A few days ago, I stumbled across the obituary of Coach John Hughes. As readers of this blog know, Coach Hughes was, of all the fine coaches out there, the coach I chose to follow. I never met him or even communicated with him, I just read his books and articles.
I discovered Hughes on the Google group randon, a group devoted to randonneuring (long distance challenge bicycle rides.) I liked what he said there and so purchased the book he co-wrote with Dan Kehlenbach, "Distance Cycling." My first reaction to "Distance Cycling" was lukewarm at best - I gave it three out of five stars on Goodreads. Over time, however, it grew on me until it became the only training book I used. From the references in 'Distance Cycling" I discovered Hughes' publications on Road Bike Rider website and eventually those publications replaced "Distance Cycling" as my primary reference for bicycle training.
What was it about Coach Hughes which made me select him from amongst the truly amazing collection of coach-authors I might have followed, Coach Joe Friel as one major example? He certainly was not the most polished, the most authoritative, nor the most cutting edge. Most of his advice he took from other coaches, Joe Friel for one, a fact I know because he meticulously referenced the ideas he used. I am a scientist, and Joe Friel (for example) tries to make his training advice as scientific as possible, something Coach Hughes did not do. One of the first thing that attracted me to Coach Hughes was the breadth of his advice. At the time I discovered him, he was one of the few coaches to provide advice for randonneuring, a sport I had just taken up. Actually, the very first thing that caught my eye, back when I discovered Hughes on randon, the thing that persuaded me to purchase "Distance Cycling", was his advice for older cyclists, a group that very much included me. There are plenty of books with titles like "Cycling Past Fifty". but none of them seemed to describe cyclists like me, only Coach Hughes managed to do that. This brings me to the second and perhaps more important reason I followed John Hughes. For Coach Hughes, cycling was personal and totally real. He and I were very close in age (he was about three months older than I and yes I get the implications of that for my mortality) and my favorite of his articles were those about himself, the practical impacts of aging, mistakes he had made, and the consequences of those mistakes. What I loved about those articles was how honest, real, and slightly sad they were. The final thing that drew me to Hughes was his flexibility and humility. One of his favorite expressions was "Remember, everyone is an experiment of one." By that he meant that every cyclist needs to decide for themselves which pieces of training advice work for them and which just don't.
So, is it time for me to find a new coach? I don't see why. I think there is enough wisdom in Hughes collected works to last me for however long I have left. That said, I will miss you John Hughes, it will be lonelier out there on the road knowing you no longer are with us.
