u/AStruggling8

Hello! I've been cycling for three years, since I started doing triathlon, but I've recently decided to focus on cycling instead because it's just more enjoyable. I'm planning to start road racing next year and I'm excited by all the possibilities, but I'm having a hard time identifying an A race. In tri it was easy because I'd do 1-2 70.3s a year and that was the target. Crits and road races are much shorter, in contrast, and you can do more of them, and they generally don't seem to be as high of stakes- if you have a bad race one week there will be another one coming up soon enough.

My goals for next year are primarily to understand how racing works (ie tactics), improve FTP, PR local hill climbs, I guess upgrade from cat 5 to cat 4, improve handling skills, among others, so not really racing or performance goals. I'm lucky enough to have a lot of racing options next spring and summer across California. There's a crit series in LA that has a championship race, there's the "state championships" for crit, RR, time trial, Manhattan Beach Grand Prix is driving distance. There's the Redlands crit.

I'm pretty interested in doing a stage race, so I guess that's a logical choice for an A race? But there are few options for stage races near me- I'm not on a team so I don't think Redlands is an option. My options on the west coast seem to be Valley of the Sun and Tuscon Bicycle Classic, which are too early to be A races, Tour of the Gila, which is pretty far away and at altitude, Baker City Cycling Classic, which looks pretty intense, and Tour de Bloom, which looks like the best option for me by far. But is a stage race too ambitious in my first year of racing? I'm cat 5 women so the distances/times are pretty short (just 25 mins for the crit at Bloom!).

I'm really just in it to learn my first year but I want to give my coach a concrete date to work towards. Obviously it's early, just thinking about this as we're planning offseason/base and I start racing in January. Any advice for a new racer on how to organize your season??

I’m looking for a carbon gravel bike! I have a Trek Checkpoint ALR and this is my third Trek bike and the geo on treks just doesn’t work for me. Reach is long and even though I’m in the recommended height range for a 54 it feels too big. I’d rather start looking for something new than spending money to make this fit imperfectly!

I was looking at the carbon Diverge and the carbon Topstone, but I came across Obed in my search and it seemed too good to be true! I love my Quintana Roo tri bike so that’s a point in the company’s favor. I’m just wondering if you’ve had the Obed for a while (2+ years), which model, and how do you feel it’s held up over time? My use case is some adventure rides and gravel racing, so not sure which model yet. It seems to have everything I want though (nice paint colors, non-proprietary components, mech shifting is fine, 50mm clearance, carbon).

Alternatively, what’s a good bike for some adventure riding and gravel racing? Like a good middle ground? I’m not super competitive but if I get better, I don’t want to be racing with a bike that’s super endurancey and upright and conversely, I don’t want to be on something super aggressive. I do want to get something that I will keep for a long time. I’m looking to spend $2k used or $2k to maaaaybe $3k new.

I often get what I call an exercise hangover the day after big rides (I’ve posted about this before). Over a year later and I’m still getting them. I think it comes down to being a salty sweater (suspect 1500-2000mg/L, getting sweat test next month) and consuming too much fluid alongside not enough salt. Like it seems that despite my 2500mg intake on my most recent longish ride, the relative sodium concentration was just 600mg/L and I felt crappy the next day.

I’m just not totally sure if this is what’s happening. The next day manifestation is a little weird- I’m usually fine the day of but the internet tells me it can have delayed onset by 24h. The next day I’m always exhausted, headachey, lethargic, nauseous, brain fog. Just wondering if anyone’s experienced something similar and how you adjusted to fix it?

Hi there! I'm looking to get into gravel racing but I've got a steep learning curve as a nervous road handler. I have a general triathlon coach who I work with remotely right now (may change if I shift more from tri to gravel), so she's limited help on the skills side. I don't have a big gravel community where I live to lean on, and the gravel is also slightly terrifying (ie one of the best routes around here is 25 miles and 5000 feet of climbing).

I'd really love to get some experience with gravel specific skills in a less scary environment. I'm interested in like a "skills" camp. I'm in southern California but would be interested in something in the western half of the US. I'm planning to seriously start gravel next winter/spring since that's when all the races are, so if possible I'd love a camp in the next 6 months. I'm familiar with special blend gravel, but does anyone have any other suggestions? If you've done one of these, do you think it's worth it? I'm a bit skeptical but I think I could use as much help as I can get. I would also be up for just like a 1-2 day clinic somewhere in California, just trying to figurre out what's out there.

Alternatively, does anyone have suggestions for how to set up your own gravel skills progression? Apart from riding more I'm not sure what to do. My biggest weakness is descending and a huge barrier is that there aren't many descents nearby that aren't scary, but I guess I have to start somewhere.

TLDR: Has anyone taken a break from tri for aquabike, if so what was your experience like? Also has anyone figured out how to manage tri running with hypermobility? I am desperate for your tips!!

I started triathlon about 3 years ago now, and it's changed my life. I love it so much. I love the whole multisport aspect but I've especially fallen in love with cycling. I come from a swimming background so swimming and cycling quickly became the best parts of the sport for me.

Running has been a nightmare. In three years of this sport, I got faster within my first year then my running has been super stagnant. I did my first 70.3 after my first year of tri, and I'm doing my fourth next week. My half marathon run splits from my past races are 2:24, 2:19, 2:21, despite 2 years of consistent training. My standalone half is 1:58 so this really sucks. It's not bonking, it's just a death march. My 5k in sprints has been 25-26mins for the last 2 years, no improvement. I've recently discovered that I'm hypermobile/hEDS, which explains a lot. Everything always hurts when I run, but I'm not injured. I have DOMS after every run because muscles are stabilizing and compensating for unstable joints. I think tri is especially bad bc of the fatigue associated with running off the bike. I recently got a referral to PT for this but it'll be a few months.

I'm super demoralized by how hard it is to get faster/better at running, and how it always hurts, and I've already decided to skip my next planned 70.3 this fall so I can give my PT time to work. I might do La Quinta in December instead, or maybe just call the 2026 long course tri season early. After my next race I decided I need a break from running. I can probably still run, but I can't do the 90+ min runs I need for 70.3 training.

Since I am a fast swimmer and biker, my coach suggested I think about trying to qualify for multisport worlds in long course aquabike next year. I could focus on qualifying while I'm taking a much-needed mental break from longer-distance running. It's not something I ever thought of and it kind of excites me, but I know participation is super low which I worry will affect the vibes/morale/motivation. It doesn't feel exciting to win out of 5 people. Still, it is kind of cool to do non-IM races- the locations are definitely a bit more fun (i.e. looking at one in June Lake, CA, with swim in alpine lake!). Also think it would be fun to send the bike since there's no run after.

I will of course also look into bike events & individual swims & maybe some sprints, but it's fun to put them together as well.

My questions with this post are:

1. What's your experience with switching to aquabike or incorporating aquabike been like? What were your reasons, are the vibes any different from tri? Is the tiny field size at all a deterrent?

2. Has anyone been to multisport worlds, what was it like? Worthwhile experience or no? It's in Edmonton next year which is very travel-able for me.

3. Does anyone have experience running in long-course triathlon with hypermobility or ehler-danlos? If so I would appreciate if you could let me know anything anecdotal that has made the sport more approachable- ie exercises, how to structure your training. Feel free to comment or DM me.