Giant-Shimano has opened up their season with a bang and we had a little talk with their new coach, or as he is usually called at Giant-Shimano; simply “the trainer”, Mattias Reck, about their success and about the cooperation between the team and the Danish Cycling Federation.

 

Mattias Reck has a long career within sport in many different aspects. He was quite successful at Taekwondo, but as he grew tired of his taekwondo career and his passion for cycling grew stronger he decided, at 25 years of age, to take on one of the world’s toughest sports. However, after a couple of years Reck realized that it was a lot tougher than he first thought it would be and that he wouldn’t have the career in cycling that he once had in taekwondo. His passion and love for the sport kept him motivated to keep on racing until he was 40 years old, but he also developed a new career on the side as he started to coach teams and individual riders. This proved to be his most successful career to date and in 2014 he joined the Giant-Shimano crew as their new trainer.

 

We asked Reck why he thinks Giant-Shimano decided to hire him and what makes him unique as a coach.

 

”It was a long process with several possible candidates, so I was very happy to learn that they’d made a decision to work with me. I think the main reason for choosing me was not just based on my knowledge and skills, but also based up on a belief that I’d be able to really get in touch with the riders as that’s key for good understanding and being able to work together. The team’s got a clear vision and knew precisely what they were looking for and looking at it now it seems like we all work very well together. Things are moving in the right direction and we’re getting to where we want to be, so it feels really good”, Reck tells Cyclingquotes.com before he modestly continues. ”I don’t believe I’m unique in any kind of way, but I have a way of always bringing positive energy, motivating people and building confidence. I’m good at explaining how and why we do things a certain way, which I believe is key to getting as much as possible out of your training. I’m well educated within my field of expertise, I make sure to stay updated and I’ve got a lot of experience and knowledge from different cultures and traditions which is a good quality to have when dealing with riders from so many different countries and different backgrounds.”

 

Reck is working together with Adriaan Helmantel and they’re responsible for the training of the entire Giant-Shimano squad.

 

“I don’t know if I add anything specifically new to the team, but Adriann and I work very well together, sharing the same views and principles regarding training and we help each other staying up to date, so I believe we’re a very good duo and together we can discuss ways of working and we can help each other out with any questions that might pop up.”

 

Reck adds that it’s a luxury for 2014 to be two trainers working together as neither of them has ever worked alongside another trainer before. Discussing new data and finding new inspiring ways to work with the team gets a lot easier when there are two of them being able to inspire each other. Reck also wants to highlight the work and importance of another man who usually stays in the background, Teun Van Erp.

 

“He’s the scientist we couldn’t be without. Teun helps us analyse Srm files, there’s quite a few of them coming in from riders every day so there’s a lot to do, and he also helps us staying updated on the latest research regarding anything related to training. It really is a luxury for us to have that kind of help.”

 

Being both the founder and owner of his own coaching business as well as the former coach of Team Cykelcity, Reck is used to taking on new challenges, but to step up on the highest platform there is within cycling, taking on a top World Tour team, meant that he had to face a completely new challenge by coaching top rank riders.

 

“That was the biggest personal challenge for me, to see how I’d react working and coaching riders at World Tour level. My knowledge and experience as a trainer for many years helped me deal with my new challenge, of course, but I also believe that my past as a teacher has helped me a lot. I’m used to coaching and guiding people.”

 

Being a trainer on a World Tour team doesn’t come without challenges and we asked Reck to predict the next challenge.

 

“To deal with things when it doesn’t quite turn out the way it’s supposed to. It’s bound to happen sometime.”

 

Giant-Shimano has had an excellent start to 2014 with both their male and female riders climbing the podium several times. Reck believes that it’s a combination of both the technical and emotional aspect of things that’s the recipe for their success.

 

“We’ve had an amazing start to 2014 and we’re all very happy to be able to kick off a new season like this. There are several reasons, I think, why we’ve been successful and part of it starts when the DS (whom Giant-Shimano refers to as their coaches) and trainers sit down and plan the racing programme and discuss who’ll be racing what races. Another important factor is the vibe in the team. Everyone’s talking to everyone, everyone gets along, there’s no groups keeping to themselves etc. Last, but not least, I also believe that the fact that we had three major training camps during December and January has made a big difference. Everyone’s been able to stay healthy and go through with their training just as planned and we’ve been able to work a lot with the riders. So far, this has made February and March quite successful for us.”

 

One of these successful training camps was visited by Danish Magnus Cort (Cult Energy Vital Water) who’s a hot name to keep an eye on right now as he’s already lined up three UCI victories this year. The talented Dane joined Giant-Shimano on their training camp in Spain.  

 

“Without saying too much I can tell you that he made a very good impression, both on and off the bike”, Reck says leaving us wanting to know more.

 

Morten Bennekou also visited the team in Spain and the cooperation between Giant-Shimano and DCU is slowly, but surely, taking shape.

 

“Just like Magnus, Bennekou made a good impression and we all had a good time together. It was interesting being able to discuss different things with him and I’m sure that we were all happy and satisfied with the time spent together in Spain. The cooperation between the team and DCU is still in its infancy and it will take some time to really shape it up and see where it’ll take us. What we do know now is that we share the same vision and principles on how to inspire, motivate and develop young and promising riders and we already had something happening now that Magnus came with the team to Spain. We’ll just have to wait and see what it all will lead to and what will happen between Giant-Shimano and Magnus Cort.”

 

As an experienced trainer watching the Dane take to the international racing scene with great success, Reck passes on a quite simple piece of advice to Cort.

 

“Keep doing what you’re doing, whatever it is, it’s clearly working, and make sure to take advantage of the luxury of being surrounded by skilled and experienced people.”

 

When young riders make the step on to the professional stage the passion and love for the sport combined with the desire to do well and earn their spot on a World Tour team often means that these young riders make the wrong decisions, but with good intentions. We asked Reck to identify the most common mistake he has to correct when working as a trainer.

 

“The biggest risk, I think, is that these young riders train too much. This is often the case with neo pros and they sometimes combine it with eating far too little. Sometimes this mistake is often made already before the first meeting with the team because they’re nervous and afraid of not being in good enough shape. They want to prove themselves early on, but there’s a risk that it’ll backfire on them after a while.”

 

One of the hardest things as a trainer dealing with professional athletes is to convince them that sometimes training less will do them more good.

 

“As a trainer and a coach one of our biggest responsibilities is to take the pressure off the new young riders and sometimes this means convincing them to do less training. It’s always very difficult for a new young rider to ease up on his training and put in fewer hours or intervals than the rest of the squad when being on camp together, so it’s one of my primary responsibilities as a trainer to make those kinds of decisions and explain to him why. Knowing why we “force” him to do less is key for him to feel confident in what we’re doing and the way he trains.”

 

At this point Reck doesn’t have any specific details regarding additional Danish riders joining Giant-Shimano for future camps, but two Danish riders are already in Giant-Shimano’s development team, Kristian Haugaard and Mattias Rask. However, they’re not working as closely with Reck as the World Tour team.

 

“There’s been a lot on my plate working with the World Tour team so I haven’t really had the time to work with our development team yet, but the idea is to have the development team and the World Tour team working closer together, so I’m sure we’ll work that part out in the near future.”

 

With two Swedes on the development team and Tobias Ludvigsson and Jonas Ahlstrand on the World Tour team and newcomer Sara Mustonen on the women’s squad there’s already a strong Swedish connection. Adding DS Aike Visbeek and now Reck to the crew makes it grow even stronger and cooperation between Giant-Shimano and the Swedish Cycling Federation would’ve seemed more likely to many.

 

“The team and DCU were already having discussions regarding a cooperation before I was hired, so I don’t have any specific details on how and why it was decided to start this project, but as I mentioned before the view on how to work with and develop young talented riders has been key. SCF doesn’t have an official agreement with the team, but I understand that it’s natural to make that kind of assumption since there are many of us Swedes on the squad and in the crew, but Giant-Shimano doesn’t focus on specific nations, we keep an eye on promising riders regardless of their nationality.”

 

Besides sharing the same view regarding the development of talents the strong anti-doping policy of DCU was also a factor that made the cooperation even more attractive according to Bennekou.

 

We end our interview by asking Reck to define the word so often related to Giant-Shimano these days, success.

 

“I don’t dare to and don’t really want to think about defining the word success. Speaking for myself I’m happy and satisfied if I manage to create a strong connection with the riders and the crew and having them feel confident in me and what I can do for them. If that important foundation is solid then I believe that good results will keep coming for us.”

 

Next time Reck will join the team will be for the big upcoming races Paris-Roubaix, Flèche Brabant and Amstel Gold Race.