How hard should hard sessions be?

Do you want to level up your cycling this off-season? Then this episode is a must-listen, with detailed and practical guidance for your bike training during the base training phase, presented by Scientific Triathlon coaches Mikael Eriksson and Jack Hutchens.

HIGHLIGHTS AND KEY TOPICS: 

• Key training principles for cycling in the off-season
• What types of workouts do we recommend for this time of year?
• How important is training volume on the bike?
• Riding on different types of bikes, and riding indoors vs. outdoors
• Bike fitting, aero testing, and position optimisation
• Listener questions
• ...and Jack's "Surprise Segment": goal setting in triathlon

DETAILED EPISODE SHOWNOTES: 

• We have detailed shownotes for all of our episodes. The shownotes are basically the podcast episode in written form, that you can read in 5-10 minutes. They are not transcriptions, but they are also not just surface-level overviews. They provide detailed insights and timestamps for each episode, and are great especially for later review, after you've already listened to an episode. 
• The shownotes for today's episode can be found at www.scientifictriathlon.com/base3/

LINKS AND RESOURCES: 

• Jack's coaching profile and Instagram
• Triathlon Base Training Series 1 – How to train smarter in winter to race faster in summer
• Triathlon Base Training Series 2 – Swimming
• Aero.chat - tool mentioned by Mikael in the episode

WHAT SHOULD I LISTEN TO NEXT?

If you enjoyed this episode, I think you'll love the following episodes:

• Including sprint training in cycling – training responses and performance improvements with Nicki Winfield Almquist, PhD | EP#300 - this episode gives additional background as to why including sprints in your base training might be a good idea
• John Wakefield of Red Bull BORA hansgrohe – cycling coach and bike fitter | EP#465 - some great thoughts here on both torque training and bike fitting, both of which where topics discussed in today's episode
• Anna Kiesenhofer – Olympic Champion | EP#454 - one of my favourite interviews of 2025! 
• Q&A on bike training | EP#381 - with Scientific Triathlon coaches Lachlan Kerin and Mikael Eriksson

You can find our full episode archives here, where you can filter for categories such as Training, Racing, Science & Physiology, Swimming, Cycling, Running etc.

You can also find separate archives for specific series of episodes I've done, specifically Q&A episodes, TTS Thursday episodes, and Beginner Tips episodes. 

LEARN MORE ABOUT SCIENTIFIC TRIATHLON: 

• The Scientific Triathlon website is the home of That Triathlon Show and everything else that we do
• Contact us through our contact form or email me directly (note - email/contact form messages get responded to much more quickly than Instagram DMs)
• Subscribe to our Newsletter
• Follow us on Instagram
• Learn more about our coaching, training plans, and training camps. We have something to offer for everybody from beginners to professionals. 

HOW CAN I SUPPORT THAT TRIATHLON SHOW (FOR FREE)? 

I really appreciate you reading this and considering helping the show! If you love the show and want to support it to help ensure it sticks around, there are a few very simple things you can do, at no cost other than a minute of your time. 

• Subscribe to the podcast in your podcast app to automatically get all new episodes as they are released.
• Tell your friends, internet and social media friends, acquaintances and triathlon frenemies about the podcast. Word of mouth is the best way to grow the podcast by far! 
• Rate and review the podcast (ideally five stars of course!) in your podcast app of choice (Spotify and Apple Podcasts are the biggest and most important ones).
• Share episodes online and on social media. Share your favourite episodes in your Instagram stories, start a discussion about interesting episodes on forums, reference them in your blog or Substack. 

SPONSORS: 

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