 Hey what's up everyone welcome to another video my name is backwards hat Dylan and I'm a self-proclaimed cycling expert at your local group ride and today I'm going to be answering some of your cycling questions. I've made short appearances in other videos but you guys have requested more so this one is going to be all me. We're going to be talking about why Strava racing is the only thing that matters, how to calculate your FTP so that it looks higher than it actually is and whether or not I am in fact a non-blanking lizard. Oh if you're new to this channel I make videos when I feel like it going over tips and tricks that I've learned in my four months of Strava racing experience that has gotten me to the top of numerous Zwift leaderboards when I under report my weight and stuff that I've learned from this dude I train with who's totally a cat one roadie. If you want to learn how to get faster or just more about my assumptions about proper training in general then be sure to subscribe and if you have a training question leave it in the comment section down below. I'll answer it whether I know what I'm talking about or not. Dercel123 says if it's not on Strava it never happened ever. I couldn't have said it better myself. Strava is basically the only way of knowing whether or not you're faster than other people other than like signing up for a race or something. This comment from Hey Hey Lee sums things up pretty nicely. Strava is more important than starving children or homeless vets. Your Strava profile basically defines how good you are as a cyclist. The more KOMs or QOMs you have the faster you are and of course it follows that the number of achievements that you get on a ride determines how successful that ride was. In fact the number of achievements that you achieve during a week of training is correlated with how many watts you gain from that training week. And it doesn't matter if they were segments that no one rides or that you made yourself with weird starting and ending points so that no one knows where to start going hard. All that matters is that when you get home from your ride you see a bunch of crown and metal emojis on your computer because apparently we're back in third grade and getting a gold star means something to us again. Okay for our next question Wayne Rose asks can you do a video on pacing for endurance mountain bike races? Great question Wayne basically you got to go as hard as you can off the gun. If you can hold that pace for the first five minutes then surely you won't have any problem holding it five hours later. At least that's what I tell myself. One Keras John says but the temptation to push on is so great. I mean why waste your time when you can be pushing hard? Spot on John recovery rides are for the soft legged. If you want to get faster a good place to start is by bringing the intensity up on your recovery rides and riding for longer. If you're riding with a buddy or a group on a recovery day and you're able to ride at a higher recovery pace then this proves that you're stronger than them and they'll be very impressed by your superior recovery pace. The same applies if you're doing a hard group ride. If you can't keep up or you keep getting dropped then just tell everyone that you're taking it easy and they'll be impressed that your recovery zone is so high. And of course if you're riding along on an easy day and you come across a highly contested Strava segment then you have to PR that segment otherwise your Strava followers will lose all respect for you. Randy Lee asks sorry but sounds like a commercial for Niner bikes i.e. paid spokesman and or sponsored rider um and we don't have to read the rest of that. You're right Randy I am a sponsored pro. As I get five percent off Shammy Butter at the local bike shop as long as I volunteer at three out of the five races that they put on. If you want to see my full list of sponsors just check the paragraphs worth of hashtags that I put on every single Instagram post. Strat Gibson says too much info tech BS. Just go ride. If you're in a race and not at the front you're gonna lose. All these meters and other equipment is for geeks that never race or will win a race. This is so true power meters are for nerds. If you're the type of adult that obsesses over your CTL then you were probably the kid that got made fun of in high school for being part of the Dungeons and Dragons club. Now that being said I do have the most expensive power meter on all my bikes because at the local group ride all anyone ever talks about is what their FTP is and I want to be included in the conversation. Now when testing your FTP it's important that you choose the method that gives you the highest number not necessarily the correct number. For example when I test I usually do the two by eight minute method and then take 90% except instead of doing two eight minute efforts I just do one and I don't take 90% and then I tell myself that my eight minute max is equal to my threshold because it basically is. Now the trade-off here is that this makes doing your intervals extremely difficult because now you've got two by 20 threshold intervals and you can barely hold your threshold for eight minutes. This is when I just scrap these workouts and do a Zwift workout. Ernest Siegel asks, do you blink or are you secretly a lizard? Mike Smart asks, can you do a video on what you carry for long rides? Extra tubes, CO2 or a pump asking for a friend? Great question. There's no need to carry a spare tube or extra tools when you're riding with other people because chances are if you do get a flat tire they'll have what you need and that way you don't have to carry extra weight. After all you did just spend $500 on a stem that's 20 grams lighter and now you're thinking about carrying a tube. Basically instead of losing weight from your body you just have to not carry tools and make sure you spend as much money as possible on your bike parts. As it turns out wheels that are 50 grams lighter will in fact make up for the extra 10 pounds of fat that you have around your gut. If you're doing the math and it doesn't add up then you're just not taking into account aerodynamics. Plus carbon wheels look super cool and that's way more important than actually going faster. Thanks for watching and I hope you guys found this information helpful. Be sure to leave your questions for me down in the comments and if you like this video be sure to give it a like, share it with a friend and subscribe for more. If you're looking for more training and racing content be sure to follow me on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook and be sure to follow me on Strava and check out my long list of KOMs. Finally if you're looking for more training advice I'll be at the back of the local group ride doing a recovery day. Dude what are you doing here? Get out of here man I'm trying to make a video. Hey what's up everyone welcome to another video my name is Dylan and I'm a cycling coach at CT.