We're back with an episode of RIDE with Coach Parry after having a little hiatus and we've changed up the format of these podcasts so stay tuned!

Today we're heading to New Zealand to welcome Ralph Schubach onto the podcast to chat with our resident cycling coach Devlin Eyden. We discuss Ralph's cycling background, what he's training for and how we can help him.

 

Transcription

BRAD
Welcome to this edition of RIDE with Coach Parry. My name is Brad Brown. So in today's episode, we actually head to New Zealand. Our cycling coach Devlin Eyden's based here in South Africa in Gauteng, I'm based in Cape Town, and we head to the South Islands in New Zealand to catch up with expat South African, Ralph Schubach today to find a little bit about his cycling backgrounds and what he's training for and how we can help him. Some great questions on today's podcast. I think you're going to get a lot out of it. Devlin, how's it nice to catch up.

DEVLIN
Brad, how's it going? Good to be here again. And yeah, nice to chat.

BRAD
Yeah, it's been it's been a while since we've done this and the the format is changing slightly. We've been doing this sort of format on our running podcast for a while now. and it seems to be working pretty well in our communities, really embracing it and we wanted to extend it to both cycling and triathlon. So there's a couple of triathlon ones coming as well. But we have a member of our online community on the call with us today as well. Ralph Schubach who is in New Zealand. Ralph welcome on to RUN or RIDE rather, I'm so used to doing RUN now. Welcome on to RIDE, we'll get it right eventually I'm sure.

RALPH
Hey, thanks. Thanks for having me guys. And most importantly also thanks for accommodating me in the time zone because we 10 hours ahead so thank you for putting some time aside for me really appreciate it.

BRAD
No worries, what's things like in the future Ralph? At least we know the next 10 hours we're sorted the world's not coming to an end which is a good thing. That's a South African accent, you are on the South Islands in New Zealand but you're an expat. How long have you been in New Zealand?

RALPH
I've been here three years. I came across in June 2016. So well on Sunday was exactly three years since I made the step so yeah.

BRAD
Oh wow. And you were telling us before we started recording the call us from the South Coast Amanzimtoti in KZN. Winter's slightly different in Christchurch, New Zealand, as opposed to on the sunny south coast of South Africa.

RALPH
Yes, you have proper winters here. But what's amazing is the winters here doesn't stop people from doing outdoor stuff, they still walk their dogs, they still ride. It can rain, it can snow. Yes. If you're not exercising, you look outside, you see other people going out about you think you want to join. You know the weather, yeah, doesn't stop the people from getting outdoors.

BRAD
Absolutely. I mean, it's cold, but it's beautiful. It's absolutely amazing. And we're going to be talking specifically some mountain biking as well. But you come from a bit of a running background too, tell me a bit about your athletic endeavors.

RALPH
Um, yes, I started running at the age of 11. My very first race was in 1985, the Capital Climb in 'Maritzburg and that sort of kicked it off. And then I've been doing a couple of odd races and then I've done seven Comrades Marathons, one Two Oceans, personal best of 9:11 that was in 2010. Yeah, so the longing and burning desire still to go back to do my 10th, three more to get my green number so that's still on the cards. Yeah, but I just want to take up a little bit of mountain biking and I know I'll get the ten Comrades done but yeah just take up mountain biking see what they can offer.

BRAD
Talk to me about the switch, what's driven you into cycling?

RALPH
Just the amazing scenery and I think Christchurch is like one of the best mountain biking places in the world and what it's got to offer. Yeah, tranquil and the mountain bike parks and the freedom you can go ride for miles and miles and miles without seeing anybody and not to worry about your safety or anything like that you know. So what it's got to offer, I thought no I can't miss this opportunity, buy a bike, get out there and yeah. It's just something from Amanzimtoti staying up there didn't offer that type of exposure you know, so I thought well, you know, coming from a coast I can come over here and do the same thing.

BRAD
Have you found the transition from running to cycling and mountain biking pretty easy? Or is it something you struggled with?

RALPH
I struggled with it in the beginning. I still messaged Devlin a couple of questions because man I thought I could come on a bike and say you know this is it, I can chop anybody but man I've got respect for anyone who comes on a bike now because I've got the stamina and the endurance but not the legs you know? I look at some people and they're riding bikes and they come past me I thought to myself man if we were doing a 5k, 10k or a parkrun I'll smoke you, you know what I mean? But it's just that my legs have been conditioned to running so cycling's completely different. So I'm thinking, well, if I can harness that energy and just keep my legs as good as they are while running, I'm sure I can become a good, efficient and better cyclist. So I'm working at that at the moment.

BRAD
And mountain biking is a totally different beast of being on the road. I mean, I'll give an example. I was training for an Ironman a couple of years ago and I ended up getting roped into doing a mountain bike race and I was fairly fit, this is like four weeks out from an Ironman, I was really bike fit and five minutes into that ride I was like man this is just stupid. Like this is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. Mountain bike fit is something else.

RALPH
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no definitely. Especially with the mountains over here, man and the winter. You really build up a high altitude type of training, cardiovascular body, you know, and also one of the other things that inspired me is we've got a local guy here, his name is Anton Cooper, who's currently competing in the world UCI cross country mountain bike champs and I've seen him race here. And when I went to buy my bike, I thought well, is it downhill, is it trail or what type of mountain biking? So the cross country aspect appealed more to me, you know that marathon, maybe the marathon running comes in? I don't know. But I like the cross country type of event, that competitiveness and what it's got to offer,

BRAD
You seem like you've got quite a competitive spirit. And you were saying that before we started recording that you were keen to sort of take on the age group stuff and see how good you can get. Where does that come from? Have you always been pretty competitive?

RALPH
Yeah, I've always been, I compete within myself. And I know that if I sometimes race or something and I see the time that people ride and I think to myself, but I'm riding a half an hour slower, I haven't even trained. So I'm thinking if I start training and start putting things together, I'm sure I can get close to that time, you know. So I look at that from point of view and even from running point of view I always just compete against myself and the mountain biking.

BRAD
Okay, cool. Before we get to your questions with Dev. Dev, if I can bring you in here, the sort of switch from cycling to running. Often we see cyclists making the other switch, going from from cycling to running. I'm amazed that that Ralph was saying he struggled as much particularly because he is such a good runner. I mean, a 9:11 Comrades PB is rapid. I mean, that's fast. Your thoughts on on making the transition? Is it harder than people imagine it's going to be?

DEVLIN
Look, I think the switch to mountain biking is probably where it does become a little bit more difficult.

BRAD
Is that you way of saying roadies are soft hey Dev?

DEVLIN
Well, I don't want to say anything. No, I think and again, I was this weekend at the SA cross country, sort of one of our series races here with one of my elite guys. And time and time again, on the mountain bike, I see the biggest thing that actually slows people down and makes your own life difficult is technical skill, and the ability to ride your bike on technical stuff. And more often than not, that's what fatigues you. And that's where you struggle. And when you're talking about half an hour time differences, it's those kind of things that often slow you down a little bit more than just your physiology, just your legs.

So again, the transition from the running into the cycling, physiologically, you've got a really good base, you've got that foundation laid. So I think it just comes down to tweaking training, make sure we do specifics around the biking. But when you start talking about times, it's little things that fatigue you as well so technical work is something where the strength aspect might come in to strength training as well, to assist with upper body and handling your bike and the mountain bike. And so I think there's a lot more aspects that come into that need a little bit of work as well.

BRAD
How have you coped with the technical side of things, Ralph?

RALPH
To be honest, I've maybe two or three times.

BRAD
Is that per ride or overall?

RALPH
Overall, I think it's just also getting used to the terrain and all of that type of thing. Yeah, and I'm getting, well, you know, these things are going to happen. But I think I'm getting better at it. So yeah, I've got a, I'm currently riding a Trek X-Calibur. Nothing too fancy, but I'm probably looking at upgrading to maybe a specialized [***11:54] or maybe one of the Trek Top Fuel, one of those cross country bikes. But I first want to get as good as I can on the Trek before upgrading. So yes, I'd rather fall on the kind of bike that I've got then. On the new bikes, they get quite expensive hey.

BRAD
You know, he bad news is it doesn't matter how good you get you still going to buy yourself some land every now and again. It's just par for the course I guess.

RALPH
Yep. Yep, yep.

BRAD
Ralph, you've got a couple of questions for Dev. I know that the first one that you sent through had to do with climbing and the cadence and gearing on climbs? Can you give a little bit of background and ask the question.

RALPH
Um, yeah, so Christchurch is surrounded by mountains and to get to some of the best tracks, you've got to climb up the mountains and there's one mountain here, it's called [***12:40]. It's about five to six kilometre track, gravel, steady and my own question is to get stronger and to build bigger legs, do I ride that mountain on a heavier gear? And let my legs burn and all that or do a concentrate on the cadence and just and the economy you know, and obviously on the on the higher gear I know I'm going to get to the top feeling a bit buggered. But you know, I'm just trying to think of in terms of building my leg strength and power.

DEVLIN
Sure. So Ralph, this is a great question. And this is something I often get guys asking with regards to their climbing and what the optimal cadence is. I think firstly, if this is a hill that's in the beginning of your ride, and you using it to get to another point or to get to better trails, the one thing is, you might want to actually use that as a warm up rather than anything else, especially if you've got another 30 or 40 kilometres on top of that ride still to come. So from that point of view, if it's just a means to getting somewhere else, I wouldn't focus too much on using it as training, I'd use it as a warm up so lower gear, easier cadence and sort of spin your way up. In saying that though, I think it depends on where you are in your training and what you're trying to achieve.

So if we trying to work on strength type of stuff, so what we refer to as torque type of training. So torque training is where you're working a really higher gear, higher resistance with a much lower cadence. And that's when we really start to build the strength in the legs from a strength point of view. And when I talk low cadence, I'm talking anything sort of 40 to 50 RPM, so it's really low cadence and it's a big slog. That's one way if you're really building good strength in the legs, building torque, which later can be translated into good power numbers.

The flip side is, there is a time where you might need to do those sort of climbs but at a higher cadence, where we start attacking a little bit more cardiovascularly rather than trying to build strength. And ultimately when you're coming into race situations and you are being faced with hills like that, you typically going to do them in an easier gear at a higher cadence, which will get you to the top without fatiguing the legs too much, but you would have need to have done a level of that high resistance, low cadence work earlier in your training to then be able to translate that later.

So keep in mind that you almost need to, what is the purpose of the training session and if you're trying to develop strength work, then yes, high resistance low cadence. If you using it as your warm up to get somewhere else take it nice and easy just getting up. And then obviously if you're doing hill repeats where you're trying to build sustained effort for longer periods of time, then you're going to want to do it in a moderate sort of gear, something with a slightly higher cadence that you can take it up and keep working hard for the entire duration.

RALPH
Cool, thank you.

BRAD
thank you. Cool. Does that make sense, Ralph?

RALPH
Yep, yep, makes sense.

BRAD
All right. Your next question had to do with nutrition.

RALPH
Yes, um, I know back on now with running and all that if you're doing a marathon or that you sometimes get food along the way and all that. Now I've got a like a little Camelbak on my bike and now I have a good breakfast but often, I'm not talking about the Sunday cruise, if I decide to go for a solid ride at a steady pace working, after an hour my energy level starts depleting, now I'm just trying to find out, I can't take a whole shopping basket worth of food so I've decided to take nuts and an apple and all that, but what's the best type of food to sustain a mountain bike ride for about five to six hours especially if you're in the middle of no man's land.

BRAD
You need a basket for your handlebars Ralph.

DEVLIN
So Ralph, this one. This one can get tricky. So before I go any further with this, just what is your general guideline? And the reason I asked this is we've obviously got people that are trying to stay away from carbs and that sort of thing. So I just want to get that background first. Is that a concern for you? Is that something you're trying to focus on? Or do you have a pretty well balanced diet?

RALPH
Well, um, I know we don't have too much time today. But I have been reading a book and um, my current weight was 71 prior to jumping on this programme, I'm now three weeks in it, I'm now weighing 66. The only thing I've cut back is my sugar and cut back a little bit with carbs. So the book I'm reading is about being metabolically flexible where you use your fat and your carbs, but I'm not too sure. I haven't cut carbs completely. And then my wife still said to me 'Jeez, you know what you're already 66 where you going to you know, you need to start eating' so I've got a high metabolism. So after an hour my energy starts going down and then that's it. You know, I can't recover, once my [***17:45] there's no turning back.

BRAD
Was this something you struggled with running as well, Ralph, or was this just exclusive to mountain biking now?

RALPH
Running as well. I mean, if I was running, let's say a marathon or something. Yeah. After two hours, I'm starving. Yeah, I need to eat on the road, you know.

DEVLIN
Yeah. So Ralph, that's probably just what I'm picking up, and again, I might be missing something a little bit here, but I think the first thing I'm picking up is your lack of eating while you're on the bike, or running for that matter. And starting early enough. So even if you've had, if you've had a decent breakfast, and you've been eating well, all week long, and you go out on a ride, especially a moderate to high intensity type of exercise or effort level, rule of thumb is you've got anything between 60 and 90 minutes worth of glycogen stores.

So now imagine it as a fuel tank in a car, you now go out to that moderate to high intensity exercise, obviously, the higher the intensity, the quicker you're burning through your glycogen stores. If you're not topping that tank up from early on in your ride or your effort level, you depleting that quite quickly. The problem is when you do hit that wall, it's too late. So especially in the long period of ride you actually can't replenish quick enough.

So what you need to be doing is making sure one, you possibly using a carbohydrate drink or something that's got a slower release in your bottles. So if you say you're riding with a Camelbak, I would typically have water in your Camelbak. And if you can have the luxury of having two water bottles on your back, then smash two bottles full of a supplement of some sort. Again, that's why I say of some sort is that's very individual to you. So you need to play around with what works for you and what doesn't work for you. Find something that does work, and then stick to that.

So one is the taking in carbohydrates through your bottles, through liquid. And then the second would be eating but eating from earlier on. If you are taking a supplement through liquids in your bottles, that generally will be enough but you're probably sitting there anything between sort of 50 and 75 grams of carbs, and per bottle. So now you've got to make sure that you're timing it so that if you're doing a five hour ride, you've got somewhere that you can replenish. So if you're carrying a spare sachet of mix, and you just need to find water to add to it. Or if you're carrying solid food in your Camelbak, what have you.

So you've almost got to plan it on how can you take in carbohydrates, how can you take in roughly 50 grams of carbs every hour. And if you work on that sort of ratio, it helps you a little bit just to plan the rides. And if you are doing the ride, knowing that three hours down the line, there will be somewhere that I can stop and maybe buy something and that way, you also then don't have to carry too much. You can carry for that first half of the ride, and then replenish there.

So it just takes a little bit of planning, finding what does work for you. And it's the same thing when it comes to solid food. So is nuts that work for you? Is it a nougat bar? Is it raisins, whatever it might be that actually works for you from the solid point of view, and then see how you can balance that with the liquid. So personally, for me, I struggled on long rides so I've got my bottle of mix, but I struggle on long ride with sweet stuff over a period of time. So what I actually do is I have a bottle of water, a bottle of mix and I substitute those two, but then I take on food to sort of make sure I'm getting in the right amount still for the duration that's needed. If that answers that question.

RALPH
Yep. Cool.

BRAD
Cool. And then Ralph, you also mentioned that you struggle with sort of numb toes and bit of numbness. Tell us a little bit about what the story is. And let's see if we can come up with a solution.

RALPH
Yeah, especially in the winter, now, it gets very, very cold. And it might be zero or minus one. But then you got the windchill factor that drops it a couple of degrees below. And I found that the longer ride my toes, well first was my hands, my fingers, I've sorted that out, I got a good pair of gloves but then my toes. Especially if you got wet or whatever. So I invested in a pair of waterproof socks, called sealskin or something, I bought new pair of shoes and that seems to be helping a little bit, but about 70%. But now, someone's told me that my cleat position could be wrong. And where my foot is on the pedal, I'm probably with the wind, I'm starving a bit of maybe blood that's flowing to my toes. So I'm not sure if that's a problem or...

DEVLIN
Yeah so Ralph, on the cleat position thing that's I think first and foremost is to make sure that your bike setup is done correctly. So numb toes could be anything from cleat position to still sitting wrong on your saddle as well. So if we can eliminate that factor, to make sure that your setups done correctly, your cleats are lined up for you as the individual then have a look at the gear for the cold. So the cleat position doesn't really have much of a correlation to what the temperature is and what the wind's doing, your cleat position will have an effect on blood flow to your toes, restricting your toes and that sort of thing. That's the first one.

Secondly, if you wearing sealskin socks, my understanding if I know them correctly, they are quite a bit thicker as well, while wearing with thicker sock, you also might be restricting the space in the shoe. So just make sure that your shoe maybe just loosen the straps a little bit, that'll just allow the bloodflow and there's not so much restriction or a tight foot sensation. And then the next thing is obviously making sure that you warm. So you can wear what you want to wear, if you're going to get wet at the same time with wind chill, unfortunately, it is one of those things that it does suffer with. But sort of pretty cheap trick that we've used in the past is a plastic bag. So a little Ziploc bag or something, put your sock on, put a plastic bag over your foot and then put your foot into the shoe. Yes, your feet sweat a little bit more there. But at the same time you're then taking away with that little bit of wind chill factor directly to your shoes.

So maybe try something like that as well. It's a pretty cheap solution that you can try. And I mean, you get rid of a plastic bag. That is something that we have used in the past and does work really well. I mean, I've definitely made use of plastic bags quite often in winter riding. So have a look. But I think first and foremost, start with things that you can control. So start with your bike setup, making sure that the setups done correctly for you. Your cleats in the right position for you, then go what gear you have. And then on top of that, let's see other tricks that can can possibly help with it.

RALPH
Cool.

BRAD
Yeah, that bike setup's a big one, Ralph. I mean, I see it all the time and Dev, I'm sure you do too. Guys spend thousands on a new bike, but then they want to save a bit of money and they don't go for a proper professional setup with someone who knows what they're doing. And it's all good and well having a bike that's worth almost half of what your house is worth but if you're not going to spend that little bit of extra, and your set up changes over time as well. The fitter you get, the stronger you get, you need to revisit that too. It's not a one and done. You've got to keep revisiting and relooking at that as well. And it makes it makes a massive, massive difference. Have you got any other questions? Or is that pretty much, does that wrap things up?

RALPH
I've got one more question. Funny enough, I was at the gym tonight, I was doing my one hour 30 zone 2 riding and I'm three weeks in 12 week programme, and it's quite encouraging to find out that the gym, the bike at the gym, I've got it now turn up the power to get my heart rate back into zone 2 where previously I was riding at maybe a 40 I'm now at a 50. And yeah, so that is quite encouraging to know that, you know, I can do an hour and a half in zone 2 sitting at 50, whatever the unit of measure is. But yeah, before I was on 40. So yeah, that's quite good. I'm looking forward to in the 12 weeks maybe having a thing close to 100 I don't know.

DEVLIN
Good stuff, yeah, that's always encouraging Ralph and that's really good to hear. Just one thing I'd like to just add to that and maybe just keep in mind, well, maybe let me shoot the question first. Are you seeing that, was that once off this evening? Or are you seeing that now quite regularly that you can feel that you need to be putting in more power output?

RALPH
No, I can feel almost like, yeah, after the second week, I could feel that I've got more but I've got to stick to my programme, you know. So I'm really, really feeling good. I'm feeling strong. I'm almost like, wanting to race now. And you know, I can't wait to see what I'll be like after 12 weeks. So yeah, I'm actually holding back, you know, I'm really yeah, I'm really, really, really encouraged I'm strong. Yeah.

DEVLIN
Good. Fantastic. And I think I'm assuming you're using, I see on your questionnair you're using a heart rate monitor. Are you using a Garmin? What do you use?

RALPH
I'm using a Polar.

DEVLIN
Okay, so look, also it's a good thing to then start to track these measures. So track over time, what you're doing on the session, what your heart rate is, and then maybe what the power is. So have a look at the bike if you can connect your watch to the bike and see if you can get power readings, but start to take in other measures as well and track that over time to just it helps with that little bit of motivation as well to see that progress happening in other numbers at the same time.

RALPH
Yep, yep.

BRAD
Cool, Ralph. And I'm sure you've got it hooked up to the Coach Parry Training Platform too, all of those numbers get pulled in automatically if you hook it up to Strava, and then you can put notes in there as well. So if there's things that you want to add, it's just a great place to sort of have everything in one place that you want to go back, you can actually see what you're doing. So that really helps too.

RALPH
Yeah, I've been every, every night after my training, I go to the platform, I edit the values, I put in my calories, my cadence, whatever. Power meter from the gym, whatever. And I put it in. So I've been following it. Yeah. So it's all in there.

BRAD
Awesome. And your experience on the platform so far? You haven't been with us that long but your initial experience?

RALPH
It's very good. Yes, setup was really easy to find my way. But once I found it it's quite user friendly. Yeah. Very good. I go often on to the platform and see some podcasts, you know if there any bike questions someone else might have asked. It's also encouraging, I asked Devlin a question, you might get some other forum members also replying. So you're getting a lot of feedback from various people. So it's quite good, very nice.

BRAD
Awesome, awesome. Right well, we're unfortunately out of time, we love having you on, you asked some great questions. I know Dev's thoroughly sort of getting into things, you know, we can't wait, when is your race? I mean, you said you three weeks and I know you've got like a bit of a tester coming up but whens that tester and whens the big goal? What are you chasing?

RALPH
So the the tester is on the 18th of August. It's 30k mountain bike ride, cross country thing and then on the fifth of November, there's a six hour endurance race. So there's actually a 10 hour or six hours I've entered the six hour solo and see how many 10k laps you can do in six hours. Yeah, so the guy who won it last year did about 16 laps or something. So I've looked at that and said right, game on.

BRAD
I love it. Ralph, it's been awesome. And thank you, thank you for catching up with us. And I hope that helped and we look forward to engaging more on the forums and see how you're going.

RALPH
No, no worries, thank you for once again, for accommodating me. I know you guys are early in the morning. And yeah, so but thank you for opening up the space. Really appreciate it and nice meeting you.