DICE — 20 Years

DICE Cycling Systems and Event Operations

From the Quad Cities racing community to DMJ Consulting

Donnie Miller Jr. | Founder and Principal Consultant

A cycling community with national connections

Donnie's Indoor Cycling Experience, or, DICE, brought together the things I had spent years learning: how a bicycle works, how an athlete develops, how to build and connect technical systems, and how to organize the people who make an event possible. That experience continues to shape my work through DMJ Consulting in cycling, public-road operations, active transportation, and complex events.

The foundation began in East Moline, riding as a child with encouragement from our neighbor Johnny Vallejo, going to races with my father, and learning within the Quad Cities Bicycle Club and Velo Sport racing community. My first formal race was the 1984 Moline Criterium. I lived in an upstairs apartment near the start-line area, with a major part of the region's racing culture outside my door.

Jeff Bradley’s On Two Wheels was the first bicycle shop I raced out of. Jeff was a friend and training partner whose experience connected local riding with national competition. A junior national champion and winner of the 1978 Moline Criterium feature race, and on the inaugural cycling team, 7-11, that was the first American Team to ever race the Tour de France and he was part of the cycling foundation that preceded DICE. He later attended races I promoted.

I also raced out of Mike Wolfe's bicycle shop. Mike, the same Mike Wolfe known for Antique Archaeology and American Pickers, is a good friend. Both shop relationships belong in this history: places where equipment knowledge, racing, friendships, and opportunity came together.

Southern Illinois added another chapter. I was a charter member of the SIU cycling team in its first collegiate year, with Phoenix Cycles part of that experience. Double I Cycling Experience later represented the Iowa–Illinois racing community, with roots preceding 2000–01. Bruce Grell of Healthy Habits Bicycle Shop served as president; I served as vice president and coach.

From magnetic resistance to a connected training environment

My mother bought me a Slocum Mag Turbo trainer in the winter of 1985-86. Mag referred to magnetic resistance. The bicycle connected to a trainer frame, with a magnetic resistance device instead of a drive motor. Bringing the magnetic plates closer together increased resistance. It was an early, practical experience of connecting a bicycle to a controllable indoor training load.

That experience belongs in the development of DICE. Long before a room full of computers and performance displays, I was learning what indoor resistance could contribute to a cyclist's preparation. Later equipment added measurement, simulation, and electronic control to the underlying challenge of making stationary training useful.

My technical foundation includes an associate degree in Electronics Engineering Technology from Hamilton Technical College in 1988 and Industrial Technology study at SIU. Work with Litton Bendix and Carleton Life Support Systems involved aerospace troubleshooting, testing, repair, soldering and rework, and prototype and first-article support. I learned to examine how components behaved within the complete system.

I applied that thinking to the former Harmon Glass premises in Moline. I performed approximately 90 percent of the physical studio build-out. Floor preparation, equipment assembly, room arrangement, instruction space, and the connections among computers, video, audio, and riders were parts of the same project.

The January 2006 planning called for two computer systems, projection for eight CompuTrainer riders, and separate audio zones for simultaneous classes. Decisions about wiring and equipment placement began with how people would use the room. The studio opened on October 21, 2006, after roughly ten months of development.

The completed environment combined an eight-rider CompuTrainer system and 13 CycleOps Pro 300PT bicycles with shared displays, individual performance information, and direct coaching. Systems thinking meant making the room, technology, and program work together, then staying responsible for their performance in daily use.

The knowledge behind the coaching

My reference library connects cycling science and competition with mechanics, road behavior, law, and human decision-making. It sits alongside electronics, physics, and technical coursework. Those connections matter because a cyclist is an athlete operating a machine among other people, within an environment that changes.

Four favorite books anchor that perspective, in this order. David Gordon Wilson's Bicycling Science connects the rider and machine through power, resistance, aerodynamics, and mechanical behavior. Thomas Prehn's Racing Tactics for Cyclists addresses positioning, timing, conserving effort, and reading competition. Bob Mionske's Bicycling & the Law adds the road user's rights and responsibilities. Tom Vanderbilt's Traffic examines attention, expectations, and behavior in the transportation system.

Next comes Jobst Brandt's The Bicycle Wheel, followed by Joe Friel's The Cyclist's Training Bible and The Triathlete's Training Bible. Brandt supports the mechanical understanding; Friel helps organize preparation, progression, specificity, and recovery.

Hunter Allen and Andrew Coggan's Training and Racing with a Power Meter follows. My copy is signed, and the connection includes USA Cycling coursework. At the February 7-8, 2004 Training Plan Design Seminar in the St. Louis area, the program included Coggan on physiology and power-based training and Allen on training-plan design and the use of power. USA Cycling awarded 1.5 continuing-education units for my participation.

Bicycling Magazine's Complete Guide to Bicycle Maintenance and Repair and Edward Borysewicz's Bicycle Road Racing complete that sequence. USCF and USA Cycling rule books, coaching and officials' manuals, American Bicycle Racing material, and club schedules supply the organizational context in which equipment and athletic preparation are used.

This knowledge base continued to grow after the studio opened. Bicycle-safety education, street and bikeway design, GIS, public engagement, and occupational-safety training expanded its reach. The value lies in applying the learning: interpreting a rider's performance, recognizing a course problem, explaining a procedure, or helping people work together.

Developing athletes and adapting the DICE program

Teaching Johnny G Spin classes at the YMCA strengthened my ability to lead a room and explain effort. DICE combined that teaching experience with cyclist-specific preparation. Riders could share a session while working at loads appropriate to their own ability and objectives.

Power and heart-rate information, SpinScan analysis, performance and lactate-threshold testing, projected courses, and individual rider data supported coaching decisions. The task was to understand the athlete, establish a useful workload, observe the response, and adjust. Fatigue, technique, rider feedback, and consistency belonged beside the numbers. Even specific courses were downloaded for athletes preparing for a specific event like an Ironman Triathlon.

Recovery was part of development. Some athletes wanted every session to be harder. My responsibility included knowing when to hold back so they could progress over time. That principle also informed my ambition to develop a USA Cycling junior racing facility and a durable pathway for younger riders.

I studied different ways of connecting indoor training to computers, including AnyTrainer 3D for conventional trainers and rollers in the early 90's. Equipment had to be matched to its purpose. DICE’s mid-2000s combination of group riding, screens, performance feedback, and coaching anticipated functions that later became familiar to a much wider indoor-cycling audience.

The move from Moline to Davenport was a change in how the program operated. During the economic pressures of 2008, the original dedicated-studio model gave way to a smaller setting at Roosevelt Community Center through Davenport Parks and Recreation. By January 2009, I was installing the training equipment and coordinating spring and summer classes with City staff.

I brought the equipment, instruction, and program design; Parks and Recreation provided the community venue, catalog administration, and facility coordination. Class capacity was set at twelve participants so I could ride and teach alongside them. The program carried DICE's cycling knowledge into public recreation, while the business continued to develop through coaching, education, and event work.

Stewardship of a nationally significant racing tradition

The Quad Cities Criterium gave this work a national racing context. Its history reaches back to the 1964 East Moline Kermess and the Moline race that followed in 1965. National-caliber riders and teams, including 7-Eleven, competed in a community where local racers could encounter the highest levels of the sport. By 2004, the event was on the national racing calendar, identified in its official history among the country's top 35 criteriums.

My race-director and promoter work spanned 2006-13, with Terry Burke handing over the director role after the 2006 race. The responsibility was to sustain a competitive event with deep community roots. Sanctioning, permits, insurance, sponsorship, officials, course control, resident and business access, athlete services, setup, and teardown all had to fit together.

That experience developed alongside Double I and DICE events: the Double I CycloCross Experiment Series and Old Towne Vande-Cross, taking over the Barstow 20K and other time trials, ABR Illinois State Road Race Championships from Dave Thompson and working with Bob Lundberg from ABR, and indoor CompuTrainer and roller racing with Rick Poulos and Greg Harper from Harper Schwinn . Different formats required different arrangements, but each depended on people understanding their roles.

My greatest asset at events has always been my volunteers. They make the plan work at the corners, registration tables, crossings, aid locations, and countless other positions an organizer cannot personally occupy. Respecting that contribution means giving people clear assignments, preparation, support, and manageable shifts.

The 2010 Great Egyptian Omnium shows that approach in consulting practice. Reviewing race start times and distances for Chad Briggs, I considered actual lap times, overlapping fields, bib-number identification, support vehicles, officials, and volunteer coverage. I drew on Mississippi Bluffs experience when considering the feature-race distance.

A start interval affects field overlap; overlap affects identification and officiating; simultaneous races affect vehicle needs; a longer day affects volunteer coverage. My job was to connect those decisions and help the organizer create a program that the available people could deliver.

Event history: https://www.quadcitiescriterium.com/history

Quad Cities Marathon and the work between jurisdictions

My Quad Cities Marathon involvement began in 2002 as a bicycle medic watching for distressed runners. Work with race director Joe Moreno developed into a broader course-support role involving bicycle lead, follow, patrol, medic, and sweep functions, cyclist-team coordination, route communication, and repeated planning.

The Marathon required a different view of an event. Its course crossed two states, several municipalities, bridges, and the Rock Island Arsenal. A decision in one location could affect runners, bicycle support, police escorts, emergency services, traffic control, or course reopening somewhere else. A map needed to become instructions that people could use while moving.

For the 2008 race, I prepared a 153-step course-navigation document. It organized the route into a sequence covering city segments, bridge approaches, Arsenal access, the full- and half-marathon split, mile markers, water and medical locations, closures, bicycle pace actions, and vehicle exit. The purpose was to make the course understandable at the point where a decision had to be made.

I produced color-coded and non-color versions, reviewed revisions with Terry Burke and Joe Moreno, and prepared directions-only editions for field use. The work included the practical details of merging movements and bicycle pace support. Different users needed different amounts of information, while still working from the same course plan.

The broader Marathon record also includes organizing bicycle support for Joe Salter's specialized marathon effort, coordinating cyclists and supplies, and arranging GoPro documentation within Rock Island Arsenal security restrictions. That work joined athlete needs, mobile support, communication, and the rules of the places through which the event passed.

These assignments show a substantial consulting capability: translating a complicated route into a usable operation across jurisdictional boundaries. They also reinforce why volunteers matter. Clear instructions and dependable support help people make good decisions in the field. The event's plan is only useful when the people carrying it out can understand and apply it.

Education and public-road experience beyond the studio

DICE's education offering extended into lane positioning, signaling, commuting, touring, riding with children, maintenance, motorist awareness, emergency maneuvers, and school and family programs. The same cycling knowledge could serve a racer preparing for competition and a person learning to ride confidently in traffic.

Explaining the work was part of delivering it. Studio demonstrations, roller activities, and Paula Sands Live appearances introduced unfamiliar training equipment and cycling practices to a wider audience. Technical knowledge had to become language and demonstrations people could use.

From 2007 through June 2017, my work with the League of Illinois Bicyclists, later Ride Illinois, included bicycle-safety education, instructor development, public outreach, and mapping. A six-week, 40+ stop instructor-development tour reached close to 400 attendees. GIS and bicycle-network work added another way to translate conditions on the ground into clear information.

Three RAGBRAI host-community Ride Right assignments, one in LeClaire and two in Davenport, added experience with distributed rider movement, route decisions, signage, hazard awareness, and public-safety coordination. As Quad Cities Triathlon Director of Operations in 2014-15, I worked across course logistics, participant flow, volunteers, registration support, and safety planning.

My 2015–17 role as Bettendorf’s city staffed Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator brought that experience into municipal work. Planning, education, enforcement coordination, public engagement, and regional relationships had to support one another. A useful recommendation had to account for how a street was used and how the responsible organizations could act on it.

Across these settings, the recurring task was to make specialized knowledge useful to other people. A training session, bicycle-safety class, municipal discussion, or event briefing succeeds when participants understand what they need to do and why it matters. That remains a central part of my consulting practice.

IATSE experience and the consulting practice today

My live-event production work adds practical experience with the infrastructure and crews behind large events. As a paid, dues-paying member of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Local 85, I have worked in arena, theater, festival, stadium, and broadcast-support environments.

That work includes rigging, portable power, staging, lighting, audio and video, equipment troubleshooting, work at height, and crew and site coordination. It also includes project leadership: concept-to-completion work at Davenport's Capitol Theatre, leadership through a 2025 Thern counterweight installation, and site-lead assignments on Dearborn and Norfolk deployments with Rexroat and All Event Services.

The connection to event consulting is direct. Temporary structures need usable access and a build schedule. Power, communications, lighting, and audio/video must support the activity. Crews need clear responsibility and workable handoffs. Weather, equipment movement, participant flow, and public access can affect several teams at once.

Cycling and public-road experience help me understand the participant and course. Engineering and construction experience help me understand the physical and technical requirements. IATSE production work adds the perspective of the people building, operating, and striking the event. Volunteer leadership keeps the people delivering the plan at the center of the discussion.

Through DMJ Consulting, that combination supports course and venue review, event readiness, volunteer and workforce planning, operational documentation, active-transportation programs, and coordination among event owners, municipalities, public safety, and technical providers. The work can begin with a planning question, a route, a training need, or an operation that needs to function more clearly.

DICE is a case study in carrying an idea through construction, technology integration, coaching, public recreation, and event delivery. Its long-term value is the practice it developed: understand the people and the purpose, make the parts work together, support the people doing the work, and use experience to improve the next plan. The timing is significant: DICE became a physical training space on October 21, 2006, before Orangetheory Fitness was founded in 2010, Peloton in 2012, and Zwift in 2014. DICE was already bringing structured coaching, performance data, simulated courses, and group riding together in a purpose-built environment, years before those brands helped make technology-supported fitness familiar to a much broader audience. That early integration remains central to what I bring to consulting: recognizing a need, understanding the whole system, and building something people can use.