I took up cycling as a teenager, initially riding with the CTC on a Sunday to various cafes around the Yorkshire Dales and then with a group of schoolmates I got into TT’s. I remember that my first bike of any note was  Raleigh Olympus 5 speed and back then I  never thought anything of riding 70 miles or so with the older CTC guys, later I graduated to what I thought to be an impressive Claude Butler with Reynolds 531 forks…I had arrived!!!

In 1981 aged 16 I joined the Army and discovered you got paid to ride your bike, my racing experience broadened and I tackled distances from 10 to 100 miles, all TT’s with the odd RR thrown in, I also got the chance to race in Germany as well as various UK courses . I still remember the 100 miler, aged 18 it was a major shock to the system, to say I wasn’t ready for it would be an understatement, that said I was only seconds off a  sub 1hr for the 25m TT back then, not far off my PB to date and in the 80’s it was without the aid of Tri Bars and Carbon.

To my regret at age 19 I stopped racing, I think I found wine, women and song and although I kept fit it wasn ’t until the late 90’s via Triathlons that I decided to return to the bike.

In 2004 to celebrate my 40^th year I completed an Ironman triathlon event in Florida, the swim training though put me off tri discipline events for life and I have focused on the bike since, well with the exception of last year that is. It had always been an ambition to complete the West Highland Way Race, a 96 miles run up the long distance footpath, I set a goal of completing it in under 24hours, I crossed the line in 23 .5. In some ways this was a boost to my cycling because having not ridden for the whole of last year I was really looking forward to getting back onto the saddle .

I have trained and kept reasonably fit for as long as I can remember but I have never taken any professional advice other than reading the various magazines everything I have done has been through experience or talking to other like-minded folks. I have decided this year to try and give myself the best chance to break a few PB’s and move up the local ranking. After speaking to a few cyclists about coaches they had used and the various methods I decided to approach John. John seems to take an approach which balances experience, time and technology. The latter to me seems very important when working together remotely, if you can’t see how the athlete is performing each day how are to properly coach and develop them.

People have asked me if the training is working, I tell them I don’t know, I will soon when the first crank is turned in racing anger, not long now, but what I do know is that the power I measure today is significantly better than that measured 4 months ago, I just have the “simple” task of turning that into faster forward motion.