How to Fly With Your Bike Like a Pro

Posted on January 18, 2017 by Syd Schulz

A break from our usual programming to tackle a question I get a lot — do you have any tips for flying with your bike?

After flights to four different continents and 7+ countries in the past three years, and only a few disasters, I have learned a thing or two about how to bring your bike on a plane. Here is my attempt to organize all that accumulated wisdom into one post, in a more or less sensical step-by-step process.

Bike and Osprey Packs all ready to go. Also, a cat.

Step one. Choose an airline and decide whether you’re going to try to dodge the bike fees or not.

Flying with a bike internationally and not paying fees is possible — you can cram all of your stuff into two bags weighing less than 50lbs…wheels in one bag, frame in another, clothes and everything else stuffed around the sides, and travel internationally for *free. We have done this numerous times, and if you’re really that broke (and we were really that broke), it’s great. But there are some serious disadvantages here, namely you have to get each bag to be less than 50lbs which is harder than it sounds, especially if you’re going on a few month trip which we often are. Also, with many airlines now offering only one free bag internationally (and none domestically), this strategy barely saves you any money. And this make-you-pay-for-everything trend is only going to get worse. Also, there is the matter of moving around the airport with two bags, plus a carry-on, which, unless you can find a luggage cart immediately, results in an awkward game of leapfrog that inevitably pisses off everyone behind you in the customs line. But it may be worth it to you to save $300 roundtrip, in which case check out these wheel and frame bags from Ruster Sports.

Now that Macky and I have slightly more than zero dollars of disposable income, we find it way less hassle to just pay the bike fee and get on with our lives. Plus, traveling internationally, we’ve found that other countries are way less organized about actually charging you the bike fee — and international airlines sometimes have way lower fees so if you check in with, say, Lufthansa, instead of American, on your way home you may not have to pay the fee at all. Also, even in the U.S., airline staff are often confused about what to charge you. For example, we once checked two bikes in with American in Albuquerque and only got charged for one. Whoopee!

If you’re traveling domestically within the U.S., try to fly on either Southwest ($75 bike fee), JetBlue ($50 bike fee) or Frontier ($75). These airlines make traveling with a bike super affordable. However, if you’re stuck flying a big carrier within the U.S. (American, United, Delta, etc.) the bike fee will probably be $150 – $200, which is utterly egregious for a short flight. If you absolutely can’t get out of flying with one of these carriers, and you can’t just drive to your final destination, definitely check out BikeFlights.com. There are some downsides to BikeFlights — namely, the bummer of being without your bike for a few days on either end of your trip- — but it’s certainly a better option than paying $200 to get your bike from SFO – DIA. (BikeFlights will probably still cost around the same as the bike fee from Southwest).

Casual packing scene in the hotel room less than 3 hrs before international flight. We made it.

Step Two. Pick a case for your bike.

Cardboard box or fancy bike case? Honestly, if you’re not planning on flying with your bike often, a cardboard bike box is totally fine. You can get usually get one at your local shop free of charge. In fact they may try to give you ten. Cardboard boxes are also great if you have a complicated itinerary once you get to your final destination, because you can ditch the box and get another when it’s time to go home, as opposed to having to tote a case around for your entire trip.

There is an advantage to having a bike case, however, and it’s definitely a worthy investment if you travel with bikes more than once every few years. Simply put, it’s way easier, faster and more efficient to pack your bike into a case. The process is streamlined, and there are pockets with zippers which means you’re way less likely to have a pre-production-literally-the-only-one-in-existence endcap fall off your wheel and disappear forever. Not that I’m speaking from experience or anything.

We use Shimano Pro Mega Travel Case which has a frame but a soft exterior, so it can still can be folded up pretty small for transport once you unload your bikes. They also have wheels, which makes for a superior experience to dragging a cardboard box around the airport. Soft cases are definitely where it’s at — hard cases are bulky, impossible to store and, as far as I can tell, pretty unnecessary.

Step Three. Pack your bike.

Macky and I can now pack (and unpack) two bikes in about half an hour. Here’s a little video of me showing you how to pack a bike IN ONE MINUTE —

In case you don’t like videos, the steps are basically as follows —

Remove handlebars
Remove pedals.
Remove your brake rotors and pack them in cardboard so they don’t get bent
Remove and protect derailleur.
Put down your dropper post (or shove your seat post into the frame if you don’t have a dropper).
Mount bike in frame (if you have a case).
Zip tie the ever living shit out of any loose parts you don’t want to lose when the TSA paws through your stuff.
Let the air out of your tires.
Pack other stuff around your bike.
Cover any remaining pokey bits with foam packing material to avoid scratches.
Zip everything up and good job, you’ve done it.

A few things to be aware of — technically you aren’t allowed to fly with CO2 cartridges. I say technically, because we just pack them into plastic water bottles which somehow throws off the TSA’s super advanced CO2 cartridge detectors and they go unnoticed. The only time this didn’t work was in Thailand, which is ironic considering how much more intense US security is [supposed to be]. The main point is if you do decide to risk having TSA steal your Co2 cartridges, DO NOT leave them in a tool pouch or backpack because then you risk having your entire pouch or pack taken away by security. (I really hope this tip doesn’t get me put on some sort of a list.)

The TSA also isn’t super fond of tire sealant, and there’s nothing more annoying than showing up at a race and realizing your tire sealant has been ~~stolen~~ confiscated. I’m not entirely sure what the issue here is, but apparently Stan’s sealant contains ammonia, which is a no-no, and Slime’s old sealant was inconveniently named TNT, which makes the TSA nervous for some reason (because if you’re going to bring TNT on a plane, obviously you’re going to label it?!!?!) To get around this we just remove the labels. Apparently mystery liquids are fine.

Also, if you’re going to do this a lot, it’s worth investing in a semi-accurate scale to weigh your bags. Otherwise you will inevitably be unpacking and repacking in the check-in line which is not a great way to make friends.

Step Four. Go to the airport and check your bags.

This is theoretically the easy part but it can be a massive pain in the ass if you haven’t followed that last tip in Step Three and weighed your bike bags. Technically bike bags can be up to 70lbs for most destinations, which sounds like a lot, but really isn’t once you start adding in helmets, spare parts, extra tires, etc. We usually end up with half our tires in our carry-on for this very reason. Sometimes you get lucky and they don’t weigh your bags. Sometimes you get someone who makes you repack your entire bag because it’s 0.4lbs over the limit, and you nearly miss your flight.

Killing time with the selfie stick the one time we arrived early enough at the airport to get bored.

Step Five. Arrive at your destination and collect your bike.

But what if the airline loses my bike? People worry about this a lot and I get it — bikes are expensive and we love them and it is heart-wrenching when something happens to them. But shit happens. Bikes fall off bike racks going down the interstate. Bikes get stolen. And probably, sometimes, airlines lose them. But your odds of having your bike lost or crushed by an airline are pretty slim. Something like less than 1% of all luggage gets lost and that’s INCLUDING all the “lost” luggage that eventually makes it’s way back to its owners, which, as far as I can tell, is nearly all of it.

So, if you don’t see your bike pop out on the carousel, DON’T FREAK OUT. For starters, it’s probably going to come out at a separate oversize baggage spot (which is sometimes miles away from the normal baggage carousel) and it will probably be one of the last things out, just ’cause. Of course, sometimes bike boxes come out on the normal carousel — there seems to be no discernible pattern here — so you just have to wait and see. This might sound weird, but I love it when the airline loses our bikes because then they have to deliver them to our final destination which means that really awkward bus/train trip with two bike boxes just got way easier. Every time my luggage has been “lost,” it has shown up (and been delivered directly to me) in less than 24 hours. Sometimes this is annoying (like that one time I had no toothbrush in Thailand) but other times it’s awesome (like when we didn’t have to shove two bike boxes into a 1988 volvo and they arrived only four hours after us).

If you’re still worried, I seriously recommend purchasing insurance on your bike. I’m in the process of doing this (after my little stolen bike fiasco in April), so maybe I’ll write a post once I go through the options and figure out what makes the most sense. From my preliminary research, this seems like something that is fairly affordable and would make a ton of sense for anyone who travels with expensive bikes (which is probably literally all of you, if you’ve made it this far).

Step Six. Leave the airport.

For the love of all that is holy and whatnot, try to remember that you will have bikes with you when you make your arrival/return plans. This is something that Macky and I are not so good at and it has resulted in entertaining scenarios like strapping bikes on top of cars and also that one time Macky had to run up and down a flight of stairs with a 70lb bag on his head TWICE, while I was fending off a pack of bums, and then we basically had to jump on a moving train with all of our stuff. That was fun.

Now that I think about it, this was the same day as the bum/train fiasco. Jeez.

All this being said, bikes are tough. They survive being chucked into creeks and off boulders, so they will survive being stacked by airline employees or strapped to the top of your car. It’s all going to be okay. The real key to traveling with your bike is to not get unduly stressed out, and just enjoy the opportunity to travel and see the world. Bringing your bike on a plane is no big deal and the reward…

Step Seven. Go ride somewhere awesome.

Is totally worth it.

Shredding in the snow and mud in Scotland.

…and the sun in Argentina.

How Do You Train for Enduro?

Posted on January 10, 2017 by Syd Schulz

Hi Syd,
Since you just wrapped up a series on skills practice, I would like to see a post about your overall training through the year. Like, what kind of fitness training (both on and/or off the bike) are you doing leading up to your season and what kind of training do you do in between races when you are in the heaviest part of season.
I always look forward to your new posts, and I find them much more interesting than the normal “this is what happened at my race” reports that many riders write.
Thanks,
Lindsay

This question from Lindsay made me realize that I’ve pretty much neglected writing about my training on this blog. This isn’t because I don’t think training is important — obviously, it’s super important — but more because I don’t consider myself a training expert. I have a coach and a strength trainer/PT who write all of my workouts and basically save me from myself on a weekly basis. It’s really, really hard to train yourself, especially if you kinda know nothing about sports physiology. I tried to do it in 2014/15 and it was a total disaster that resulted in jacked up knees and me being sick like seven times in one year due to effectively riding myself into the ground.

I started working with Daniel Matheny (Matheny Endurance) last winter and I cannot express how great it is to have someone writing your training plan — having planned workouts eliminates all those nagging thoughts of “am I doing enough” and “is this even the kind of workout I should be doing” that plagued me before I started working with Daniel. Now, I just put my head down and do it, and it’s great. Also, Daniel’s really good about figuring out when I need more rest, just based on the power/HR numbers he’s seeing, so even if I’m lying and saying I’m fine, he tells me to rest more. While I had plenty of other mishaps this year, I managed to make it through the season without that miserable mid-August cold that caught me out the past few years. Recovery is key!!!

Since 2016 was (apparently) my year for dealing with shit I should have dealt with ages ago, I started working with Dane Delozier from Revo PT and Performance in May, trying to heal up my persistent knee tendinitis. Since then, I’ve been working with Dane to build strength generally and to keep improving my knees (and a few other grouchy body parts). Through this process I’ve discovered some serious areas of foundational weakness and bad movement and have been working to address them. (If you’re interested in how different movements affect mountain bikers, Dane writes a column for MTB Project and it’s worth checking out.)

Today's workout was rough. Nothing really went as planned, from mechanicals right off the bat, to the batteries on all my electronics dying from the cold. And also the fact that it was really freaking cold and I felt like my toes were going to fall off. There are so many athletes and fitness gurus on IG acting like every workout leaves you feeling amazing and full of endorphins and covered in just enough sweat for a sexy glisten but not so much that it's gross. But screw that. Training isn't supposed to be pretty or photogenic. It's supposed to be hard. It's supposed to make you tough. It's supposed to make you suffer. So bring it on. #trainingselfie #idoitforthegains #mtb #mtblife #nofilter #onthewords #thephotototallyhasafilter

A photo posted by Syd Schulz (@sydgschulz) on Jan 7, 2017 at 3:09pm PST

Training for enduro in the off-season is all about training your weaknesses. For me that means strength work and high power work. I’m naturally an endurance athlete, so I don’t worry about being out on the bike for seven or eight hours a day. While having some base is great, I can always pull a big day out of my ass if I have to. However, before I started training with Daniel, my peak power for anything from 10sec to 5min was pretty poor. I had also really never done any strength work at all before last fall, so while I was “fit,” I wasn’t very strong. And enduro is all about strong.

That said, if you’re interested in training for enduro, I really do recommend working with a coach to tease out your weaknesses — if you come from a power sports background (i.e. DH racing, DH skiing) you might need to work on your base more than I do. Even though enduro racers don’t actually race for seven hours, being out that long is no joke.

This winter, I’ve been spending a lot of time in the gym focusing on big-muscle movements, like squats, deadlifts, etc. and really dialing in my movement to make sure my knees are doing what they should be doing. On the bike, I’ve been doing a mix of short sprints (20 – 40 sec) and longer lactate threshold work to make sure I can punch it for an eight to 12 minute stage. Also, I’ve been riding fun trails, because fun is important too. As it gets closer to the start of the season, the intervals will probably get shorter, and once the season starts my strength work will probably dial down to more of a maintenance level to avoid too much fatigue going into races.

Training for enduro during the race season is tricky because between racing and pre-riding you sometimes end up with very, very high volume weekends. This makes it hard to fit in adequate recovery AND training between races. This is where having a coach is really key, as they are able to give you some perspective on when you should be training and when you should be resting and preparing for the next race. Left to my own devices, I tend to over do it.

Basically, training is all about balance, addressing your weaknesses and consistency. Sometimes you have to get out there and get it done when you don’t want to or the weather is nasty. That’s just life. Having a structured plan (and someone to keep you accountable) is a huge part of this.

Thanks for the question, Lindsay, hope this helps! :)

Ask Syd: Does Taking Time Off Make You Faster?

Posted on January 4, 2017 by Syd Schulz

“A day off can work wonders” is a phenomenon I have experienced time and time again when learning new skills (on and off the bike). I had a coach in highschool who encouraged us to take a whole month off. “You’ll freeze out bad habits”, was his reasoning.

If I take a week or two off the bike the first ride back is usually amazing. I feel more coordinated and confident, and as long as my fitness is still there, I feel much faster. Have you experienced this? I wonder if there is a pre-race strategy there… Or maybe it’s just an illusion?

-Nico

My friend Nico left this comment on my most recent post about learning to wheelie and I thought it was a really interesting idea and possibly something others would benefit from thinking about as well.

When I first started riding bikes seriously (about three years ago), I found that if I took any more than two days off, my first ride back would be an all-caps DISASTER. I would be slow and sloppy and frustrated. Now, it’s kind of the opposite. I find that when I give myself the rest I need — especially after a few weeks of working on skills — that’s when the breakthroughs happen.

I think the key here is balance. You have to balance putting in the work with recovering both mentally and physically. If you aren’t putting in the work — whatever that may be — taking a few weeks off is not going to be a boon. In fact, it will probably hurt you overall. I’m not sure I buy the idea of “freezing out bad habits.” It might work — but you may also freeze out good habits. Habits take time to be ingrained. If your bad habits are deeply ingrained, the only way to get rid of them is by learning a different habit or behavior. They won’t just go away if you take time off. You will ALWAYS fall back on the bad habit if you haven’t learned something different to replace it.

That said, while we give a lot of credence to recovery from a physical training standpoint, we often overlook mental recovery when it comes to skills work. And that’s a mistake! Your brain takes time to process new information — at least mine does. That’s why I find in-person clinics to be challenging — I prefer working on skills in short (15-30min) bursts and a 2-4 hour clinic overloads me. That doesn’t mean I’m not getting anything out of it — I usually see a big improvement a few days AFTER a clinic, which is why I love Lee McCormack’s online training because I can continue to share that improvement. Even so, I find that if I’m trying to learn a new skill, or dial in a new habit (i.e. changing the way I hit corners), I don’t want to take more than a day off from practicing. The good news is once that new habit or skills becomes ingrained, it should stay with you even after a few weeks (or months) away from the bike.

But everybody’s different — I think the most important point here is to learn how you learn and figure out what works for you. If a two week break gives you a massive boost, make sure you’re scheduling in breaks throughout your year, so you’re staying mentally fresh and having fun. If you find yourself feeling sloppy after a few days off, make sure you’re riding consistently, especially if you’re gearing up for a race or a big ride.

I learned how to wheelie in a week

Posted on December 29, 2016 by Syd Schulz

This is Part III of a mini series about “learning to learn.” Check out the first two posts here and here if you haven’t already.

I chose to write about wheelies for this blog post for a few reasons —

— Wheelies are fairly simple and easily defined. There is no right or wrong way to do a wheelie. Or rather, if you’re doing it the wrong way, your wheel will not stay off the ground for long and then you won’t be doing a wheelie anymore.

— It’s measurable. I’ve spent a lot of time this year working on my cornering, but while “get better at cornering” is very good goal to have, it’s a hard one to encapsulate in a blog post like this. For this post, I set a goal of being able to hold a wheelie for 20 feet. See, measurable! Literally.

–I was pretty bad at wheelies previously (spoiler alert: I am less bad at them now). To be honest, I’ve always considered that holding a wheelie for a long period of time was a useless, show-offy skill that I did not need to learn. Or rather, I told myself that since I couldn’t do it. I always assumed that I would be able to learn how to do it, if I put my mind to it, but I just had better things to do. So, ahem, it was finally time to put that logic to the test.

First off, I need to be honest — like all good blog post titles in the post-truth era, this title is a big fat lie. I’ve been able to get my front wheel up in a wheelie since I was 16, trying to learn to wheelie in the driveway and going backwards onto my ass every other time because no one told me you should keep a finger on the rear brake (PSA: YOU SHOULD KEEP A FINGER ON THE REAR BRAKE). So, really, what I learned through this project was not how to wheelie, but rather, how to hold a wheelie in a controlled fashion for a period of time longer than a millisecond (but that didn’t fit in the title). In some ways, these are two very different skills, and like I said in Part 1 of this little learning series — you have to start where you are. So if you don’t know how to get your front wheel up to the balance point, don’t set a goal of wheelie-ing for 20ft! ONE THING AT A TIME, PEOPLE.

Also, technically speaking, it was more than a week — but I do think it took me about seven solid practice sessions to achieve the goal of wheelie-ing for 20feet. We went to D.C. for a wedding in the middle of this, and there were some days of really heinous weather (not an excuse, but practicing wheelies when it’s 40degrees and raining is no fun at all). The point however still stands — you can learn to do something in a week! Whoo!

Here’s what I learned from this little experiment —

1. Keeping a finger on the rear brake is really important because it quite quickly eliminates all fear of going over backwards. As I’ve said before on this blog (and as Lee reiterated in Part 2 of this series), it’s hard to learn things when you’re scared of them.

2. My learning process is almost exactly as I described in Part 1. A few days of excitement as I start to progress, some frustration and annoyance as I hit a plateau and keep running into the same problems over and over again, and then boom, a moment of realization. And then the cycle starts all over again. It’s irritating to go through this over and over again, but at least I know what’s going on so I can push through it and continue to learn.

3. I am consistently amazed by how much progress I can make in a short time by doing something every day (or nearly everyday). I know I harp on this, but I can’t be the only one who has a tendency to give up on themselves WAY too early. A little bit of consistent effort can yield incredible results.

4. That said, a day off can work wonders too. Realizing when you’re too tired (or hangry or grumpy) to be practicing is almost as important as practicing. The goal of learning to learn is creating positive mental pathways — not negative associations.

5. 20 feet is not very long. It sounded longer in my head, but unfortunately wheelie-ing for 20 feet doesn’t even look impressive in a video, which, let’s be real, is the whole point of learning to wheelie. But that’s the good thing about setting achievable goals — you achieve them. And now that I managed to wheelie for 20 feet, I can congratulate myself for doing so, and set some loftier wheelie goals. I’ll be documenting them on #wheeliewednesday on Instagram so make sure you’re following me there!

Here’s a video documenting my progress — (I recently resurrected my youtube account and am thinking about maybe making the occasional poorly edited video. If you want to follow me there too, you could be my second ever subscriber! I have one other video and it is four years old and there are penguins in it so you should definitely check it out).

And since it’s that time of year — I want to challenge all of you to spend the first week of 2017 practicing something new. It doesn’t have to be bike related, but you do have to make an effort to practice it every day. Tag me on FB or instagram and let me know how it goes.

How I Learned How to Learn

Posted on December 1, 2016 by Syd Schulz

This is Part I of a little mini series on “learning to learn.” Part II will feature some pro tips on learning from professional skills coach Lee Likes Bikes, and Part III will give you a blow by blow of how I learned how to wheelie in a week. Sound fun? Cool, let’s get started.

So, first off — I consider learning itself to be a skill. Why?

Because I used to be bad at it, and now I’m not. I think we often confuse the actual process of learning with acquiring a skill. Just because someone learned something quickly doesn’t necessarily mean they are good at learning — it might just mean they already know how to do something similar, and therefore were able to pick up the new skill quickly. When you’re able to learn something completely foreign — through a repeatable process of seeking expert advice, practice and patience (PATIENCE PATIENCE). Then, and only then, do you understand how to learn.

In the past, while I would occasionally pick up a MTB skill quickly, my learning process was a certified disaster. If I didn’t pick something up in the first session, I immediately assumed I would never figure it out. I was hampered by a series of limitations (I don’t hit drops, I suck at riding wet roots, I don’t know how to bunny hop), and I would say things like “I don’t know how to bunny hop so I can’t do x,y,z” like that was a fixed state of things, and then I would pout. Okay, maybe not exactly, but you get the point.

I’ve since developed the following process for improving my ability to learn new skills, and that’s what I want to share with you today. The best part is this works for bike skills, but it always works for pretty much everything else. Win win.

Step One: Start where you are, not where you think you should be.

This is a big one for me. For the first two years I raced mountain bikes I was hampered by this feeling that I was playing constant catch up to girls who were way far ahead of me in every way. (Not going to lie, I still feel like this occasionally). This meant that if I was going to go out and practice my jumping skills, it would always be in reference to the massive drop that so-and-so hit and posted a picture of on Instagram. (Social media can be evil in this regard). And with that reference, everything was a failure. There was literally no way to succeed. To truly learn something, you have to accept your starting point, even if it is miles away from your end goal. Having a lofty goal is great, but not if it’s driving you nuts, and not if it’s based on what someone else is doing.

If you can’t hit drops, that’s cool. Start with popping off a curb. Learn the proper form and get some expert advice (more on coaching in Part II). When you hit a one foot drop, crack open a bottle of champagne. Celebrate that shit. Forget everyone else — just compare yourself to who you were yesterday.

Step Two: Embrace a growth mindset and ditch your limits.

I’ve written about growth mindsets in depth before, as have many other smarter people. The point is — all those “I can’t” statements are unhelpful AF. If you believe you can change, you can. If you believe you can improve, you can. Serious physical or health limitations aside, our biggest limiting factor is almost always our mind. Given enough time, enough patience, enough direction — you can do the things you see as impossible.

Step Three: Practice. Practice. Practice. Patience. Patience. Patience.

We’ve all heard of the 10,000 rule, and we’ve all heard a million renditions of “practice makes perfect.” And yet, a lot of us seem to feel like this doesn’t apply to us. If you’re like me, your internal narrative goes something like “it’s not that I’m not willing to put in the practice, it’s just that I don’t get it, I’m not making any progress, I’m just making the same mistake over and over again.” But the truth is that sometimes improvement is hard to see, and sometimes you have a do something wrong for days on end before it clicks and your body and mind start working together. If you want to learn something, do it everyday. It doesn’t have to be for hours on end — I find that 15 to 30 minutes of working on a new skill is ideal, as I don’t get too tired and frustrated — but it does have to be everyday. Be honest, how many times in your life have you practiced the same skill every day for a week, a month? If the answer is never, you aren’t tapping your potential to learn.

Step Four: Get to know your learning process.

I find that I go through a pretty similar cycle every time I try to learn a new skill. The first few sessions are great and I start to see improvement as I pick off the easy stuff, and begin to understand the theory of the skill. Then, once I understand the theory, I expect myself to immediately be able to execute it. After all, I can see myself doing it in my head, I understand what I’m supposed to be doing, so why is it so hard? Why aren’t I doing it? This phase is the hardest and it can go on for days, weeks, months. And it is frustrating. I usually hit a point where I get angry and want to give up. And then, just when I’ve relegated myself to never being able to do it, something clicks. Now that I’ve gone through this a few times, I’ve been able to recognize the signs, and while I still get frustrated, I embrace it as part of the process — and I know I have to push through a lot of rough practice sessions to get where I’m trying to go.

Step Five: Seek expert advice and be open to it.

This is probably the most important one on here, but it’s not achievable until you’ve embraced Steps One – Four. For example, if you refuse to accept your starting point, you probably won’t like the advice you get because your coach will be telling you to practice the pumptrack while you want to be hitting 30ft doubles. And likewise, if you have a lot of self-imposed limits, you will drive your coach up the wall with “I can’t” statements. And if you don’t practice, you’re wasting everyone’s time.

I’ll be going WAY deeper on the idea of seeking and accepting advice in Part II of this series, which will be all about skills coaching, why you should do it, and how to maximize the benefit you get from it. I’ll be bringing in some expert commentary from Lee Likes Bikes, so if you have any questions you want me to ask him, pipe up in the comments!

And make sure you check out Part II and Part III of this learning series.

When You’re Tough Enough

Posted on August 23, 2016 by Syd Schulz

You are tough enough. You’ve done good. You have nothing left to prove.

These words spontaneously popped into my head while I was finishing a training ride in Frisco last month. This was about two weeks after my concussion in Sun Valley and I had just pulled out of the Keystone Big Mountain Enduro. So, You are tough enough, you have nothing left to prove. It became like a mantra while I was cooling down on the bike path and before I knew it I was bawling my eyes out while dodging tourists on cruiser bikes. Awesome. As you can see, I’ve really got my shit together this year.

I don’t really know why those words hit me so hard, but I think it was a sort of sudden emotional release of everything I’ve been holding onto since things started going sour for me this year. Or maybe longer than that. It was like I suddenly realized how much pressure I’ve been putting on myself to be tough for the past three years, or maybe my entire life. I’ve been slowly working my way towards this conclusion for a few months now — I touched on it a little bit in this post when I was talking about how riding through my knee pain caused me a million and ten problems, but my crash in Sun Valley, as well as my mishap this past weekend in Steamboat, really drove the message home.

Mountain biking has made me tough. And that is, for the most part, a good thing. I think there are a lot of people out there who could benefit from the high tolerance for scrapes and bruises that mountain biking affords you. Case in point, I have raced with a torn hamstring, a MRSA infection, a sprained hand, food poisoning, numerous head colds and the usual bumps and bruises (ranging from minor to downright alarming). In 2014, I raced the day after I got seven stitches in my face and earlier this year I got up and finished a race even though I had zero idea wtf had just happened. Some of these things were minor inconveniences, and others were downright stupid. And that’s the problem — sometimes stupidity looks a lot like being tough. The line is blurry, especially in a mountain bike culture where we idolize ridiculous crashes and cheer people on for racing through injury.

The lesson I’ve been learning this year is that being tough, while admirable, does not make you fast. And also, and perhaps more importantly, I’m already tough enough. I can gut out long transition climbs, even the ones that seem impossible. I can make it down some pretty gnarly terrain when I’m exhausted. I can get up after a crash in a race run and nail the rest of my lines with my handlebars 15 degrees off center. I can buckle down and finish just about anything no matter how jacked up my body and bike may be. And that’s great and all, but while I may be tough enough, I’m still not fast enough. And I want to do more than finish races. I want to do well.

After crashing on the second stage of the Big Mountain Enduro in Steamboat this past weekend, I was furious. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever been so upset with myself over a mistake in a bike race. I just felt so dumb to have crashed on something that was entirely within my ability due to…I don’t know…being a millimeter off line, being a nanosecond off on my timing, my body position being a eensy-weensy bit unbalanced… or maybe just having the shittiest luck ever. It was really upsetting. And even though it wasn’t a high speed crash I managed to chuck my bike ten feet down an embankment into a creek and smash my arm into a boulder. I finished that stage, and the rest of the day, but I wasn’t entirely sure my arm wasn’t broken at that point. It swelled up massively, and while I could technically hold onto the bars, it sucked. I felt better the next morning — until I started riding, where every bump was excruciating. I had full range of my motion and some grip strength, so I knew nothing was broken, but I almost wished it was. On the first transition, I tried to give myself a pep talk. Like, you just have to finish, who cares if you’re last, you can ride through much worse pain than this — Just think about what you can learn from this, how tough this will make you.

And then it hit me — that same mantra that made me cry a month ago in Frisco. You’re already tough enough. You’ve done good. You have nothing left to prove. And I realized something — I already know I can finish the damn race. I already know that if I can physically ride my bike, I can finish just about anything. I already fucking know that. The only thing I can possibly learn in this situation is when to walk away.

So I raced the first stage of the day. And then I walked away. I’ve never DNFed a race before, not like that. (Technically, I was a DNF at Inca Avalanche in 2014 but I was vomiting uncontrollably and got carted off the course by the police escort vehicle, so there wasn’t much decision involved.) It was devastating. I felt like a failure. The hours after that decision might be the lowest of the low for my season, and fuck, that is saying something this year.

But it was quickly apparent that my decision was the only possible good one. I avoided injuring myself further and I was able to get the swelling down with some rest and a lot of ice. I haven’t tested it out on anything bumpy yet, but I think I’ll be able to ride for the Enduro Cup this weekend in Park City. And life goes on.

This season has forced me, brutally, harshly, to divorce my sense of accomplishment from race results. I’m riding completely differently than I was last year — I am fitter and faster. I don’t need race results to tell me that. I’m hitting jumps and features that are way bigger and gnarlier than I’ve ever hit before. I am looking at trails in an entirely different way, seeking out little opportunities to get air that I never would have seen before. I can actually hit corners and carry some speed.

And yeah, I’m still racing like shit. But racing isn’t everything.

I sat down last October and wrote down a list of goals — tasks, really, things I could control — to work on. I read these over this morning and I realized something — I’ve done them all. I’ve worked on everything I’ve said I was going to do. For the past ten months, I’ve poured every ounce of energy I had into being the best mountain biker I can be… training, strength work, representing my sponsors, working on skills, racing. I have done everything I possibly could. I didn’t give up on myself when I injured my knee in May. I didn’t give up after my concussion in June. And I’m not giving up now, either. The rest of my season could be a total disaster, but at least I will know that I tried, that I did everything I possibly could to make this work. I don’t need to prove that to anyone, because I know, and that’s all that matters right now. So, no matter how tired and frustrated and discouraged I am right now, I’m proud, too.

Why “Not Getting Last” is the Worst Motivation

Posted on June 22, 2016 by Syd Schulz

When I first started racing mountain bikes professionally, I lived with a constant, paralyzing fear of being last. Before every race I would scan the start sheets and try to identify people I could beat. If there wasn’t anyone slower than me on the list (which was a frequent occurrence) I would secretly hope for someone to have some sort of mechanical, just so that I wouldn’t have to see my name at the bottom of the results sheet. I’m pretty ashamed of this behavior, to be honest, but I doubt I’m the only one who’s thought this way. In fact, I know I’m not, because I can’t count how many times I’ve heard people say some sort of rendition of “I don’t care how I do, as long as I’m not last,” or “my only goal is to not be last.” This is usually accompanied by a nervous laugh, like it’s a joke, except it’s pretty obvious it’s not. Now, after two seasons of racing professionally, and racking up a pretty impressive resume of DFLs (but only one DNF, I might add), I cringe whenever I hear this. Cut it out, I want to tell people, please, pleeeeease come up with a better goal.

We’re conditioned from an early age to think that being last is the worst possible thing that happen to us. You don’t want to be the kid picked last in gym class, you don’t want to be the bottom of the curve. We’re constantly judging and critiquing ourselves based on the people around us. And while sometimes that can lead to improvement, being preoccupied with failure is almost always counter-productive. So I’m here to tell you this — don’t ever, ever (even just in your head) set a goal of not being last. It will not make you faster, and it will certainly not make you a better racer or human being.

Unless you’re racing against every single person in the world, “being last” doesn’t mean much, other than that you were the slowest person who showed up (and finished the race). There’s really no shame in that. None. All being last tells you is this — you showed up, you finished, and everyone else went faster. You will never do well and achieve your goals if you don’t show up or if you don’t finish, so you are 2/3 of the way to successful race. (And those are the harder parts, I swear.)

Here’s an incomplete list of what being last DOESN’T tell you — Whether or not you had fun, whether or not you raced better than last weekend, or last year. It doesn’t tell you if you improved, if you learned something, if you overcame something really challenging.

Being last in a bike race is hardly the worst thing that happen to a person. Living in fear of being last, however, can be actively harmful to both your well-being and your results. For starters, “I just don’t want to be last” is the best way to cultivate a big-fish-little-pond mentality. No matter how slow you are, you can probably find a race where you won’t be last. That won’t change the fact that you’re slow. Likewise, unless you’re the best in the world, no matter how fast you are, you can probably put yourself in a situation where you will be DFL. It’s all relative. If you consistently seek out situations where you’re DFL, you will get faster. You may still be DFL, but whatever.

“I just don’t want to be last” is the equivalent of wanting someone else to fail, instead of wanting yourself to succeed. It’s the whole “you don’t have to outrun the bear, you just have to outrun your slowest friend,” thing, which is a horrible saying for all sorts of reasons. Over the past few years, I’ve realized that, at least as far women’s enduro racing goes, it is not a zero-sum environment. One of us does not have to fail for others to succeed. We share lines, we give each other tips and pep talks, we help fix other people’s flats, and we remind everyone to open their suspension before the stage (I have it on authority that the men do NOT do this last one). I’m friends with almost everyone I race against. This doesn’t mean I don’t want to beat them — it just means I want to beat them when they’re at their best.

I’m not saying you should be happy about being last — I’m just saying it shouldn’t determine how you think about a race (or whether or not you race). I have some races where I was last because I totally and completely dropped the ball and raced like an idiot. I’m not proud of those. I have other races where I was last because I dragged my broken body and/or broken bike across the finish line, through some really shitty circumstances. I wouldn’t say I’m happy about those results, but I’m still proud that they don’t say DNF.

So the next time you catch yourself thinking “I just don’t want to be last,” pick a different goal. Pretty much anything is better. Choose to have fun, do your best, avoid major mistakes, etc. Most importantly — choose your own success, not someone else’s failure.

Complicated Holes: Racing EWS #2 in Bariloche, Argentina

Posted on April 7, 2016 by Syd Schulz

“And there are going to be holes, which may be complicated for some.”

This was race promotor Matias’ rather understated assessment of the trail conditions in Bariloche the night before EWS Round #2 kicked off. What Matias called complicated, I was more prone to label terrifying. To be honest, I was pretty freaked out going into this race, although it’s difficult to explain why. These trails defied classification — there was nothing truly technical about them. At least, there were no technical features, no drops, no jumps, no particularly nasty corners. There were just, well, holes. And ruts. And sand. Complicated holes and ruts, filled with sand. You get the picture. It wasn’t that there was any one thing that I was worried about — it just seemed like a massive crash could occur at well, any moment, you know, when you and your bike were swallowed by a particularly complex crevasse.

And let’s just say that my practice days had been somewhat sub par, with a few crashes that left me with bruised legs, bruised confidence and a general sense of impending doom. Okay, that might be a little bit dramatic but when I woke up Saturday morning I was not excited. In fact, I was pretty much dreading the whole weekend and if someone had given me an option of fast-forwarding my life for the next 48 hours, I probably would have gone for it.

Here’s the thing, though.

It was fine. I was fine. Like, totally fine. I even had fun, kind of, in a “fun-in-retrospect” sort of way. Here are a few highlights (because a blow by blow of this race would be like “started stage one, almost fell in a sandpit, narrowly avoided sandpit but then there was another one” on and on for six stages.)

1. For the first time ever in an EWS, people were getting in my way, instead of the other way around. This sounds bad, but this was exciting to me and I reveled in it. For like, half a stage, and then the novelty began to wear off, because I passed a minimum of three women on every stage (and on the third and longest stage, that number was more like seven or eight). But it certainly kept things entertaining and I really wish I had had a helmet cam running, because I have never encountered such chaos in race stages — people running, people crashing, people crashing while running, etc. It was a glorious, ridiculous cluster fuck and I loved it. I’m also just stoked to see so many women racing in Argentina — and not just racing, but really putting themselves out there and pushing their limits. I think some of the faster pro women were getting frustrated with the traffic jams, but I couldn’t help but find it kind of awesome. A lot of these women were, quite honestly, in over their heads, but they did it anyway, and I have massive respect for that. Plus, I’m hardly one to judge as I’ve done quite a few races that were leagues over my head and I’m better for it. (Like this one, and this one, and this one.)

2. I got really good at what my race buddy Kim termed “out-riggering,” i.e riding down a sandy rut at high(ish) speeds with one leg extended, a la an outrigger canoe. This technique bears a strong resemblance to “flailing” or “being totally out of control” but we all decided that out-riggering was a cooler name, and it was a totally necessary technique for the steep, loose and narrow ruts. I also learned that while one can maintain some decent velocity with one foot out, things deteriorate rapidly should one come detached with both feet.

3. I rode all of the things that freaked me out in practice with no problem whatsoever. Even one particularly complicated hole that I had decided to forego — in the moment, I just rode it anyway, which was a pretty major mental breakthrough, and also indicative of the fact that I was totally over thinking the piss out of this race.

4. While I had quite a few minor crashes (it was fairly inevitable in this race), I managed to avoid any time consuming trips into the bushes like last week’s face plant detour in Corral. My worst mishap was getting tangled in the course tape while trying to get out of Casey Brown’s way on Stage Three. Casey went on to finish 2nd so I don’t feel too bad about the fact that she went hurling past me at light speed on about half of the stages. (She was also super nice about it and skilled enough to take some fairly creative lines so that I didn’t even have to slow down. So major props to Casey.)

5. I was feeling some serious full-body fatigue by the end of Day 2, but still managed to put down some decent (or at least, consistent) times and avoid serious injury so I’m pleased with that. I’m realizing more and more that “keeping your shit together while exhausted” is pretty much the backbone of enduro, and definitely something I’m improving on with every race. In fact, my second day was definitely my better day relative to others, so I’m stoked to see the fitness work I’ve been doing with Matheny Endurance making such a difference. That said, my arms felt like they were one step away from rigor mortis by stage six. I knew I should be getting into a more aggressive position and being more fluid, but I couldn’t do it. I had to constantly remind myself to relax, and stop being so stiff, just to make it around the next corner. In sum, this weekend was HARD and once again, in a completely different way than Corral or any other EWS I’ve done.

6. I finished in 18th place, my second top-20 in two weeks. Sneaking into the top twenty at an EWS was a goal of mine for the year, so doing it twice early in the year is an awesome feeling. A part of me is tempted to devalue this and say that the level of these races was lower than some of the other EWS races I’ve done, but I’m trying to squash that and just be stoked on the accomplishment. Because honestly it doesn’t really matter — I set a goal and I achieved it. Maybe next time I’ll aim higher. I’m relatively pleased with how I rode these two weekends, but I definitely made some tactical errors, had some crashes and wasn’t always totally focused, so there’s room for improvement. I’m excited to get back to working on my cornering (which was maybe not at its best this weekend) and building some more strength in the gym and on the bike, now that we’re back in the US and have a few weeks of *relative* calm.

All-in-all, another challenging, frustrating, enlightening, empowering EWS weekend down.

Crashing and Completos at EWS #1 in Corral, Chile

Posted on March 29, 2016 by Syd Schulz

This past week was not what I was expecting. EWS races usually aren’t, but I do admit I sort of thought I had an idea of what I was getting into this year. Wrong again, oh well. This time, instead of being shocked by the sheer treachery of the tracks (they were actually pretty manageable), I was absolutely blindsided by the amount of climbing required to pre-ride for two days and then race. Four LONG days, 24 hours total, 200km, 125 miles and 20,000 feet of climbing. Guys, my ass still hurts and it’s Tuesday.

Going into the race Saturday exhausted was not really part of my game plan. I wanted to see how I could do with fresh legs. I wanted to race, not just cling on to my bars with jello arms and hope I didn’t get bucked. But this is why game plans are stupid for enduro, because they always get derailed. Everyone was tired, and that’s part of it. But I admit I was kind of hoping it would be, I don’t know, a bit more fun and a little less painful. That said, I’m fairly pleased with how I raced. I didn’t feel like I was getting massively psyched out at any point, and I only crashed once. I made some tactical errors and took some god-awful lines, so I’m pretty happy with a 19th place result (which is my best EWS result ever, so that’s good).

But my one crash made me look like this….

Unfortunately my one and only crash was kind of a doozy that sent me flying onto my head and then pinwheeling into the bushes, where I spent about 50 seconds to a minute (according to my Garmin) flailing upside down until the spectators fished me out (and retrieved my bike which had ended up about 15 feet farther into the bushes). I spent the next transition picking dirt out of my nose and ears and exfoliating my butt with all the sand that ended up in my chamois (I do NOT recommend this). Somehow though, I was completely fine, minus the fact that my heart rate monitor tried to impale me. Really thankful for all my POC gear for keeping my head and knees intact. In fact, I barely even have any bruises and I didn’t even break or lose my phone despite being a dummy and leaving it in the outside pocket of my backpack. Mainly I wasted a lot of time, which was a bummer, but life goes on.

Contemplating my wound

And really the best part of this race was not so much the race, but the whole experience of being on a bike in this part of the world, which is, of course, precisely why I keep doing these races even when they break me emotionally and physically. This weekend, we rode past bulls pulling logs out of the woods, took a water taxi across the bay to get to the start and finished each practice day with a traditional “completo chileno,” basically a hot dog smothered in chopped up tomatoes, avocado, mayo and spicy aji. I signed autographs for a horde of small boys who were lining the street and collecting signatures in their school notepads. One of them was like, “did you really come from so far away just to ride through our pueblito?” and I was like “yeah, I guess I did” and to be honest, it’s the most compelling reason I’ve come up with so far for why I keep showing up to these races and getting the snot kicked out of me, over and over again. Seeing the world from a bike is just, plain and simple, a better way of seeing.

Loading bikes on to the water taxi after the end of a long day.

Completo!

So now, on to Bariloche where thankfully we get to ride a chairlift, at least for practice. And this time I have no game plan, other than “no more falling on my head.”