A LOOK BEHIND THE SCENES
My Story
Dr Chester Hill
I have been an avid cyclist since I was 11 years old. I was inspired by my Dad, who after buying a wreck of a racing bike from a junk shop showed me how to strip a bike, and rebuild it. This led to many a father-son Sunday bike rides and the inevitable joining of the local cycling club. This led onto racing at local circuits and road races, as well as testing myself against the clock. During my teens, I took on my first cycling related job, testing bikes for a newly formed cycling magazine called Cycling Plus. By the time I was 16, I was totally infected by the cycling bug.
Chasing Legends
At 18, I sauntered off to University following in the footsteps of Peter Keen and Chris Boardman. This was a pairing of coach & rider who had started achieving pretty miraculous conquests for a British rider of the time. They were based in a little known teacher training college called Chichester Institute of Higher Education. By the time I arrived however, they had moved further east to Brighton. None the less, I was still privy to learn from the likes of Simon Jones, and Louis Passfield, both based at Chichester during my undergraduate years. In time, though, both also moved onto roles at British Cycling in Manchester, themselves in pursuit of Peter and Chris - all part of the Lottery funded master plan that Keen had devised. Undeterred, and still keen to learn more about this subject called Exercise Physiology, I was extremely fortunate to meet and work under Prof Roger Harris. For those non-academics out there, think Creatine and Beta-alanine supplementation - both are Roger's patented ideas. After a number of years of training and racing as a first cat, casual lecturing, gaining an M.Sc. and assisting with various research projects, I was given a bite of the proverbial research apple myself. On the first of January 2003, I set to work on my own thesis - to prove or disprove that Beta-alanine, when ingested in the appropriate quantities, would enhance human performance. A hundred or so muscle biopsies and a few thousand digested journal articles later, I'd proven what Roger had long since suspected, that Beta-alanine was in fact an ergogenic aid to athletic performance. It was now 2007 and the likes of Nigel Mitchell (Nutritionist for British Cycling & Sky Pro Cycling) and various other dignitaries from UKSport, EIS and British Cycling came knocking on our lab door. They were on a quest to find as many ways as possible of improving human performance; someone might later call this 'the aggregation of marginal gains'. After I had spent a while carrying out consultancy work, around the use of Beta-alanine, for UK Sport, EIS and British Cycling (while, doing up a new home, writing up my thesis, regaining my first cat racing licence and working in the local bike shop), I ended up with a nice place to live, a first class PhD thesis, no racing form and no proper job.
Chasing Legends
At 18, I sauntered off to University following in the footsteps of Peter Keen and Chris Boardman. This was a pairing of coach & rider who had started achieving pretty miraculous conquests for a British rider of the time. They were based in a little known teacher training college called Chichester Institute of Higher Education. By the time I arrived however, they had moved further east to Brighton. None the less, I was still privy to learn from the likes of Simon Jones, and Louis Passfield, both based at Chichester during my undergraduate years. In time, though, both also moved onto roles at British Cycling in Manchester, themselves in pursuit of Peter and Chris - all part of the Lottery funded master plan that Keen had devised. Undeterred, and still keen to learn more about this subject called Exercise Physiology, I was extremely fortunate to meet and work under Prof Roger Harris. For those non-academics out there, think Creatine and Beta-alanine supplementation - both are Roger's patented ideas. After a number of years of training and racing as a first cat, casual lecturing, gaining an M.Sc. and assisting with various research projects, I was given a bite of the proverbial research apple myself. On the first of January 2003, I set to work on my own thesis - to prove or disprove that Beta-alanine, when ingested in the appropriate quantities, would enhance human performance. A hundred or so muscle biopsies and a few thousand digested journal articles later, I'd proven what Roger had long since suspected, that Beta-alanine was in fact an ergogenic aid to athletic performance. It was now 2007 and the likes of Nigel Mitchell (Nutritionist for British Cycling & Sky Pro Cycling) and various other dignitaries from UKSport, EIS and British Cycling came knocking on our lab door. They were on a quest to find as many ways as possible of improving human performance; someone might later call this 'the aggregation of marginal gains'. After I had spent a while carrying out consultancy work, around the use of Beta-alanine, for UK Sport, EIS and British Cycling (while, doing up a new home, writing up my thesis, regaining my first cat racing licence and working in the local bike shop), I ended up with a nice place to live, a first class PhD thesis, no racing form and no proper job.
