The Inspiration for Coach Curly

I think the idea for Coach Curly came from a number of places. Place number one being my coach as a Jr. racer. A soft-spoken man of few words, he never got excited. You had to listen like hell to hear what he was saying. He directed our team (Team Impulse/Mazda) and coached us as well... About 35 riders in all. The man smoked like a chimney (like Curly). On one particular instance he drove a teammate and I to Spokane for the Spokane River Road Race... the car was filled with smoke the entire 4 hours (yeah, he sped alot too). Once we arrived, I remember him saying, "Alright, get your bikes out and ride for an hour to loosen your legs" Both of us coughed the entire time. Of course we laughed like hell that his cigarette always seemed to be at half-cherry... never more, never less. The training regime was very cookie cutter... we'd get a month at a glance by day... Monday-easy (42X21) 25 miles sort of thing.

Place two was of course watching the movie City Slickers... You want your coach to be a bad-ass who knows his stuff and when he doesn't, he throws some kind of verbal insult at you to shut you up. Finally, like Curly... you want him to be able to paint a picture with an off-color remark that over-simplifies the entire situation.

Place three came out of realizing that there is an enormous amount of disconnected coaching websites out there promising to make people better riders. Disconnected you ask? Yes... no actual person to talk with, analyze, push you when needed or troubleshoot what's going on with you. Instead... you enter the website, decide if you like the colors of the site, pay your $9.95 per month (or more), get something back. They may even be able to set up recurring payments for you. They might even have a "Call" or "E-mail" option for another 20 bucks. I think a lot of people in desperate situations to become a better rider or racer might be out a few bucks trying these things. Of course, not realizing that it takes time, effort, support from other people to make the grade. Training is hard, racing is hard.

The Coach Curly project was always supposed to be a parody of that... except for "Just One Thing"... it included a discussion blog, a parody website, and some ridiculous training philosophies that I hope no one took seriously and is still laying on the floor, passed out from Thursday's assignment. My only regret is that I may have hurt some teammates with this joke taken to the extreme... I'm bummed about that, cuz I've got some great teammates. They're what bike racing is all about... fun, diligence, structure, more fun, advice, competition, and they're just all around good folk and bike racers. So... this post is for them.

I haven't decided whether or not to keep Coach Curly Blog going... Part of the project was for me to test out an authorware product to the extreme... I have done that. Now go on... go tell your teammates you appreciate them. Cuz without them, there wouldn't be a "team".

About the author: The Eternal Cat 4 ~an instructional designer/dad of 1.5 kids/amateur husband/amateur writer born and raised in Seattle, WA. Been involved with bike racing since 1985 when races like the Bellevue Criterium, Old Fairhaven Two-Day, and the Mayor's Cup Series were in vogue.