The Cowichan Crusher is 59 miles around Lake Cowichan with roughly 4,500 feet of climbing, on a mix of gravel and forest service roads with variable surface quality and technical sections. Temperatures are mild and rain is possible, with some tree cover for protection.
This is a twelve-week plan for riders who can already put in a long day and want to build for this course specifically, on the hours you have. Most of the work builds steady endurance and time on gravel that varies underfoot, because a course like this asks you to keep climbing and handling loose surfaces well past the halfway grind.
59 MI · ~4,500 FT CLIMBING · MIX OF GRAVEL ROADS AND FOREST SERVICE ROADS AROUND LAKE · 12 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 and a mid-plan retest, so the plan runs on your real numbers
- The full Cowichan Crusher Gravel Fondo 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.