The Time-Crunched Cyclist Podcast by CTS

​​Free Cycling Training Assessment

Preparing for your first gravel race can quickly become more complicated than it needs to be. What bike do you need? How wide should your tires be? What pressure should you run? What happens if you flat? How much should you eat? And how fit do you actually need to be?
CTS Head Cycling Coach Adam Pulford strips gravel racing back to the essentials. He covers the bike and equipment you actually need, fueling strategy, flat repair, tire selection and pressure, navigation, training, and why spending time riding real gravel is one of the best ways to prepare.

HOST
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

Interested in working with a coach? Schedule a free consult: https://trainright.com/coaching/cycling/
Self-coached athlete? Check out our TrainRight Membership: https://trainright.com/membership/
Find more free resources here: https://trainright.com/blog/

Resources:
How to change a flat & fix a puncture: Gravel Bike Outside: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm5UrDKZsss
How to Plug a puncture tubeless: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kgs3Iq36mZg
Effortless tip: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/lsoCr_a8wwI

Tire Pressure Calculators:Silca: https://silca.cc/pages/pro-tire-pressure-calculator?srsltid=AU7gw4VeflE3QaGaC5X2NSoV3l-6xNcHEsFH740xLSPyKAUzEcDo2eEk
SRAM: https://axs.sram.com/guides/tire/pressure

Your wearable gives you a recovery score every morning, but how much should that number influence your training?
Adam Pulford breaks down the information coaches actually use when evaluating readiness, including subjective feel, life stress, recent training load, sleep, resting heart rate, and HRV. He also explains why he pays far less attention to proprietary readiness scores and detailed wearable sleep metrics, and why trends are often more useful than one morning’s score.

HOST
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

​​Free Cycling Training Assessment: https://trainright.com/cycling-training-assessment-welcome/
Interested in working with a coach? Schedule a free consult: https://trainright.com/coaching/cycling/
Self-coached athlete? Check out our TrainRight Membership: https://trainright.com/membership/
Find more free resources here: https://trainright.com/blog/

Resources:
Miller, Sargent & Roach, 2022 — Validation of six wearable devices
Dial et al., 2025 — Nocturnal RHR and HRV validation
Schyvens et al., 2024 — Systematic review of wearable sleep accuracy
Manresa-Rocamora et al., 2021 — HRV-guided training meta-analysis
Steve House/Uphill Athlete — Practical coaching interpretation
Jason Koop/CTS — Practical HRV recommendationshttps://trainright.com/practical-heart-rate-variability-recommendations-for-ultrarunners/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Marco Altini — Wearable HRV measurement critiquehttps://marcoaltini.substack.com/p/trusting-the-right-tool-for-the-job?utm_source=chatgpt.com

TrainingPeaks — WHOOP integration documentation
TrainingPeaks — Oura integration documentation
TCC HRV Interview with Jason Koop:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-time-crunched-cyclist-podcast-by-cts/id1494799053?i=1000625446661

Using Subjective Feedback to Drive Performance with Natàlia Balagué and Lluc Montull | Koopcast Episode 155https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/koopcast/id1489494447?i=1000587345880

The Case For HRV with Marco Altini: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/koopcast/id1489494447?i=1000544394187

Strength training has a place in a cyclist’s program year-round, but that doesn’t mean doing the same lifts, loads, and routines for 52 weeks.
Adam Pulford explains how he periodizes strength training alongside cycling throughout an athlete’s season. He covers annual planning, how strength priorities change as racing approaches, the anatomy of a well-designed gym session, and why tracking your lifting matters even when you’re not chasing PRs.
The takeaway: treat strength training like your riding. Plan it, progress it, and change it as your goals change.

HOST
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

​​Free Cycling Training Assessment: https://trainright.com/cycling-training-assessment-welcome/
Interested in working with a coach? Schedule a free consult: https://trainright.com/coaching/cycling/
Self-coached athlete? Check out our TrainRight Membership: https://trainright.com/membership/
Find more free resources here: https://trainright.com/blog/

Self-coaching gives you freedom, but it also makes it remarkably easy to reinforce your own biases.
Coach Adam Pulford breaks down five mistakes he repeatedly sees in self-coached cyclists, from avoiding field testing and inflating FTP to under-recovering, failing to plan long-term, and chasing equipment gains before training gains.

HOST
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

Cycling Camps: https://trainright.com/camps/
​​Free Cycling Training Assessment: https://trainright.com/cycling-training-assessment-welcome/
Interested in working with a coach? Schedule a free consult: https://trainright.com/coaching/cycling/
Self-coached athlete? Check out our TrainRight Membership: https://trainright.com/membership/
Find more free resources here: https://trainright.com/blog/

Resources:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/comparing-cycling-field-tests-using-the-best-test-for/id1494799053?i=1000697861599

After 24 years of coaching athletes, Adam Pulford has seen enough training plans, races, breakthroughs, failures, and comebacks to recognize which lessons continue to matter.
In this episode, Adam steps away from the charts and physiology to share 20 observations from his coaching career: why fitness isn't performance, why recovery matters as much as workload, why perfect training doesn't exist, what winning and losing can teach us, and why long-term development requires more patience than most athletes expect.

HOST
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

CTS Cycling Camps: https://trainright.com/camps/
​​Free Cycling Training Assessment: https://trainright.com/cycling-training-assessment-welcome/
Interested in working with a coach? Schedule a free consult: https://trainright.com/coaching/cycling/
Self-coached athlete? Check out our TrainRight Membership: https://trainright.com/membership/
Find more free resources here: https://trainright.com/blog/

Resources:
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius 
Beyond Thoughts by Joseph Nguyen 
Don’t Believe Everything You Think by Joseph Nguyen
Awareness by Athlete de Mellow
Find Your Why by Simon Sinek 
On The Nature of Things by Lucretius
Atomic Habits by James Clear
Flow by Mihaly Czeskmihaly 
Deep Work by Cal Newport 
Waking Up App by Sam Harris