Chris Carmichael

CTS Founder & Chief Endurance Officer

Chris Carmichael founded CTS in 2000 and, after 23 years as CEO, transitioned to Chief Endurance Officer in July 2022. Named the US Olympic Committee’s Coach of the Year in 1999, Chris formed CTS in 2000 to make world-class coaching accessible to athletes of all ability levels. Innovation was a driving force throughout Chris’s career as an athlete, coach, and entrepreneur; he played a leading role in advancing the use of power meters, aerodynamic testing, altitude training, online coaching tools, and specific training methods for time-crunched athletes.

Through Chris’s leadership, CTS immediately established itself as the premier destination for personal fitness, nutrition, and life coaching; a leadership position the company has held throughout its 20-year history. To ensure that CTS Athletes receive the best expertise and customer service, Chris created an unsurpassed education program that develops the highest-trained coaches in the industry. With a network of more than 80 coaches, the thousands of athletes working with CTS have full access to an unmatched base of knowledge and experience.

To make hands-on coaching interaction more accessible to the public, Chris pushed to open regional training facilities. For more than 10 years, athletes could experience CTS coaching, camps, and testing services in Colorado Springs, CO; Brevard, NC; Tuscon, AZ; and Santa Ynez, CA. As the coaching industry and CTS’s business model shifted, CTS consolidated the regional training facilities. Although CTS Coaches are located throughout the United States, the CTS Headquarters and Training Facility is located in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

On the way to building a multimillion dollar coaching and multimedia business with more than 50 full-time employees, Chris also authored seven books, including the New York Times Bestseller, Chris Carmichael’s Food for Fitness (2004) and his newest titles, The Time-Crunched Cyclist (3rd Ed., 2016) and The Time-Crunched Triathlete (2010). His unique perspective on performance appears in his monthly columns in Road Bike Action (2013-2022), Bicycling Magazine (’05-2010), Triathlete Magazine (2010 – 2012) and Outside Magazine (’05-’08), and the broad appeal of his message has seen him featured in Time, Entrepreneur Magazine, Business 2.0, Inc., and Forbes Small Business. The company also released more than 20 full-length training DVDs featuring workouts led by Chris Carmichael and other CTS Coaches.

Chris has also been very active in television, with appearances on the NBC Nightly News, The Today Show, The Early Show, The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch, CNN, 60 Minutes, The Discovery Channel, ABC’s World News Tonight, and other venues. From 2001-2005, he served a daily on-air commentator for the Outdoor Life Network’s (now NBC Sports Network) Tour de France coverage. And in 2006, Chris was the host of the Me vs. Me television show on the Fine Living TV Network. In 2009, Chris appeared in Race Across the Sky, a documentary about the Leadville 100 Mountain Bike Race.

Honors, Citations, Awards

• 2013-2014 National Spokesperson for the American Diabetes Association Tour de Cure
• 2014 American Diabetes Association Celebrity Cabinet
• 2011-2014 USA Pro Cycling Challenge – Local Organizing Committee Chair for Colorado Springs (COS hosted stages in 2011, 2012, and 2014)
• 2009 Kennedy Laureate Award, John F. Kennedy University
• 2004 USA Cycling Lifetime Achievement Award
• 2004 Colorado Entrepreneur of the Year, Celebrate Technology
• 2003 US Bicycling Hall of Fame Inductee
• 2000 Outside Magazine “Ultimate Coach” Award
• 1999 US Olympic Committee “Coach of the Year”
• 1999 USA Cycling “Coach of the Year”
• 1999 VeloNews “Coach of the Year”
• 1992, 1996 Olympic Coach, Cycling
• 1986 First American Team in the Tour de France, 7-Eleven
• 1984 Olympic Team Member, Cycling

Selected Speaking Engagements

• Microsoft
• General Electric
• Nike
• Carnegie Science Center
• UBS Financial
• AMD
• Boston Scientific
• Dow Corning
• The American College of Sport Medicine
• Yale University
• The Tony Robbins Group
• Autoliv
• UNISYS
• UK World Class Coaching Conference
• Global Coaching Conference for the US Olympic Committee

Athletic Career

• 1984 US Olympic Team Member – Cycling
• Was a member of the first American team (7-Eleven) to race the Tour de France in 1986.