road cycling - gravel - mountain

Sylvie D'Aoust - cycling coach

Sylvie started training and coaching cycling in 2001 when she opened up a Spinning Studio called CYCLEFIT in a friends gym. At that time, she had fallen in love with Adventure Racing (mountain biking, paddling, trekking, orienteering and rock climbing) – participating in numerous multi-day events across Canada and in the USA. 
In 2005, Sylvie was using her road bike to train for Mountain biking, became curious about the Road Racing scene, so she put together a women’s masters team, hired a coach and started to learn about race strategy, training, nutrition for road racing, criteriums and Time Trials. She has multiple podium wins under her belt. For the team she was the coach, organizer, and manager over the 8yrs til 2013 when the team stopped racing.

All the while in the spin studio Sylvie would listen to female participants talk about how they would cycle by themselves, or hated following their partners who were so much faster. This made Sylvie realize that she needed to start a women’s only cycling club and in 2008 – CycleFitCHICKS was founded. It’s been 15yrs CycleFitCHICKS has ebbed and flowed into the cycling club it is today.
To date Sylvie has coached over 1000 women on the skills of cycling through the club. She has seen hundred of women become great cyclists, build confidence and improve their cycling skills over the summer months.

In the winter, Sylvie created a Winter cycling training program dedicated to maintaining summer cycling fitness, with a focus on improving cycling skills and techniques for Pedal Stoke efficiency, Hill climbing, Endurance base building, Strength and Speed. When she started, Sylvie ran this program in her spinning studio on spin bikes and today as a cycling coach she has the ability to make a greater impact on cyclists globally through zoom and with Zwift. 
Sylvie says ” I’ve always dreamed of having a more robust winter training program over just working with participants once a week, with zoom we can meet and I can teach proper techniques and with Zwift, there is the race element, using the platform to create interval sessions and then organizing a Saturday morning MeetUp for a group ride. It’s so perfect and provides all the aspects of coaching every cyclist needs!”

In the summer, Sylvie organizes multiple cycling related clinics: Bike Maintenance, Learn to Group Ride, Hill Climbing
She enjoys building her passion into her local coaching business.

2020 Sylvie saw the need to create a Cycling Podcast- Secrets From the Saddle: All things cycling that appeals to the everyday person, with fun stories from all over the world, coaching tips, event organizers and more. To check it out click HERE

GRAVEL. We all know there’s a Gravel craze going around and Sylvie is right on board. She tried her first Gavel event 2yrs ago and hasn’t looked back. She says, “I love Mountain biking and I love road cycling, this is a perfect in-between cycling sport.”
2022 Sylvie organized a small women’s only Gravel event in Wakefield – Wakefield Women’s Gravel Grind

2023 She signed up and tackled the popular Gravel race UNBOUND XL – 350miles with 90% success, 
Her gravel event – Wakefield Women’s Gravel Grind brought out 50 women, was hugely successful.

2024 Sylvie is looking forward to adding Gravel Clinics to her list of services. She is also super motivated to go back to Unbound XL and finish the course, along with a couple other longer Enduro Gravel events.

She is a mom of 3 and wife to her supportive hubby John, lives in Chelsea, Quebec.