TrainingPeaks at BMX Worlds

I got to attend the BMX World Championships this past week in Victoria, British Columbia and what a great event. As one of the coaches for the USA Cycling Podium Program BMX athletes, I got to hang out with the best BMXers in the world and work with some of the best people in the world supporting the team. Talk about a great team of people helping out the USA Riders! Former world downhill champ and multi-time BMX champ Mike King is the Team Manager, Greg Romero a former national champ pro BMXer was the head coach, and Dr. Eric Heiden – 5 time Olympic Gold Medalist was the team doc. These are just a few of the inspiring people helping out the team.

Most of the riders on the team use TrainingPeaks to receive their training plans from their coach and also to write in their diary about the training, and of course we are using WKO+ to analyze their power, HR and GPS files as well. It’s great to see the athletes asking questions about our software and also how to better utilize it. While I personally have been in the BMX world since I was 11, it’s a new market for us, so the feedback I got on how they are using our software was invaluable.

During the week, we had the opportunity to visit a local track and practice on it, along with getting some great video of the riders practicing starts, going over jumps and tuning up the legs for the world championships on Saturday. It’s amazing how many jumps there are in BMX tracks now as compared to the mid-1980’s when I raced and how incredibly fast these guys ride the track. It seems impossible that they are even staying on the track when you see them, as they are going so fast. When analyzing their power files, their numbers blow away anything that I have ever seen from even the world champion track riders. These guys and girls put out some amazing watts for their Peak 5 seconds. Off the gate and down the first straight reveals just how important maximal strength and sheer explosiveness plays a role in this sport.

BMX is like any other bike racing category in terms of the ‘randomness’ factor. Anything can happen. In the Pro Men’s category, there were 118 riders competing, and 110 of them got to watch the ‘Main’ event from the sidelines as only 8 riders are on the course at one time and made it to the ‘Main’. Just like road racing, it’s a high failure rate sport, only 1 guy wins and all the rest are just ‘pack filler’. Many of the top riders didn’t make it to the main because of crashes, pulling out of their pedals, mis-timing the gate start or just getting boxed in at the wrong time. The depth of the Pro Men from the USA was very apparent though when we put 5 US men out of a possible 8 people in the Main. At the finish it was Kyle Bennett taking his 3rd Rainbow Jersey(has anyone done this on the road? Win 3 Rainbow jerseys in the same discipline?) with Randy Stumpfhauser taking the Bronze. Talk about a bunch of excited USA Cycling staff members! It was a big party that night as we toasted Kyle and Randy for their tremendous success! We also toasted Joey Bradford who got the Silver in the Junior Mens divison, and was so close to the gold. I was incredibly impressed with Joey, as he raced with a broken hand and was icing it between motos and was able to handle the pain. That kid is amazing and one for the future!

With BMX in the Olympics in 2008, it’s going to be very exciting to work with these athletes for the coming year and if all goes well, we’ll have an Olympic Gold medal or 2 from our BMXers!

Checkout some pics below..

The Elite Pro Men Main- Kyle about to pass an Aussie for the Win, and Randy 'boosting' the triple about to take over 3rd spot.

(L to R) The 2007 World Champ- Kyle Bennett, Greg Romero, Hunter Allen and Ken Whelpdale-head of logistics for USA Cycling

Sean Petty -COO of USA Cycling toasts the new world Champ Kyle Bennett

I am now off to South Africa for a 12 day trip to teach (3) Power Training courses, and a 3-day Coaching Certification course. They will be the first of their kind in South Africa as there is no certification for coaches in South Africa . It will be exciting to teach the first courses on training with a power meter in SA, as well as a great opportunity to expose all the coaches to our TrainingPeaks line of software. Look for a blog post when I get back!

-Hunter