Cervelo Test Team Pro Cyclist Dan Fleeman, Coach Hunter Allen, and TrainingPeaks

Hunter Allen, co-author of Training and Racing with a Power Meter and a former professional cyclist himself, now spends a lot of his time coaching pro riders like Dan Fleeman of the Cervelo Test Team. Dan is 26 years old and a former British Under 23 champion. He won the Tour des Pyrénées last season, was seventh in the Tour of Britain and 13th in the Tour of Ireland. Read on for more about Dan and Hunter.

Dan originally became interested in riding at the age of 10, when mountain biker Steve Joughain visited his school. "I first got into cycling from mountain biking, when ex-pro road rider turned mountain biker Steve Joughain came to my school to run our after-school cycling classes. I was about 10 at the time and I stayed with mountain biking until I was 18, then moved to the road. Steve now works on the tour of Britain and I have seen him there the last 2 years and he is really pleased I have stuck at it as not many people do."

Hunter started coaching while he was still riding professionally, and has always really enjoyed seeing his athletes succeed. "I originally got into coaching because I had a local athlete that asked me to coach them when I was racing as a pro on the road for the Navigators team. I had always wanted a coach myself when I was racing, someone to take me under their wing and help me to reach my potential, but in the early 90's there was no such thing as a cycling coach really. I really enjoy coaching and seeing my athletes succeed. It's great to share in their victories however great or small, and it's also excellent to continue to share the knowledge with others."

Speaking about his experience being coached by Hunter, Dan says, "What I like about Hunter is you get the best of both worlds. What I mean is normally coaches fall into two groups:  1) ex-pros who know how to ride but don't always have the scientific knowledge and 2) scientific guys who understand all the numbers but don't know what riding a bike is all about. With Hunter you get an ex-pro who also has all the scientific knowledge."

Hunter uses power analysis to make his coaching as effective as possible for all his athletes. "For me, it's about quantifying your training load and understanding what training load you actually did, then making smart changes to ensure even better results.  I certainly believe that an athlete has to listen to their body and do the hard work, but at the same time, if I as a coach can use this information to make that cyclist even faster?  That is cool."

He really enjoys hearing success stories from athletes who use the power analysis functionality of WKO+ and TrainingPeaks to achieve great results. "It's been such a great thing to be a big part of TrainingPeaks and all the projects we do.  It's a great family and I feel very fortunate to be in the same boat with some other amazing people all working together to come out with the best solutions for organizing training and performance improvement. As the co-developer of WKO+, it's great to see a ton of my ideas come to life and them put to use by so many. I love hearing success stories from others about our software and how they use it."

Dan enjoys using TrainingPeaks because it provides him with so much data and therefore keeps him accountable for his training. "As for TrainingPeaks, I love all the info it gives me and the upload feature helps me keep Hunter up-to-date without having to email him the files everyday: I can just click upload and he has them. He can even see where I went on my ride now with the Garmin so he can see if I slack off and stop at the coffee shop - not that I do that too often!"

Coaching elite riders like Dan is particularly enjoyable for Hunter, as he gets to share in the thrill of competing in some of the biggest races in the world. "It's exciting for me, as Dan has the opportunity to race in some of the biggest races in the world this year, and he's also got what it takes to be one of the best riders in those races.  So, not only will he get to compete this year, but he'll get the chance to really do well. I expect that he'll have a big result in one of the races this season.  He's an excellent climber, so he should be able to climb with the very best in a mountainous race. It should be a really fun year."

Dan is excited for the season as well, although he knows it will be challenging. "Riding for a team leader like Carlos Saste in the mountains of a grand tour will be hard but also this is what I am most looking forward to doing. I want to develop as a climber and stage race ride and make a name for myself in the big tours."

Riding professionally can be difficult, but it can also be rewarding. Discussing a particularly stressful moment last season, Dan admits, "I was so stressed after a stage of the tour of Britain last year that I had a fall out with Dan Lloyd (team mate and also Hunter disciple) and I threw my bike at him. Not big or clever but we both laugh about it now!" Overall, however, Dan is happy that he spends his time "traveling around and getting to see different cultures while doing  something I enjoy." When asked which race he is most excited about this season, he enthusiastically replied, "Any of the grand tours - don't care which as long as I do one!"

Although Hunter admits that Astana is going to be the team to beat this year, he is confident that the Cervelo Test Team will be in the hunt. "I have a feeling they will surprise a lot of people.  Astana is the big juggernaut right now in the grand tours, and it will be very hard to beat them, but Cervelo is going to be in the hunt."

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