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 a twelve-week plan for masters riders, with more recovery built in than you would have needed in your thirties, because after fifty the body recovers slower than it used to. Most of the work is aimed at the repeated climbing and the technical dirt this course strings together, and the schedule is spaced so the training builds you rather than breaks you down, because arriving fit and uninjured is the harder half after fifty.
131 MI · 12,000 FT CLIMBING · ROCKY SINGLE-TRACK, SANDY WASHES, LOOSE GRAVEL, SHARP ROCKS · 12 WEEKS · 7–11 HR/WK · MASTERS 50+
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 and a mid-plan retest, 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.