MTB Strength Coach

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Helping mountain bikers ride stronger, longer and with fewer injuries through mountain bike-specific strength and performance coaching.

🚵 Performance Coaching
🚵 MTB Breakfast Club
🚵 MTB Back Rehab

⬇️ Free MTB Rider Assessment
www.mtbstrengthcoach.ca/

The numbers behind my climbing test.I built a climbing test that tells a mountain biker exactly why they’re slow on clim...
10/21/2026

The numbers behind my climbing test.
I built a climbing test that tells a mountain biker exactly why they’re slow on climbs. Then I took it myself. Three findings:
1. My VO2max ceiling — my 5-minute power — barely sits above my 20-minute threshold. 3.9 vs 3.8 W/kg. Three percent apart. Ceiling’s too low.
2. Good peak power, rusty sprints. 100% → 82% → 93% across five 1-minute reps. Repeatability is a skill and I haven’t been practicing it.
3. I fade 18% late in rides.
None of it needs an e-bike. The method works for anyone: test, find the limiter, train the limiter, retest.
Follow along — the training plan and the retest are coming.

Does riding an e-bike mean you need less strength training?No.The motor helps you get to the top. It doesn’t do the desc...
10/19/2026

Does riding an e-bike mean you need less strength training?
No.
The motor helps you get to the top. It doesn’t do the descending for you. More laps means more impacts absorbed, more braking forces, more time holding position — mostly eccentric and isometric work your legs do regardless of how you got up there.
Then there’s the weight. Front wheel over an obstacle, quick direction changes, correcting a deflection, riding out successive compressions — especially tired. That’s strength and coordination, and it matters more on a heavier bike.
And torque. 250 watts at 90 rpm needs 26.5 Nm at the crank — at 60 rpm it’s 39.8 Nm. The motor covers it now, so your legs stop being asked to produce it. But torque is just maximal strength expressed through the cranks. If the bike does it for you, the gym is where you keep it.
Here’s the part nobody talks about: the e-bike can actually help you get stronger in the gym. Lower the riding stress with assistance and you show up fresher — heavier lifts, better movement, steadier progress. The catch: it only works if you don’t just double your volume and erase the savings.
Train what riding actually demands. Maximal strength. Muscular endurance that’s task-specific. Explosive force. Upper body and trunk control.
The motor helps you ride more. Strength training prepares your body to make the most of it.
Full Part 3 breakdown — link in bio.

10/12/2026

Here’s the full plan.
I built a climbing test. Took it myself. It found three things: my 5-minute ceiling is too low (a VO2max weakness), my repeat efforts are rusty, and I fade 18% late in rides.
Next year: the full Squamish Enduro. No motor. It punishes exactly those three things.
The method: test to find the weaknesses, then periodize a plan that brings them up as priority one while everything else still gets developed. Retest, and the priority moves on.
And the e-bike gets rules. Three jobs — leveling the undulations so more terrain is trainable, extra volume, honest easy days. Hard efforts, the test, the race: all acoustic. If the ride doesn’t need the motor, the motor doesn’t come.
Follow — publishing the methods and the results as I go.

You can also follow on Instagram to see more.
10/11/2026

You can also follow on Instagram to see more.

10/08/2026

Trying to hold zone 2 on a rolling climb is nearly impossible. Every pitch kicks you out, every dip drops you under.
Use the assist to flatten the trail. More on the steep bits, less on the easy bits — the motor varies so your legs don’t have to.
Deliberate beats default.
Follow — publishing the methods and the results as I go.

The motor isn’t just assistance. Ised right and it serves as a training variable.Many people think: more motor = easier,...
10/08/2026

The motor isn’t just assistance. Ised right and it serves as a training variable.

Many people think: more motor = easier, less motor = harder.

Too simple. The question I ask with every athlete I coach: what are we training today — and if we’re using an ebike, how much assistance gets us there?

Turn the assist DOWN and the hill gets longer. If the motor fires you to the top too fast, the climb can’t deliver a sustained interval. Reduce it, slow down, do the work yourself.

Turn the assist UP and you’re staying in zone while the session gets sharper. Skills day? Let the motor do the climbing. Save your legs for what you’re actually there to train — the descents.

Deliberate beats default. Every ride. Every lift.

Follow — illl be publishing the methods and the results as I go.

I’m getting an e-bike to get fitter. Not to go easier — to get fitter.Part 2 of the e-bike training series.My biggest co...
10/07/2026

I’m getting an e-bike to get fitter. Not to go easier — to get fitter.
Part 2 of the e-bike training series.
My biggest concern isn’t the bike. It’s me. Give me a button that makes a horrible climb easier and eventually I’m going to press it.
So this winter I’m running an experiment, and I’m publishing the whole thing:
1 Can an e-bike actually make me fitter?
2 Can I train on it deliberately without sucking the fun out of riding?
3 Or can it make the whole training process better?
September baseline is locked in. 5-min VAM: 561. 20-min: 543 → 444. Durability loss: 18.2%.
2027: full Squamish Enduro. No motor. Nowhere for my fitness to hide.
I’m retesting everything in spring. Follow so you don’t miss what the numbers say.

10/03/2026

Every e-biker eventually tells me the same thing:
“it’s just as good of a workout.”

Might be true. But not for the reason they think.

Part 2 is where it gets practical — follow so you don’t miss it.

10/01/2026

I said I’d wait until 50. I’m 42.

Follow for the full 4-part e-bike experiment — Part 1 is at the link in bio.

Is buying an e-bike giving up?I always said I wouldn’t consider one until I was 50. I’m 42. Apparently 50 arrived eight ...
09/30/2026

Is buying an e-bike giving up?

I always said I wouldn’t consider one until I was 50. I’m 42. Apparently 50 arrived eight years early.

Follow for the full 4-part series — Part 1 is live at the link in bio.

I’m not becoming an e-bike coach — I coach mountain bikers, and more of them own e-bikes now, so I need to understand how the motor changes the training equation.

Ride an e-bike and still care about being fit? Take the MTB Fitness Assessment — link in bio.

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Squamish, BC

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