Supercell thunderstorms and tornadoes brought devastation to several central states earlier this week, and the danger is far from over.
Author Archives: Xordac Prime
Sony’s Boss Battle Is Trying To Defeat A $2.7B PlayStation Store Lawsuit
Sony isn’t just having to deal with the headwinds of higher component costs and an increasingly competitive gaming landscape where a game can get shut down if it isn’t an immediate hit, it’s now also having to contend with a hefty lawsuit filed in the UK. The case against the company has been brought to London’s Competition Appeal Tribunal,
Thank God For Brie Larson On The Super Mario Galaxy Press Tour
The voice of Rosalina seems genuinely thrilled to be taking on the role
Verdict: Yes, you should go see Project Hail Mary as soon as possible
First, in the plainest language, before we get to anything else, Project Hail Mary is a fantastic film. It does right by its source material, and it also easily stands on its own for folks who haven’t read the book. It comes out on March 20, and if you’re a regular Ars Technica reader, you will almost certainly enjoy the crap out of it. Go see it as soon as you can, and see it in a theater where the big visuals will have the most impact.
Next, a word about what “spoiler-free” means here: In this short review, I’ll talk about stuff that happens in the movie’s many, many trailers. If you’re an ultra-purist who is both interested in this film and who has also somehow avoided reading the book and also seeing any of the trailers, bail out now.
Otherwise, read on!
This Sony OLED TV Is $200 Off Right Now
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OLED TVs have become the standard for people who want deep contrast and cinematic picture quality at home, but they often come with prices that stretch well beyond most budgets. That’s why discounts on models from major brands tend to draw attention, and the 65-inch Sony Bravia 8 OLED (2025) is currently $1,198 on Amazon, down from $1,398. Price trackers show this is the lowest price it has reached so far. The other sizes are discounted as well, with the 55-inch model at $998 and the 77-inch version at $1,798. The Bravia 8 gives you the deep blacks and strong contrast people usually buy OLED for, but it is not Sony’s brightest or most color-accurate model. Higher-end options like the company’s A95L OLED push those aspects further, but they cost significantly more.
The Bravia 8 has a nearly bezel-free display, and around its back, you’ll find four HDMI ports, including two that support 4K at 120Hz and one with eARC for audio systems, plus USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports, Ethernet, optical audio, and an antenna connection. Sony uses Google TV as the operating system, so apps like Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV, and YouTube come preinstalled, and you can cast from phones or laptops using Google Cast or Apple AirPlay. It also has built-in Google Assistant support, meaning you can search for shows or control compatible smart home devices using voice commands.
Picture performance reflects both the strengths and limitations of this model. Like most OLED TVs, it produces perfect black levels with no light bloom, and the infinite contrast ratio makes movies and darker scenes look rich and detailed. Plus, the panel has 4K resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate, along with support for Dolby Vision, HDR10, HDR10+, and HLG. That said, brightness tops out around 587 nits, which is decent for OLED but not as high as many premium LED TVs, and PCMag notes that colors lean a little cool by default and that very dark scenes can lose some detail in deep shadows. Gaming performance is solid, though. In Game mode, the TV shows about 4.6 milliseconds of input lag, well below the threshold most players look for, and it supports variable refresh rate for smoother gameplay.
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ASUS Calls Apple’s $599 MacBook Neo A Shock To The PC Market
Apple is poised to disrupt the lower-cost laptop market with the launch of its MacBook Neo, a $599 notebook that is the cheapest MacBook ever released. It will take some time to gauge the full impact of Apple’s foray into more budget laptop territory, but here in the early going, the aggressive price point is drawing attention by Apple’s competitors
Overwatch’s Nier: Automata Skins Cost Far More Than Nier: Automata
The collection of five dress-up outfits is nearly twice as expensive as the game the outfits are based on
Meta To Charge Advertisers a Fee To Offset Europe’s Digital Taxes
Meta will begin charging advertisers a 2-5% “location fee” to offset digital services taxes imposed by several European countries, including the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, and Turkey. Reuters reports: The fee, for image or video ads delivered on Meta platforms including WhatsApp click-to-message campaigns and marketing messages together with ads, will apply from July 1 and will also cover other government-imposed levies. “Until now, Meta has covered these additional costs. These changes are part of Meta’s ongoing effort to respond to the evolving regulatory landscape and align with industry standards,” the company said in the blog.
The location fees are determined by where the audience is located and not the advertisers’ business location. Meta listed six countries where the fees will apply, ranging from 2% in the United Kingdom to 3% in France, Italy and Spain and 5% in Austria and Turkey.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Pokémon Pokopia Essentially Has A Hidden ‘God Mode’ That Makes Everything Easier
It takes work to unlock, but Ditto has an incredible transformation you might not know about
D7VK 1.5 Released With Direct3D 3 Now Implemented Over Vulkan
The open-source D7VK project began to implement Direct3D 7 over Vulkan similar to DXVK and VKD3D-Proton providing support for newer Direct3D APIs atop Vulkan. With succeeding releases D7VK was extended to Direct3D 6 too and then Direct3D 5 support. Now with today’s D7VK 1.5 release, Direct3D 3 is implemented for faster acceleration using Vulkan…
Blink’s New 2K Outdoor Camera Five-Pack Is Over $100 Off Right Now
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The new Blink Outdoor 2K+ (5-Camera System) is currently $226.99 on Amazon, down from $349.99, and price trackers show this is the lowest price it has reached so far. Spread across five cameras, that works out to about $45 per camera, which is cheaper than buying them individually. A five-camera kit like this generally makes the most sense for a typical single-family home or townhouse, where you might want coverage at the front door, backyard, garage, and a couple of side entrances. In a small apartment, it may be more cameras than you need, but for a house with multiple outdoor entry points, the bundle saves you from piecing together a system one device at a time.
The cameras themselves are small and easy to place almost anywhere. Each measures approximately 2.8 x 2.8 x 1.6 inches and features an IP65 weather-resistant design that is dust- and water-resistant. Setup is straightforward because the cameras run on two AA lithium batteries that Blink says can last up to two years, depending on how often motion is detected. The bundle comes with the required batteries, mounting hardware, and a Sync Module Core that connects everything to your home wifi. Once installed, the cameras record 2K video (2,560 × 1,440) with a 135-degree field of view, which is wide enough to capture most entryways or driveways without much repositioning. In real use, footage tends to look sharp, with enough detail to pick out faces or license plates at reasonable distances.
The cameras also offer two-way audio, motion alerts, night vision, and a temperature sensor that can send notifications if conditions cross a set threshold, according to this PCMag review. Plus, the Outdoor 2K+ adds new software features, including AI-generated descriptions of recorded events that summarize what the camera sees. Those tools are helpful, but they highlight the system’s main trade-off: many advanced features require a Blink subscription plan, starting at $3.99 per month for one camera or $11.99 per month for unlimited cameras (to include AI features, the basic plan starts at $6.99 for a single camera). Without a subscription, you lose access to cloud-stored video clips. Another limitation is ecosystem support. The cameras work with Amazon Alexa and IFTTT, but they do not support Apple HomeKit or Google Home, which may matter if your smart home runs on those platforms.
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Valve Reveals Requirements for Steam Frame Game Certification
Valve has finally revealed a few key requirements games should aim for if they plan on running on the upcoming Steam Frame headset—at least if they want the coveted ‘Steam Frame Verified’ badge.
The News
In Valve’s ‘Steam Hardware’ talk at this year’s Game Developers Conference (GDC), the company showed off two specific stats that games should hit in standalone mode, noting that games will be tested in order to achieve the Steam Frame Verified badge.
For games running natively on the headset, Valve says VR games need to hit a minimum of 90 fps, which is notably higher than Frame’s minimum variable 72Hz refresh rate. Information was provided by XR analyst Brad Lynch.
Steam Frame can also download and natively play non-VR content too, although performance minimums are much more lax here, requiring a minimum of 30 fps at a resolution of 1,280 x 720.
For contrast, on the Horizon Store VR games must hit at very least 72 fps to match Quest’s minimum 72Hz refresh, while general media can hit a minimum of 60 fps.
Additionally, Valve says games must offer a “legible UI” in addition to full playability with Steam Frame controllers.
The company says games that are ‘Verified’ or ‘Playable’ on Steam Deck are automatically tested for the Frame Verified badge, as seen in the flow chart above. Games that aren’t supported on Deck due to performance or lack of compatibility with SteamOS won’t be considered.
As for PC VR gameplay, Frame’s direct WiFi 6 connection and Foveated Streaming protocol are said to run without requiring any sort of test or verification program.
“If it runs well on your host PC, it will run well on Steam Frame,” Valve says, noting that streaming requires no special integration, VR titles included. You can check out the slides for Valve’s Steam Hardware presentation here.
My Take
The jump from 72 fps to 90 fps may not sound like a lot, but it represents a roughly 25% increase in rendering workload, meaning developers hoping to directly port their games from Quest may need to optimize a fair bit to maintain Frame’s higher target.
Quest 3 and Steam Frame aren’t 1:1 when it comes to specs, but they do seem to be broadly comparable in native rendering capabilities. On day one (who knows when that will be), I’d imagine we’ll see a lot more non-VR games claim the Frame Certified than native VR games, as devs will need to either optimize existing SteamVR titles for standalone mode or otherwise port (and likely optimize) Quest games for Frame.
That said, like on Steam Deck, Valve isn’t stopping you from downloading and playing anything on Steam—it’s just providing guidelines to make sure consumers known when games fully work or not.
Whatever the case, Valve still has us in a holding pattern, as the global RAM and storage shortage seems to have wrinkled the company’s release plans for Steam Frame, Steam Machine, and Steam Controller.
Looking for more Steam Frame news?
Valve Unveils Steam Frame VR headset to Make Your Entire Steam Library Portable: Valve shows off Steam Frame, the standalone headset that can stream and natively play your entire Steam library—with only a few caveats right now.
Hands-on: Steam Frame Reveals Valve’s Modern Vision for VR and Growing Hardware Ambitions: We go hands-on with Valve’s latest and greatest VR headset yet.
Valve Says No New First-party VR Game is in Development: Valve launched Half-Life: Alyx (2020) a few months after releasing Index, but no such luck for first-party content on Steam Frame.
Valve is Open to Bringing SteamOS to Third-party VR Headsets: Steam Frame is the first VR headset to run SteamOS, but it may not be the last.
Valve Plans to Offer Steam Frame Dev Kits to VR Developers: Steam Frame isn’t here yet; Valve says it needs more time with developers first so they can optimize their PC VR games.
Valve Announces SteamOS Console and New Steam Controller, Designed with Steam Frame Headset in Mind: Find out why Valve’s new SteamOS-running Console and controller will work seamlessly with Steam Frame.
Steam Frame vs. Quest 3 Specs: Better Streaming, Power & Hackability: Quest 3 can do a lot, but can it go toe-to-toe with Steam Frame?
Steam Frame vs. Valve Index Specs: Wireless VR Gameplay That’s Generations Ahead : Valve Index used to be the go-to PC VR headset, but the times have changed.
The post Valve Reveals Requirements for Steam Frame Game Certification appeared first on Road to VR.
What crackdown? Trump’s EPA enforcement claims don’t pass sniff test.
For over a decade, Hino Motors Ltd. imported and sold more than 105,000 vehicles and engines with misleading or fabricated emissions data, until testing by the Environmental Protection Agency revealed the emissions-fraud scheme.
The case would lead the Toyota subsidiary to plead guilty and agree to pay over $1.6 billion in fines over five years and forfeit an additional $1 billion in profits made from the illicit sales.
On Monday, the EPA touted the case in its enforcement and compliance assurance results for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2025, contending in a press release that the agency closed more cases in President Donald Trump’s first year of his second term than in any year of the Biden administration.
Intel Posts New Linux Graphics Driver Patches For Improved Adaptive Sync Support
Posted today were new Intel kernel graphics driver patches for Linux to enable Adaptive Sync SDP (Secondary Data Packet) handling for Panel Replay and Auxless Adaptive Link Power Management (ALPM) modes…
Intel Core Ultra 200 Plus CPUs Debut: More Cores, Faster Clocks, Better Gaming
If you don’t have an Intel Arrow Lake Core Ultra desktop system, it may be because you opted to skip that generation due to Arrow Lake not showing a big enough gaming performance lift compared to Intel’s previous generation chips. Well, fair enough, but Intel’s new Core Ultra 200S Plus series processors have just arrived, and they may indeed
Samsung Galaxy S26 Preorders Surge 25% As Ultra Dominates US Demand
Today marks the retail launch of Samsung’s Galaxy S26 series, and there is reason to believe the latest flagship lineup will sell like gangbusters. Ahead of the launch, Samsung and its retail partners were accepting preorders, which skyrocketed nearly 25% across all channels, according to Samsung. That includes preorder sales direct from
I Wish I’d Known This One Pokémon Pokopia Trick 30 Hours Ago
Gathering crops felt tedious until I found out about this
Yann LeCun Raises $1 Billion To Build AI That Understands the Physical World
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Advanced Machine Intelligence (AMI), a new Paris-based startup cofounded by Meta’s former chief AI scientist Yann LeCun, announced Monday it has raised more than $1 billion to develop AI world models. LeCun argues that most human reasoning is grounded in the physical world, not language, and that AI world models are necessary to develop true human-level intelligence. “The idea that you’re going to extend the capabilities of LLMs [large language models] to the point that they’re going to have human-level intelligence is complete nonsense,” he said in an interview with WIRED.
The financing, which values the startup at $3.5 billion, was co-led by investors such as Cathay Innovation, Greycroft, Hiro Capital, HV Capital, and Bezos Expeditions. Other notable backers include Mark Cuban, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and French billionaire and telecommunications executive Xavier Niel. AMI (pronounced like the French word for friend) aims to build “a new breed of AI systems that understand the world, have persistent memory, can reason and plan, and are controllable and safe,” the company says in a press release. The startup says it will be global from day one, with offices in Paris, Montreal, Singapore, and New York, where LeCun will continue working as a New York University professor in addition to leading the startup. AMI will be the first commercial endeavor for LeCun since his departure from Meta in November 2025. […]
LeCun says AMI aims to work with companies in manufacturing, biomedical, robotics, and other industries that have lots of data. For example, he says AMI could build a realistic world model of an aircraft engine and work with the manufacturer to help them optimize for efficiency, minimize emissions, or ensure reliability. LeCun says AMI will release its first AI models quickly, but he’s not expecting most people to take notice. The company will first work with partners such as Toyota and Samsung, and then will learn how to apply its technology more broadly. Eventually, he says, AMI intends to develop a “universal world model,” which would be the basis for a generally intelligent system that could help companies regardless of what industry they work in. “It’s very ambitious,” he says with a smile.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Looking Glass’ Musubi showcases its holographic display in a consumer-friendly package
Looking Glass has been doggedly committed to making holographic displays the next big thing since 2019, and with its new Musubi digital photo frame, it might finally be offering its tech at a price that’s hard to deny. Musubi is scheduled to start shipping in June, and unlike the company’s previous, more developer-focused kits, the company’s new display only costs $149.
Musubi is a 7-inch frame with a glass border and white matte that acts as the home for whatever content you convert and upload to it. Looking Glass says the Musubi can store up to 1,000 images or 30-second video clips, and is able to display your content for three hours on a single charge, or indefinitely if you plug it in with an included wall adapter. You’ll have to convert your photos and videos into holographic files using Looking Glass’ free desktop app in order to display them, but once they’re converted, all you need to do is transfer them over USB-C to start showing them off on Musubi.
Looking Glass
Looking Glass has offered multiple versions of this concept before — including the compact, $300 Looking Glass Go from 2023 — but Musubi is supposed to be the best representation of the company’s current display stack. The frame uses the Hololuminescent Display (HLD) technology Looking Glass announced in 2025, which “combines 2D display layers with a 3D holographic volume” to show off holograms that are viewable by multiple people at the same time, without the need for eye-tracking or glasses. It’s hard to get a sense for the whole Musubi experience from the company’s YouTube video alone, but the results seem novel, if a bit limited.
You can pre-order Musubi starting today through Looking Glass’ Kickstarter campaign. For the first 24 hours of the company’s Kickstarter, the frame will be available for $99. Afterwards, Musubi will sell for $149. Anything on Kickstarter should be treated with a certain amount of caution, but Looking Glass’ past campaigns and the company’s commitment to start shipping Musubi in June does suggest it’s confident the frame will be released without issues.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ar-vr/looking-glass-musubi-showcases-its-holographic-display-in-a-consumer-friendly-package-130000304.html?src=rss
7 spring training tips to prime you for summer cycling success
Spring officially begins on March 20 and so it’s almost time to put those dreary winter rides and turbo sessions behind you, and to make the most of the lengthening days and better weather.
But the chances are you might be coming out of a winter cycling hibernation that’s leaving your performance on the bike to be desired.
If your fitness and skills aren’t quite where they need to be, there’s no need to worry. In this guide, we explain how to adapt from winter road cycling or winter mountain biking to spring cycling training.
We asked performance nutritionist Ellen McDermott and coach Dr Tom Kirk for their seven tips on how to leap into a new riding season and smash those summer goals, plus discipline-specific training sessions.
1. Put yourself to the test
The end of a winter training plan is the ideal moment to check your progress.
If you have a power meter and suitable stretch of road near you, you can test your Functional Threshold Power outdoors.
Or, if you have access to a smart trainer or indoor trainer that measures power, take an FTP test on Zwift or using another of the best indoor cycling apps.
Coaches increasingly advocate Critical Power testing because it gives a better picture of your overall capabilities.
Dr Tom Kirk, who runs Custom Cycle Coaching, says: “I prefer to use Critical Power testing involving two to three maximal efforts between three and 20 minutes long.
“The shorter efforts involve a greater proportion of anaerobic work, while the longer ones are more aerobic.
“This allows you to assess anaerobic capacity as well as endurance and enables really accurate calculations of what someone should be capable of for interval sessions.”
Having recovered from your testing, input your (hopefully higher) FTP or Critical Power number into a training zones calculator. Updating your zones will ensure you’re riding at the right intensity during endurance rides and intervals alike. Check our guide on how to train with a power meter for more advice.
2. Don’t increase the volume and intensity
If you’ve been following the periodisation model, spring is the time to transition from base training to the build phase of your preparation. This traditional approach to cycling training prioritises long, slow riding in the winter before introducing more intensity, for example sweetspot training, in the spring. This should prepare you for the harder work to come and help you peak in the summer events.
As intensity increases, overall training volume must come down. Otherwise, you put yourself at risk of overuse injuries, such as IT band syndrome, illness or overtraining.
Cycling coach and athlete Nik Cook says: “Don’t rush into top-end efforts but build through the training levels, working through tempo, threshold, VO2 max and finally anaerobic capacity in turn.
“Building fitness is like building a house – you can’t put the roof on without the other floors.
“Plan your season, working back from key events and remembering to factor in taper weeks before and recovery weeks after each one.”
However, indoor training, which permits high intensity interval training through the winter, has given rise to the reverse periodisation model.
Kirk says this can be effective. “You focus more on top-end fitness on the turbo to develop your FTP and VO2 max before adding more volume in the spring when the weather and daylight allows,” he explains.
“If you currently ride for four hours a week over three rides, suddenly copying a pro’s training on your week off work will lead to disaster.
“It’s better to progress your training gradually as the most important thing to make improvements is to train consistently.”
3. Go easy on the weights
On-bike intervals and strength training for cyclists are tricky to combine in a training week.
But Kirk says some riders, especially those prone to injury, benefit from continuing with strength work year-round.
He suggests consulting a coach to work out what should be your priority – nailing your intervals or continuing strength gains.
4. Be more specific
As weather improves and the date of your goal approaches, if you have multiple bikes, swap from your winter bike to your best road, gravel or mountain bike.
Practise riding the road bike position or mountain bike setup you’ll use on the day too. You need to know you’ll be as comfortable and powerful as you can be while remaining in control of the bike, says Kirk.
He adds that one of the downsides of indoor vs outdoor cycling training is that bike handling diminishes over winter if you ride little outdoors.
Kirk believes getting your eye back in is vital for safety and to save energy in bunch racing such as road races and crits.
Knowing how to ride in a group is also valuable for sportives. You’ll increase your average speed compared to riding the distance solo.
You can do drills, such as cornering, on your own. But to improve confidence and competence in a group, nothing beats the real thing, argues Kirk.
To work group riding into a training plan, he suggests swapping a Zwift or solo interval session for a chain gang, or an endurance ride for a Sunday club run.
Mountain bikers who haven’t spent much time at the bike park or gravel riders who haven’t been cyclocross racing will also see their skills decline in the muddy months. Therefore, Kirk advises off-road riders to maximise their time on the trails in spring to compensate.
5. Spring clean your diet
Reduced training volume and excessive calorie intake in winter can leave us heavier than our optimal weight for cycling come spring.
The good news is losing weight by cycling is quite straightforward, according to nutritionist and elite road racer Ellen McDermott.
“It’s all about making sure you are getting enough protein spread out evenly across the day and focusing on high intakes of carbohydrates around your training window,” McDermott explains.
“And you’re not eating a block of cheese a day. If your intake of fat is high, a lot of your calories will come from fat.
“So fat is what you should cut back if you want to shed weight.”
McDermott doesn’t recommend using food tracking apps, such as MyFitness Pal, because their calculations depend so heavily on what you input. As a result, the daily calorie target they recommend “can be really inaccurate”.
Instead, McDermott works out her clients’ energy needs by asking about their activity level and training diary.
Losing weight alone is not a recipe for cycling success, even to get better at climbing hills. The second aspect of the watts per kilo equation is often neglected.
McDermott says: “It’s something I try to hammer home all the time.
“Often an athlete going from a low protein intake to getting enough at the right times has much more impact on their power-to-weight ratio than losing body fat because [increased muscle mass] they’re able to produce more watts.”
6. Fuel for the fire
Another reason to reduce fat intake in spring is to leave more room for carbohydrates in your macronutrient balance, which higher-intensity training demands.
McDermott urges her male and female racers to consume up to 120g of carbohydrate an hour in competition, given that an hour of threshold riding can consume 200g of carbohydrate.
For those of us who don’t ride that hard and won’t require as much fuel, McDermott suggests 60 to 100g an hour in training or events, depending on intensity. For example, a medium banana contains about 25g of carbs.
Signs you’re not fuelling properly can be failing to complete tough interval sets and feeling your legs are empty – McDermott says your leg muscles may literally have no glycogen to power the pedals.
In order to maximise recovery, she recommends a post-ride snack with a 3:1 ratio of carbohydrate to protein within 30 minutes of finishing a session. Chocolate milk is a cheap and effective alternative to recovery shakes.
McDermott says your recovery meal should contain roughly 2g per kilo body mass of carbs and 30 to 40g of protein. Tuna and pasta or chicken and rice work well.
7. Practise your event nutrition strategy
So that you’re flying on the day of your race, sportive or century ride, your muscle glycogen stores need to be full.
As a starting point, McDermott advises ingesting 8 to 12g of carbohydrate per kilo of body mass in a readily digestible form, such as rice or Haribo.
“It will put you in quite a large calorie surplus for that day, but in the event the day after you’re going to be churning through your glycogen stores. So that’s where all that goes,” she says.
It’s worth trying which kinds of food work best for you ahead of key training rides. But McDermott says there’s no need to fuel to this extent before every long Sunday ride. Your weight is likely to increase and the desired training stimulus of endurance training could diminish.
What’s more, you should practise a high, on-bike carbohydrate intake to train your gut.
Kirk adds: “Fuelling with enough carbohydrates not only helps improve your training quality but also means that on race or event day, when you’re trying to maximise carbohydrate availability, your stomach is used to it.
“This can avoid an upset stomach, which can ruin your day.”
Different types of event require different fuelling strategies, according to McDermott.
On the road or on smooth gravel, it can be easy to reach into your jersey pocket to pull out an energy bar and therefore graze regularly.
Yet, technical mountain bike terrain gives fewer chances to grab a snack. McDermott says riders participating in longer MTB disciplines, such as marathon cross-country racing, should consider high-carb drinks and energy gels instead.
Key spring sessions to accelerate your fitness
Dr Kirk suggests the following spring cycling workouts to hone your condition, whichever discipline you ride.
Road
- Warm up with at least 10 minutes of zone 1 to 2 spinning, followed by optional short efforts above your threshold.
- From a slow pace, accelerate hard and continue flat-out (at the top of power zone 5 if you have a power meter) for 30 to 60 seconds. Then settle in to a more comfortable pace – power zone 4, or an effort you could sustain for 20 minutes – and ride another four minutes.
- Spin the legs in zone 1 for five minutes to recover.
- Do four to six reps.
Gravel
- Ride at least 10 minutes in zone 1 to 2 to warm up, with optional primer efforts.
- Do 2x 20 minutes at high zone 3, with a 30-second burst in a bigger gear every 4.5 minutes. A gentle rise is ideal for this effort.
- Either spread out the 20-minute intervals over a longer ride or recover with five minutes’ zone 1 spinning in between.
- The session can be done on a long, uninterrupted off-road circuit, on the road or on the turbo trainer, preferably not in ERG mode to make it more realistic.
Mountain bike
This workout is good for riders wanting to develop their mountain bike training and get off the line quickly in mass-start cross-country races and events.
- Warm up for at least 10 minutes in zone 1-2. Throw in a few hard surges if you feel like it.
- In the main block, you’ll practise standing starts. Begin with one foot down, then sprint for 30 seconds to a minute. After this maximal effort, ease into a steadier pace for four to five minutes.
- Repeat up to 10 times, leaving a long recovery (of about 10 minutes’ easy pedalling) between each rep.
Editor’s note: This article was first published on April 7, 2023, and was updated in March 2026.