1.Welcome and Sam Hill intro

Today I want to talk with Zwift Academy finalist Sam Hill. Let's cue that intro! The big question is this. How do we use cycling as a tool to improve our health, our happiness and our longevity? That is the question and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Walsh and welcome to the Roadman Podcast. Roadman welcome back to another Roadman cycling podcast today I'm going to do an interview and it's a really interesting interview I'm going to interview professional cyclist with neuro cycling team Sam Hill the story is really interesting for multiple reasons but Sam has shot to prominence recently as he got to this with finals and he was in this Zwift House, which GCN extensively covered on their channel. It was over in New York, and they had kind of a big brother face off elimination week on week inside in the Zwift House. Super fascinating chat with Sam. Before I jump into it, just a quick reminder about Patreon. I'm going to push and push and push on Patreon because it's what keeps us brand neutral and it keeps the podcast gone. It's literally the price of a point of beer. If you'd seen me out on a bar, would you buy me a beer if you're enjoying the podcast and listening to these ramblings and facilitate me getting to listen to cool dudes like Sam. If you would, just head on over to patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore watch the link is in the description. Click on it. It'll take you two seconds by me the price of a pointer beer and it just really sticks a smile on my face for the day. Okay, road man, without further ado, welcome to the roadman cycling podcast, Mr. Sam Hill. Great. Thanks for having me, Anthony. Yeah, I'm looking forward to chatting Sam. It's been a while. We've planned to chat before your Zwift Academy I don't recall it holiday, but it didn't look like a holiday Put your Zwift Academy holiday, but we didn't Schedules didn't line up so it's good to finally make it happen Yeah, it's great to be on probably for the best not not a great deal to talk about leading up to it But certainly a lot afterwards so good timing. So what's going on tomorrow? Where in the world are you? So at the moment I'm down in Balorat in Victoria, Australia watching the National Road Champs. I will be racing on Sunday which is the road race but today I just watch the criterion. I'm not sure if it's just I have exceptionally poor geography but I feel like when you're from Europe you just bracket Australia as one like area like we don't really like if you say to me like Vittoria versus Melbourne. Like I've no context as to where any of those places are. Melbourne is in Victoria, I believe it is the capital. And then Ballarat is another city in Victoria, which is the southernmost state. If you know, you can't touch my name and no one does say. Oh really, I know Australia for recently is, apart from Rondana's ripping up time trials, is it seems like you're definitely podium for craziest country in the world with COVID restrictions. Oh yeah, no, don't get me started. That's a different podcast entirely. And just different rules, depending on the stage, it's not really much unity going on here at the moment. And you took Jockovich prisoner as well, I heard. Oh yeah. And then there's that whole saga. Yeah, we like to make the headlines struck the raisins here. We're not sorry on country. I was out on a ride yesterday with a buddy and he's a pharmacist and he's real into the covid stuff. So I try and have like a covid jar when anyone mentions covid you have to put a couple of euro into the jar and as a disincentive what he just loves talking about about he was breaking down his covid insanity podium. So I think he had Austria as top of the podium, Australia second and Canada toward for just these mandates that make no sense and completely draconian laws. Yes, yes, very restrictive. And it's been hard as an Australian cyclist because so, so many events have been cancelled last year in the year prior. So, yep, not good times for Australia in that regard. Yeah, it seems just weird. I see in this morning, I'm not sure you're saying I know you're at Nationals, but Greg Van Avermaerts came out and said he's not getting his booster because the vaccine he reckons fucked up the second half of his season last year. So he's elected to not get the booster. And it's just, it's a weird time because it's just so much of it doesn't seem like about health. Because I'm not sure about you, but everyone here has COVID at the moment. And but like we've the highest vaccination rate, one of the highest in the world, I think it's like 90 something percent. And yet everyone has COVID. So it's like, it just kind of got me tinking. I was like, If I was out and you know, we were writing and early in the year and you said to me, Oh, you know what, I got a smallpox vaccine.

2.What is Zwift Academy?

I'm like, Oh, that's cool. Then we chat at four months later and I got a second smallpox vaccine. And then we chat like another six months later, you're like, I got a smallpox booster. Then I chat a Christmas and you're like, guess what? I got the fucking smallpox. I'd be like, Oh, fuck are you up to? Yeah, it is very strange. I think it reduces your chance of dying, But yeah, it's all a bit above me. I've honestly tuned out to this COVID news. I was very interested, obviously, as it kicked off. And then it's just been in the news again and again. And I'm just, oh, another different on the vaccines, sure. I'm a very compliant person. I just go with the motions as we do here in Australia. Yeah, I feel like at the news as well, just it's the dying act of a dying medium. Like if you look at viewing figures for traditional media, like news, nobody watches the shit anymore, so they need to peddle just this mad sensationalist fear mongering to get any sort of downloads. I want to get more downloads on the podcast than our National Daily News channel. Yes, fear mongering works, it's a well-known tactic, and they're doing it very well. So, it's a good way to motivate people. So, let's talk about Zwift. Let's talk about Zwift Academy. When did this actually, firstly because honestly I didn't know what the academy was before we started chatting. I knew Jay Vine had come through something calls with the academy but I generally try and for reasons we get into it a little bit later I generally try and segment cycling and virtual cycling in dual computer games as two different things. So how did the whole thing come about and what is it for anyone listening that hasn't cleared what we're talking about? Well, essentially Zwift Academy is something you enroll in on Zwift. And if you're familiar with Zwift, then you'll know you just log in and just a little banner in the top left-hand corner. Would you like to do Zwift Academy? And you click yes, and then you're doing Zwift Academy. Then you have to complete a total of six workouts or eight if you're doing the pro-contender workouts. And that is if you wish to compete for the pro contract. So I completed eight workouts and that is reviewed by I think two judges, people you know quite well, Steven and Dan from what I've heard. And if they like your power and they like your weight, then you will get picked for the final five to go compete head to head in, well this year it was May orca in Spain. That was pretty cool. Yeah, that was awesome. Mallorca is one of those spots that you haven't been there cycling. It's just it's we spoke about the COVID insanity podium, but Mallorca is probably on the podium for just nice places to roger bike. It's pretty sweet out there. Oh, 100%. I really do wish to go back there under less stressful circumstances because the whole time we were pretty switched on. And we didn't actually get to see a great deal of the island. We did. We had two days outside in total. So what is we've been? That's like in a nutshell, though, and I remember my year racing all over the States and I was racing for a team out there called Estellus and everyone's like, oh, America, most of me, beautiful. I'm like, I haven't a clue. I can tell you what an industrial estate out of Orlando looks like. I can tell you what the riders wheel in front of me looked like quite well. So when you get out to the islands, when you get into this top five, it's set up basically, my understanding of it like a big broader challenge where you're all in the house together and you compete to stay who stays in the house longest. Yes, yes, that is correct. And I've heard rumors of people, because I know, under quite who did Zwift Academy in 2017, he made the finals, it was in South Africa that year, and obviously J-Vine, the previous year, however, that was completely online because of COVID. But this year it definitely felt very, very reality TV style, much more than usual. Yeah. And look, also I can totally see both ends of this, you know, doing it in a vacuum, like you know, competing online. Maybe they're going to get the strongest, you know, writer in this virtual setting. What are they going to get, you know, the strongest personality? And you know, you just need to look, it's funny because my girlfriend got into watching cycling only about three years ago. And she doesn't really get why everyone is so into Saagat. Like I think Saagat is so amazing because his spell of the dominant was before that three-year period. Now it's just like he's a personality, he's a character, he's a chance again, maybe podiums on a good day. But he hasn't got that Vanderpohlalaf elite dominance anymore. But he's still one of the massive characters in her sport. And I suppose from Zwift's point of view and Canyon's point of view, you get to showcase personalities as well as cyclotalins in this setting, maybe that's the rationale?

3.Cycling needs more characters

I definitely think so, yeah, and personality and cycling isn't always there. I mean, a lot of us are just counting calories and trying to punch out a high FTP, so it is a bit refreshing yet. St-Pertai likes to go on, which is why it's so popular. But yeah, maybe they've backed it into a bit of personality into the, Because we did have to do videos as well, which they reviewed to make the models. So perhaps that was factored in. Because I guess ultimately the cycling team, it's a dying model and it's like, teams are really struggling. We're seeing as us Quebeca going under this year. And they're struggling because the return on investment model just doesn't seem there for putting money into a team as a sponsor. What do you get back? So it needs more characters. And I feel like we used to have those characters. We had Pantani, I'm not sure it's probably before you start watching so I can't believe we were born. We had Pantadi, he literally looked like a poiress. Like you wear a fucking bandana and race with an earring. It's easy to paint him as a villain and then to paint this, you know, clean-called All-American Hero Armstrong. It's the featured concert as the hero. And then, you know, it's every good Hollywood story where you're plotting hero against villain with twists in the script. We don't have a lot of that. Yes. No, no, and yeah, I've heard you're podcasting we were everyone's wearing helmets and sunglasses and it's like, oh, it's just one of these sky bogs on the front now Punching out a certain what's the key low lining it out? And yeah, it does feel very different now and even neeebly spoke about like Potentially he'd like to see parameter spans because it's it's taken out that instinct and it's taken out kind of Us of holes for him. It's like the Sicilian romance of understanding the climb and you know reading body language where you get guys like through him who literally dial in at their power meter and just go, I'm going to ride the highest watts I can from the bottom of this hill to the top regardless of what everyone else does. Yeah, there's a few of those dying old breeds left. I think I've read Dan Martin, never trained me to power me at his Hulk career, which is just awesome. And that's coming from us with, I love that sort of romanticism about it. But I actually feel like it's, I know what our clients, do I need a power meter, do I need a power meter? And you have this evolution of it's a great train until and you know, understand and what zone four is compared to zone three is understand and you know, the limitations of heart rate versus power. But once you actually get a feeling that like, if I ride my gravel bike a lot of the time down, I don't have a power meter on it. But if we were out trying, then you said to me, you know, buying an interval at 360. I pretty much bang on though what 360 feels like. I think I could do five watts either so either way would have an a parameter because of that experience now. So I think you can you can cycle out of that need for a parameter. Spot on. Yeah, spot on. And I also really like heart rate because like I knew my power quite well and what my zones were heading over as we've I came home and had three weeks off the back and suddenly my zone four is now like zone six and your heart rate stays constant like you know if you if I'm at 160 beats a minute then I know I can sustain that for you know like 20 minutes or so and yes I think heart rate is good for that as well. So for anyone listening who's sort of an aspiring with the Academy writer what sort of power figures if like tell me to fuck off you're not comfortable sharing them but what sort of power figures do people need to be hidden to be considered for something like Swift Academy? Well, yeah, not as high as you'd think, because you know, like everyone's saying, everyone's got a dodgy power meter file out there and they've done 6 watts per kilo for 20 minutes. But if you can legitimately do 6 watts per kilo, and that's like dual recorded, and you've actually weighed in the weight that you've stated, and you can actually do that for 20 minutes and you're a very good shot. In fact, I think everyone had an FTP waltzbekeel over under six. So yeah, if you can sort of be in that, you know, 5.5 to six range, then you're definitely a chance. But I think you hit a tire with the word actual. Like when you said this, if you can actually do this, because I know a lot of people that are like, they take their power threshold and then they're like, Oh, I didn't sleep well last night. So I'm going to bump that number up 20. And diet hasn't been great this week. So I'm going to knock 5 kg off my weight.

4.Arriving at the Zwift villa

And when you do this magic fictional maths, I feel like quite a lot of listeners are at that six figure. Yeah, especially in sport of such marginal percentages, if you're just going to give yourself 10%. Then yeah, you'll be quite well on paper. Yeah. There's no more so I don't my first. So I haven't really been trying to properly for the last couple of years. And I was in drona before Christmas and I got my first 20-minute test and my god I suffered I'm fat as a fool But I suffered so much on a 20-minute test. I was like oh my god I just my body was just crying out of me going I taught me or finished this shit like what are we doing? Where's the coffee shop? Yeah, I does feel pointless sometimes why why am I whipping myself so hard today? So talk us through to you get to the island and I actually watched the episode where you guys got to the island You get to this cool villa and you have the Canyon bikes wait for you And you kind of meet each other and that was kind of where I left off But what's the how long does it last and what's that elimination process look like? Yeah, that was the that was a Sunday before and we actually all arrived just like normally just all this together but then we did a fake arrival the next day, which was quite funny. And they're like, you know, you want to peer excited and they weren't like telling you what to say, you know, positive. Sure. So like you walk in and I'm like, yeah, it's really cool. The bike's quite nice. And like, Sam, we're going to do a retake. We want you to see him stoked. I was like, okay. I came in and I'm like, wow, this is incredible. And Alex Foggner had the best one. I'm not sure you saw his but he's like, oh, this is fully seagated. It just turned it on so hard. But yeah, and then, like, we met everyone for the first time that we'd actually already met. And yeah, it was just, it was a full media day on the Sunday before we got into the challenges from Monday to Friday. Were the challenges where you get into actually prepare like you were at a race or was there, you know, it was so like when showing in as an aftertaught around a lot of media stuff? I definitely feel like that. Yeah, so I mean, it's a long way from Australia to me, and we were on the plane for, well, I'm not sure exactly, but it felt like about two days. And we're eating a bit on the plane and like the way it's creeping up and you can feel yourself freshing up too much. And on the Sunday, we're like, we just want to go for a ride. Yeah, yeah, that'll be plenty of time for that. We just got to do a bit of media stuff. I hopped on the ergo at 7pm the night before just like, oh, that was such a long day. And I get it, you know, they're trying to make a spectacle out of it. I mean, that's the whole point. But yeah, writing did feel like a bit of an afterthought sometimes. It's so hard. That's a piece that so many people miss when they're not in the cycle and bubble. It's you're arriving at races in really our events like this, a really suboptimal condition. Everyone looks at, you know, Tour de France Reuters or guys going to the Olympics and their preparation and they go to holding camp and you know, you do a lot of shakeout rides and taper and monitor data for two weeks. Like often you're getting bunged out of the back of cars, long flights, you know, legs completely swollen from travel and eating fucking salted peanuts for two days. And then you're expected to perform and it's not easy. No, no, I'm pretty sure my ankles were still swollen for the first challenge. And the weigh-in was a bit off and no one did good power on that test. And like it's that everyone's like, oh, it's great exposure, you know, at least everyone's going to see your power. I'm like, yeah, they saw my power with three days off. And like, everyone said they could have done much more usually at home. And also one more thing is we had to do the power testing seated. We weren't allowed out of the saddle at any point, so you'd drop another few watts there. So it wasn't actually great power in the end. What was the room like for, I know, during the force lockdown here was pretty strict. It's the only time I've actually done a big block of indoor training. I know it's such a difference between a room well ventilated with a bunch of fans and when the heat buildup starts getting near, I'm just having a huge drop off and power over that he built up. Yeah, totally. It was honestly that first day on Monday, it was a bit of a he tolerance test. Everyone was dripping sweat and at home, I've spent a bit of time working my pain cave, making sure everything's great.

5.Heat, fans, and judging panel

I've got three fans just blasting in my face and all over the body. We get to Zwift Academy and it's just like this one, small gentle fan, just like someone's gently blowing air in your face. It was like nothing. Everyone's just dripping sweat. It was actually a disgusting, it stunk in there. So it was a bit of a hate tolerance test really that first day. What's the interaction like between the group of guys and the group of girls? Is it like totally incestuous love, oil and style gossip going on? Or is what's the vibe like that? Well, actually, I think like 90% of us were all in committed relationships. So here's the part you know your misses is going to listen to this podcast. Well, yeah, I mean, I don't know you'd hear much anyway, even if one of the guys was acting up. But, yeah, it was pretty, like it was good we all talked and I was like a lot of time in the common area and stuff. But as far as I'm aware, there was none of that horseplay going on. And how much interaction did you have with the two judges were Dan Fleeman and Dan Lloyd? Dan Fleming and Stephen Gallagher. Stephen Gallagher. Cool. I have much introduction. Yeah. Did you have the boys? Plenty, yeah. They sat us down, pronounced before and asked every challenge. So they were there sort of to help us out and they selected us to make the finals. But the actual judges that kicked the winner were the two Alison Phoenix judges and their names were Christoph D. Kegel and Christoph Ruchofd. I know the two boys that they have a coaching company over here, Take D, but I know Dan Lloyd who's GCN used to work for that coaching company as well. So I assume it's a little bit of jobs for the lads there. Yeah, yeah, totally. I'd definitely be to that, I think. But I mean, everyone did a great job. Well, I know if Dan Flamin used to coach me back when I was in France, he's a super nice guy. And he's a good coach as well. He's been at at a long time and I think that is important as well just how long you're at something because you see a lot of guys coming in especially guys who are you know, Conti-roiders not getting paid very much or not getting paid at all and they're like oh yeah I'm a coach now and you're like okay cool but like you won't be a coach in two years time like you see them transitioning out all the time and so it's cool to see career coaches like you know Dan Flaming and Stephen Gallagher staying around and just making an impact over such a long period of time. Yeah, for sure. And I mean, it's like one of those things as long as you do it, the better you become at it. So, yeah, no, they're really helpful. And yeah, they also just love to joke around and take the pressure off. So it's actually really refreshing to cut away from the seriousness of it all. What do you think about the model of throwing a lot of people into a house in basically, yeah, kind of like a reality TV show off against each other? Like, is it a model that that you can see teams going for going forward? Look, I think it's a great spectacle. And the thing with us finalists is we're all so desperate to make this contract like we will do anything. Like you talk to these guys and yeah, they're just, everyone has the same dream, everyone's waking up every morning, thinking of being a pro cyclist. So I mean, the producers are rubbing their hands together like we can get these guys to do anything. Yeah. I think it's a great model, very entertaining, and there's legitimately pro contracts on offer, so everyone wins out of it. I know the heartbreak of not just the exact type of model, but I came up playing soccer, and we call it football over here. It's that idea of showcasing yourself and having really heard like fork in the road selection points. is mentally, I've been on the right side and the wrong side of those cuts over the years with talent ID and stuff coming through, cycling Ireland and getting picked for talent ID and being elated and seeing other guys getting caught and just looking to be so devastated. There's such an emotional toll to that harsh system. Everyone that's there is so young. I just wonder about the emotional toll it takes on them. Some people undoubtedly won't bounce back from those sort of, you know, very public displays of you weren't good enough. Hmm, definitely. And this was the first year they introduced eliminations. And they did a very, very good job of keeping that secret. So on the Wednesday night, we had a challenge Monday, Tuesday, and on the Wednesday night, they caught us in for a meeting, and we just thought they were going to, you know, brief us for the next day's challenge. And they said, you know, Simon and Dan come out and they say it's not that it's going to be a shock elimination and it caught us all by surprise like I'm sure there's some great jaw dropping going on and yeah are they eliminated the Danish guy at Mads who's super nice guy and Willamite in the women and yeah it was it was totally brutal.

6.Elimination heartbreak and Aussie pathway

Mads you know probably won't like to admit it but he was he was welling up and I would have done the same too so it was really harsh in that sense and I really felt for him. It's crushing your dreams, I guess. Yeah, yeah, the dream is just literally just crushed so quickly. And it's like, you just got to spend the next two days around everyone and, you know, try and keep your positive attitude, but, oh, I'm not sure I could have been that positive if it was me who got eliminated. And why did you elect to go this route? I know it's different for you guys as Aussie, so it's maybe getting a little bit insight into the Aussie culture and a little bit insight into your mindset around this. The traditional route here in Europe is the route I tried to go and I tried to make it as a world or order. So you get quite good domestically, then you're going to get to a dominance level domestically, then you move to France or you move to Belgium. And you do, we call it the mettier, the apprenticeship, where you go into a French division national team, you earn your stripes, then you move to a continental team with the hope to step up to world or year after. or some really talented people will step straight from the French team to world horror teams. This just seems like a totally different direction to go to pursue a world horror license. It is, it is. And so in Australia, we have maybe four or five continental teams. And you may have heard of Team Bridge Lane, they're quite established and they usually send a squad out to Europe every year. And that's who I was writing for last year in 2021. However, with COVID, you know, I'm 26 now. So I'm really like trying to make the most out of every year now. I'm writing at a time a little bit. So not only was COVID around and the trip to Europe looked unlikely, I was also struggling to make 18 guys on the team now picking 7-man teams. So I couldn't get a run on like I missed two at an under and the Melbourne's Warnable, which is not Big Race in Australia, and I just couldn't get Cuche. So I kind of cracked the shits a little bit and left the team and joined my old team, Nero, which is a really, really good team and I'll stay with them for the disabled future now and not make the mistake of leaving. Anyway, so that's what I thought. JVine, who wrote for Nero the previous year, one's with Academy and was living the dream in Europe and I thought maybe that's how I could make my point. And as it turns out, Bridge Lane ended up going to Europe and there probably was a spot there, but I'm like, nope, I've committed to this pathway now. So yeah, that's kind of how I got into it. And is it something that's done or is it something that you'd consider to just move to Belgium as a solo rider and go and impress into Kermesis? It definitely, it would have been the thing is, I probably wasn't quite good enough as a you know under 23 right on and I've developed late and I've got my power sort of in the last couple of years and I'm very rooted now in Australia so I have a I'm a high school teacher at Tamworth High and you know I'm getting married in February and who knows like my start a family sometime in the disabled future so to actually go over there and do it the really hard yak away to live in a share house with seven-hour people on minimum wage and be away from home for eight months of the year. I just don't think that's a feasible option for me at the moment. It was kind of like an all-in personality because we've just had to be like, this is, this doesn't work out then on ride bikes for fun, I'll enjoy it, but it's kind of all-in. It's so hard to the French model, the Belcher modeler either because it's you can have no attachments in your life. I when I went out to France, I was living out again like that in a shared house, you're racing four times a week, you're living off 50 year old week, which isn't enough to buy any sort of good food. It's like I had a girlfriend at the time and literally your center like I'm going away for the next nine, 10 months. It's just it takes such the opportunity cost of doing it is so so high. And it's like fucking Charlie the chocolate of actually trying to find that golden ticket because so few riders make it. So that's why I think the Swift model is interesting, but then again, I just, I feel like there's so many flaws in Swift as a platform. And I kind of opened the conversation by saying, like I do like to segment between actual cycling and indoor gaming. And I was kind of saying that tongue in cheek, but Swift has had this crazy sprawl in the marketplace where they're now sponsoring so many teams, you know, they've such presence on front of us as we see with a lot of software companies because their model just makes so much sense from a business perspective.

7.Why indoor riding lacks contrast

But culturally, I feel as a society, we're just in this place now where we're trying to take the discomfort out of everything like cycling should be hard. Like sometimes you should go out and you should get cold, you should get rollerash, you should get lost, you should have mechanicals. It's this uncomfortableness, that's where the growth is. And that I feel is like the antique dog to a lot of our sort of modern suffering and not to, you know, get to grandiose with this. But I just love the idea of contrast. And that's what grounds me. It's, you know, if I go out and ride in the rain for four hours and the freeze and calls, and then I come home and I watch Netflix with my girlfriend on front of the fire, the contrast of those two is just makes me so happy. And I don't get them contrast when I ride indoors because it's not the same thing. Sure, you can put the physical effort down, but it's not the same. It's not what we traditionally know as cycling. That's right. Yeah. It's definitely an easy option after work to hop on the kicker, but you don't really develop those skills either that you need. So, I mean, I spend so much time on Zwift leading up to Zwift Academy finals because I thought that would make sense. I got over to Zwift Academy finals where sending it down wet descents with banda pole and I've got Euro brakes instead of Aussie brakes and I'm like holy shit I'm going to die because I've forgotten how to corner because I've just been riding Zwift so you miss out on all those experiences that you need like racing and you know packing food and making sure you've just all that stuff you need to be mindful of when you're out there you know doing it properly in the real world. Like there's literally no power you can do you could do knowing what's a kilo if you start at the back of a peloton that is launching it into a climb. The difference between good position and bad position can only be understood when you've actually experienced the difference between good position and bad position. Being out of position is just you won't come back from it. I know Jay is suffered with it this year. Jay Voyan, where Albus and Fenix has suffered with it, and he suffered with the stigma of coming from the gaming background where he's finding acceptance within the bunch quite difficult. I don't know, it just feels like more and more. I can see it even in local races. We're getting a lot of these kind of fastest man on the internet. Well, it's going, oh, I can do six watts per kilo. And it's like, yeah, you can't go around a corner, you can't position, or you don't know which way the wind's coming from, or you don't know how to change your raincoat on a bad day when you're still moving. It's cycling is such a nuanced sport and swift deals with one aspect of that quite well. It's so true. So true. And that's exactly the sentiment of the Ops and Finis coaches. They actually, they came up and said to me like, Sam, your power is good. We don't care about your power because we know it's good enough to be there. You need to take power if you're head unit. You need to work on your cadence and you need to be able to corner better and basically descend better. And I was like, okay, I've been focusing on power for the last three months. hands out that has shot me in the foot a little bit. Well I've seen like obviously we're coaching hundreds of athletes around man I get to kind of look in over a power for us and like you wouldn't believe how little power can win bunch sprints. Like I've seen guys win a big big boy crisis where 800 watts power put now for like not even holding it for the full 10 seconds. It's just position it's kicking at the perfect time it's going on the sheltered side it's been delivered perfectly and these These skills are just, they're, I don't want to say they're doing because there's definitely places that are silently still teaching these skills. And we mentioned France and we mentioned Belgium, but I feel in the English speaking countries we're getting our priorities wrong and we're confusing and conflating with, with real cycling to make real bike riders. It's making real good gamers that are really good at doing one specific thing. Like you won't beat the power on somebody's with guys. I'm sure Vanderpow wouldn't beat the power on someone else with guys. I probably don't. Yeah, it's definitely definitely the case. It's I mean to this, have you ever heard of this Japanese term? It's called the soaky. No, it's really cool. There's actually what we're reading up on. I'm just reading a lot about it lately. It's a it's a Japanese purification ritual. There's a portion of Japanese people trying to go through each year. So the idea of it is to try and do something that's super physically challenging, something that pulls you so far out of your comfort zone.

8.Comfort, failure, and modern life

And it's defined as something that has a 50-50 chance of success or failure. So for you, riding a 300km, it's going to suck, but it's not a 50-50 chance of failure. You're going to get through 300k, even if you haven't tried it in a month. It's going to be like, oh fuck, got a saddle sore, but you're going to get through it. But for you maybe to go out tomorrow and to run 20 mile cubby and mesoges because maybe you haven't ran in the last six months. So you have a 50 50 chance of completing it. But the idea is by doing stuff that's really hard that we have a chance of failing in. It kind of grounds us in almost like that idea of contrast that I painted between going out in the rain and watching Netflix. The idea that if we do super hard things, it gives us this grounding for everyday life from a much pure or happier place. I actually really think there's something in that because it's like if you look at the evolution of humans, we've evolved over millions of years, evolution is really slow to catch up. But tech has been really fast to accelerate. So we're essentially a machine or a creature that's not designed for a lot of these modern comforts. And Zwift, I feel like, is one of these modern comforts. It's like sitting in the living around with your girlfriend and your biscuits when you're doing efforts on the tour boat. It's just such a comfort that we're not used to. I don't think it's making people happy. No, and you definitely don't get that risk of failure. If you're on Zwift, you have to do 10 minutes and 300 watts worst case scenario, you've done 10 minutes and 280. It's like, that's not a failure. You've just hopped on the bike and you've gone a little less hard. Whereas, if you fail out on the bike, then you know, that's something you're going to learn from a lot more. Yeah, definitely agree with that. Or you know if you blow on, because I know, like, I know you're trying to scroll back on your Instagram feed and I've seen you some pretty shit weather and stuff. So, you know, if you blow like two hours from home on a cold, west windy day, like you still have to get home. If you blow on Zwift, you're in your living room. Yes, and I've been guilty of that. So they have definitely been horrible weather days. I'm like, I'm going to hop on Zwift and you're doing L and you hop off and you make yourself a Jan's sandwich. You take the scour on the cricket, you hop back on. It's been the least stressful four hours of your life and you go to bed. But yeah, you can only do that for so long before it just starts to get sad and you need to go outside and actually have a bit of a dig. But I do get the tempting side of it and it's very convenient because not everyone wants to push themselves to their absolute limit all the time. So, but yeah, it is so important to get out there and just properly suffer and risk failure. And that's why I am a little bit conflicted with Swift, because I can see it from your end as a pure physiological tool where you're like, OK, I can do an effort of 350 watts today. And it's going to be 350 watts. I'm not getting caught with a stop sign. I'm not getting caught where bad surface or road closure or whatever else interrupts an introvert. you get the perfect interval. I know so many of our clients and so many podcast listeners, they roids with and when their primary consideration shouldn't be the physiological effort. They should have that as a consideration, but they've a rake of order considerations, I think, like getting vitamin D exposure to the sun, getting just wind in their face, getting out and experiencing extremes in temperature, warms and huts, learning how to corner all those skills we talked about and to just focus on that narrow physiological adaptation. I feel like you just miss so much of what cycling is. So much and one big thing that you do miss on Swift is adopting an arrow position because you just get so strong in that upper position which sure like if everybody's doing because he puts off finish then, why not? But so often we're racing on the flat and it's a flat finish. And if you can do, you cannot go close to your FTP in an error position if you're on sweet all the time. So for me, that's a really important thing. And that's what gets me out on the road a lot, is to make sure I can ride aerodynamically. Yeah, I'd actually love to do a survey of our clients because I know anecdotally. And the people who train indoors versus the people who religiously trying outdoors. There's a definite difference in their happiness levels. Like it's anecdotal and it's a small sample case based on the clients that I know, for some experience of. But to do two are just outside regardless. They're just the bubliest, happiest fucking, you know, and it's causation correlation that they ride outside because they're happy or they're happy because they ride outside, fuck else.

9.Rohan Dennis's China crash

But it's just an interesting observation. And yeah, we have too much screen time. And we're broken as a society, something's wrong. Like you're looking at OPI crisis, how connected we are yet, how lonely we are. Is that related to suicide levels? Like fuck not, but something's not working. And my theory on it is we're not evolved for the living situations we're in right now. Yeah, that's an interesting observation. And there's definitely something to learn. And yeah, there should be, there's definitely like a tipping point. I don't think like you should never not ride to it. But yeah, there's definitely, if you're doing that five days away, then you need to get out there. And yeah, like if you're running outside and you have that contrast in your life, then I'd say there's a good chance you'll be happy. Sam, briefly, if you're comfortable talking about this, I was doing a bit of research for the podcast and I noticed your Ruller was quite far enough in your cycling development. And then he had quite a nasty smash on the bike. Do you mind talking to us a little bit about that? Yes, my only question is which nasty smash. I would have been more towards. I've seen him like four or five. Oh, really? I've seen one in China where he broke a bunch of vertebrae. Yeah, that's the worst one. So he was doing a tour of Hainan, and basically attempting to bridge cross to the brake. And I think he might have been on Eurobrake, so you might have got a puncture of something and the brakes walked over. And he basically went off the side of a cliff and broke a bunch of vertebrae. And last rate of this, I think he bit some of his tongue off. It was horrible. And because he had, last day he'd broken his vertebrae, he couldn't fly home because he had to be flying flat. And so he was over in China, I think maybe like three or four weeks, maybe longer, I could have been five weeks. And by the time he got to a point where he could sit up and actually fly home, his visa had expired. So then there was that whole barcode. Oh, it was bad, yeah. He had to figure out how to extend his visa. If that was going to be some serious punishment. And then actually extended his day for, I think, another week. And then I kid you not, he got delivered home to Newcastle on Christmas day to my oldest brother, Chris. My parents, his wife. And yeah, it was so good to have him back. And is he still riding the bike? Is he still chasing pro contracts or is that Spanish? He did. He chased a pro contract for the following two years and he got close. He won some UCR racing Italy and he won a stage of tour of Japan. And he was sort of in the mix but just not that big standout result. But yeah, he gave it a good track and he still rides for fun. He loves it. So he'll always ride his bike. And just to finish up some what's your plans now, are you still gonna chase the pro dream or will you go back and have another crack on Zwift Academy? Or will you try and come to Europe for a block and make a name for yourself? That's it, yeah, it's a funny one. They did bring that off. They said there's nothing stopping you from doing Zwift Academy again, but personally, I think they probably won't kick another, a previous finalist. And even if they did, I'm not sure if I want to go through that whole ordeal again. So I will continue to race with neurocontinental and they will take us over to Asia and will be exposed to some big races like ideally it'd be good to do some 2.1s over in Asia. And who knows if I can get a result there. But yeah, I'll just take opportunities as they present themselves and try to be the best version of myself. And Sam, for Lars listening in, I want to follow you. I want to see. I wonder did Sam forget that pro contract in the end. What's the best way to keep up with the Sam Hill journey? You can follow me on Instagram Shield 95 shield underscore 95 and Facebook Sam Hill cycling Sam legendary stuff. I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna watch this with the Academy now in honor of this shot I gotta check it out. It's a great job with you any parting final words you want to leave us with? Yes, maybe just be wary of Zwips Academy for those young up-and-comers. This year it turned out to be a continental contract. So Alex Bonnyo, who, one Zwips Academy, is not actually a pro-cyclist technically speaking. He's on a three-year development contract with their development team, which is great. That is unreal and probably the best outcome point really. But yeah, it's not always what they say it's going to be and they can, just like every ID TV show, they can portray you how they want you to be portrayed. So there's definitely a few times where I was watching and I was like, yeah, I don't know about this.

10.Pro contract bait and switch

It was a bit sketchy, purposely a mid part anyway. So just be wary. That's the only thing I'd like to say. That's really interesting. I didn't know. I just assumed it was a world tour contract. And they say, I don't know about your interpretation of pro cycling, but I would only really count pro cycling as world or pro continental. If you're getting a big enough salary to live on and pay your bills, stepping to another continental team would have been technically just a sideways step for you. How do you want this with the academy? That is correct. That is correct. Yeah. So if I was offered a continental contract with their development team, I'd definitely say would have considered it, but it's not a guarantee I would have actually taken that, because I'm already on a continental team and to uproot myself and move over to Europe, it would have to be for a pro continental contract. So yeah, I don't know what went on. Like, there's a lot of smoke and mirrors and a lot of words being said out of e-shots. But yeah, it ended up being a continental contract in the end. That is slippy as fuck, because I watched our forest episode and that was not the the assumption because they rolled out J-Voy and they mentioned pro-contract and there was definitely a bait and switch going on there. Yeah, I heard the news when I got home and I was a little bit angry because they're offering a pro-contract and they're not going to give a development contract to a 22 year old for three years. I'm going to be over the chance by then. So yeah, I feel like if that was what was on offer from the start, then I could have, you know, I could have raced elsewhere, I could have done something else with all that time and got spent three months on the bloody yoga. But anyway, I mean, it was still a great experience. So I can't be too upset. And did Alex get a salary with our contractor? I'm assuming yes, because I mean that he needs to exist somehow. He needs to buy himself a bit of food. So he'll be living over in Gerona. You might run into him there, but I'm sure I can find out. Because I suppose, you know, living in Jirona, so for listeners, there is minimum wages at each level, but there's no minimum wage at continental level. So, you know, technically he could be getting paid absolutely peanuts for this year in Jirona. Like they've thrown into a team house and, you know, give them like basically Moyale deal in France, there's 50 year old week for you to, you know, feed yourself and hear some kiss. That's right. I mean, it would be, it would be really bad payoff as we've, if Alex born your star to death over in Toronto this year. I'm sorry. We've been on the street somewhere, begging for spare change. He's tough dancing on the road with an Alpusn FedEx cop. So I assume they've run a few numbers and they're like, we need to make sure he doesn't go angry. And really, no, it could be they could be paying him what they pay their pro-concy guys. But yeah, so. Stay tuned to the podcast. I will find out which and I will blow the lid on this. Test the game. Reporting. Sam, thank you for a chat and thank you for taking the time. Congratulations on your performance in Zwift. And hopefully we see you on a big screen rocking the world towards Jersey real soon. Greg's in. Greg, thank you Anthony. It's been a pleasure. Cheers. All men, before you rush off, I want to mention something completely new. We recently just formed the new Roadman Cycling Club. So there's two elements to this club. One, it's a virtual club. You can join it anywhere in the world. And two, it's an in-person club based in Ireland. So if you're a racing cyclist in Ireland, then you're looking for a team to to race in the colours of next season. If you're looking to hang out with some amazing people and do group rides on the weekend, go and check it out. It's roadmancycling.com forward slash roadman CC. The link is in the show notes. Hope you can join us as part of the new Roadman Cycling Club.