your cadence is going to be affected. But it was very much focused on, here’s the kind of task oriented things I need to do. And that’s what I’m going to focus on. And it was, like said, almost a distraction from the pain.
Chris Case 1:21:34
And yeah, no, that’s the type of thing that at least for me, you do those things. And at a point, I don’t think you can you just it just hurts, you know. But breaking it down is something I did as well. I forget what amount of time, but it was probably just 10 minute segments. And I had sort of a list of things I focused on for those six different 10 minute segments, things I focused on in terms of cadence and rhythm. And that absolutely helps. And then I got to a point and nothing would help.
Colby Pearce 1:22:10
Yeah, I read Wiggins book about the hour. And I don’t think he quite broken down as much as that I think he talked a little bit about that, if I remember correctly, but he definitely spoke about focusing on driving out of the corners and cadence and things like that. That’s, I mean, that’s pretty interesting. And that, that brings me back to my 95 record where I was ahead of fry the whole time. And on the one hand, you might say, Oh, that was ego driven. But really, I was seeing it more as a task. It was pretty simple. It’s just math, like I’m three seconds ahead. Now four seconds head, this is trending Well, I’m going to keep adding seconds to that list. And then I knew I could succeed. So for me, that’s why that 95 hour was a much. I won’t say easy ride. It wasn’t easy, but it was just a different ride. When I did in 2013, I trained all season and then finally started to form come about September. And then we had the 2013 floods, of course. And then things got really complicated because I didn’t ride my bike for about eight days, because it was still flooding. And then when I finally got my head wrapped around it and decided I was gonna do that record at the end of the month anyway, because I’d have the sponsors involved. I trained all year and whatever and what’s going to be what it was, there was nowhere to train, all the roads were closed. I had to drive to Deer Creek and do intervals up there. And that was really challenging. So anyway, sometimes life gives you gives you some battles, yes. But you have to persevere and keep going. So, but I like that discussion about ego driven versus. And that kind of goes back to I guess what I was saying earlier about when I was a young writer, I think I was definitely more task oriented. For me, Tom Charles was the most interesting events. Because back then this is when I was really young were no power meters was 89 9091. I would just focus exclusively on going as fast as I could. That’s all it was, I would in my mind. I was like opening up the throttle all the way and just holding it there as long as I possibly could. That was the beauty of it. Being a young writer, that was very task oriented took me a long time to figure out how to do that the right moment in a master bike race a long time. But the blocking things is definitely That’s true. Yeah, it’s crucial. It really is. Because if you get going the first two laps in an hour and go I’m going 198
1:24:05
laps left.
Chris Case 1:24:06
Oh yeah, it’s too big a number.
Colby Pearce 1:24:07
It’s it is it’s a big number and it’s a big task. You have to break it down into chunks for me I I tend to think in 15 or 20 minute chunks during an hour 20 minute chunks, I think is three by 20 is pretty manageable.
Chris Case 1:24:18
I want to know, is it solely about the record for you to do another attempt or is there something you haven’t proven to yourself? Why are you doing this? For me, it’s
Colby Pearce 1:24:30
tying some things together in 2013. I wrote I actually wrote further than Ken’s record. I wrote 49.8 in the springs,
Chris Case 1:24:38
but different age group.
1:24:41
A
Colby Pearce 1:24:42
No. Yes, that’s correct. I yeah, you’re right. So I would have been too young to set that record. But also that one didn’t get recorded. The UCI book got recorded. It’s the US record for 40 to 44 right now, because the event promoter failed to secure drug testing. So there were usually officials there but I didn’t get tested which meant it was a US record but not a UC Record if you can’t, if you can submit it, but they won’t prove it. So I was like, Well, okay, whatever. I was going for the US elite record at that time, which was normes. Record, and I was not really that close from Elvis correct. Norm Elvis. So when I said at 95, he said at 97. And he wrote a 51.505, which, at the time was smoking far, still? Yeah, read on for an hour. So for me, yeah, it’s about tying things together. I mean, I also I have Molly and Rob have great relationships with the people in Mexico. And there’s a lot of pathways and networks that are in place to make that happen. Thanks to to rob. So that admittedly makes things a lot easier. I get to go and be there with Molly while she does her record attempts. I work with some of the other athletes there too. So it’s practical in that sense, but then it’s like, well, this makes sense. I should do this.
Chris Case 1:25:51
I just resurface that track.
Colby Pearce 1:25:53
They did. They just resented it. And then a Danish guy actually tried the lead hour there. Oh, did he? Yeah, he wrote a high 53 went really fast. He didn’t break record, obviously. But he did really well. So for me, it’s kind of ticking a box in that sense. If I get a world record, it helps out some of my helper supporters and sponsors that work with me over the last few years. It’s something I feel I can do and want to do. And Ken’s records been there for a while. So I kick that guy off the page a little bit. Sounds goal oriented, all due respect to Ken. Yeah. It’s some of both. Yeah, there’s some tasks and some ego in there. Yeah. But it’d be cool. I’d really like to go over 50. And just to pinch yourself. Yeah, just a pinch of salt. Just a little bit threshold, the right moment. Yeah, hopefully, I’ll actually get data for this one. Because of the three records I’ve done. I have data from none really actually captured data from 95. But that was like the first year the SRM was commercially available. And it just got eaten in like software updates and upgrades over the years and went to open the following day. It was gone. But so this is really why you’re doing the records, to get data to make sure that people realize you’ve actually done one. Seriously. Did it happen? Where’s your file?
1:27:02
Yes,
Trevor Connor 1:27:03
he’s gonna finish like, do you want to know if you want? He’s like, no, I gotta get those
1:27:07
average power.
Colby Pearce 1:27:08
Yeah, pretty much.
Chris Case 1:27:12
All right, we’re taking 60 minutes. We’re gonna condense it into one minute. Colby Pierce, you’re on the clock. Give us 60 seconds, on what it means to ride the hour to hold records, the pain, the suffering, the elation? What’s it all about?
Colby Pearce 1:27:31
relentless pace, and attention to detail. All the details in preparation, all the details of equipment really add up in an hour record. Attention to detail during the ride is critical your line, your pacing, your own internal measurement, your attention to the environment of what’s happening, don’t get lost out there. All those things add up to a successful attempt against the clock for an hour on the track.
Chris Case 1:28:00
Alright, Trevor, 60 minutes into 60 seconds. Go for it.
Trevor Connor 1:28:07
Okay, I think my main take home from this is you too, are insane.
Chris Case 1:28:13
Thank you.
Trevor Connor 1:28:14
Particularly you call because you actually know how much it hurts. You still get to do it.
1:28:19
When I have seconds, please, in thirds, and fourths,
Trevor Connor 1:28:23
which actually kind of admire but I think the only take home I have to add to this and I don’t have too much to add because I haven’t gone through the pain myself. But even though we’ve talked about how all the details that are involved in this, what I think is really neat is once you are on the line, it’s actually a very simple thing. It’s really just you and how much you can tolerate the pain how much you can talk yourself into going through this and, and right in writing right at your limit, which is gives it a certain purity in my books. I think it’s really cool.
Chris Case 1:28:58
Absolutely. And this is gonna sound odd probably coming from me a guy who’s expressed a lot of dark emotions during this episode, but I think you need to have fun with this. This is a really cool experiment to geek out on equipment, your physiology, every little piece you get to play with and experiment on and tweak and fine tune and reliving of this it hurt a lot and all that stuff but it’s really amazing to play with all of this stuff and try to eke out the little last little bits of yourself on a track and express it in that way. I think it’s fun can be lost when you talk about this stuff because yo we always hear the tales of that was the hardest thing I’ve ever done and I never want to do that again and it was awful but there can be some fun had in this and I think it You learn a lot. You learn a lot. Not just about yourself which is amazing, but aerodynamics and equipment and and all of those things. So that’s what I would hope people could also get from this is it’s really fun. That was another episode of Fast Talk. As always, we love your feedback. Email us at Fast Talk@velonews.com Subscribe to fast dock on iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud and Google Play. Be sure to leave us a rating and a comment. Become a fan of Fast Talk on facebook@facebook.com slash velonews and on twitter@twitter.com slash velonews. Fast doc is a joint production between velonews and Connor coaching the thoughts and opinions expressed on fast doc are those of the individual for Trevor Connor Colby piers, Rowan Dennis and Neil Henderson. I’m Chris case. Thanks for listening.
