Do you want to achieve perfect cycling form on the bike? Today we're going to break down exactly why Pagacha looks so effortless on the bike. Yes, sure, some of it is genetics, but a lot of it we can deconstruct and we can build it into our own training, and that's our goal for today. Anthony, let's crack straight into the questions. I've been told my upper body moves too much when I ride. How do I develop that still and efficient pro look without feeling like I'm stiff as a board? When we talk about the professional look, there is no more professional a look than Pagacha. So I had a little bit of time on my hands and I researched to try and figure out and deconstruct exactly what makes Pagacha. We're not talking about his physiology. We're talking about aesthetically how he positions on the bike because we can copy that when we can't copy the Pagatcha physiology. Unfortunately, body position and aerodynamics is the first way I've decided to look at it. Pagatcha is quite arrow but still relaxed posture. Like his back is flat, but it's not excessively hunched. This means he's aerodynamically efficient without compromising power output because the more aerodynamic you get, you close off that hip flexor angle and you can start to compromise your power. So, he's found a real happy medium that will have been playing around the wind tunnel. But I recorded a time trial course with David Miller a good few years ago now, probably seven, eight years ago. And one of the lessons I remember from it was David Miller saying all his years in the wind tunnel that if you're to go outside the wind tunnel and look at somebody and if they look fast, they normally are fast when you analyze them. So you can start to tweak your own position and aim for that kind of paga arrow position. Like take the picture of them and try and mimic it yourself. And if it looks arrow, the chances are if you're going test it, it would be arrow. His elbow bend and shoulder relaxation is another one. He keeps his elbow slightly bent. This is absorbing all the road vibrations and it's allowing for small micro adjustments for him to balance like with wind corner in the bunch like his shoulders aren't overly tense. That means he's preventing wasted energy. You see especially newbies and everything's locked out and they feel and look kind of rattly. His hip angles open to generate power without restricting his breathing and closing off his diaphragm. Then we move into pedal stroke. If you're to look at his pedal stroke, he definitely doesn't mash on the pedals. He's not a masher. He's quite a rounded pedal stroke guy, which means we have even power distribution. He's not neglecting that upstroke. So, his form, it's maximizing power to the 360 degrees, bringing in quads, hamstrings, and calves into every pedal stroke. His cadence is in that 85 to 100 range, which just looks way more fluid than some of the harder pedlers. Like without picking on Mads Patterson, I always think he just feels like he's quite a mashy stompy pedal stroke. And then looking at footage of Pagacha, so much of it is footage on YouTube of him climbing, attacking when he's climbing. And he strikes a good balance between seated and standing. When he's climbing, he switches between the two of them almost effortlessly. He uses that standing attack strategically to get a gap without being he knows there's an aerodynamic penalty for it. So as soon as he establishes a gap, he's typically back into a more aerodynamic position without too much wasted energy. His breathing is interesting as well. He rarely lets himself go, you know, hyperventilating. It always seems quite, and you need to slow this down and watch it on 0.5 speed to nearly appreciate it. It always looks quite slow, nasal breathing, deep controlled, rhythmic, no wild upper body movements either, which means he's rarely in oxygen debt. One of the key things that Pagatcha has that a lot of us as amateurs don't have, it's well-rounded adaptation to what we're doing through strength and conditioning. I'd imagine he's doing a lot of off the bike core strength and conditioning, stuff like that. like his body is lean but muscular in those key areas like glutes, quads, core, giving him that that steadiness and that sustainability to keep that steadiness far into the race. And yeah, that's kind of my analysis of Pagatcha that it took me 60 seconds to get out, but that took me hours to figure out and watching footage of Pagacha. And look, maybe I missed loads of stuff there. So, let me know in the comments what I missed there because look, your analysis of Pagacha is equally as valid as mine. I think as well, look, this uh listener has basically been told that his upper body moves too much.
And that's really cool that you have somebody to say that to you, right? Because it's very difficult when you're on the bike. When I'm on the bike, and I know plenty of people are like this, I kind of feel like I look okay or I'm dialed in or I'm in the right place in the shop window. You got to look in the shop window. We all do that. But it is good to have somebody to help you, right? To look at your form or to maybe set up your camera and cycle past it a few times and see, do you look good? And this is literally just like watch the good lads and see what they're doing. Now, it's kind of hard to unpick. You've done a good job because I would look at Paga and I'd be like, that looks so cool. The other person that I love watching on the bike is Machi Vanderpole. Don't know how many bikes he sold for his sponsor because he just makes it look so effortless, so cool. But it is hard as a newbie to look at Pagacha Vanderpole and be like, "Oh, that's what they're doing, right? Or this is the position or that's why it looks so smooth." So that's really cool that you pointed. Well, I never heard an analysis of it. It's hard to even know where to begin to ground that conversation. And that was nearly my goal with this is to like start a dialogue around it. Obviously, bike fit every default to that answer, but it's quite a lazy answer because it, you know, it doesn't take in everything that we talked about there. Also, I think the like anecdotally since we launched our strength conditional plan, plug for that because the link is down below. Since we launched our strength conditional plan for cyclists, I've had firsthand experience seeing the transformation people have made in their stability over like six to 12 week period and aesthetically they look very very different on the bike with some SNC work and that's why I think that kind of muscular in key areas is very important. Okay. Yes, we will see Baga and those other riders at the end of a race sometimes if they're, you know, really suffering that the form does go. You can see a little bit of sway in the shoulders. Give him a break. But it's very rarely. I think he looks as amazing on the bike at the end of the race as he does at the beginning. And that's just again his, as you said, strength and conditioning, that endurance, that big engine that he's built up. But also, I will say it's going to be very difficult to look like Pagacha on the bike. He looks like the bike is kind of an extension of his body, you know? You can kind of see that with certain riders. They just look really cool on the bike. He's been riding his bike since he was very young. Is Pagache in this like very since he was a kid? I don't know what age he started, but yeah. Yeah. So, it's it's it's definitely something to kind of consider, but yeah, something very difficult I think to achieve. Okay, next question. Anthony, Milan San Ramo is coming up at the weekend. The real start to the season. I can't wait. What was your favorite ever Milan San Ramo victory? I loved 2008. Milan San Ramo. First off, it's what a race. It's really is the start of the spring classics. La Prima Vera, the start of the spring classic season and it just builds to this perfect crescendo over the Chesso into the Pio and you know, you only really need to tune in for the last 30 km and you get all the drama which is brilliant. 2008 Fabian Canelara was brilliant. They came over in a small group over the Pio and Canelara just hit them and it was a vintage Canelara win. That's like my best memory of watching Milan San Ramo but like watching footage as an Irish person kind of romantic about 1992 Sean Kelly's famous descent in Apogeio. So we had Mareno Argentine who was the world champion at the time, top classic specialist. He attacked as expected on the Pagio, but Kelly put in this mate Molesesque daredevil on the Pio. One of the greatest descents of all time to catch Argentine and to win Milan Ramos. Top off just an amazing palaras for Kelly. Yeah, cuz the Pagio is really all about even though it's about 280 km the 300. Oh, 300k. So, the Milan San Ramo is all about the last, as you said, the last kind of 15, 20, 30 kilometers, isn't it? That fills up slowly. Yeah, it kind of it's like boiling a lobster in cold water and just bringing them slowly to the boil because it just gets gradually harder and harder and harder and you're taking these climbs like Chapressa and Pogio with a lot of fatigue in your legs from a long day in the saddle because I don't think they've got the Pio itself is it's not like those ep epic abdues or anything like that.
So, I think that's a good one. Another one is you got to be relaxed when you come back because the more tension you have, the more worried you are about it. You're going to overgrip. You're going to overbreak. You're going to be like we talked about with Pagacha, he's relaxed. He's bends in his elbows. They're like shock absorbers. Everything's like it's chill. Tension is bad because it's just really results in bad boy bike handling. I think for me it would be also like when you go back to your tra your holiday, you're cycling all day and you're going down these descents. Yes, of course you want to get your mojo back, but also don't have an ego just because the lads are g going down the climb and taking every corner like crazy and they've got, you know, they've got the access right, they're leaning right over on their bikes. If you're feeling nervous, if you feel like you're going too fast, if you feel like you're out of control, if you're getting a flashback, just press your brakes. Like, you don't have to go down that descent at It's fun though. It is fun, but it's not fun when you're in that head space and you're worried. I've tried to follow you a million times going down descents and I'm just like, why am I doing this? I feel absolutely out of control. I'm stressed out. My heart rate is super high and things can go really bad for me here because I I don't know what I'm doing. So try keep your ego in check and slow as you said slowly build back up to it. No one is going to mind if you're with a group of other cyclists if this is a you know uh going with uh your club or whatever. No one's going to mind waiting for 90 seconds at the bottom bottom of the descent for you. So that would be my advice. Just leave your ego at home and hopefully you'll feel better as the week progresses. A couple more I would throw out on the equipment one. Look at what tires you're using and don't prioritize puncture resistance on tires. Prioritize grip on tires and go as wide as your clearance allows on your bike. If you can get 25s on your bike, brilliant. If you can get 28s on your bike, brilliant. Go with a tire that has really good grip like a Continental GP 5000, the new what's it like the S version with the black chili compound. Super grippy. Something like that. And then also the breaking in the corners, especially when someone's new coming back. Like you don't want to break in the corner. You want to break before the corner. You don't want to be breaking mid turn because it's really bad. And break progressively as well where you're breaking like gentle at first into the corner and then you're trying to understand it's the speed you come out of the corner matters, not the speed you go into the corner. So your front brake is going to control your speed and your rear brake is going to control your stability through the corner. So, you're trying to apply them both, but before you get there, so you can glide through the apex and carry speed out the corner. Doesn't need to be crazy speed. As we said, gradual progression, but I think your advice was good as well. Yeah, I just to kind of reiterate what you said about your kit, your tires, your pressure. I know I was chatting to a friend of mine, Miles, who is a cyclist, and he was saying that um in order to get over the yips, it's really, really good advice to geek out on exactly what you were saying, your tires. go and like really understand what makes a good tire, what's the perfect fit, what's the perfect pressure. That will give you a little bit of confidence because you take control over that rather than just dumping dumping it into the bike shop and be like, "Oh, can you just put tires on this?" Take ownership of it. Also, use our tire pressure calculator on our website. Absolutely. Which is linked below as well. Hey everybody, let's take a quick break to talk about the bike I'll be riding this season, Reap. I've been lucky enough to ride all the top brands in the world over the past few years, but these Reap bikes, they're not the same. And I'll tell you why. Reap is the first company I've seen that isn't chasing sales targets and the mass market. They're chasing something very rare, perfection. Every bike they make, it's crafted in the UK factory. And it's not about slapping a Made in Britain label on a bike from a Chinese factory. It's about control. From the first sketch to the final build, they're hands-on, ensuring that every detail is dialed in.