Veteran cross-country mountain bike racer Mike Charuk might be hitting the trails more often in the near future, but it won't be because he's training for a gruelling race, instead he'll be passing on his wealth of knowledge to young cyclists on Team 麻豆社国产as its new coach.
Although Charuk said he took the new instructing position because the team executive asked him to, he said he's excited about teaching the younger generation of racers.
"I think it will be fun passing on some experience to kids."
The 47-year-old registered massage therapist and certified rolfer said his multi-faceted experience as a racer and knowledge of sports injuries will definitely be an asset to the racing team.
"In the bigger picture everything I've ever done is going to contribute to my coaching philosophy."
Charuk said he plans to integrate some road bike aspects in the cross-country focused training season because it generally helps with racing.
"To be good cross country mountain bike racer you tend to do some work on road bikes as well," he said.
"I think we're going to provide a solid mountain bike program for the 12 athletes and we're going to teach them the fundamentals of mountain biking in a building block fashion. The program will be result based so hopefully they'll improve on their times year after year, race after race."
Charuk has spent time working as the massage therapist for the national track cycling team, as a mental coach, and as a rugby, snowboarding and boxing instructor, as well as a mountain biker.
"But that was yester year and now I'd rather be a coach than a mountain biker. I've always been interested in coaching."
