The Breakaway Podcast

Tyler has quite the story; going pro at 18, becoming one of the best sprinters in the world, and ending his career as one of only 3 Americans to win a stage in each grand tour.  This episode is packed with: The highs and lows of being a professional cyclist. How to continue challenging yourself after transition periods in your life. The evolution of cycling from the early 2000s to now. 04:13 - Nailing retirement to hang out with your friends and still get paid. 04:59 - Figuring out what you want to be early. 06:43 - Why Tyler didn't drag his career out… 8:58 - Goal setting 9:58 - Why Tyler opened his brakes so he couldn't use them. 15:13 - How Tyler managed risk vs. reward. 16:48 - The mentality of fire fighting vs. sprinting. 17:18 - ‘Risk a lot to save a lot' 18:16 - One person's crazy is another person's normal. 18:58 - A behind the scene look at what it's like to sprint for a World Tour victory. 22:13 - Flow state 26:13 - Tyler's process for getting ‘In the Zone' 29:08 - Physically transforming from cycling to firefighting 30:48 - Allowing himself to be seen 32:38 - There's a demon 33:33 - Coming back from injury 35:48 - Forced tapers… 37:58 - Going dark 39:13 - Homework - Come up with a process to tap into flow state.

Dylan is a former professional cyclists, national champion, Google employee, and current technology executive. We get into a bit of everything in this one including: What it takes to be successful on and off the bike. Frameworks for improvement. How to reverse engineer to achieve your goals. 03:00 - Commonalities between being a National Champion and getting a job at Google. 04:15 - Commonalities between simple training and showing improvement - the feedback loop. 05:40 - How Dylan ‘fell into cycling by accident' in college 07:59 - Dylan's current fitness journey and being more intentional 08:40 - Being methodical & prioritizing your day 12:34 - Christian talks about how much they did wrong back in the 90's 13:19 - You can get 70-80% of your peak potential fitness with 10 hours a week 14:00 - Dylan talks Nutrition and Crossfit 16:29 - Group rides are races 23:08 - Covid, injuries and indoor training for the win 21:04 - Putting scores on the board 22:55 - How to train for an event in 8 weeks 26:04 - Christian reflects on pain tolerance 28:34 - How to nail your intervals 30:18 - You're stronger than you think… 35:34 - Suffering across different sports 38:15 - Cycling as a game of economics 40:20 - Learning about intention and the ability to push ourselves 41:34 - Take a moment of intention 43:40 - Recovery vs actual rest 44:54 - Homework - “There's nothing better than a double day.”

Sian has spent over 10 years providing sport science support to athletes and coaches in Olympic, Paralympic and professional sports across high performance environments in Great Britain and New Zealand. She began her career working as a Physiologist with British Swimming, before obtaining an applied PhD in statistical modeling of sport performance from AUT University while working with Swimming New Zealand. Sian then took up a strategic role as Performance Intelligence Manager with Paralympics New Zealand into the Rio 2016 Games, managing innovation projects and data analysis systems across all Paralympic sports in New Zealand. She now combines her data analytics and exercise physiology backgrounds with the latest in technology and scientific research, working as a Research Manager in the Product Innovation team at Lululemon Athletica on the West Coast of Canada.

In this episode we sit down with pro cycling analyst, Benji Naesen. Benji has a very interesting backstory as somebody who grew up spending his time playing soccer and gaming without much exposure to cycling until a later age. Now, he's transitioned into a full-time cycling analyst and podcaster on the Lanterne Rouge Cycling Podcast.

Allen Lim Part II: The Joy of Data and breaking down barriers. Allen has a gift. A gift of parlaying a lifetime of knowledge and experiences into Layman's terms. In this episode, Allen looks back at his days in professional cycling, the good times and the hard times that became great ones with time. Breaking down barriers not only with sports science but with the racism rooted in some of the world that professional cycling operated in. Listening to Allen speak is hypnotic and we could've kept this going for hours….get some popcorn and enjoy.

Allen Lim Part 1. The joy of data and the start of marginal gains. By now you've most likely heard the term “marginal gains” being thrown around in the cycling world. In this episode, we speak with sports scientist, coach, and Skratch Labs founder Dr. Allen Lim about how he broke down long-standing barriers in the cycling world and introduced us to what we now call marginal gains. Implementing scientifically proven data, in a sport that was riddled with tradition and resistance to 'science' was no easy task. We had to split this into two episodes as there are too many sound bites for one to take.

We all ride for different reasons. Mari Holden, a former World Champion, and Olympic medalist has evolved the reasons why she rides again and again. Now, as she nears 50 years old she's finding new ways to motivate, new ways to look at data, and new ways to find herself on the bike. Join us for Episode 7 as we dig into her past, present, and future on two wheels.

Flow state. The mind/body connection. In the zone.   There are many ways to describe how to achieve the pinnacle of performance and in this episode, we talked to former professional cyclist David Millar on his experience finding those 'Magic Days' where everything just comes together. There's so much to unpack here and some great lessons for us all to make the most of our workouts, days, and weeks. We can't hit the Flow state every time, but we can learn from the best on ways to increase our odds.

In 2021, Ashton both set a new World Record and became World Champion in the pursuit, defeating a man considered unbeatable in the event. How did he do it? In this episode we bring in our first guest; world record holder, world champion, and all around talented and amazing human, Ashton Lambie. Ashton gives us some insight into how he set his goals and achieved them by focusing on the process instead of the outcome...something we can all relate to in our own fitness journey.

DIg into how you push past limits and can see the benefit of focused efforts. So much of sports is about seeing people exceed their limits, and we can all do this in our own day-to-day. In Episode 4, we dig into this from a physical, planning and mental standpoint. Permalink

We talk about so many things in fitness and cycling but rarely do we talk about things like rest, sleep, recovery in a busy life. In Episode 3, Christian and Jordan dig into ways that we can all learn and test how we can better find recovery to assist with our workouts. Small things. Simple but not easy.

“Men lie. Women lie. Numbers do not lie.” - Jay Z. In Episode 2, we dive into power as a means of understanding cycling performance, why if you want to improve you should care about power, how we make it simple to understand and a small homework assignment to see how well you know your power/body.

In our pilot episode, we talk to Christian Vande Velde about the recent performance by Mathieu Van der poel and the incredible power numbers he generated to win the Italian World Tour race, Strade Bianche. Christian answers questions on how Mathieu did it, what kind of effort it took for him, and how that applies to the rest of us trying to improve our mortal cycling efforts.