The Gravel Ride. A cycling podcast

In this episode, host Craig Dalton interviews Stefan Barth, author of the book "Ultra Cycling and Bikepacking: All You Need to Know." Stefan shares his journey into ultra cycling and bikepacking, discussing the challenges and unique aspects of these long-distance events. He highlights the importance of sleep, nutrition, and positioning in preparing for and competing in ultra cycling races. Stefan also emphasizes the need for a strong physical foundation and the role of mindset in overcoming obstacles during these demanding events.

Ultra Cycling and Bike Packing. All you need to know (Amazon link)

ISBN: 978-3-910501-03-4

Episode Sponsor: Pillar Performance (use code: CRAIG for 15% off)

Support the Podcast

Join The Ridership

Stefan Barth is an author and coach specializing in ultra cycling and bikepacking. Based in Frankfurt, Germany, Stefan has a passion for long-distance cycling events and has participated in races such as the Race Across America and the Transcontinental. With a background in medical fitness coaching, Stefan combines his knowledge of training, nutrition, and mindset to help athletes prepare for and succeed in ultra cycling events.

In this episode, host Craig Dalton interviews Stefan Barth, author of the book "Ultra Cycling and Bikepacking: All You Need to Know." Stefan shares his journey into ultra cycling and bikepacking, discussing the challenges and unique aspects of these long-distance events. He highlights the importance of sleep, nutrition, and positioning in preparing for and competing in ultra cycling races. Stefan also emphasizes the need for a strong physical foundation and the role of mindset in overcoming obstacles during these demanding events.

• Ultra cycling and bikepacking require a different approach to training compared to shorter races. Factors such as sleep, nutrition, and positioning become crucial in ensuring success.
• Sleep strategies vary depending on the duration of the event. While shorter races may not require sleep, longer races necessitate planned sleep breaks to maintain physical and mental well-being.
• Nutrition plays a vital role in sustaining energy levels during ultra cycling events. Experimenting with different foods and finding what works best for individual digestion is essential.
• Positioning on the bike is crucial for efficiency and energy conservation. An aggressive position, combined with flexibility and mobility training, can improve performance and reduce energy expenditure.
• Building endurance for ultra cycling involves training at or just below threshold levels for extended periods. Long intervals of 20-30 minutes at high intensity can help increase the ability to sustain effort near threshold.

• "Just because it's possible to push through doesn't mean it's fun. Cutting off sleep is a sure way to get rid of the fun." - Stefan Barth
• "Your base or your fundamentals are always a good physical condition. That's what you really need to finish those events." - Stefan Barth

Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos:

[TRANSCRIPT] **** - (): . [00:00:00] - (): Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport **** - (): I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist. **** - (): This week on the podcast, I've got the great pleasure of welcoming author and coach Stefan Barth. He's the author of a book called ultra cycling and bike packing. All you need to know that was recently translated from German to English. It's a very deep technical book. About ultra cycling and these long distance events. Highlighting how different the training. Preparation and otherwise competing successfully the events. Needs to occur. **** - (): Stefan noted that in his preparation for ultrasonic. Recycling events. While he could cobble together a number of resources, podcasts, videos, et cetera. There was no singular location. That highlighted insights and philosophies and training methodologies. That he could find. So he sat on a journey to create the, this book. They look forward to jumping into the conversation with Stefan. **** - (): Okay. Before we ...

This week we sit down with Tony Pereira of Breadwinner Cycles to learn more about this Portland, OR based custom builder. Tony was part of the 2021 ENVE Builder Round Up in Ogden, UT.

This week's podcast is generously sponsored by ENVE.

Breadwinner Cycles

Support the podcast

The Ridership

Automated Transcription (Please excuse the typos):

Breadwinner

Craig Dalton: [00:00:00] Tony, welcome to the show.

[00:00:01]Tony Pereira: [00:00:01] Thanks for having me, Craig.

[00:00:02] Craig Dalton: [00:00:02] It's great to see you virtually from your office there.

[00:00:05]Tony Pereira: [00:00:05] It's funny now that we're all accustomed to this it's it makes it really easy.

[00:00:08] Craig Dalton: [00:00:08] Yeah. It really is. If you don't have your setup dialed at this point, I don't think you ever will.

[00:00:13]Tony Pereira: [00:00:13] Yeah. Right.

[00:00:15] Craig Dalton: [00:00:15] So let's start off a little bit by getting to know you and what led you to becoming a frame builder

[00:00:21] Transcribing...

[00:00:22] Tony Pereira: [00:00:22] It's been a while now.

[00:00:23]I worked in, I started out in the outdoor, your industry, I started working in ski shops when I was 16, which was in 1985 and grew up working in ski shops. And then in college, I started working in a bike shop and after college, I moved to Utah and skied and rode and worked in bike shops there.

[00:00:44] And I got really active. Like community when I lived in salt lake did that for quite a while. Eventually got bored of being a bike mechanic, just hit my limit on that and what I've always been a tinkerer. Playing around in the garage, working on cars and motorcycles and of course, bicycles.

[00:01:01]I learned how to breeze a little and weld a little bit from a friend of mine. And then just brought all those things together. And I was a fan of the old mountain bikes, the, IBUs and salsa. And of course the Richie's, the Richie has always had those beautiful, huge fillets.

[00:01:18] And and I'm like, I knew how to braise. So I'm like, I wonder if I could make a mountain bike and, it was, that was two, this was 2002 or so, so almost 20 years ago. The internet was there. We were using all like listserv type communication. But there's a pretty active frame, builder listserv.

[00:01:37] It's still exists. But I got on there and started figuring it out, build a couple of mountain bikes and I, after building one, I was like, oh man, I gotta do this. Bringing my love of bikes together with making things and And I just, I was hooked for sure. Riding that first bike is such a joyous,

[00:01:54]it's gotta be an amazing feeling to ride something that we've actually made super gratifying.

[00:01:59] It sounds like you and I came up in the same era, which was that period of time where there was a lot of great mountain bike, frame builders and custom steel bikes. Every state seemed to have a builder of some notoriety. Yup. Yup. So how did you teach yourself? Was it really through, obviously you had a little bit of hands-on experience from your father's friend to teach you how to weld and, know what equipment was needed.

[00:02:25]Craig Dalton: [00:02:25] Were you able to glean some of the basic fundamentals from that list? Serve and ask questions?

[00:02:31] Tony Pereira: [00:02:31] Yeah. Yeah, it was great. I know I, Richard Sachs is one of the. More professional frame builders that was on there. And he's always been really generous with his time. And there were a number of others as well, but I remember him in particular, but yeah, there was a great group of people that, that I, you know, some of them I'm still friends with.

[00:02:49] Remember Steve from Coconino was getting started exactly the same time. And the two of us were like bouncing things off of each other. And just getting our feet wet, but I, I'm fortunate to have, I have a natural aptitude for using tools and problem solving and, figuring things out.

[00:03:08] So yeah, I was able to teach myself, with the help of that listserv, obviously how to make it all come together. And, I look back on those early frames and I still have a couple of them and they were pretty bad. The first there's 20 or so that I built for me and my friends. So they were pretty rough, I should say rough.

[00:03:25]They weren't, the finish was rough. They worked fine. But I started building bikes for customers after about the first 20 or so bikes mostly worked, went to my friends and. And they were starting to get pretty good by that.

[00:03:36] Craig Dalton: [00:03:36] And did that just happen via word of mouth with the 20 out ...

This week we learn the ins and outs of gravel bike tire sealant with John Vargus of Orange Seal. John gets into some tips and tricks every cyclist should know and discusses his support of the Orange Seal Off Road Racing Team featuring Payson McElveen and Hannah Finchamp.

Orange Seal Website

Orange Seal Instagram

Support the Podcast

Bike Index Donations

Automated Transcription (please excuse the typos)

Orange Seal - The ins and outs of tire sealant with John Vargus

00:00:01 - 00:05:06

And welcome to the gravel ride. Podcast i'm your host dolts. This week's podcast is brought to you by our friends. At the nonprofit bike index bike index is a free bicycle registry and stolen bike recovery platform having recovered over thirteen million dollars in stolen bicycles. Bike index is really making a dent in crime by connects is currently. It's end of year fundraising campaign. Donations can be made at bike. Index dot org slash. Donate this week on the podcast. We've got john vargas from orange seal. John gets into a little bit of the history of the company and the ins and outs of tire sealant. Why it's beneficial to gravel riders some installation tips and some great maintenance advice on how to keep your ceiling topped off as an interesting side. Note the idea for this podcast actually came from the ridership forum. There was a community member who made a post about tire sealant going into winter and asserted thinking about. Who do i know who could answer all these great questions. So the real pleasure. Getting to talk to john with all that said. Let's dive right into this week's interview john. Welcome to the show morning. Thank you pleasure to be here. I'm excited to dig into the topic of sealant because United states matching tee off. I'm surprised that you know number. My listeners are still running tubes. And i think the advantages of sealant are so vast that i really wanna convey a lot of good information to them before we dig into the details. Can you just tell us a little bit about where you're located and how the company came about. Yeah no i'd love to So we started or unseal in twenty eleven. The the process started about two years ahead of that we had Started with the right across the parking lot. And we picked up a shard of glass or something and it was not see link so my partner Were my best friend at the time and now a partner said you know what i'm gonna i'm gonna make something. So he worked on it for about two and a half years and We finally got the formula where it was performing at or better than the sealants that were on the market at the time. We didn't want to just develop another mouse trap. We wanted to take the best. And the worst of all the sealants in the market and designed something different We looked at natural look at synthetically tech. Would latex we looked at other materials and what we came back to is latex Natural latex is best plugging material and so then we just had to refine our formula. So that We could actually adhere to the robber versus just creating a plug. And that's what makes our formulas different is at once we create a plug. It's a permanent plug in the did. Here's from the inside out. So it's like inserting Plug or Bay construct from the outside. But we do it from the inside out and we'd coat the inside of the tire. What most people don't realize is Today's tires especially today or getting lighter faster center and so there are a lot more porous. Rubber is very poorest by by default and so are latex actually goes in and seals up all of that prosperity and creates A sealed cavity. So that you can hold your pressures longer and what another area that people don't realize that there's major leakage is in the tire bead mating surface and we go in and seal up those imperfections in the tire bead mating surface and so When you feel up entire beat mating surface still up the city and you still up. Anything that comes in from the external You've got a pretty bulletproof system and as we all know not. One formula is going to fit every single environment and every type of terrain and such and climate so we have three finalists. We came up with a regular formula endurance formula and our sub zero formula Regular is really was our original formula designed to seal faster bigger holes while the enduring it was formulated to last longer And not feel as fast but still seals permanently and then we created the sub zero for really when the fat bites took off and riding and Extreme cold climates down to minus twenty was necessary.

00:05:06 - 00:10:05

Because don't wanna be changing a flat at minus twenty and so we've had huge success with the equivalent of did arrive Rebecca rush has run are several times in th...

This week we check in with George Huxford from Apidura makers of cycling bags for every gravel cycling adventure. We learn the various types of bags from tip to tail of the bicycle and get some practical advice on packing and load distribution.

Episode Sponsor: PNW Components (15% off with code 'thegravelride')

Apidura online

Apidura Instagram

Support the Podcast

Automated Transcription (please excuse the typos)

Apidura: George Huxford - Bags for every cycling adventure

00:00:05 - 00:05:12

Hello and welcome to The Gravel Ride podcast I'm your host Craig Dalton. This week's podcast is brought to you by our friends at P. N. W. Components. I've been riding the coast handlebar at four hundred and eighty millimeters and the coast dropper post for maybe almost three months now, and after tell you I'm really sold particularly with my recent move down to two Panga California. I've really started to own my appreciation for the suspended dropper post. So, let's make an important distinction. there. I'm a big fan of the dropper post the ability to drop your saddle down via technical sections the Costa Dropper Post is actually a suspended dropper post. So it's air actuated meaning. You can tune it to your body weight and preference, but the post will actually dipped down when I hit a rather aggressive hit with the back end of my bike. So I'm using the dropper component. When I know I'm going to get into some rough stuff and the suspended component when I don't. The net result of this is I'm always protected when I get into the rough stuff saddle up saddle down I've got a little secret weapon. This dropper post combined with the wide handlebars has left me as comfortable as I've ever been getting into the technical terrain. So if you're looking for something to up your technical elements, definitely give pm w components look at pm w components, dot com, and for the gravel ride podcast listeners, you can get fifteen percent off coupon for your first order using the code the gravel ride. So onto this week's guest, really excited to welcome George Houck's furred from the bag company Applera based in London England. Abdur has a full range of bags for gravel cycling bike packing excetera. You guys know I love bags. So as exciting to talk to George and take bags from every different angle on the bike and talk about mixing and matching different bags to meet your gravel cycling needs so I. Hope You enjoy this interview and with that said, let's dive right in George Welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you. It's great to be here Yeah. It's a real honor you listen to podcasts for. Rages now. Yes. Fantastic guests and yeah. So It's going to be amongst them I appreciate that. Well, let's start off by learning a little bit about you and your cycling background, and then about epidurals and how it came about and I'm excited really everybody on the WHO listened to the podcast knows I'm a big bag geek. So I'm excited to kind of just go from tip to tail and talk about the full range of bags that grovel cyclists can be using to satisfy. Their their gear capacity heeds. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. That sounds great. I'm Yeah. I'm a massive Geek on as well. So we're GONNA need someone to stop too much into the details to a perfect house zips work and all that kind of thing. But yeah, we'll try and keep interesting right on. So how did you? How did you get into cycling and how did you find your way to aperture and how did the company get started? Well, I've I like a lot of your guests start off in white shops. Growing up at always been into bike since anything really racing mountain bikes riding Banamex is all kinds of stuff. Are Not led me working in bike shops Off the. Ships bit moved up to the what can brand and. I ended up driving a big van for the demo bikes round the UK, for a number of years to events, setting people up full suspension bikes setting up in talks and trial sentences, which was which was great and that sort of led me down a kind of marketing within the cycle industry Yeah and then I I came across the aperture once they've been what's been going for little bit to kind of help them with the with the growth than. Themselves in the in the kind of wide cycling market. So. Yeah. At this point, I've been here. Account even think maybe it's three is Yes go relatively young company and. Yeah I'm not spend time with them now and when the company was first founded, they've was it founded around us certain specific product or opportunity. yet to ascend extent. So the company was actually founded in two thousand thirteen, but it was it was about a year and for products came out. So a found a tour had been been writing for a great number of years and had really gotten into the side ridin...

This week we speak with Geoff Duncan and Chris Moore from the Hellhole Gravel Grind stage race in South Carolina. The team has an innovative format making for a fun weekend away!

Episode Sponsor: Athletic Greens, the all-in-one daily drink to support better health and peak performance.

Hellhole Gravel Grind Stage Race Website

Hellhole Gravel Grind Facebook page

Automated transcript (please excuse all typos):

Jeff and Chris, welcome to the show.

Hey Craig, thanks for having us. Thanks for having us.

Yeah, I'm super stoked to learn more about South Carolina gravel and some of the events you guys are putting on over the years. And let's start by talking a little bit about your history as riders and when you both discovered gravel riding, and then also what made you jump into event, organization and promotion?

You want to, you want to start Chris? Yeah, sure. Say wow, let's go back all the way to college days. Back in the early nineties I raised I was, I wrote kind of ride bikes whenever I was in high school. And then in college, this is the early nineties. The mountain bike scene started getting gone and got a mountain bike and started doing some races here in South Carolina. And then continue that until I got out of college. And then from there, you know, the work and trying to find a career and everything kind of took over. And then I got back into it in the mid to mid early, mid two thousands. And just progressed from there. Raced road, raced mountain bikes dabbled as a triathlon a little bit started as a USA cycling official, worked up through that.

And then we just started putting on a race about 10 years ago, a mountain bike race. Interestingly enough, the mountain bike race, one of the, one of the, one of the favorite mountain bike races I did whenever I was in college, it was called the killer three mile bike series up in Sumpter of near Sumter, South Carolina. And that went away in the mid nineties. And then so our first race that we started promoting Jeff and I was the return to killer three and it was just a single mountain bike race at the same place where we used to we're where the series used to be back in the nineties. And we started doing that in what 2009, somewhere around there 2009 was with that event. And then that grew into the the not mountain bike race, which is now, which was part of the Southern classic series. And now part of the King King Creek cup. Nice and windows.

When did you start riding drop bar bikes off road?

So that started in, in the what, probably 2010 or so. The cyclocross scene was kind of getting, going here in the Southeast and w we really didn't have a lot of places to train. So we would go out in the Francis Marion forest and ride the gravel roads and the bike, the, the, the hiking trails out there. And that was like I said, probably 2010, 2000, and then that morphed into this would be a great place to put on a gravel race. And this was, you know, in the beginning, kind of the beginning stages of the gravel and 2013, we decided to come up with the, the hell hole, gravel grind, stage race, and that's where it all started from there.

Nice. And Jeff, how about you? Yeah, so I think I have a little bit abbreviated time on the bike compared to Chris. I didn't start riding a bike until around like 2006. And unit road was always my interest. I don't know that I ever was very good at it. But you know started out just riding a bike and then entering and doing some crits and whatnot. Think I met Chris around like 2009. I met him and his wife on a couple of group rides, or maybe, maybe it was a crit, a local crit. And we just started talking and I think we wanted something different from the team that we are on. So we just kinda created our own thing. And, you know, like Chris said at the, at the time it was a requirement.

If you want to, if you want to be on a sanction team, you had to put on your own race you know, through USA cycling. So that's how the, the knock came about. And that killer three is what it was called, but we've been doing that for 10 years. And, you know, during the course of those 10 years, we've, we've done state time trials, cyclocross, state championships circuit races. And then I think, like Chris said about 2010 ish, we have a, we had a mutual friend named Patrick and he, he was training hardcore for things like trans Iowa. And, and it was still probably, you know, in the earlier days of dirty Kansas. And you know, we, we kind of took an interest in like, Hey, what, what is this all about and why, why do I always see Patrick riding in this forest it's right in our backyard?

It's like Chris said, we, we hopped on cross bikes and went out there. In...