Cycling Coaching
- Do I need a power meter to begin coaching?
- The internet has a ton of free info on training. Why would I need a personal cycling coach?
- I’ve seen cycling coaches charge $50 to $500 dollars a month. What’s with the huge price range?
- How can online cycling coaching be effective?
General
- Do you offer discounts?
- Do you offer bike fitting?
- Do you have a brick and mortar location?
- Are you willing to coach an athlete in a different country?
- Why the name “Data Driven Athlete” for your coaching business?
- Science, data, sheesh…I’m bored already…isn’t athletic performance more than numbers?
Cycling Coaching
Do I need a power meter to begin coaching?
Nope, but they’re awesome and will make training more fun.
The internet has a ton of free info on training. Why would I need a personal cycling coach?
Good question; it may be that paying for professional cycling coaching doesn’t make the most sense for you. The honest answer is that what cycling coaches used to do with prefab/generalized training plans can now be done cheaper with arguably better quality by various mainstream training apps.
If all you want is a solid training prescription, then our advice is not to go the coaching route and instead get an app subscription. Save your money, take your partner out to dinner, and sign up for a few more great riding events.
Having said all that, coaching is the only route to go if you’re looking to maximize your available training time while digging deeper into the science and art of training.
Here are some of the things we provide that are unique to a personal coaching relationship:
- An objective perspective on your training and racing
- Highly detailed and individualized training plans for your specific goals and objectives
- An in-depth understanding of different training methodologies and the underlying science behind athletic performance. We love sharing everything we’ve learned with our athletes.
- Access to the most current research in the field of exercise physiology and sports nutrition, coupled with an ability to distill this information into new and innovative training strategies.
- Insight and experience to effectively manage setbacks in training, including injury, illness, lack of motivation, or unexpected life commitments
I’ve seen cycling coaches charge $50 to 500 dollars a month. What’s with the huge price range?
Coaching is generally priced on two factors:
- Experience/educational background of the coach
- Contact/individualization for the athlete
These two factors are the biggest contributors to what you can expect to pay for cycling coaching. First, we would suggest thoroughly researching the coach you’re interested in. Examine their professional qualifications, take a look at their educational background, and talk to former and current clients.
After you’ve done some research, compare different coaches and what they offer. Email, call, and ask specific questions. If you follow this approach, you should end up with a coach that best meets your needs and gives you a great chance to reach your potential as an athlete.
How can online cycling coaching be effective?
Fitness technology has completely changed what is possible in a coach/athlete relationship. All of our athletes log into a personal account and upload each ride and race file into a personal calendar that also serves as a training log. Through this same system, daily workouts are delivered, which are viewable online and across all mobile platforms. As coaches, we can view each ride/race and offer feedback and direction no matter where an athlete is in the world.
While being in the Sacramento or San Francisco area is a luxury, it is certainly not a requirement for maintaining an effective coaching relationship. If you are in an area where you are unable to hire a local cycling coach, online coaching might be a great option for you. In short, you won’t miss a beat with online coaching.
General
Do you offer discounts?
We offer a 10% discount for a prepayment of 12 months and a 5% discount for six months. If you choose to prepay (for 6 or 12 months) at any time in the first two months of month-to-month coaching, we will retroactively apply your prepay discount to your first months of coaching.
Do you offer bike fitting?
No, we don’t. We focus singularly on the one area we know best, coaching. We have too much respect for skilled bike fitters to try and pass ourselves off as experts in a separate discipline.
Do you have a brick-and-mortar location?
No, we don’t. For one primary reason.
To make a brick-and-mortar location financially viable, you must be a salesman. Special packages, upgrades, supplements, apparel, insoles, bike parts, training aids, the list goes on and on.
The “upsell” might be key to making a brick-and-mortar location stick, but we think constantly being in “sales mode” is poisonous to the coach-athlete relationship. We don’t want to be salesmen; we want to be coaches. We will never upsell an athlete on anything, ever.
Working remotely (with less overhead) offers us the flexibility to focus 100% on supporting you as an athlete; that’s what we’re most passionate about. In the meantime, we love getting together with our athletes in the real world, grabbing coffee, going for a ride, or hanging out after a race.
Are you willing to coach athletes in a different country?
Absolutely. Fitness technology makes this simple.
Why the name “Data Driven Athlete” for your coaching business?
As a general rule of thumb, We believe athletes who use data and science as the foundation of their training will be afforded the greatest probability of success. Being a “Data Driven Athlete” is simply the process of listening and responding to data and science. To read more about the philosophy behind Data Driven Athlete, please click here.
Science, data, sheesh…I’m bored already…isn’t athletic performance more than numbers?
No, it’s all about numbers. OK, kidding aside, numbers are a great place to start a conversation on training. They also provide an objective means to plan and track your progress.