Belgian Waffle Ride San Diego is 131 miles with about 12,000 feet of climbing and roughly 40% off-road across 23 sectors, on rocky single-track, sandy washes, and loose gravel sharp enough to be notorious for flats. The technical terrain starts early at Lake Hodges around mile 35, the climbing toward Palomar’s base comes at mile 85, and the final dirt at mile 120 arrives when you’re already tired.
This is an eight-week plan for riders who can already ride long but haven’t built for the mix of distance, repeated climbing, and technical dirt this race asks for in one day. It works from the hours you actually have, seven to eleven a week, with most of that time going toward time in the saddle and handling rough surfaces on tired legs, because getting across 131 miles like this comes down to still riding well when the terrain gets hard late.
131 MI · 12,000 FT CLIMBING · ROCKY SINGLE-TRACK, SANDY WASHES, LOOSE GRAVEL, SHARP ROCKS · 8 WEEKS · 7–11 HR/WK · FINISHER
WHAT'S INSIDE
- Structured workouts on your calendar, with real power and heart-rate graphs
- Strength work built in, with video walkthroughs
- Weekly notes from me, plus the Gravel Grit mental program
- A testing week, so the plan runs on your real numbers
- The full Belgian Waffle Ride San Diego guide — terrain, gearing, fueling
Hey! I'm Matti - also known as the Gravel God himself!
If you're into gravel racing and want to be as fast as possible, you had better choose me!
Why?
Because I'm the fastest, least talented person to ever ride a bike. I've made every mistake in the book so you don't have to and I'm here to save you years of failure and struggle.
When I'm not helping my athletes get faster on a bike I write obvious, overlooked training content that makes cycling training easy to understand.