Three tracks

Mild, Medium and Spicy: the heat scale the team already knows. Heat sets the mix of skills and fitness work in a practice. Everyone is on one team, and riders can move up the scale any time they are ready.

Mild

Newer riders building confidence and basic skills.

Main focus: Fundamentals, confidence, riding a full practice
Skills we work on: The fundamentals, learned slowly on easy ground: ready position, bike-body separation, pedal position, eye movement and braking.
Success looks like: Skill levels gained; finishing rides and races with a smile

Medium

Riders with solid basics who want to ride trails well and get fitter.

Main focus: Trail skills and steady fitness
Skills we work on: Builds on the fundamentals and takes them onto the trail at more speed: steering and cornering, speed control, gearing and cadence, and rolling over obstacles.
Success looks like: Skill levels plus benchmark gains

Spicy

Competitive riders training for race results.

Main focus: Fitness and race performance, with skills kept sharp
Skills we work on: All ten skills at race pace, adding timing and coordination and pressure control, plus starts, passing and line choice.
Success looks like: Benchmark gains, pacing, race results

Skills and fitness by month

Share of coached time, suggested starting points. Skills fade and fitness grows as the season moves toward racing.

Skills Fitness

Mild

July

80%20%

August

70%30%

September

60%40%

October

50%50%

Medium

July

60%40%

August

50%50%

September

40%60%

October

30%70%

Spicy

July

40%60%

August

30%70%

September

25%75%

October

20%80%

See the numbers as a table

Track	July	August	September	October
Mild	80 : 20	70 : 30	60 : 40	50 : 50
Medium	60 : 40	50 : 50	40 : 60	30 : 70
Spicy	40 : 60	30 : 70	25 : 75	20 : 80

How riders are placed

Riders choose their own group, wherever they feel comfortable. Coaches watch every rider’s skills throughout the season and offer guidance and encouragement, including a nudge to move up when a rider is ready.

Example own-time plan for competitors

Two short rides and two brief strength sessions a week. A menu with a log, not a mandate.

Monday	Rest, or 15 to 20 min strength and mobility
Tuesday	Team skills practice; lead a station for 20 min, then ride the applied block
Wednesday	Own ride: 45 to 75 min easy, conversational pace, on trail if possible
Thursday	Team push day, the week’s main hard session
Friday	Rest, or 15 to 20 min strength and mobility. Rest fully the day before a race.
Saturday	Team long ride or race
Sunday	Optional: easy spin or a second own-time ride, 45 to 60 min easy. Never hard back to back with Saturday.

Starting guidelines

Total riding: about 4 to 5 rides and 4 to 6 hours a week including practices. A NICA team coach reports that four rides a week is plenty to develop fast kids in a healthy way.
About 80% of ride time easy, with hard efforts kept to roughly 20% or less, in line with common endurance practice. Thursday holds the week’s main hard session; a second short hard segment is allowed on Saturday from September.
At least one full rest day each week.
Strength and mobility is bodyweight: squats, lunges, step-ups, planks, hip and thoracic mobility.
Eat and drink during every ride longer than an hour.

The Spicy contract

A rider joins Spicy by agreeing, with a parent, to log rides in a one-minute form (date, ride type, minutes, effort from 1 to 10, how they feel) and to check in on Tuesday. The log is what lets a coach adjust the plan; it is not a grade.

When to cut back

Persistent fatigue, poor sleep, falling performance, unusual mood changes, or pain, especially during a growth spurt, means swap the next hard session for an easy ride or a rest day, and tell a coach. Adolescent growth can temporarily disturb coordination and body control, so a skills dip during a growth spurt is normal.