When we first moved here in '99, we were staying in corporate apartments in Lake Bluff. I had been here for a couple of months while my wife sold our house in CO. The forst day she was here, I told her just to drive around the area to see what she liked in terms of neighborhoods, etc.
She called me a few hours later all excited…“found the greatest area…I love every house around here…it is beautiful!!” Great, I say…where are you?
“I don’t know, but I am across the street from a Ferrari dealership” She was in Lake Forest, the most expensive suburb around with multi-multi-million dollar houses. No wonder she loved it.
I responded with “OK, get back in the car and call me when you have found the VW dealership.”
What is puzzling to me is: Why on earth you go out of your way to post this story that portrays your wife as a naive person incapable of elementary inference in relationship to family finances? …
Guessing here, but because humans are fallible creatures and sometimes… looking at those moments is funny. It happened to be tangential to the money side and cars that we got off topic too.
It isn’t necessarily a blanket write-off or judgement of the person involved as you imply, or seemingly jumped to as a conclusion on your own.
Put another way: “Shit happens… sometimes it’s funny and even worthwhile to share a laugh.”
Really not even certain how to respond to you on that…quite frankly, it is a bit offensive.
As Chad notes, sometimes stuff in life is funny. And that moment was. My wife is a pretty accomplished person and has raised 3 fantastic children. If you think I was attempting to portray her in a negative light, it says more about you than me.
Based on several responses to me recently, you seem to have a personal issue with me…that is fine. Please put me on “ignore” or just don’t respond to my posts in the future.
On pricing, look at Velocious for crazy IMO: Master Coaching is $449 - $1,449 / month and only includes 2x month calls (30 minutes each) with your coach
I’ve never subscribed to the idea that a coach needs to be fast…sure, it helps with the idea that they are “good”, but it doesn’t necessarily make them a good coach.
I’m pretty sure for USAT coaches they have to provide a list of athletes they have coached “up” to certain levels before they can advance to the next level of coaching.
I agree with that, but most coaches are really just that.
It’s like science professors, some are brilliant researchers, but suck at teaching, and vice versa.
That said, I’m not sure what a coach needs to start out. They have to have a degree in it? That rules out most coaches. Science based? Well, I’m a scientist, and I think most cycling specific research is easy to pick holes in (small, biased sample sizes, large segments of research only done by a few, etc). Do any of the TR guys have a degree in related disciplines? I thought they all had software backgrounds.
I think Alex would be good. He’s smart, his wife is a professor, and he has said himself he would like to be a teacher if he wasn’t doing this. He would probably be the best of all the EF riders tbh. I’m a big fan of Lachlan, but I’m not sure if he would be great coach material “no structured training today. Free ride, in sandals, on your fix gear for a minimum 100 miles and 8k feet of gain”.
I guess what I am saying is that the EF program is charging a pretty significant premium and for that kinda coin, I’d prefer having a coach with a proven track record of successful coaching, not a guy who is fast on his bike.
And I’m not saying he can’t be a good coach…I have no idea. Just wondering what his qualifications are…
My guess is they are going to be consulting heavily with coaches and others in the background.
They definitely won’t be acting as rogue consultants. They’ll likely be the face of it and provide the personalized riding coaching element of it, while being coached / and programming being heavily influenced by the real coaches.
Setting aside the prices, I am curious about the quality and quantity of coaching services you actually get, especially at the higher tiers.
The short videos they put out after the launch seem like something that would be worth paying a monthly subscription (of the Netflix level, not hundreds of dollars) for if they could produce a steady stream of them.
I’ve often wondered the same when any ex pro decides to become a coach. I wonder what principles they use to set the training or do they just copy what they’ve been given in the past?
You’d think the kind of pro that becomes a coach is the kind of rider who learned the ins and outs of the process and whys behind it as well as started to develop their own training philosophies. I’m sure some pros just follow their coach’s plan and never learn just like some forum riders just want TR to tell them what to do and don’t want to read textbooks and papers on training studies.
It kind of comes down to which is a better coach - the person that went to university and studied exercise science or the person that raced at a high level and has first hand experience. Ideally, you would want some of both especially at the elite level. The person with university training might be a better “trainer” - designing training plans and such. The ex-pro might be better at the other parts of the job if the athlete is trying to compete at the top level.
For an amateur age grouper / cat 5 wanting to get faster, do they really need an ex-pro coaching them? Maybe the other type of coach would be better?
At least for me, the one of my main concerns with an ex-pro would be: do they know how to get the best / improve someone who isn’t naturally / genetically gifted like they are? So as my first business school marketing professor said (and liberally updated to fit this context): ex-pros are weird (weird as in different), and they shouldn’t extrapolate what worked for them (N=1) to the general populous of cyclists.
Per their info page: (all price values in US Dollars)
What do I get for $19.95 per month ($199 per year)?
DYNAMIC TRAINING PLANS: Structure your training with workouts that adapt to your schedule, performance and training workload preferences.
EF PRO CYCLING VIDEO LIBRARY: Continue to improve even off the bike. Our video library lets you build and expand your understanding of key training concepts, as well as skills and tips to help you become a better rider.
VIRTUAL TRAINING SEMINARS: Take part in interactive monthly sessions with EF Pro Cycling riders, management and sport scientists.
PREMIUM ACCESS TO TODAY’S PLAN: Your workouts are delivered via Today’s Plan, an innovative training platform that gives athletes the power to plan and review upcoming workouts with precision and ease.
This seems to be an Interesting option when you consider the Today’s Plan “Tool and Analytics” is $12 per month ($99 per year). So that is essentially half the price here with the EF training plan and related support as the other. The complete EF Foundation package is nearly identical to TR pricing at $19.95 per month ($189 per year).
