Performance consultancy for cyclists
If at first you don't succeed...
don't just try and try again.
My name is Ronan Mc Laughlin
Getting faster isn't simply a question of training more or increasing FTP. It's the interaction between the rider, their physiology, the right training for the individual, aerodynamics, equipment, position, fuelling, pacing, tactics and the demands of the event.
Ronan McLaughlin Performance Optimisation exists to bring those pieces together.
Who am I?
An athlete. A coach. A tech nerd. An optimiser.
My approach to performance comes from experiencing cycling from several different perspectives: more than two decades competing at a high level, over a decade coaching athletes, a professional career investigating cycling technology and performance, and years testing those ideas in pursuit of my own performance.
Performance Optimisation brings those perspectives together.
The ahtlete
I've spent more than two decades racing at elite level, representing Ireland internationally, competing against WorldTour professionals, winning major endurance events, breaking a world record, and national point-to-point records.
That experience shapes how I work with athletes. The decisions aren't based solely on theory.
I've experienced the practical realities of preparing for competition, developing and executing pacing strategies, optimising equipment, managing nutrition, testing aerodynamic positions and trying to produce performance when it actually matters.
The Coach
I'm a qualified coach and have coached cyclists at all levels for over a decade.
Training remains fundamental to performance - but more training isn't always the answer.
The objective isn't simply to accumulate training load or increase FTP. It's to develop the specific capabilities an athlete needs for the demands of their target event.
That might mean aerobic development.
It might mean durability after 15 hours.
It might mean repeated anaerobic efforts.
It might mean sprint performance.
Your physiology and target event determine the requirement. Focused training builds the capability.
The Tech Nerd
As a Senior Technical Editor at Escape Collective, my work gives me a perspective that is unusual within coaching.
I spend my working life investigating bikes, equipment, aerodynamics, and emerging performance technology and training interventions. Understanding what matters and what's simply noise.
I cut through that noise. Cycling is full of products, technologies and interventions promising marginal gains. Some work. Some don't. But we can't simply buy and bolt on performance.
A genuine aerodynamic or equipment advantage is only valuable if it works for the individual rider, their position, their event and the demands of the real world. And even then, it may not be where the biggest opportunity lies.
The question isn't simply whether something is faster. It's whether it will make you faster.
The optimiser
Someone needs to see the whole picture.
Training, aerodynamics, equipment, fuelling, pacing and race strategy don't operate independently. I've spent years learning to optimise every minor detail to extract maximum performance. For you, that means your very own Head of Performance.
My role is to understand the complete performance problem, identify where the biggest opportunities exist, and prioritise the interventions most likely to improve the outcome.
That means looking beyond headline watt savings and marginal-gain marketing. Is the claimed gain credible? Does it apply to this rider, at their speeds, on their course, in their position? What does it cost? What compromises does it introduce? And is there a bigger opportunity somewhere else?
That doesn't mean pretending to be the expert in every discipline. Where specialist input is required, the right expertise should be brought in.
The role of the Performance Lead is to connect those inputs, establish priorities and keep the focus on the outcome:
Making the rider faster.
Why?
Professional teams have performance directors.
Most individual cyclists don't... Until now.
Why Performance Optimisation?
A professional rider may have coaches, physiologists, aerodynamicists, nutritionists, equipment specialists and performance engineers working collectively on the same problem:
How do we make the rider faster?
Most individual cyclists don't.
Their coach manages training. Their fitter manages position. Equipment decisions happen separately. Race strategy may be improvised. And often nobody is looking at how all of those decisions interact.
Ronan McLaughlin Performance Optimisation fills that gap.
One rider. One objective. One integrated performance system.
Validating the process
I still race, still chase records and still use my own performance as a testing ground - researching, understanding and applying the same principles I now bring to my athletes.
My recent Derry-to-Belfast record is a good example.
Four years ago I missed it by three minutes. Back then, I hadn't yet connected the performance dots. I still thought power and power data were king. I thought aerodynamics could be bought and simply added on.
Instead of simply trying and trying again, I reviewed, analysed, researched, trained, and optimised the complete system and how each intervention interacts with the others.
This time, I broke the record by eight minutes.
The difference wasn't simply more training. It was understanding how to solve the complete performance problem.
