Gravel grinders have become one of the most popular types of cycling events out there.\u00a0 From events like Dirty Kanza and Battenkill to the myriad of smaller gravel grinders that happen on a weekly basis, people are learning that it's fun to turn down the road less traveled.<\/p>\n

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Gravel Grinder Preparation<\/h2>\n
Getting dirty is a pretty simple affair.\u00a0 If you're not riding a dedicated gravel bike<\/a>, there's no time like the present to look for one.\u00a0 Technology for mixed surfaces has come incredibly far in the past couple of years.\u00a0 New gravel style bikes can literally do it all.\u00a0 I wouldn't call it a “quiver killer” bike per se, but it sure can act as a road\/gravel\/cyclocross bike if chosen correctly.<\/p>\n
If you're NOT riding a dedicated gravel bike, you can generally make some changes to a regular road bike to help make things a little more forgiving.\u00a0 Let's dive into some bike setup tips first.<\/p>\n

Setting Up Your (Gravel) Bike<\/h3>\n
Bike setup is an intensely personal thing for sure.\u00a0 There are a few things you can do that will help to improve your comfort and maximize your performance on a gravel event.<\/p>\n
One of the best things I've found for gravel riding is switching to a tubeless setup.\u00a0 Not only do you significantly reduce the risk of flats (it's impossible to pinch flat a tube that isn't there) but you can also run larger volume tires at lower pressures.\u00a0 The larger contact patch and lower pressure offers a level of comfort not common on typical road tires.\u00a0 In addition, the use of tubeless sealant can keep you rolling even in the event of a smaller puncture, often sealing the problem before you know you have one.<\/p>\n
Of course, if you're going to run tubeless, you'll need to carry a tube anyway, along with a tubeless valve tool and pump.\u00a0 But you should be carrying a flat kit anyway, so that's nothing new, right?<\/p>\n
When it comes to choosing a tire, a lot of folks will opt for a semi-knobby kind of tire that has a smooth center and some shoulder knobs for grip on the rough stuff.\u00a0 These kinds of tires offer a nice compromise between tarmac performance and gravel traction.\u00a0 The shoulder knobs in particular will help the tire feel stable on dirt and hook up on loose curves.<\/p>\n
Gearing is worth a moment of discussion as well.\u00a0 With the increased resistance of dirt and gravel roads, you may want to think about swapping your gearing to something smaller.\u00a0 If your derailleur capacity is limited, a good compromise is to swap out your chainrings.\u00a0 Keep in mind that this is quite a bit different from regular road gearing<\/a>, and you'll frequently experience much steeper gradients and worse traction on backwoods roads.<\/p>\n
Other “quality of life” tweaks include thicker bar tape for vibration damping.\u00a0 Remote shifters (such as Di2 remote shifters) are a great tool as well, offering you tons of hand positions.\u00a0 Swapping out to mountain bike pedals and shoes may facilitate walking if the road gets too steep or hairy.<\/p>\n
Once you've got your bike dialed in and ready to go, how do you go about building the fitness to roll like a boss?\u00a0 Let's start with the basics.<\/p>\n

$\"Gravel$ <\/a>Muscular Endurance<\/h3>\n
As I've always said, muscular endurance (ME) is one of the largest keys to success in any training plan.\u00a0 In the case of gravel grinders, you'll need even more ME than your average road cyclists.\u00a0 It's the key to lasting the distance without fatigue and cramping.\u00a0 That can mean the difference between success and failure.<\/p>\n
In the past, I've talked about muscular endurance<\/a> a bunch of times<\/a>.\u00a0 To recap, ME is just the body's ability to resist muscular fatigue while under pedaling tension.\u00a0 Basically, if you want to put more power to the ground, you'll need to do one of two things.\u00a0 You can either put greater tension through the pedals (essentially pushing harder) or you can spin the pedals faster.\u00a0 In many cases, we choose to put additional tension through the pedals.\u00a0 Imagine this: your riding buddy opens a gap on you as you start climbing.\u00a0 You have to dig in and push hard on the pedals in order to catch them.<\/p>\n
The more often you have to do this, the more fatigued your legs will become.\u00a0 Eventually, when they simply can't handle the demands placed on them, they'll cramp.\u00a0 Or maybe they just won't put out the power necessary anymore.\u00a0 Either way, you've exceeded your body's muscular endurance capacity.<\/p>\n
The problem with a gravel grinder is that the surfaces typically found on the ride offer significantly more resistance than smooth road.\u00a0 Because there's greater resistance on the wheels and often much harder terrain, you'll use more muscular tension overall.\u00a0 So for that reason, you'll need to work up the muscular endurance for your next gravel grinder.<\/p>\n

Aerobic Endurance<\/h3>\n
Aerobic endurance is just another way of saying “you can go long” in a fancy way.\u00a0 In reality, it's the ability for your body to deliver oxygen to your working muscles and maintain a set amount of power output.\u00a0 “But wait, isn't that FTP<\/a>?”\u00a0 Nope, FTP is just a specific level of power that your body can maintain before becoming predominantly anaerobic.\u00a0 Aerobic endurance is the ability for your body to consistently produce power around that functional threshold level for long periods of time.<\/p>\n
It should be obvious that aerobic endurance is important for a gravel grinder training program.<\/p>\n
Most gravel grinders are longer events, some up into the 200 mile range (think Dirty Kanza). \u00a0That\u2019s a lot of mileage to have to produce power for, and it requires a lot of endurance. \u00a0In the case of a gravel grinder, you\u2019ll need to ensure you\u2019ve tacked on enough endurance training<\/a> to handle the longest possible time and distance on tap for your season goals<\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/a>VO2 Max Capacity<\/h3>\n
VO2 max capacity<\/a> is a critical part of your endurance training. \u00a0In previous posts, I\u2019ve talked about VO2 max as a necessary part of raising your endurance ceiling<\/a>. \u00a0It is true that your VO2 max is partially genetically determined. \u00a0But in most cases, we\u2019re not trained enough to hit that genetic limit.\u00a0 We\u2019re only ever using a portion of that VO2 max capacity at any given time. \u00a0Training wise, our FTP is just a sustainable percentage of that useable VO2 max limit.<\/p>\n
So it follows that if you need to get more endurance capacity, you need to raise the fitness ceiling.<\/p>\n
Not only is VO2 max important from that perspective, it\u2019s also a necessary component of handling accelerations, changes in pace and changes in terrain. \u00a0If your body is not trained to handle going into the red zone once or twice, it won\u2019t be able to recover from multiple efforts at all. \u00a0If you can only cope with a couple of red zone efforts, you\u2019ll be popped before you finish and any hope of a solid time will be out the window.<\/p>\n
So, to cover your bases, you'll have to work short and long duration VO2 max efforts as well as repeatability<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Muscular Strength<\/h3>\n
You would probably think that muscular strength<\/a> is the same as muscular endurance. \u00a0You would be partly correct in thinking the two are related, but they\u2019re not the same.<\/p>\n
Strength is the ability to put power into the pedals<\/a> while muscular endurance is the ability to put power to the pedals for long periods of time. \u00a0Both are critically important to your success in a gravel grinder. \u00a0If you can\u2019t put power to the pedals to push through dirt and gravel segments, you can\u2019t make good time.<\/p>\n
Similarly, if you don\u2019t have the endurance to push through multiple dirt and gravel segments, you can\u2019t make good time either.<\/p>\n
Muscular strength also has another important place in gravel riding. \u00a0You need to be able to push large gears hard if you want to power through unpaved segments. \u00a0If you try to spin up a loose unpaved climb, chances are your wheel will lose traction and spin. \u00a0This is because most riders are a bit choppy in their pedal stroke, leading to some awkward torque delivery. \u00a0The sudden bursts of high torque on the wheel can break it away, cussing it to spin.<\/p>\n
So if you want to keep power to the rear wheel, the easiest way to do it is to shift into a harder gear and keep tension on the pedals the whole way around. \u00a0This requires the strength to push hard on the pedals and maintain that tension all the way through the pedal stroke.<\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/a>Pedal Stroke Smoothness<\/h3>\n
Similar to muscular strength, pedal stroke smoothness is one of the keys to keeping your rear wheel glued to the ground.\u00a0 When the going gets slippery, the smoothness of your pedal stroke will be one of the things that keep you going.<\/p>\n
I've talked about the benefits of pedal stroke smoothness<\/a> in the past.\u00a0 A couple of times<\/a> in fact.\u00a0 In those previous posts, I talked about why pedal stroke work is important from the perspective of efficiency.\u00a0 The idea in most cases is to minimize power losses that would normally go into your pedals.\u00a0 On any smooth road, this would be your ultimate goal.\u00a0 More power goes into the pedals and more speed comes out of the bike.\u00a0 Any energy lost as poor coordination between muscle fiber twitches is lost speed.<\/p>\n
In the case of a gravel grinder, you really need to worry more about keeping your wheels glued to the ground.\u00a0 No, I'm not talking about preventing you from catching air on a descent.\u00a0 That's a whole different issue.\u00a0 I'm talking about the propensity of your rear wheel to spin, especially on dirt and graveled climbs.<\/p>\n
With dirt and gravel, it's much easier to overcome the coefficient of friction that keeps the wheel pushing the bike forward.\u00a0 The smoother your pedal stroke, the less opportunity there is for a surge of torque to break the wheel loose.\u00a0 The best example of this is on a trainer that is driven by the rear wheel (any kind of non-direct drive trainer, actually.)\u00a0 If you stand up and stomp on the pedals, the rear wheel can sometimes slip.\u00a0 By evening out your pedal stroke effort, the wheel grips again and you're back in business.<\/p>\n
This is no different than a gravel climb.<\/p>\n
How do you work through efficiency?\u00a0 Intervals such as superspins, spinups, (and especially) single leg drills come in very handy here.\u00a0 Check out the links to the posts above to get some more details on each of those.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On the inaugural episode of the Gravel Guru, I’ll talk about the top tips to help you tackle your next gravel grinder. Whether it’s Battenkill, D2R2, Dirty Kanza or just a fast group gravel grinder, these tips will put you on the front of the pack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13767,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,122,52],"tags":[86,175,5692,68],"yst_prominent_words":[4999,5698,2905,5673,396,220,975,5694,5693,5695,276,497,5683,5674,988,5699,5697,5696,225,4894],"wppr_data":{"cwp_meta_box_check":"No"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/top-gravel-grinder-training-tips.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13533"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13533"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13844,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13533\/revisions\/13844"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13533"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=13533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}