Waucheesi is 88 miles with about 11,500 feet of climbing on Appalachian mountain gravel around Tellico Plains — big, repeated climbing over the marquee ascents of Basin Gap around mile 20, North River Road near mile 40, and Farr Gap around mile 60. Late March brings spring conditions, with heat and humidity both possible.
This is a twelve-week plan for Waucheesi’s climbing, built around a body that recovers slower after fifty. It builds the climbing fitness the race demands with more space between the hard days, because arriving fit and uninjured is the harder half after fifty.
88 MI · 11,500 FT CLIMBING · GRAVEL ROADS THROUGH APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS · 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 Waucheesi Bike Race 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.