New Home: Sacramento, California, USA!

Hey everyone, I can’t believe that I’ve landed and set up shop in our new home here in Sacramento, California. Honestly, I haven’t been a Californian since 1974, so this is definitely going to be a new experience.

Online Bike Coach has been a stalwart pillar of coaching and information since its’ inception in 2003. I’ve been coaching cyclists since 1993, so this is my 30th Anniversary as a Cycling Coach! While we’ve learned, taught, and experienced many things, it’s time to reset the foundations and make the NEXT 15 years even stronger.

New Goals

The Goals for Online Bike Coach going forward are simple: Offering cycling-based training classes and programs for fitness, health, longevity and performance. To do this, I am going to migrate what was a successful 15 years of In-Studio training, over to online Group Classes, via www.vqvelocity.com. Online Bike Coach will offer LIVE and RECORDED classes, multiple days of the week, with different goals and agendas. We’ll work on the FUNDAMENTALS; Aerobic Fitness, Anaerobic Work Capacity, Stamina, Strength, and Speed. You can take as many classes as you wish, pop in here and there for a quickie, or replay any one of the rides in the library as it grows. Classes will be held in the Pacific Time Zone, but I’ll be posting hours that fit client needs across the four major time zones in the US, and will consider time zones in Europe and Australia as well if there is demand.

Traditional Coaching will also continue, but I’ll be increasing the hybrid approach of using the most recent cardio-vascular technology and assessment information via Garmin head units and wristwatches for Aerobic Conditioning. For those who subscribe to the ‘Polarized Training’ approach (and I use both Polarized and SweetSpot methods, depending on each rider’s needs or time availability), the latest ‘Stamina‘ Feature from Garmin, and other metrics for supra-threshold and vo2 that I’ve reviewed and used before.

We want time-tested, scientifically validated metrics, but I still fear that most producers are not interested in advancing known science, but are instead focused on profit. I refuse to be a Tent Preacher, and will emphasize known, published science where I can. Where I cannot, I’ll do the scientific studies using my own instruments, and will publish the results here and elsewhere if I can.

New Discussions

The New Discussions are not necessarily new, but they’re worth a refresh in this blog, on YouTube, and in the general public domain. I intend to blog regularly about the following:

• Cyclist Safety. Cycling is a safe sport. Reat that ad infinitum. CYCLING IS A SAFE SPORT. There are ways you can ride and present yourself in urban and rural settings that will increase your safety, confidence, and competence when out on the road. There’s also technology that can improve your awareness and visibility. Beyond a few one-and-done videos, I intend to produce blogs and videos that show long-term work on these concepts, products and methods. For me, it’s the only way to save the sport from being an indoor-only, virtual-ride product.
• Training With Technology. I’ve always been a fan of Science and Technology, and cycling is the perfect meld of physics, physiology, and electronic tools of observation and analysis. But there seems to be an information overload, a plethora of features, and not much explanation or distillation of the information provided. I intend to change that, with more regular posts.
• Garmin Connect Features. Garmin Connect is the data-collection site for so many of the metrics I have mentioned above. However, I’ve searched high and low on the internet to try and find a coach who actually uses these metrics on a regular basis, to COACH an athlete. I also see the semi-artificial intelligence programs found in Garmin Connect, and I wonder about their effectiveness. Some posts on Reddit have been all I’ve seen. The results seem to be all over the place. It makes me wonder if there might not be a better way to look at the metrics provided, and then use that information to better judge and guide fitness training. We’ll see.

I have been coaching now for thirty years; a lot has changed. A lot has not. One historian of cycling said that in the history of humanity, cycling is arguably the only activity that EVOLVED into Recreation, then Utility. It spawned the Tire Industry (Dunlop), which further altered civilization. I think we need to reconnect the social benefits of cycling with 21st century mobility and mental health.

https://youtu.be/ZYwhvD2-fYw

CONCLUSION

The Cycling world has gone ‘U’ shaped; we’ve got people in a really poor demographic using bicycles for utility, and we’ve got really rich people using bicycles for recreation. The Middle Class and cycling have largely disappeared. For example, how many of you readers rode your bikes to school? How many of you have children that ride their bikes to school? How many of you have grandchildren that ride their bikes to school? It’s a vexing question, and I’d like to look into the perceived problems and factual solutions.

That’s really about it for now. I’m going to get on with the day, and I’ll start posting more work, more regularly, going forward. I know I’ve promised that before, but I have the venue, the time, and the desire to pursue this.

Thanks for reading, and ENJOY THE RIDE.