Alright Muckers, let’s have a chat. We’ve crested the hill of another year and are now flying down the other side. The halfway point is always a good time to take a breath, have a look around, and ask some honest questions. Have you hit your goals? Are you where you want to be with your fitness? Have you ticked off any of those bucket-list events you dreamed about back in January?

For me, it’s a mixed bag. My weight is where it should be, which is a minor miracle in itself. But my FTP? It’s down. And honestly? I’m not worried. The reason is simple: the UK has been blessed with some uncharacteristically glorious weather, and I’ve been swapping the structured suffering of the pain cave for the sun-drenched, muddy joy of my mountain bike. It’s been less about chasing watts and more about chasing daylight.  

It got me thinking about how we measure success as cyclists. Is it all about the numbers on a screen, or is it about the stories we collect along the way? Let’s do a quick check-in. Where do you sit on the Muckers Mid-Year scorecard?

Your Goals	The Metrics (FTP, etc.)	The Fun Factor (Events & Rides)
Smashed ’em?	Numbers up?	Bucket list ticked?
Still in progress?	Numbers down?	Big adventures planned?
What goals?	Who cares?	Just enjoying the ride?

No matter where you landed, you’re in the right place. Let’s break it down.

The FTP Conundrum: A Tool, Not a Tyrant

That little three-letter acronym can hold a lot of power over us. It can be a source of pride or a cause for concern, but it’s crucial to remember what it is and, more importantly, what it isn’t.

My Story: Trading the Pain Cave for Sunny Trails

My recent dip in FTP is a perfect case study. I’ve spent less time on the indoor trainer, grinding out structured workouts designed to push that specific number up. Instead, I’ve been out on the MTB, navigating technical trails, honing skills, and just enjoying being outdoors. The feeling of cleaning a tricky, root-filled climb is a different kind of satisfaction than seeing your 20-minute power average tick up by a few watts. It’s a trade-off: structured data for unstructured joy. And as the sun has been shining more than usual here in the UK, I’m not complaining about my choice.  

A Mucker’s Guide to FTP: What Are We Even Talking About?

For anyone new to the numbers game, Functional Threshold Power (FTP) is defined as the highest power output a rider can maintain in a quasi-steady state for about an hour. Think of it as that grey area between a pace you can hold for a very long time and an all-out effort you can only sustain for a few minutes.  

Its main purpose is to give us a benchmark for our fitness and, crucially, to set our personal training zones. From Zone 1 (Active Recovery) to Zone 6 (Anaerobic Capacity), having an accurate FTP ensures that when you  

do follow a structured plan, the workouts are perfectly tailored to provide the right stimulus to make you faster. It’s most commonly estimated using a 20-minute all-out test (where your FTP is about 95% of your average power) or a Ramp Test.  

The Science of the Slump: Why Unstructured Fun Can Lower Your FTP

So, why did my FTP go down when I was still riding my bike plenty? The answer lies in the principle of specificity. Your body adapts specifically to the stresses you place on it.  

Structured FTP training, with its focus on Sweet Spot, Threshold, and Over/Under intervals, is designed to do one thing very well: improve your body’s ability to produce sustained aerobic power and clear lactate, the very definition of FTP.  

Unstructured mountain biking is a completely different physiological beast. It’s characterized by short, sharp, often anaerobic bursts of power to get up a steep pinch or over an obstacle, followed by periods of coasting or low-power descending where you’re focused on bike handling. While this is fantastic for building explosive power, technical skill, and overall bike craft, it provides very little of the sustained, steady-state effort required to build, or even maintain, a high FTP.  

When you stop doing targeted FTP workouts, the specific physiological adaptations for that type of effort naturally begin to diminish. It’s not a failure; it’s your body adapting to a new demand. My total time on the bike might have even gone up, but the  

type of intensity changed dramatically, and my FTP score reflected that.

The Verdict: Finding Your Personal Power Balance

Here’s the key takeaway: a drop in FTP when you shift your training focus from structured plans to unstructured fun is not just normal; it’s expected. It’s a reflection of a change in priorities, not a loss of “fitness” in a broader sense. In fact, you might be becoming a more well-rounded, skillful, and happier cyclist.

Let’s be honest, a high FTP is not the be-all and end-all, especially for mountain biking, where success often depends more on repeatability, technical prowess, and the ability to punch hard over and over again. So, don’t let a number on a screen dictate your happiness on the bike. Remember the Muckers ethos: we take our cycling seriously, but not ourselves.  

The Muckers on Tour: Looking Back and Riding Forward

Speaking of not taking ourselves too seriously, let’s talk about the fun stuff. The big events, the shared adventures, the reasons we train in the first place.

Postcard from the Black Forest: A Weekend of Hills, Hospitality, and Mucker Spirit

I have to admit, I have one major regret from the first half of the year: I missed out on riding in the Black Forest with the Muckers, but I did go. You can read the full, slightly confessional story of why Neil and I didn’t ride on my author page, but the short version is that being there to witness the Mucker spirit was an event in itself.  

It was our biggest tour yet, with 24 Muckers descending on the town of Kirchzarten for a weekend of epic riding and even better company. Our organizer, Daniel, put on a spectacular show. The weekend was a perfect blend of challenging rides and fantastic social gatherings at local spots like Alte Post and Martin’s Bräu.  

The riding was brutal. Saturday’s main route tackled the legendary Kandel mountain, packing 1,910 meters of climbing into 99 kilometers. Sunday’s ride was a 111-kilometer tour through the stunning Kaiserstuhl wine region, made all the more memorable by some properly biblical rain. Yet, through it all, the Mucker spirit was unbreakable. It was incredible to see familiar faces from our virtual world and meet new Muckers in real life. We had members like Mike Hagen and Anna who travelled all the way from Canada, and Carlos (CR), who earned the “most committed Mucker” award by driving an astonishing 19 hours from Spain to be there—and was promptly crowned the undisputed King of the Mountain. That weekend was the perfect embodiment of what we’re about: the shared experience and camaraderie mattering far more than any power data.  

The Next Peak: My “Bolton 3 Peaks” MTB Challenge

While I was gutted to miss the Black Forest ride, I’m not worried. My sights are now set on a different kind of challenge in September: the Bolton 3 Peaks MTB challenge.

Now, when you hear “Three Peaks,” your mind might jump to a few famous events. This isn’t the iconic cyclocross race in Yorkshire, with its unrideable sections and mandatory drop-bar bikes. It’s not the epic, unsupported bikepacking race across the Alps from Vienna to Nice. And it’s definitely not the one in Bolton, Vermont, USA.  

No, this is a proper local, grassroots beast of a challenge in the West Pennine Moors of Lancashire. It’s a route that takes in the towers of Peel, Rivington, and Darwen, crossing remote moorland tracks and lung-busting climbs. It’s the kind of ride that tests your grit, bike handling, and ability to navigate technical, rocky terrain—the very skills my recent unstructured MTB riding has been perfect for. The drop in my FTP is no longer a negative side effect; it’s a calculated trade-off for specificity towards a different kind of cycling achievement.  

The Main Event: The Muckers World Championship

Whether your goal is a local MTB challenge or a grand tour of your own making, there’s one event that unites us all: the Muckers World Championship.

The Big Picture: Chasing Glory (and Discounts!) in the Muckers League

For many of us, the overall goal for the year is to rack up a massive score in the Muckers Championship, which runs from February to December. It’s our own season-long grand tour. And yes, I’ve heard the whispers in the group chat: the ultimate goal is to get such a large ballast on the Muckers Championship that you earn a bigger discount at the Muckers Shop at the end of the year. It’s a noble ambition!  

The Rules of Engagement: It’s Not Just About Power

A Muckers Championship race is unlike any other. We have our own set of rules, designed not to emulate the pros, but to ensure fair, fun, and competitive racing for a community of riders with diverse abilities and equipment. Here’s a quick rundown of what makes a Muckers race a Muckers race:  

Rule Category	The Muckers Way	Why It Matters
Power Cap	Averaging over 5.0 w/kg gets you disqualified from the Muckers results.	This keeps the racing accessible and fun for us amateurs. If you’re legitimately that strong, you’re too good for us and should be chasing a pro contract!
Weight Floor	Male riders must have their weight set to at least 60kg in ROUVY.	This prevents an unfair watts-per-kilo advantage from unrealistic weight settings and levels the playing field.
Heart Rate Data	No HR data means no result (NED – Not Enough Data) in our official race reports.	This helps our race organizers verify that your massive effort is legitimate and not a trainer glitch or setup error.
Friend Request	You must be friends with “Mucker1974” on ROUVY.	This is a simple one that allows the organizers to easily access and analyze your race data for accurate and timely results.
The “Ballast” System	Top 10 finishers each month get a percentage penalty applied to their points for the rest of the year (1st = 2.5%, down to 10th = 0.25%).	This is our unique handicapping system. It stops the same few riders from running away with the championship and keeps the season-long battle tactical and exciting for everyone.
Points System	Points are awarded deep into the field, dropping by just 0.25 points per place after 51st.	This rewards consistent participation. It ensures that riders who show up and race hard every week are valued, even if they aren’t at the very front.

Fueling the Fire: The Muckers Shop and What’s Next

While the ‘more ballast, more discount’ scheme is currently more of a Mucker legend than official policy, it does raise a good point about rewards! The ultimate prize is bragging rights, but wearing the Mucker spirit on your sleeve is a close second. You can find our official gear, from hoodies to mugs, in the Muckers Shop on our website , and our fantastic official team kit is produced in partnership with  

Owayo.  

And you’ll want to be in the running for those championship points, because… Shh… new stuff is coming to the shop soon. You’ve been warned!

What’s Your Story?

So that’s my mid-year report. A lower FTP, but a higher fun-factor. A missed opportunity in the Black Forest, but an exciting new challenge on the horizon.

Now I want to hear yours. How are you feeling? What goals have you smashed? What’s the next big thing on your calendar? Are you a slave to the FTP numbers, or are you just out there enjoying the ride?

Drop your stories in the comments below. Let’s see what the second half of the year holds for Muckers Worldwide!