West Island · Cycling & Triathlon
Find your people.
Drop them.
No egos. Just the road, the water, and the neighbors who push you.
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West Island · Est. 2025
Look around any pool in the West Island and you'll see Ironman bathing caps. Ride the back roads past Hudson or Rigaud and you'll pass cyclists on serious bikes, putting in serious work. Runners grinding out tempo sets before the rest of the neighbourhood is awake.
They're everywhere. You just don't know each other yet.
Désolé exists to fix that. Not a coached program. Not a race team. A collective — a place where athletes who are serious about getting better can find each other, share what they know, and push each other forward.
Triathlon training is mostly a solo exercise by default, not by design. The early alarms, the long rides, the lane repeats — most of it happens alone because there's no easy way to find others doing the same thing, at the same level, at the same time.
The Session Board changes that. Post a ride. Find a run. Join an open water swim. Know where the others are going.
Tips. Routes. Gear. Goals. All of it flows when you're training alongside people who get it.
Désolé is for athletes who are serious about training and want to be pushed — but understand that no matter where you are in your journey, it's about your progress, not the pack's.
I'm Ben, and I started Désolé. I train in the West Island. In September 2026 I went 4:49 at 70.3 Michigan, at 47: 8th in my age group and a slot for the 2027 World Championship in Chattanooga.
The tools on this site come from what it took me to get there, and I'm sharing my own season as it happens. I'm not a coach. This is just what's working for me.
Season 2027
I went 4:49 at 70.3 Michigan in September 2026, at the age of 47. 8th in my age group, and a slot for the 2027 World Championship in Chattanooga. It was my fourth 70.3 in four years. The year before: 4:54 in Berlin.
This season I'm training harder, pushing for a strong performance in Tennessee. I've had some great support and guidance, which I'm sharing here for anyone who wants to use it as a reference or starting point. I'll publish each phase as I enter it.
Who it's for: athletes with a strong foundation across all three disciplines, or already finishing around 5:20–5:30 with a season of base behind them, who want to go under five.
The season
Volume
It's progressive to avoid injury or burnout. Weekly volume roughly doubles between October and August, and the first three months are mostly spent in the gym. Hover over a month for its training load.
Phase 01 · Strength
Phase 01 · Members only
Coming next
Not sure? White salt marks on your kit or a sting in your eyes after long sessions means salty. Otherwise start at average.
Build your plan
We've loaded a sample plan for your level. Swap anything: drag items onto a leg, or tap a leg and then tap items. Each leg shows what you've packed against what you need.
The science, simply
Your gut absorbs sugar through two lanes, like two checkouts at a grocery store. Each lane has a speed limit. Send everything through one lane and the line backs up. That backlog sits in your stomach, and it's the bloating, sloshing and cramps that wreck the second half of a race.
1 · How many carbs per hour?
2 · What are you eating?
Glucose, dextrose, maltodextrin, starch
Fructose, fruit, honey, half of table sugar and maple syrup
Use it in your plan
Any sugar works. One lane is enough. You're done.
Read the ingredients on your gel or drink mix. If it says maltodextrin or dextrose and no fructose, sugar or sucrose, it's one-lane fuel.
Pair it with a sports drink made with sugar, a high-carb gel, or maple syrup. In your plan above, the orange part of each leg's bar should be at least half as long as the blue.
| If the label says | Lane | In plain terms |
|---|---|---|
| Maltodextrin, dextrose, glucose syrup | Lane 1 | The base of most gels. Fine alone up to ~60 g/h |
| Fructose, fruit sugar | Lane 2 | The ingredient that opens the second lane |
| Sugar, sucrose, cane sugar | Both | Splits half and half in your gut. A built-in mix |
| Maple syrup 🍁 | Both | Mostly sucrose, so about half and half. A natural two-lane fuel |
| Honey, most fruit | Both | Roughly half and half |
Made in Québec
It's mostly sucrose, so it feeds both lanes on its own. Two tablespoons (30 ml) is about 27 g of carbs, roughly one gel. Most people use it in a flask, straight or cut 1:1 with water, or 4 tbsp in a bottle with a pinch of salt. Two things to watch: it has almost no sodium, so add salt, and it's sticky, so practise with it on long rides first. Both versions are in the planner.
The two-lane model is simplified. Lane limits are approximate, and a trained gut does a little better. Based on ACSM's position stand on nutrition and athletic performance (Thomas et al., 2016) and Morton et al., From Metabolism to Medals (2026). Product values are typical, not specific brands; check your own labels. This is a planning tool, not medical or dietetic advice.
What's on my phone
What's on my phone for training and racing, and what I'm curious about next.
Plan & track
Where the whole season lives. Structured workouts go to my watch, and the fitness and fatigue chart tells me when to push and when to back off.
PlanSyncs everything from my Garmin and passes it on to TrainingPeaks and Strava without me touching it.
PlanFree training analysis in the browser. Pulls everything in from Garmin and Strava, with detailed fitness, fatigue and power curves.
Plan · WebThe social side. Where rides get posted, segments get chased and the club shows up.
PlanRace-day app. Family and friends follow every split live, and so can you for anyone racing.
Race dayIndoor
Winter riding and running. Group rides make the long indoor sessions go by.
IndoorPhone remote for Zwift. Join group rides, message riders and swap workouts without getting off the bike.
IndoorIndoor riding that pulls the day's workout straight from my TrainingPeaks plan. No guessing what's next.
IndoorBody
Smart scale. I watch the weight and body-composition trend over the season, not the day-to-day number.
BodyOn my radar Haven't used yet. Heard good things.
Kit apps Only matter if you own the hardware.
Pick your race and your goal. Tell it where your fitness is today. It works backwards from race day to show the fitness you need, how fast you have to build it, and what each block of training should look like.
01 Race
02 Goal
03 Fitness today
The Fitness number on your intervals.icu or TrainingPeaks dashboard. No number? A rough guide is your average weekly hours × 8. Six hours a week is about 50.
Your realistic ceiling in the biggest weeks before the race, not what you do now.
Your build
Projected fitness Race-day target
Phases
The course
How it works
Fitness (CTL) is a rolling 6-week average of your training load (TSS). Targets are coaching rules of thumb for age-group athletes, shown as ranges because no formula knows you. Your best benchmark is your own history: the fitness you carried into a race that went well. Builds are capped at 3 CTL a week as the comfortable pace, 5 as the upper limit, and anything over 7 is flagged as unrealistic. Hours assume about 55 TSS an hour of mixed swim, bike and run; gym work is extra load the numbers don't see.
Nothing you enter here leaves your browser.
Build your week
Drag sessions into a day, or tap a day and then tap sessions. Use − and + to change a session's length; its TSS changes with it. We've loaded a sample week for this block, scaled to your target.
The numbers
TSS is hours × intensity² × 100. An hour flat out at threshold is 100; an hour of easy Z2 is about 50. Swim and run use the same idea. Gym and mobility don't show up in most apps, but they're real load, so they're counted here as estimates. These are typical values: your own app's numbers will differ a little with your zones.
Your week is saved in this browser only.
These terms cover your use of desole.club and of the Désolé collective. By using the site or joining, you agree to them. They're written in plain language on purpose.
Désolé is a private, non-commercial collective for cyclists and triathletes in Montreal's West Island. It is not a coached program, a race team or a business. Nobody is paid to run it, and nothing on the site is sold.
Cycling, running and swimming carry real risk of injury, including from traffic, weather, open water and equipment. Sessions on the board are organised by members, not supervised by Désolé. When you join one, you're responsible for your own fitness, equipment, route knowledge and decisions, and for following the rules of the road.
To the extent the law allows, Désolé and its organisers are not responsible for injury, loss or damage arising from sessions, routes or training you choose to do.
The Race Planner, Finish Time Calculator, Training Plan, Fuel Planner and the training plans shared on the site are general estimates and personal examples. They don't know your health, history or limits. Use them as a starting point, adjust to how your body responds, and get professional advice for anything medical, nutritional or injury-related.
Membership is free and by request. If you're under 18, a parent or guardian needs to agree to these terms for you, and nobody under 14 can hold an account. Keep your account details accurate and your login to yourself. We can decline a request, or suspend or remove an account, if these terms are broken or if someone makes the collective unsafe or unpleasant for others.
You keep ownership of what you post: profile details, photos, sessions, routes and feed posts. You give Désolé permission to show it on the site to the people described in our Privacy Policy. Don't post anything you don't have the right to share. We can remove content that breaks these terms.
The site links to apps, products and services we use. We're not paid for those links and we're not responsible for those sites or what they do with your information.
We may update these terms; the date at the top shows the latest version, and we'll tell members by email about significant changes. These terms are governed by the laws of Québec and Canada. Questions: hello@desole.club.
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This page doesn't exist, or it moved. Happens to the best of us on unmarked roads.
Désolé is a private, non-commercial training collective for cyclists and triathletes in Montreal's West Island. This policy explains what personal information we collect through desole.club, why, who handles it, and the choices you have. The short version: we collect only what the club needs to run, we don't sell or rent it, we don't run ads, and we don't use tracking or analytics tools.
The person responsible for protecting personal information at Désolé is the club's founder. For any question, request or complaint about your information, write to hello@desole.club.
When you create an account: your name and email address, and a password managed by our login provider (we never see or store your password).
When you complete your profile: anything you choose to add, such as a photo, short bio, LinkedIn link, training pace, goals, disciplines and personal records.
When you use the club: sessions you post or join (including the start location, notes and any route file you upload), saved routes, posts you write on the members' feed, and your email notification preferences.
When you use our public tools (race planner, finish-time calculator, race fuel planner): the numbers you enter are processed in your browser and are never sent to us. Some tools remember your last settings on your own device so you don't have to re-enter them.
We don't knowingly collect information from anyone under 14. Please don't create an account if you are under 14.
We don't use your information for advertising, we don't sell or rent it, and we don't share it with anyone except the service providers below, or where the law requires it.
Anyone visiting the site can see your name, photo, disciplines, training pace and number of sessions on the members page, and the sessions on the session board, including who has joined.
Logged-in members can also see the rest of your profile (bio, LinkedIn, goals and personal records) and your posts on the members' feed.
Your email address is never shown to other members or the public. When a member messages you through the site, we deliver it by email without revealing your address; if you reply, they'll see your email.
Photos we choose to post on the club's Instagram are public. If you'd rather not appear, tell us and we'll leave you out or take the post down.
We rely on a small number of providers to run the site. They process information only to provide their service to us:
When your browser loads maps, fonts or Instagram images, those providers receive standard technical information such as your IP address. Some of these providers store or process information outside Québec, including in the United States, where it is subject to local laws. We choose providers that protect information to a standard we consider adequate.
We don't use advertising or analytics cookies. The site stores a login token in your browser so you stay signed in, and keeps a temporary copy of session and member lists so pages load faster. Signing out or clearing your browser data removes them.
We keep your information while your account is active. If you ask us to delete your account, we delete your profile, photo, sessions, saved routes and posts within 30 days, except where we need to keep something for legal reasons.
You can ask to see the personal information we hold about you, have it corrected, have it deleted, or withdraw your consent to its use. You can edit most of your information yourself in your profile. For anything else, email hello@desole.club and we'll respond within 30 days.
If you're not satisfied with our response, you can file a complaint with the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec.
Information is sent over encrypted connections and stored with providers that protect their systems. No system is perfectly secure. If a breach poses a risk of serious harm, we'll notify the people affected and the Commission d'accès à l'information as the law requires.
If we change this policy, we'll update the date at the top. If a change affects how we use your information in a significant way, we'll tell members by email before it takes effect.
West Island · Cycling & Triathlon
Désolé is a collective for the triathletes of YUL WEST.
No egos. Just the road, the water, and the neighbors who push you.
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