Team USA Paracyclist Trains for Nationals in Bentonville

We sit down with paracyclist Jason Macomb as he readies himself for the 2026 USA Paracycling Road National Championships in Bentonville, where the time trial and road race decide who gets to wear the stars and stripes all year, including on the international stage. We get specific about preparation. Jason walks me through a training week, from long zone 2 endurance rides to full-gas time trial efforts, plus the less-visible work like recovery and nutrition. 
Then we zoom out to what makes paracycling so compelling. Jason breaks down paracycling classifications, the different bikes and a major misconception: much of this adaptive cycling equipment isn’t off the shelf. It often takes custom engineering, smart adaptations, and constant experimentation. He also shares a proud career moment from the Pan Am Games and tells fans exactly how to spot him on course.

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Transcript

Welcome And Race Preview

Nat Ross 0:02

This is our bike edition of a new American Town. I'm your host, Matt Ross. I'm happy to welcome Jason Macomb to the show. Jason, welcome to the show today. Yeah, super excited to come race tonight, okay, Jason. We're stoked to have you on the show today. Fill us in a little bit on what it's like to be a cyclist that's gonna compete and then prepare for the Paracycling Road National Championships coming up in Bentonville. Hey Matt, yeah, thanks for having me on.

Jason Macom 0:39

Man, it's been full guest for a couple of months getting ready for this event. We're coming there to do a tongue trial and a road race and you know compete for the Stars and Stripes jersey. Just, you know, the biggest thing we have in the United States. And um, you know, we get to wear that jersey all year in the competition. So when we win it, and uh, you know, go compete internationally, wearing that jersey. So, you know, it's a huge deal.

Nat Ross 1:04

You guys are go in in April, so that's a lot of pre preparation over the winter, and yeah, a lot of extra it thing has to go in to be prepared for your national championships. Yeah.

Jason Macom 1:16

Yeah, and I live in Colorado, so it's luckily we haven't had a lot of of snow. It's not great for the environment for my training. It's been uh tolerable. You know, it's been uh easy to train all winter. Um, you know, minimal times indoor training. Um, but yeah, it's been a lot of time on the on the trainers in the pain cave, doing the work, thinking about racing in Arkansas in April in the you know, nice weather. You know, there's some other stuff that we're doing. Um, you know, we'll do some heat acclimation. There's a chamber that we can train in here at the training center, at the Olympic Training Center. Uh they can turn out the humidity and the heat and uh the oxygen levels and let us do some like race replication work, basically like replicating the environment that we have there in Arkansas.

Winter Training And Heat Acclimation

Nat Ross 2:00

Well, tell us what your typical training day looks like. I mean, it you mentioned intensity, but how many hours or what is the nutritional component that goes into it?

Jason Macom 2:10

Yeah, this is uh the nutrition is um a massive part, and there's huge changes in the science that we're implementing these days. And you know, there's days I'll be out three and a half hours, or a day that's like an hour and a half. And sometimes it's like you know, an hour and a half is a really, really hard day. You know, you get a good warm-up in and then you start doing these like VO2 intervals. That's what's on the docket for today. Uh it's like 10 of those guys. So um, you know, I'm stoked to do it because it's uh, you know, you get to ride really fast. And most of the winter I've been just riding like this super smooth, like just as long, long, long hours at you know, this set heart rate. And uh now it's like we're turning up the pace and you know, I'm out on the time trial bike. There's a little course we have, uh, you know, it's all right-hand turns, and you can just blow through every intersection. I was just all the turning lane and just you know, going fast now. And uh, you know, I I think this week I've got you know three 15 minutes um time trial efforts at just like you know, full gas. But you know, I've been training all winter to do this and getting out and like you know, seeing how fast I can go. And you know, so like every week I'm like testing myself and that next week uh do all the recovery, do all the the nutrition stuff, and then let's see how fast I can go next week or how much more power I put out. And um, like we were talking about nutrition a second ago, it's like you know, trying to get in like the 100 grams or more, you know, an hour of carbs. And it's been um quite a learning phase for my body, you know, just to to take on all that. But it really, really helps and you know, just seeing like my zone two power climb over the winter just by you know doing the miles, doing the carbs, doing the the nutrition, and then like you know, I 30 watts over like what I was like you know, um it's massive. Yeah, it was a huge increase, like huge uh jump for me. But um I kind of have a long ways to come back. Um I had three years of you know riding the bench at injured, and um and then I I came back last summer, started racing and training, and just I skipped over all the endurance stuff and just went right to going hard and racing the track and doing what you know, yeah. Exactly.

Speaker 1 4:17

I

A Real Training Day And Fueling

Nat Ross 4:18

haven't you hinted that you're prepared for the technical elements of this course. So walk us through. I know you haven't ridden it yet, and you don't want to give away too much information to your competitors, but it's a technical course um in Bitonville. So uh if people are familiar with like Fulbright Junior High in that area, you have a great course laid out with really technical turns and then just open straightaways and a lot of setting up for angles. Right. Um it's gonna be a tactical race. So walk us through a little bit of what that course looks like, TT, which is time trial, or even if you're the separate course for the road race.

Jason Macom 4:51

Yeah, the the time trial course I think is really cool. You know, it like you said, it it starts there at the Fulbright Junior High, um, goes down Southwest Bright Road, you know, goes I think south on that road, and then there's a U-turn. So we'll we'll just like double right back on it ourselves. So it'll be an interesting place to maybe see the race. Um especially a lot of like uh the hand cycle guys will just like go as hard as they can and slam on the brakes and try to get those, you know, those spikes around that turn. And yeah, so you know, U-turn there, all the way back past the junior high, and then there's a roundabout that's at Gator Boulevard, and so they'll take the the left-hand side of that roundabout, go all the way down Gator to I think it's Morning Star Road, U-turn there, and then all the way back down through that roundabout. So you'll hit the left side, basically going through the roundabout backwards, and then it's like you'll drop over, I think it's a southwest. Yeah, I'm like looking at the map, yeah. Freedom Road, and then that takes you to a big circle that goes around Central Park Elementary. So that's a really cool just you know, you're turning left the whole time, just like railing it as fast as you can go, and then you know, back around to the course. And the course is just like it's 3.9 miles, it's a hundred feet of elevation. So, you know, the two turns will be like the you know, a hard part for the athletes. The other stuff will just be full gas and um flying through all the turns and technical aspects, and you know, there's some really long straightaways too that you can just you know power through.

Breaking Down The Bentonville Courses

Nat Ross 6:29

So but there's different kinds of bikes um depending on what um the rider is basically familiar with. So some are gonna be their TT bike, maybe the same bike they use for the road race, and then some are um three wheels versus two versus so walk us through what what the bikes might look like.

Jason Macom 6:48

Um paracycling has 13 different impairment categories. We call them classifications, and so there's five different groups that ride like a regular upright bike, like you would see on the Tour de France or whatever. And across those five bikes, there's you know, you have the least disabled people to the most disabled people or most impaired, I guess is the right way to say it. And you'll see all sorts of different adaptations on the bikes. Um, you know, there's some people that are pedaling with one leg, and they'll have like a prosthetic socket mounted to the bike for the other side, or they'll have um, you know, some different attachments for the handlebars if you have one arm or you know, things like this. Then then you have five different hand cycle groups. Five. Five, yeah. And um four of them lay on their back, and then it it's all just again like separated by impairment um groups. And um the other one, the H5 is what they call the least impaired hand cycle group, uses a knee layer. So it's um it's still a hand cycle bike, but they sit on their knees, they crouch down, and then they're more leaning forward over the cranks, and um those guys go really fast, and um, it's very impressive. And then we have um uh blind athletes riding with a sighted athlete on a tandem for that's called a BBI group. Okay, and then we have two trike categories. So these are like upright bikes, but they have um they have a mechanism like basically a rear axle that the dropouts mount to, and they have two wheels on the sides. And typically these are you know people with like um balance impairments and uh that type of thing. But they can still ride an upright bike. And yeah, when I first moved to the training center a few years back, my roommate was a trike rider and he was so fast. But he took me out around Colorado Springs and showed me some things and drop me on climbs, and uh then yeah, that's a a really awesome thing that we have so many different ways to adapt the bikes and figure out how to you know how to ride and how to go out and enjoy.

Nat Ross 8:53

It's incredible, isn't it? And especially that to get to the national championship level and see how fit everybody's prepared for to try and get that jersey or on the game.

Jason Macom 9:02

Yeah, yeah, it is. It's it is really cool to see. Yeah, and the hand cycle guys, like uh, you know, in the road race, they're all you know, riding together and it's a lot like NASCAR where they're bump drafting and pushing each other through turns and yeah, it's just like the athleticism that that they show. It's it's super cool.

Nat Ross 9:22

So it would be a fun event to watch, huh? Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Jason Macom 9:26

And the road race has like a kind of a center point too. It's the Southwest Gator um and Bright. Uh Southwest Bright. There's like a big roundabout there and the um The course is like a big figure eight, so it it comes back to that circle. Uh so that would be a really awesome spot to to see all the guys flying through. And then it's pretty close to the start-finish line as well, um, ride out in front of the full right junior high. So yeah, if you're coming out to watch, like that would be the place to see all the action happening for sure.

Nat Ross 9:57

Yeah, and I think for those folks listening again, April 11th and 12th uh would be the actual race days, but there'll be a day of kind of prep and pre-ride and training course inspection leading into that as well, right?

Bikes And Classifications In Paracycling

Jason Macom 10:08

That's right. Yeah. I don't think there'll be full road closures on Friday, but on Saturday morning we'll start the the road closures for the time trial. And uh yeah, we'll be time trial on Saturday and then um and then well no it's uh the other way around. I'm sorry. The road races on Saturday and then the time trial is on Sunday. Oh interesting. Yeah, a little uh a little different than I'm used to as an athlete. That's normally like you come in and you're like, okay, well, everybody do the time

Nat Ross 10:35

trial, see how it goes. But um yeah, this will be cool to to to do it a little different. Exciting. Jason, um, you hinted on the different disciplines and categories, but what are the misconceptions for the the men and women or even the juniors that you wish people could let go of when it comes to adaptive sports or that people get hung up on for adaptive riders?

Jason Macom 10:58

That's a tough question. One of the things uh that I I kind of have seen in my um my time that across the board, but um, you know, a lot of this adaptive equipment isn't off the shelf. And um, you know, I when I talk about all the the technology development that I've had to do for myself just to be able to ride, people are like, oh, I had no idea that you couldn't just go out and buy um a prosthetic, you know, cycling leg, or uh or you can't just go to the bike shop and get a hand cycle or a trike rear axle, right? I think that's the thing um I think that most people don't don't know about is that um you know you almost have to you know be an engineer or know an engineer, you know, you have to have that mindset. I think that that's the thing that people don't really know in Para is that bike racing across the board is um it's a very technical sport and um mechanically like competing against each other in our equipment. And then it would take that into a further step forward is that now we're competing with impairment adaptations. And so how can we, you know, I'm always thinking about how can we be faster with the you know, developing in some other situation, you know, solution. And um I think there are a lot of cool things that are in the works. Um I personally am working on some things. I I said I was before I was injured and not racing, and um, I couldn't wear a prosthetic for a year and a half, and so I I ended up riding a bike with one leg and realizing that you know the drivetrain is you know, it's just it's made to pedal with two legs, you know? And absolutely there's a lot of athletes out there pedaling with one leg, and then all of the hand cycles actually have the crank arms together, so it's theoretically pedaling with one leg. And so the idea and the concept is to tune the chainring to the forces that the person can put out. And we have a ton of published data about like forces people can do with the whole oval versus round chain ring. Okay, yeah, and so if you could take that just the one leg information and build that into a chain ring, tune it to that. There's some huge advancements we can make.

Nat Ross 13:22

I want to ask you one more personal question, and then we'll kind of go back to like the event highlights to get everybody coming. But for sure, out of your journey, what's been the proudest moment in this sport so far?

Jason Macom 13:32

Oh man, um I went to the Pan Am Games in 2019, and excellent. I I always say that, you know, being in the tunnel uh like at the opening ceremonies there in Lima. Yeah. And um, you know, all the athletes around, you know, we're all doing the same stuff. It's just like this yeah, buzz. And we're all you know, chanting USA and the spotlight shining through the tunnel and lighting up our flag. And I say that that would be, you know, the most beautiful memory I I have of like what you know my accomplishments as an athlete has has been has got me to. And I think about that moment and it's like, yeah, I I'm so proud to have represented my country in that moment and uh be able to race my bike and uh do the things that I love, you know, at that level. And and then with all these other athletes, it was it was an amazing, amazing situation.

Nat Ross 14:27

Well, congratulations and gotta highlight that again. Um what should people when they're cheering for you look for you? What's your helmet gonna look like or your kit? Well, what's Jay gonna be wearing come race day?

Pride Moments How To Spot Jason

Jason Macom 14:38

Yeah, um, so that's an another thing that's interesting about paracycling is the helmets um in the road race, we are color-coded. And so in my group, I'm a C4. So C stands for just a just an upright bicycle. And so four is my impairment category. And uh, we all wear white helmets,

Nat Ross 14:58

and then I'm using a an orange um pot temper, which is like um it's a real weird mushroom-looking helmet.

Jason Macom 15:06

They're gonna recognize you in the time trial for this uh mushroom orange um Halloween style helmet that Jason will be wearing. Yeah. Well, Jason, we're gonna wrap it up for this time until you get to Bentonville. So thank you for coming on the podcast again. And we are excited to host the 2026 USA Paracycling Road National Championships with the time trial and the road race, and we wish you the best of luck. Cool. Thanks so much, Matt. Whether you're visiting or you call Bentonville home, visit Bentonville here to keep you connected to what's happening in our new American town. Check out the show notes to our website, social channels, and our newsletter. This is Matt Ross. Thanks for listening.