Anybody who rides competitively in Boston knows the Allis loop has been passed by John Allis or has maybe even been lucky enough to participate in a training ride with him and had their handlebars jerked around.  Allis is the coach for Harvard’s Cycling Team, a partner at Wheelworks, Inc. and a regular fixture in New England’s cycling community. He has been riding bikes since he was ten and has been involved in the competitive world of cycling since he was 20.

1. Biographical Information:           Name: John C. Allis, Date of birth: 05/31/42, Current address: 47 Horne Road, Belmont, MA

2. Where were you born? Boston, MA

3. How did you get your start as a cyclist?

My dog, a boxer named Rex, would pull me around Fresh Pond on my British, steel wheel tricycle. Then, when I was 10, my grandfather died in France and our family went over there to close his estate and did a bike tour in the Alpes Maratime.

4. When and where was your first race? Did you win?

I entered Princeton to study Biology in 1960. In the spring of that year I competed in my first race. I don’t remember where or how I finished.

5. How many years were you a professional racer?

I went to France as a category 1 amateur in 1964. In 1969, I went back to my French Club to race for another year as an amateur with a view to turning pro but was told I was too old! I actually never was a professional racer, but I raced competitively at a national level through 1976.

6. What is your fondest memory from racing?

My fondest memories are from all the wonderful people I was able to meet in many different countries as a cyclist. My most memorable wins were Paris to Cayeux-sur–Mer in 1964, the National Road Championship in 1976, and setting the record for the Mount Washington Hill Climb in 1976. That record stood for seven years.

7. What stretch, or moment, in your career as a cyclist was your most difficult?

My biggest disappointment was not performing better in the Olympics in 1964, 1968 and 1972.

In 1964 I was coming off of a full year of racing in France and felt I should have been competitive but finished in the middle of the field. That was the Tokyo Games, and the race organizers had constructed a roadway over a hill with foot deep rain gutters on the sides. Near the top there was a pileup which I was caught behind. The famous Belgian Eddy Merckx was there as well, but he was caught behind another crash and did not win.

1968 the Olympics were in Mexico and I made the mistake of having fish soup the night before the race. The next morning I awoke with an abnormally high pulse rate. I started the race but I had nothing. By the end I, was very sick.

I finished 63^rd in the Munich Games in 1976. I was burned out by the long Olympic trials process put in place for cyclists. We were competing for spots on the team from March up to the start of the games. By the time the race rolled out, I was pretty burned out. In the race, I saw the winning break go and I managed to escape the field to try and bridge up to the break. I made all of the right moves, but when I found myself alone, trying to bridge the gap, I finally just burned out. I didn’t have the legs. That was the year of the hostage situation. When that happened, all of the spirit in the Olympic village just died. It became sort of like a workplace. Some people left, but I felt like I’d spent all year preparing for it and I just couldn’t walk away from that.

8. If you could have ridden with any professional racer, who would that racer be, and where would you be riding?

This is a difficult question, but I think the rider who interests me the most and for whom I have the most empathy is Raymond Poulidor, and I would have loved to ride with him in the French Alps.

Poulidor was the eternal second. I think he finished second in the Tour de France more times than any other rider in history. But he had a type of class that I like to think I had as well. My style of riding was to just grind people off my wheel, and I think Poulidor had that type of style as well.

And then there was his immense public appeal. In the 1974 Road Championships, Poulidor was at the end of his career, in his late thirties at least, and there, in Montreal, after a full year of racing, Raymond was radiantly healthy. Most folks look pretty sallow at the end of the year, but he seemed full of energy. Of course, he finished second to Merckx. But he had this great appeal thanks to his eternal health and the way he conducted himself in races. I’d like to think that I had some of that same appeal.

9. In addition to your work with Wheelworks, you also coach cycling at Harvard. Have you seen a change in the perception of the sport since Lance Armstrong arrived?

Over the more that 20 years I have worked with the Harvard Cycling Team, there has been a continual increase in the awareness of the sport of cycling and respect for it. Certainly Greg Lemond and Lance Armstrong have had a great influence in bringing the sport to the forefront in the media, and in the lives of the public at large.

10. Local cycling great Tyler Hamilton’s career has hit the skids as a result of testing positive twice for blood doping? Doping in sports: how prevalent is it? Do you see it at the amateur level? Is it that big of a deal? Why?

The problem is that no athlete can prove that he/she does not take drugs. I think that Tyler is innocent if for no other reason that that he says he is. I hope he will be given every opportunity to prove so.

11. Winter is upon us in New England, any advice for riders who want to continue riding through the colder months?

Continue to go out, although for shorter rides. Do a winter sport such as skiing or skating. Rebuild upper body strength and fitness that you may have lost by doing only cycling. Do indoor cycling on a trainer or rollers.

12. If you have a credo, a maxim, that you try and live by what is it?

Try to contribute to making the world a better place to live in.

13. Who is your hero and why?

There is no one person.

14. Why do you ride?

It’s healthy, ecological, simple, relaxing, rhythmical, economical, practical and accepted worldwide.