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Adam Myerson
Cycle-Smart President
1) How did your background lead you into coaching?
My natural talent in cycling was always in the field sprints. But I never felt that I had the same aerobic ability as most of the people I was racing against. So, when I decided as a junior that I wanted to put everything into trying to become a pro cyclist, that meant taking the most detailed and methodical approach I possibly could, to make up for what I thought I lacked in talent. I had some great mentors along the way as well, people like Paul Curley and Mark and Frank McCormack, so I was able to learn a lot from them.
2) What made you decide to start Cycle-Smart?
When I got the point in my career, at 27 or so, that I felt like I was no longer improving at the same rate but hadn't quite gone as far as I wanted to in the sport, I felt like I had to change my focus. I never wanted to become cycling's version of a ski bum; to me that seems like a selfish, self-indulgent way to live. At the same time, I felt that I had to find a way to give value and meaning to all the years I had spent racing and the knowledge I had amassed. I had planned all along to go to graduate school at some point and pursue a career teaching literature. But it seemed to me that racing full-time was my grad. school, and perhaps there was a way to become a cycling teacher. Cycle-Smart was born partially from that idea.
3) What different countries and US states have you raced in?
I've lived in Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands for extended periods, and raced in those countries plus France, Belgium, and Italy. I speak German well enough to converse, and I studied French in school so I can read better than I speak. I've raced in every state in the US minus the Dakotas, Wyoming, Idaho, Iowa, and Indiana, I think.
4) How do your experiences racing in different areas color the way you view the sport?
 That's been one of the great gifts cycling has given me: the ability to travel. Even in their own hometowns, most people don't know what their own countryside looks like the way a cyclist does. But racing all over the world has taught me a lot about the different ways you can solve a problem and improve the sport in your own community. It's actually made me think more regionally than globally. California is America, but it's as far away as Belgium if you live in New England. I think each region has to focus on racing at home and making it the best they possibly can there. That way the country as a whole improves.
5) What is your basic philosophy as a coach?
I think it's important to distinguish between a coach and physiologist, and recognize that each one has a specific job in training athletes. My job as a coach is to read and study the work of the physiologists, and try to take it from the lab into the practical world, infused with my own experience as an elite athlete myself. With each of my clients, I see my job as taking many forms: psychologist, time-management, friend, etc. For most athletes, you're trying to help them be the best they can be in the context of their real lives, and you have to take that wide-angle approach to really help them reach their potential.
6) Are there any coaches or mentors you've had in your career who have made a bigger difference than others?
My parents divorced when I was 11, and I think I've always looked for mentors or role models as a result. I've always been fiercely independent and feel very much that I "escaped" from my background by being able to take care of myself. At the same time, there's an emptiness if you have no one to learn from. I've been guided by lots of different people and ideas: my high school English teacher, straight-edge hardcore punk, things like that. I often joke that I get all my philosophy from song lyrics. But in cycling, Bill Sykes was the first one to explain systematic, cyclical training to me. It was Paul Curley who took me from that point and taught me how to introduce intervals and intensity into all the hours I was doing. My program has evolved from there, and I've recently started working with Swiss coach Paul Koechli, who developed many of the concepts my program is based on. I'm using a power and heart-rate analysis software that Paul has created, and plan to meet with him this summer in Switzerland to hopefully learn as much as I can from him. I consider him the master.
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