Harold "H" Nelson

Who is Harold "H" Nelson?

Harold "H" Nelson BEM is a cycling coach credited with helping amateur and professional cycle racing champions.

Nelson started to coach cyclists in 1953. He was the Great Britain team masseur on events including the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, seven world cycling championships, 21 Tours of Britain, three Peace Races and two Tours of Bohemia. He helped teams during 41 Manx Weeks and 34 Girvan Internationals. Riders he coached in the 1960s included time trialists Keith Stacey and Eric Matthews. He coached the Seamons CC time-trial team.

In the 1970s and 1980s, he coached Alan Kemp, Ian Binder, Brian Pownall, Mike Williams, Jeff Williams, Phil Roberts, Paul Sherwen and John Herety. His methods, based on care of the body, power training and monitoring the heart rate, more recently helped Hamish Haynes who joined the training programme as a third-category rider: under Nelson's guidance, he became an elite rider within two years before turning professional for a Belgian team.

Nelson's Wythenshawe home has, for decades, been the nightly venue for riders, be they juvenile riders or experienced seniors, male or female, national champions or those seeking to optimise more modest performances. Whereas the indoor training used to be based on the use of rollers he now uses a virtual reality system which is popular with riders and helps more efficient monitoring of performance and riding style. He uses a wide network of expertise, academic and medical, garnered largely from his former riders, to help his current crop of riders.