BWR Arizona is 104 miles with about 6,600 feet of climbing across the Phoenix desert, most of it on gravel, sand washes, and rough service roads, with technical singletrack sectors and loose rocky ramps mixed throughout. Late February brings low-40s starts warming into the 70s by mid-day, open sun, and common wind.
This is a twelve-week plan for riders chasing a result, built around the higher weekly hours that racing takes rather than the volume needed just to finish. Most of the work targets repeated efforts on loose, technical terrain and handling under fatigue, because a result here comes from staying quick over the sand and rocky ramps deep into the day, not only having the fitness to reach the finish.
104 MI · 6,600 FT CLIMBING · ~60-70% GRAVEL/DIRT ROADS AND DOUBLE-TRACK, ~15-20% TECHNICAL · 12 WEEKS · 9–13 HR/WK · COMPETE
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 BWR Arizona 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.