Introducing you all to Youcef
Kelly Cycle Coaching has been coaching Mark Cummings’s brother Youcef, born in Australia, and who now resides in the Middle East. How does this work you all might ask? Well….no different to any other athlete on an individual training program. He sends his calendars to us, gives us information about the terrain he has around him for his training rides and we design a program to help him achieve his goals. The weather plays a factor in his program as the heat is so extreme. He literally does ride out into the desert!!!! He is on the bike by 5am and often it is already 38C. The end of his rides are often as high as 48C!!!!!
And fortunately with the use of technology, the ability to effectively coach someone several thousand km’s away has been made even easier.
Youcef trains with power cranks. Each day he downloads his file and saves it into Dropbox, an online server enabling users worldwide to gain access to it. Kelly Cycle Coaching retrieve his file from Dropbox, drag it into Training Peaks software and we can instantly review his training session each day. It is a fantastic system that works very well. We can monitor his power, speed and cadence for every effort he does, compare them against previous sessions and monitor his strengths and weaknesses on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.
Youcef recently competed in two events in Austria. He hasn’t raced since the early 1990’s so being back in a furious peloton was an interesting experience for him. He did a world cup masters event followed 5 days later with the Masters World Champs road race.
Here is what Youcef had to say about his European adventures:
Well after having the bikes stolen, there was a lapse of a couple days after the vicious World Cup race I rode on the prior Saturday, it proved to be an eye opener with some incredible speeds for a guy who hasn’t raced for over 17 years. I managed to complete the WC race getting dropped on the 3rd climb up the 11% hill, then getting back on at the base of the next hill only to be dropped again. It was tough to recover from the 60 plus speeds down the valley which was a .5% – 1% rise! I recall pushing the button on my then Di2 lever looking for a bigger gear, it was 53 x 11 and there were no more!
So the Worlds race started in freezing cold wet conditions, not ideal for a guy who lives in the Middle East and left 40 degrees to come and race in 8 degrees with pouring rain. I warmed up best I could, sat on the start line for 8 mins and waited, the gun went and slippery road or not we were heading flat out into the first turn, loads of jostling as everyone was nervous about crashes.
I made it through the first 4 or 5 turns before the climb and was in about 10th wheel, I rode the climb the first time at the very front or in the top 10, it was very fast first time up with a 53 x 16 plugged in to crest the hill!
Ballistic as the previous World Cup race down the descent, constant relentless attacking, I really struggled in the fast down hills, I was riding a bike I had never ridden before that was 3 cms too small, it had the brakes on the wrong sides of the bars and I had never used carbon rims before in the wet ( they didnt have carbon last time I raced!) so I burnt the rims on the downhill and locked the rear a couple of times resulting in much cursing in italian! I hung in there till the second time over the climb, about 1 km before the top I was getting shelled only to saved by the guy that was attempting to get away being caught at the 500 meter mark, I was so happy to be on the climb again because my hands, arms, neck and shoulders were shaking uncontrollably in the downhill and flats, getting the chance to move them while standing was a pleasure!
I got shelled on the next downhill because I was so scared to crash, hitting the brakes too often with arms that I could not feel and shaking uncontrollably. I did eventually get back on only because of a slow turn to an uphill section. I was chasing in the 53 x 11 again and not even making an impression.
So back in the bunch and the boys did not let up, constant huge attacks, they never stopped, from 45km/hr to 60km/hr, time after time with some long flat out pulls with the bunch in pieces. It was just ballistic.
Getting tired I rode to the front on the 3 and last time up the 11%. I had promised myself I would not get dropped and I would finish in the bunch this time. They attacked from the bottom, and it was everything I had to hold the attacks. With only 500 meters from the top I was off the back with about 8 other guys. I rode over the top of the climb shivering, not able to move my jaw I was so cold. I pulled over to the side of the road and gave up. I turned around and rode down the climb with 1 foot out of the pedal because it was so slippery!
What a day, what a week, its nice to be back home and into the 95% humidity and 40 degrees, I will be back in St Johann next year and I will get over that climb for the 3rd time and my own bike!
Thanks Helen, I was in superb form, everything was there – I just need some more time and some more races.
Thanks for reading.
Youcef Cummings
