Journal.

Lighter, more aero bikes and marginal gains are everywhere. All coming at a cost and a questionable performance benefit. If you upgraded your bike for non-performance reasons such as style and prestige, you can happily stop reading and continue on admiring your dream of carbon and speed on two wheels. It’s a 100% worth it!

For those of you, who consider investing for the sake of a performance benefit, the following might be worth a read and maybe you end up investing money in a coach, rather than a new frame.

When working with amateur athletes, there’s often the question of what one can invest to make the bike faster, both on the road and off-road. Compared to pros who are more or less set with what their team is sponsored with. Not many bikes on the pro tour are close to the UCI weight limit of 6,8kg. There are some lists out there published by cycling channels like GCN who show that most of the world tour bikes are in fact around 7,5kg race ready without bottles. Of course, the hunt for aero benefits at 50km/h favor shape over weight, but is that beneficial for my Rider Joe who averages 25km/h in a marathon race in the Alps?

For the sake of the argument, very simplified and not taking all parts into the equation, here’s a calculation for a brand that offers 2 frameset options with identical shape.

Model sl8 s-works: 6,85kg for €14000,-

Model sl8: 7,44kg for €9000,-

(Weights and prices according to the manufacturer’s website, www.specialized.com)

Both bikes feature the same geometry and same rim depth of 51mm at the front and 60mm in the rear and internal width of 21mm. Again, for a simplified calculation we consider no aerodynamic benefit between the two models. And I hardly doubt that there is any in real life.

That leaves us with a 600g weight difference at a cost of 5k. Or in other words, 37 months of coaching at my rate.

My Rider Joe, who weighs 80kg, averages 250w up a 10% gradient for 10 kilometers would need around 63 minutes and 46 seconds with the s-works model. Assuming he rides in the same position, uses the same tires and tire pressure and wears the same kit, just switching to the +600g bike would result in a time of 64 minutes and 11 seconds for the same climb. That’s a 25 second benefit on 1000m of elevation gain. Or close to 2 minutes over the duration of the Ötztaler Radmarathon.

If Joe averages 252w on the same climb (yes, just 2w more on average) he finishes the climb on the heavier bike in 63 minutes 41 seconds. Same time as the lighter bike and 250w average.

To what extent a coach can improve your average power output over a certain time is always hard to put down in numbers. For novice riders, a 10% increase in performance can be realistic whereas for a very well adapted endurance athlete an increase of just 1% is sometimes a real struggle and takes weeks or even months. From my experience, an average athlete with a functional threshold power of around 3,5w/kg can improve somewhat around 5% over the course of 3 months preparation. Certainly, that does not apply to each and everyone, it’s just an estimate and talking from experience.

To finish this argument, if Joe works 6 months with me, it will cost him €923,-. Best case, he improves from a 250w (3,15w/kg) average to 265w average (3,31w/kg) on the afore mentioned climb. That will get him a time of around 60 minutes and 40 seconds with the heavier bike. Roughly 3 minutes faster over one climb and 16,5 minutes over the climbs of the Ötztaler Radmarathon compared to the light bike. And he still has 4k in his pocket.

Bottom line: if you are looking to go faster, a structured workout calendar might be an option to consider and not the newest lightweight seatpost to shave off 25g of your bike.  And there’s more to a coach than just a training schedule. A good coach might also provide nutrition guidelines and pacing strategies for your race days. Mostly leading to a faster finishing time.

Instead of chasing grams, why not chase gains?
Let’s face it: real performance improvements don’t come from shedding grams off your frame (looking at the newest trend of scaping off paint of a frame for 70 hours to safe 50g). If you’re serious about becoming a faster, stronger cyclist, it’s time to invest in personalized coaching.

Note: I’m using various calculators available in the www to get an idea of the efforts and demands of a certain distance and climb. It’s important to note that all those calculators represent an estimated time, as they try to put rolling resistance and position on the bike in the equation and that’s the tricky part. For some calculators you can even add the status of your chain into the equation. The essential part of all those calculations is that the difference in weight is not as significant as one might expect.

Reading that on my website might strike you as a odd, but that’s how I felt until my early 20s. I grew up on the countryside, naturally I wanted to be a farmer for many years. That changed to brick layer, like my father. At some point also baker/confectioner if I recall it right. Probably because I got a sweet tooth. That career prospects all changed with participating in my first race back in 1998. From that moment on, I was determined to become a champion. Hands in the air, medal around my neck champion at Olympic games and World championships. 15 years later, after spending most of my youth and teenage years training towards that goal, reality caught up with me. The last year of the under 23 category was also the last year I thought I could win medals and make a living as an elite athlete. No hard feelings, looking back it was a great time and I would do it all again, but I needed a new job.

In all the years, all the training sessions before and after school, weekends away trying to ski as fast as possible from A to B I never thought about becoming a coach. Don’t get me wrong, I liked my coaches. Thankful that someone helped me chasing my dreams. But it never occurred to me that working with athletes could be a potential future job.

Law, for four semesters I was enrolled at University for getting a law degree. I attended classes, passed some exams but quite soon I realized this might not be my path towards a happy work life and an unexpected call changed everything. The vice president of the upper Austrian ski federation at the time called. He’d heard I recently quit skiing and was wondering if I can see myself coaching youth athletes. I was working with the upper Austrian ski federation for three years. During this time the coaching thing really started to feel like something I could do. I started studying sport science in a more serious way. I finished my Bachelors degree and just around the time I finished my Masters degree I started working for the Austrian national team. As a coach.

Ever since my first coaching experience I haven’t changed my mind about how beautiful this work is. Amateur and professional athletes alike. The process of realizing someone’s full potential and work towards a goal is what I like to do for a living. At times it can be tough of course. It’s not a job you can clock out from. A lot of times you take a part of your job home. Especially the moments you fail to reach a certain goal with your athlete can be a bit challenging and may not go away quickly. But all the hard times wash away with one victory. No matter how small it might be. One moment that makes my athlete’s hard work and tough days taste sweet. Until it starts again. Because one thing’s for sure, no matter how big the trophy was. Everyone starts from the same line in the next race.

For almost a decade now, I have been working with athletes. As a coach I have been to Olympic games and World championships with my athletes. Failing, learning and winning too. The coaching business keeps you humble, cause you lose more times than you win. Safe to say it feels like I have a great job.

My very own business. Finally.

The thought of being self employed has been in the back of my head for a long time now. Running my own business and consequently making choices for myself sounded tempting. No head of something giving you orders. Be your own boss, take a break whenever and work as little or as much you want. Just register your business, get a license and a website and off you go.

I knew it was not going to be that easy but boy did I underestimate the workload coming with a business. The whole process of getting started for a guy who knows nothing about businesses took up probably the most amount of motivation. Until I figured out whats what and who to contact weeks have passed. As soon as I figured out the amount of things I need to consider I was ready to give up. Eventually, after some weeks of procrastinating, I turned my head around and got things going. Slowly but steady. One step at a time, sometimes baby steps, sometimes the steps of tired old man. At this point, many thanks to Alex for making it happen. Your help along the way is much appreciated.

Bottom line, I got it done. Some things turned out different than expected, both ways really. But being the perfectionist I am, I would always find something that’s just not right and needs fine tuning.

The website mainly serves the purpose of a classic business platform, to be seen and advertise my offer as a coach. Additionally, I want to communicate topics of interest, not only in the field of sport science or sport related topics in general. Let’s see how things unfold in that matter. Having it not all figured out is a great way to stay open minded and get things going with the flow.

Phil