Dan Zmolik is a Cat 1 racer for the Empire Cycling team. He works for Performance Labs as a coach and a bike fitter. He made the regretful decision of letting us interview him.

schmalz Can you describe your journey from the Czech Republic to the United States? I have this picture in my mind of a little Danny Zmolik crossing the Atlantic on a steamship in a wool coat and a newsboy cap, but I may be off on the timeline for that by about 100 years…

Zmolik It was like this. After yet another wild party, not so little – and fat – Danny hopped on a steamjetplane and flew to New Orleans. I went with a few friends, and the plan was to work for 2-3 months, and than travel and see everything here for another 3-4 months.

schmalz So your short trip changed into an extended stay?

Zmolik Yep, that is exactly what happened. After being down south for about 3 months, I went to NY, and it’s been seven plus years ago.

schmalz What made you want to stay in the States – did Mike Sherry hold you hostage?

Zmolik Well, it was not really a conscious decision. After I came to NY, my girlfriend flew in from the Czech Republic, and it kinda happened. Fast forward seven years, the girlfriend is gone and you have Mike holding me here now.

schmalz It is hard to quit Mike Sherry. Lord knows I’ve tried. What jobs did you do in the US when you arrived?

Zmolik My first job was as a dishwasher at Denny’s. Now, that is a very romantic job, but I could only do it for few weeks. I was moving quickly on the Denny’s corporate ladder, and went on to be cleaning tables, and than waiting tables few weeks later. They had no bartender position, so the only way I could move up would be to a manager position, but I did not want to go from the ‘field’ to the office. Since I achieved everything I could in the restaurant industry, I decided to jump ship and move to NY. Here I was working lot of shitty construction jobs, before I found my way to a nice and quiet woodworking shop. The owner eventually became my friend, so it was kinda easy to stick with it, especially because I somewhat enjoyed the job. That guy is partially responsible for me being a cyclist again.

schmalz Ah, the lure of a dishwashing job at Denny’s – is that what drew you to the States?

Zmolik Not really, but than again, I came here with the idea of working and traveling for few months, so I did not expect to get a job as president of AT&T.

schmalz Were you a cyclist in the Czech Republic?

Zmolik I raced back in the Czech Republic, as a junior, from ages 15 to 18. I had some little successes here and there, made a national team for a short (very short) period, but all in all, I think I was pretty average junior. I somehow made it into Cat 1 as a junior, but I shattered my patella after my last junior season. A long recovery made sure that I came totally unprepared to my first Elite season, and I was getting spit out the back in every race. In addition to that, I discovered alcohol (and some other stuff), clubs and women during my recovery period off the bike. That was the reason I decided to quit, and forget about cycling. And I did not really ride until almost 10 years later, in NY.

schmalz Is cycling a big sport in the Czech Republic? How does the racing scene there differ from the US racing scene?

Zmolik Cycling is fairly big in the Czech Republic. You have soccer (well it’s really called football, since they kick the ball) hockey, and than cycling with bunch of other sports. So yeah, it’s popular. You can even get chicks on the fact that you are good cyclist (that’s not gonna happen here, as you probably know). Ten years ago when I was racing, the guys were making decent money, but now it’s as bad as it is here I think.

I can’t really say what the racing is like now, as I did not race there for over ten years. I think that the level is roughly the same as it is here. You have few guys racing pro tour, then you have two continental teams, they do the whole European tour, and than bunch of pro/elite teams.

There are few differences, though. When they are racing over there, they are racing! It’s on from the gun – whether it’s a 50 km crit, or 200km RR in the mountains. There is no fighting and yelling. If there is a fight, it’s almost guaranteed that one of the guys – or both – go down. And one more thing, which I still can’t get over in US, if you are in the break, you work!!! There is no way you are sitting on the break. You either work, pull out from the break, or you go down. Somebody is going to take care of that. Lot of guys, and even some elite/pro guys around here would spend an awful lot of time in the ditch if they were racing over there.

schmalz Czech bike groupies! Who knew?

It sounds like a lot of us would be put in the ditch in the Czech Republic. I personally would like to think I wouldn’t have been knocked over, but who am I kidding? I’d get knocked over at the start line.

Did you have any cycling heroes growing up?

Zmolik I did. My first was Miguel Indurain. Such a great champion. He always seemed to be under control while racing, and nice and humble guy on and off the bike. Jan Ulrich. I first noticed him when he outsprinted Czech Milan Tesar in the Amateur Worlds in Oslo, the year Lance won the worlds. I’ve liked Ulrich since that day, and I’ve disliked Lance since that day. Ulrich, troubled as he was, seemed to be a nice, maybe not humble, but absolutely not cocky guy. And watching him push that huge gear in the TT, or on the mountain passes when he was on form was awesome.

In the Czech Republic, my hero was Pavel Padrnos, who end up riding for Lance in his last couple of Tour wins. When racing in the Czech Republic ,he was a super strong TTer who could hang on in the hills. I think he won Peace Race once, and podiumed a few times. I talked to him after he lost the Peace race on top of a HC climb. I was that little nobody bugging the biggest star there was in the Czech Republic, right after he lost a few minutes to Wassemann, and he took the time to waste few words on me. That was awesome. By the way, I could barely get up that climb (20 km of steady uphill and 10 km of really steep climbing) and those guys were flying up in the big ring. Year laters I was bugging him again after he won a TT in Peace Race, and he remembered me from the previous year. Super nice guy, too.

It seems now, that all of my heroes were doped to the gills, which is hard to swallow. But it’s like your girlfriend cheating on you. You are very bitter and pissed at first, but than the good memories prevail.

schmalz I suppose the girlfriend cheating analogy is pretty accurate. It’ll be interesting to see what certain riders will be remembered for years from now. I think that the entire era will be remembered as “the doping years” and will be thought of as such.

You’re pretty outspoken on doping, what’s your position on the current system/punishments?

I should interject here that our interview was interrupted by Dan going for a ride on his trainer – for 3 hours!

Zmolik I think people need to understand one thing. There was widespread doping up until very recently. Almost everyone was in on it. When Riis won, the second guy was not clean. Neither was the third one. When Ulrich won, Pantani was not clean. When Lance won, we know that neither Basso, nor Ulrich were clean. The best guy won! And that is the way we need to look at it.

Let’s say that the sport is much cleaner now, the old school riders are either out, having hard times getting a contract, or starting to understand that cycling is changing, and it’s possible to do it differently. There is this big push to do it right. If you dope now, you must be a real a-hole. But people need to understand that we have to draw a line somewhere. We can’t go back 5, or whatever years back, and suspend everyone whenever someone digs a dirt out of some old closet. If the riders who used to dope, are able and willing to do the right thing now, let them do it. You get busted now, get punished hard.

As for what I think about current system, it’s not ideal. No system ever is, but it’s evolving, and I don’t think it’s as bad as many people are trying to tell us.

I could go on and on about this, but I think it us material for different article.

Dan has agreed to join us in the future on an article discussing doping.

schmalz Are you doing any coaching work with Performance Labs?

Zmolik Yep, I work with few clients only, but it’s going to be more soon. And, of course, lot of bike fitting.

schmalz How would you describe your coaching philosophy?

Zmolik Well, that is a tough one. I guess I believe in science, hard work and resting hard. I think the biggest mistake people make is to ride hard when they are supposed to go easy, and than they do not have enough left when it’s time to go hard. Sometimes I ride in the park and see people training, and I can tell, that they are not doing their prescribed training and they are going way too fast.

So basically get a good structured plan based on science, and stick to it. Don’t forget, it is an endurance sport, and it takes some endurance to get good. There are no legal shortcuts and getting fit takes time (get really fit takes years). However with good structured training you get faster and further than by just riding your bike.

This however is something you should interrogate Mike about, as he and Craig are the guys behind Performance HC science.

schmalz How was your ride today?

I did steady endurance ride today at around 250 watts. It’s a bit lower than I would like for this part of the season, but I’m still a bit under the weather. (Yes, you can ride if you have cold and no fever) We would like to see that number to move to around 300 watts when I’m fit. We got pretty close last year, but not quite there.

schmalz You had a good season this year, was there anything you did differently this year that enabled that?

Zmolik Yes, I started working with Mike. I had a coach before, and the training schedule I did in 2006 was not that much different but with Mike, we did Lactate testing on a regular basis. Now, I don’t care what anyone tells you, but you can’t ACCURATELY determine your lower training zones from 20, 30, or 60 min field test. So the biggest difference was that whenever I was on the bike; I was in the right zone, working at just the right intensity. As opposed to putting in tons of junk miles.

Oh, and one more thing. Our team. It is way easier to get results if you are riding with a bunch of strong guys, and have that kind of support that we had this year.

schmalz Interesting – there’s such a thing as “junk miles”? And if so, I would have to say that most of mine are junk miles – just because…

Zmolik Yeah there is such thing as junk miles. It does not have to be your case though.

Generally, we all have limited time to ride, so if you spend that time riding below your zone, your training will have little, or no effect. Thus – junk miles. If you ride 10-15 hours a week, they better be as effective as possible – without any coasting around with a heart rate below 100.

schmalz Can you recap your rise from Cat 4 to Cat 1?

Zmolik I was never a Cat 4, actually.

At the end of one summer (2003) I started riding, because I was fat (190 pounds). I decided to give it a go one more time. I knew Peter Salon’s brother, so I gave him a call. They put me in touch with Fernando Cuevas, and he was nice enough to help me with the team even though he never saw me race, or even knew anything about me. I started to train over the winter, and did few Cat 5 races. I won two and got third once. I was delusional enough to think that I would be able to upgrade to Cat 1 that year, so I did not want to slow myself down in Cat 4. I emailed Judy Miller my resume from the Czech Republic, and asked for upgrade to Cat 3 – and she agreed. So as of mid-March 2004, I was a Cat 3. I had some OK results that spring. I was second in spring series (1/2/3), 4th at Bear Mountain (Cat 3), 5th at Grand’s Tomb, 4th at Branchbrook (1/2/3), and then I won the King’s County Race in the 3s, so I think I had a right to be in 3’s. Then we went to do Ohio. I crashed pretty bad, because of my own stupidity, got pretty banged up, and spent some time in the hospital and off the bike. I did some racing at the end of that season, but I was no good.

I had an awesome winter of training in 2005, and I was ready (in my own little head) to get that Cat 1 upgrade. But then I got sick with something (no one ever told me what it was, even though I spend lot of my savings on doctors) and did not ride at all for almost 5 weeks in March and April. I had a very slow start to the season, but I was starting to get results in July. I got bunch of top 10’s, and than two 3rd places in Binghamton (Saturday and Sunday). Then I won Bear Mountain in the 3s, which is one of the sweetest victories for me to date. That was enough for my Cat 2 upgrade, and I finished the season winning the Jamestown Classic, which was only my second Pro 1/2 race.

Once again I was ready to finally upgrade in 2006, but it was a very frustrating season. I won, or placed in some of the local races, but I did not have a single upgrade point. I think I was under-trained, over-raced and burned out by the end of June, and I could not wait for the season to be over. The other tough thing was, that I had either none, or one teammate in all the races the whole season. After that Alvaro/Papp disaster, Fraysse and Fernando (rightfully so) decided to focus on juniors only, and were nice enough to let us stay, but cycling is a team sport…

I was thinking about making 2007 my last season, but for some reason Mike was nice enough to offer me a spot on Empire, and that helped my motivation a lot. And everything went right for me this year. Solid winter, I got never sick, and we really clicked in well together with the guys, so the results just had to come. When we go to race, we have 4-5 guys who can do well, and sooner or later you are going to be one of them. I had some solid stage race results, so after GMSR, I sent in my upgrade request and… they gave it to me. I had almost double the points I needed, but was very happy when I finally got it. It only took three years longer than I thought.

schmalz Did you race a lot with Joe Papp? And what do you think of his whole situation?

Zmolik I did not really race with him. I knew him somewhat from Mike Fraysse’s house.

What I think about him… He is not a nice person, he won’t be nice to you unless you can be of use to him, and I never meet anyone who likes him. Never, ever did I hear someone say that Papp is a nice guy. And what he is doing now is just completely ridiculous. Papp would be doping today (or dead) if he did not get busted! That is my strong belief. He was notorious doper for years. It was like common knowledge. Something like the fact that there is doping in baseball. I mean was anyone really surprised? And the best thing – he was not even that great…

Now he is speaking out against doping? He obviously lacks any integrity whatsoever.

schmalz How did it make you feel to race against someone who was doping?

Zmolik C’mon, you are kidding, right?

More than 50% of the racing I do is against someone who is doping. At least that is what I think. Sometimes it makes you angry, but you can’t think about it constantly. Thinking about it constantly would make me quit. Two things are important. I think the doping situation is improving. I also think that it was never as bad here, as it was in Europe (maybe I’m just stupid). And as I’m improving year after year, and coming closer, I think that you can be very competitive and maybe win, every now and then, clean. And with a little bit of talent (which I don’t have) you can be a winner. I also know a few guys that I trust are clean and they race much better than I do on much higher level – so it is possible.

When I started racing again, my main goal was to try and do it right, and see how far I could get. I think I can get better still, and if not – so be it. I have some ambitions, but I won’t start doping if I can’t get there. I still like what I do, and it’s fun. When it stops being fun, that’s when it’s time to stop.

schmalz Right on! I asked the obvious question, because I’m good at obvious. But c’mon you know you’ve got some talent – what are your geek numbers? Wattage at threshold and that sort of stuff – people want to know!

Zmolik You know that numbers are overrated?

The most important threshold is the pain threshold. You can’t evaluate it, but it’s just as important, if not more so than the power.

But here are the power numbers since you like them so much.

I can do 40km TT at around 360 watts. My 30 minute threshold is around 370-380 watts. But these don’t mean whole lot, if your endurance power is small. My endurance last year was around 280 watts. I can sit in a pack doing 30 miles per hour and be in my endurance to low tempo zone. And that makes a big difference. That way you arrive to the crucial points of the race fairly “fresh”, and can actually show off that threshold power. And again, you can’t get there without proper training/testing.

Now you know everything about me.

schmalz Hmmm, how do you train pain threshold?

Zmolik There is lot of ways: bad girlfriend, sucky job, get drunk (the headaches are unbearable), or kick yourself in the nuts – just be creative – have fun with it.