 So welcome to the first edition of the RCA training show. For those of you who are new to the channel, I'm gonna be your host, Kam Nicole. In this video, I'm gonna share with you some footage that I captured when Caleb Ewan was recently in my hometown of Nusa in the Sunshine Coast during the professional off-season. For those of you who are not aware, Caleb is a professional road cyclist with team Lotto Sadao and is arguably one of the best sprinters in the world. In this video though, we're not gonna analyze his sprint position, which many do, given the extreme nature of his aerodynamic position. Instead, we're gonna watch the way he rides steady state with a goal of sharing some insights with you about how we should all be riding our bikes in training. But before we get into the footage, just quickly on the new channel format which is starting today on Wednesdays. That's Aussie Time Wednesdays, which is today. It's gonna be the RCA training show, specifically dedicated to training and road cycling equipment reviews. On Fridays, it will be more casual, where it will be more of a vlog style, where I will share with you what it's like mixing bike riding and racing with a busy family lifestyle. By having two separate days dedicated to different styles of content that I like to create, it just enables me to set an expectation with you, the audience about what you can expect from me on both Wednesday and Friday. Now, if you're new to the channel and all that sounds up your alley, please don't forget to subscribe below and also hit the bell notification if you wanna be alerted when I publish a video. So let's get into this one. So here we are riding along David Lowe Way in the Coulomb area in the Sunshine Coast in Australia. Just note that I will skip forward and pause the footage at times just so we can make the most of our time together today. Earlier on this day, we had ridden the Nusa Bunch ride. It was a high intensity session where Kayla Buen tore my legs off. Now I'll link to that video below and also at the end of this video, for those of you who might have missed it, it was one of my most popular videos ever actually. And following the Bunch ride, we had a post ride coffee of course and then after the coffee was completed, it was three hours steady on the cards for Kayla Buen and another elite rider you'll see shortly, Fredio Vett. So here we are rolling steady and this is the purpose of the video today to emphasize what steady state riding actually looks like, aerobic zone two base building riding essentially. For those who follow the channel, you will have seen me in the past sharing some footage with you of the way many road cyclists ride their bikes. Often many will go out and ride their bikes dictated by the terrain constantly going into their upper end zones, riding up inclines, accumulating high levels of lactate in every single ride, free pedaling down, undulating terrain and ultimately missing out on focused base building riding. While I talk about consistent steady state riding all the time, I'm just some regular bloke who took up road cycling at age 28, worked my ways up through the grades in the local amateur scene and randomly started making YouTube videos in 2018. Yes, I've recently become a road cycling coach but I know there are many people out there that are like, who is this Aussie YouTuber? So to prove my point to any naysayers out there, we are watching one of the top paid professional road cyclists in the world here riding their bikes steady state. At times, Caleb will get out of the saddle to stretch his legs, but he's riding consistent pressure. I'd say mid to top end zone two for him. I say that because I rode next to Caleb for a while during this ride and I was pushing into my zone three. However, I am 12 kilograms heavier than Caleb, six inches taller. So Caleb's 67 kilos and five foot five, according to Wikipedia. So that will ensure I have to work harder than him for the same speed. He's also a lot more aerodynamic than me. Also Caleb would have a much higher FTP than me. So his zone two power would be higher than mine. And as a result, I'm pretty confident he would be mid to top end zone two for this specific steady state riding. Just watch how Caleb keeps a consistent pedal stroke, consistent power output, things you don't see Caleb doing, randomly lifting the pressure without telling anyone, randomly free pedaling or reducing the pressure, randomly going off his line. It's just consistent, constant pressure on the crank. And let me tell you, if you ride this way for a number of hours, it gets very difficult, but it builds excellent conditioning. So what happens now when the terrain changes up and down? Here we are now on undulating terrain. Notice Caleb riding next to Freddie at the front and they're still riding the same way. You are not gonna see free pedaling down the hills and attacking up inclines, pushing out random 600 watt efforts or something ridiculous like that. It's the same consistent pressure all the time. Caleb's not letting the road undulations dictate what he does. It's steady state, base building, riding right here. It's volume in the legs. And I do really need to emphasize the pedaling down the inclines. I see so many cyclists. Even down the slightest incline, they take the pressure off the crank and they free pedal. If you're training and working specific systems, free pedaling does absolutely nothing for you. It just teaches you bad habits. So there's no need to do it unless of course you're descending down a serious hill or mountain. At times during undulating terrain, the hill becomes a good opportunity to stretch. The legs get out of the saddle. And it's kinda hard not to increase the pressure ever so slightly when the road heads up. But it's controlled here. It's not a 600 watt attack. Yes, you can see my wattage momentarily going above 400 watts. But keep in mind, I'm behind pro cyclists. They're a lot lighter and aerodynamic than my 79 kilogram frame. So Caleb and Freddie are probably pushing slightly into their top end zone three as they stretch their legs here. So we finished the ride, heading for my third coffee for the day of course and Caleb and Freddie disappeared. But Caleb kindly offered for those who had been riding with him that he would be heading out tomorrow. And if anyone wanted to join, to meet at the coffee shop the following day at 6.30 a.m. And guess what? He informed everyone and set the expectation that he needed to incorporate some structured efforts for a specific period of time. So in other words, Caleb was saying, join me for a roll. Be aware that I'll be ripping it to shreds in a structured manner for an hour or so and then we'll ride steady state. Consistent and predictable riding. So that's how pro cyclists do it, like Caleb Ewan. When they ride their bikes at high intensity, they'll set an expectation with their training partner if they're with one. They'll then go out and do their high intensity in a very structured manner for a specific period of time. And then when they're done with their high intensity, they'll ride consistent, constant pressure. None of this random doing four, five hundred watts up a hill just because it's a hill or coasting down the other side of a hill, free pedaling just because it's a decline. It's consistent pressure on the crank at all times. Now if I would take a guess, I know there would be a number of you out there that would probably ride pretty sporadically like I've described in this video. I know that because I see it all the time and I used to do it myself. I guarantee though, if you start to implement a more consistent way of riding in your training, as I've described in this video, you're gonna see a significant improvement in your own road cycling performance. And if you're after more information on how you can take your road cycling performance to the next level, I have a free training, which I'll link to below and I'll catch everyone in the next video.