REVIEWS
Want to know what our customers think about us? Then read on! Here's some of the athletes we've worked with
Michael Freiberg
(Australia) World Champion 2011 (Men's elite; Track; Omnium event)
Michael was coached by RST Sport senior coach and Performance Director, Ric Stern for several years. Together, Michael scaled new heights culminating in winning the 2011 World Championships in Holland. Here's what Michael had to say:
To me the RST Sport team is my Formula One pit crew, ready to squeeze every ounce of performance from my body. Whether it be in aerodynamics, nutrition, training, testing, racing, pursuiting or sprinting, every facet of my performance is recorded, measured, calculated and analysed finding improvements in speed, efficiency and recovery. RST is my personal sports institute devoted to making me faster.
Ben lane
I started working with Ric after many years of racing and self coaching having reached what I felt was a bit of a plateau. Ric’s approach suited me well – namely devising a fluid programme which looked to continually develop the rider using data driven techniques. Ric was always available to chat things through and became a good ‘virtual’ friend as well as a coaching relationship. He understood the needs of a middle aged racer and through his techniques helped me achieve a few successes on a National Level in time trialling that I did not honestly think I could achieve. Whilst not being coached currently – should I decide to have a coach again I’d be in touch with Ric.
A small personal level of satisfaction. National age group winners medal at CTT National 50 mile TT Championship
Jon Ellis
I’ve worked with Ric for three years and his coaching has been instrumental in transforming my performances across several cycling disciplines including crits, XC, CX and my main focus of time trialling.
The structure and guidance Ric gives me help me exceed my personal targets and achieve times and results I’d never have thought possible, highlights being a 53 minute 25 and top 15 in the Midlands TT Rankings in 2018.
Ric offers a very collaborative approach and was able to quickly adjust my plan to accommodate changes in available training time due to business travel. I have a young family and a busy job so getting the most out of the small amount of weekly time available for training was a real benefit of working with a coach.
Carl Donaldson
Carl has worked with us for just under 2 years achieving a fantastic array of personal bests, wins, competition records, and three national top tens. Carl worked with senior coach Ric Stern, and competed in time trials and road races. Carl, spoke more on his time with RST Sport here
James Hayden
James Hayden, has worked with Coach Ric for the last two years, and has won The Transcontinental Race both times (2017 & 2018). Prior to this, James had managed 4th place. James also has smashed out plenty of road races, and TT with an 18-min 10 as his PB. We’ve featured James a lot, but here’s some articles to read. (Epic side note, James hates riding in the rain even more than Ric!)
Here
Here
Here
And here
Selene Yeager
Selene worked with Coach Neil, for a little over 3 years, and is the editor of Bicycling Magazine.
Coaching is as much about art as it is science. Anyone with working knowledge of physiology and the sport can cobble together a training plan. That’s the science. The art is knowing your athlete, digging in a little deeper on what makes them tick, and fine tuning the plan and your training approach for that specific athlete to meet that specific athlete’s need. That’s the art. And to that end, Neil Kent is an artist. I was already doing well when I started working with Neil, but he saw where I needed improvement (aka threshold tolerance on the flats) and the areas of racing in which I felt less confident (aka NERVES). He designed programs that systematically dissolved those weaknesses. I went into the biggest race of my life Brasil Ride with multi time national champion Rebecca Rusch with the most confidence I’ve ever had; raced stronger and smarter than I ever have, and emerged with a stage race sweep and overall win. Through it all, he always encouraged me to enjoy the ride; checked in regularly to be sure I was on point and feeling happy; and was as much a friend as a coach. I’d recommend his services to anyone.
Alan Curtis
Alan Curtis was super happy to have been coached by RST Sport, and Coach Ric. Alan, smashed his PBs at 25-mile TTing and managed to put over 60-seconds into ex-Tour de France rider Sean Yates - who was the nearest rider to him, on several occasions. At the time Cycling Weekly, awarded Alan “Performance of the Week”. Alan said, “I’m absolutely thrilled to have won this award. Ric and I have been working together since December and I’ve managed to have some great victories this season”. Coach Ric said, “Alan’s an incredibly hard working cyclist, and it’s given me great pleasure to see him do so well”.
Colette Swift
Colette represented Ireland at an international level and was coached by Coach Ric. “It's only with time and distance thinking back to 2005 can I fully appreciate what Ric was helping me to achieve. I had never properly organised or planned my training with clear objectives before having a coach. I remember that after a year of structured training with Ric how I felt so much stronger coming into the start of the new racing season. My confidence was up too as I could see my training power figures increasing. I was looking forward to seeing how it might translate with the racing year to come (only to lose it all by getting pregnant!).
I would recommend a coach to take the guesswork out of training and to help provide measurable and achievable weekly and monthly goals and targets. I would recommend giving it a go for at least two years to allow for things like bad luck, injury, dips in morale etc to play their part but to keep consistently chipping away at improving and building on achieving your targets and goals.”
Key achievements:
x2 time Irish national silver medalist road race, Represented Ireland World Championship road race Verona 2004 (DNF)
B World Championship road race Monthey 2003 (18th)
Winner Isle of Wight 2 day stage race 2003
4th Tour of Okinawa, Japan 2003
Ironman triathlete Roth 2000 (3.8km swim, 180km bike, 42 km run)
Nathan Corridon
Nathan worked with Coach Neil, competing in both road racing and MTBing events.
I’ve worked with RST for around the last two years, I came in already pretty well trained so making improvements was always going to be a hard task. Despite this I made some small measurable gains, the more subjective gains though really helped me improve as a cyclist; improved confidence in my ability and consistency which resulted in better race results.
Callum Clarke
Callum Clarke, has worked with Coach Neil over the last few years, and he’s progressed significantly in his ability. This year Callum won road races, and dominated in the inaugural Haute Route Stelvio Event. In fact he’s now got the 14th fastest time up the Stelvio behind Tour de France winner Vincenzo Nibali!
Alex Simmons
Many of you who know about RST Sport, will know of Coach Alex Simmons. However, you may not know the full story. Alex is now our Technical Director, but before that he was a masters rider I coached. Alex loved track. I mainly coached him for track. At the conclusion of his race season one year, I sent Alex on a recovery spin. Things were never the same again. Unfortunately, Alex hit a gate that had been placed badly across a cycle path, and he ended up losing his leg (I think he’s given up looking for it now). To be honest I wasn’t sure if Alex would cycle again, but he joined RST as the Technical Director and started coaching riders alongside me. As Alex went through rehab he decided he wanted to continue riding, and I coached him. It was an absolute honour to help Alex back to his cycling, and then something happened. We had a little more time for training and Alex ended up beating his two-legged power PBs with one and a bit legs and a prosthetic. He won road races and track against able-bodied riders, and represented Australia (I can’t hold that against him as he is Australian!) in some Paralympic World Cup events.
Peter Nix
Ric Stern has coached me since March 2018. I had just started week 45 of 46 weeks training received from Ric, when unfortunately a health issue (unrelated to the cycling training) put a stop to my plans. I was really looking forward to and feeling confident for the approaching road season of over 65’s League of Veterans road racing, and races like the Tour of Cambridgeshire, some time trialling and a few challenging endurance rides, Audax and the like. Having been cycling fairly seriously for about nine years (having done it in my teenage and twenties) but with a few interruptions and perhaps a little haphazardly, I decided to work with Ric because of his proven expertise and experience, to try and give cycling my best shot for a year or two more!
I have been very satisfied. Although I think big gains in power are really hard to come by (especially at my age and I was pretty experienced rider already) I could feel the gains in fitness, ability to race over two hours and my racing performances improving over the year. Trusting in Ric’s training, which I was receiving every two weeks (and not wondering anymore if I was doing the right things) I just got on with it, with only a few workouts missed or failed.
I felt it was quite a ‘strong programme’ based on my available hours but with Ric monitoring my workouts and training load, I never became over trained, despite this being more work than I had been doing. The consistent and progressing workouts every week were really working and I felt I would be able to do more. I was always looking forward to getting out on the road or jumping on the rollers, and getting it done. I think the consistency and time I had put over the last year was really beginning to pay off. I am hoping that I may be able to get back to training with Ric again in the near future.
Peter Nix
24 February 2019
Neil Pugh
I had been aware of RST and Ric for a long time due to his contributions to an online cycling forum and had previously purchased a training plan from RST which I was very pleased with. I set out on a 6 month Aluminium contract and, despite this being the "entry" level in terms of available packages I was very impressed with the amount of contact I had with Ric, I was certainly expecting a lot less, but Ric always responded to any query which I had regarding the training or the actual mechanisms of how I would receive the plans etc. The plans arrived promptly and were very well constructed and easy to understand, my fitness levels undoubtedly increased during the time I was coached by Ric evidenced by the power numbers I was riding at. This was a period where I wasn't entering races but wanted to keep my fitness up and my weight in check, the plan certainly achieved this. The only thing which prevented me extending my contract was an injury, I hasten to add not caused by the training I was doing.
Would I recommend RST? Yes I would.
Jeff Jones
British Best All Rounder 2011
World Record 12 Hour Time Trial
Third fastest 10-mile TT ever recorded
National championship medals at a variety of distances
“I sought out a good coach after I had been racing and training hard for nearly 20 years and wanted to see if I could improve any further. RST Sport’s evidenced based coaching really appealed to my scientific background and the choice was made. During the time I was coached by Ric, I hit every goal I’d set out to at the start, both short and long term. I set a competition record for 12 hours, I won the BBAR and the National Time Trial Series, I won three silver medals and a bronze at the national championships along with numerous age group medals, I managed 18’09 and 47’40 for 10 and 25 miles, I was able to peak for my chosen events but most importantly I got more out of myself than I ever thought possible. I highly recommend RST to anyone, whatever their level.“
NIv Libner
Amore Vita
For me the personal treatment from RST changed the way I train, into a world of a scientific workouts. The revolution in my training habits helped me achieve a new level of fitness. With the guidance of Ric Stern, I achieved really nice victories, in the national championship and the Spanish race ‘Volta ciclista Vigo”. This season I will race for the professional team Amore & Vita, and it’s hard to imagine I would have reached this level without RST.
Simply put, the backup and guidance i got from rst transformed the way I train, into a world of a scientific workouts and nutritions. The complete revolution in the way i train helps me reach higher levels of performance every season. Under the guidance of Ric Stern, I achieved some victories i could only dream of before, such as, in the national championship (2010,2011) and the Spanish race ‘Volta ciclista Vigo”. This season I will will be my 2nd season with the professional team Amore & Vita, and it’s hard to imagine I would have reached this level without RST.