Teamwork in cycling

Berbatov

Being totally new to the sport it came as a real surprise to me the amount of teamwork involved in cycyling.

Up till now I assumed that purely whoever won was the best/fastest cyclist. However now I realise that not only do you have to be an excellant cyclist and (according to all rumours and suggestions) hyped up on EPO, but reliant on great teamwork.

So, how do most of the guys doing the donkeywork feel? I was amazed for the first two weeks by the Astana and HTC Columbia teams work ethic in leading out the peleton and working hard for their leader/leaders. But it seems that come the end of the 3rd week only the very top riders were out front, apart from breakaways who were usually caught.

The two who impressed me most were the Schleck boys who seemed to do everything to help each other.

Any opinions/insight/comment???

rottenhat

I think most of them are quite happy just to be able to make a living by riding a bike. That was certainly the case in the past when most professional cyclists came from poor backgrounds where the alternative was a life of equally hard and considerably less glamourous manual labour. It's worth remembering that prize money, primes etc are usually pooled among the team so that everyone benefits financially when one member of the team wins. And it's also not unknown for the stars of the team to reward the efforts of their domestiques by gifting them a win in a minor event should the opportunity arise. What you see in the grand tours is only one element to the season.

blorg

Yes, it is fundamentally a team sport, at the end of the day this is down to the simple physics of it, you use so much less energy in a bunch compared to out on your own. Having a good team is absolutely essential, it has been a big problem for Cadel Evans in particular, he is a good individual rider but has not had a great team behind him.

Vélo

OP I can understand you know nothing about team work with a username like yours:D:D:D:D:P

Berbatov

Vélo wrote: »

OP I can understand you know nothing about team work with a username like yours:D:D:D:D:P

:D. Didn't see that coming!!:D

Running Bing

I think when you realise how things work at first it is a bit shocking, you think it must be really sh1t to be a domestique and it even seems unfair.:D

Really there is a lot of pride in it though and good domestiques are very highly prized and an integral part of any team/riders success.

I always look at it like a defender in football, the striker may score the goals and get all the glory but without the solid defence the team would be nowhere.

Also for a lot of domestiques there is the prospect of one day being the big guy. Just look at Nicholas Roche, he was firmly in the domestique category before the Tour but now things are changing a bit and he will likely get a bit more support from the team. So its not all bad.:cool: