Between the Tape

When I started racing, the go-to social race was 24-hour racing – big teams of riders doing one lap at a time and having a chat in between laps. At least until around 6pm before the daunting fact you had 18hrs to go hit you. The social aspect dwindled, mainly because team members were always doing something different. One was out riding; one was sleeping; and a couple more were eating, so the ‘team’ was never really together. Much like shuttling where one mate drives and the others ride and then swap; there’s always a bit of division.

The two-up team events that are so popular at the moment do a good job at keeping the team together, even if it is a smaller team. You race side by side, and often finish the race and continue onto cleaning or eating as a team. The popularity shows a lot of riders like the camaraderie of shared suffering or shared fun with another person.

I like playing video games and team-based games are quite popular with duos, teams of three and four are all popular combinations, which all offer interesting looks into different team dynamics. Duos are usually intimate, which is cool, but if the other player gets into trouble the game is almost certainly over. Teams of four are good but finding four like-minded people is tough so there are always some … cohesion problems.

But teams of three seem to be a sweet spot where everyone likes sticking together and if one player gets in trouble, they have two others to help share the workload to get them out of trouble. Back in the mountain biking world, teams of three were used at the enduro Trophy of Nations where three riders from each nation raced enduro stages together. There were some team tactics going on with the faster rider on the team usually leading and the other two trying to keep pace.

The Cape Epic is one of the only races to provide evidence of how a team of four would work, as back-up teams occasionally set pace for the lead teams. A four-person race seems to fit a wide-open race like the Cape Epic. The stretches of road and fast flowing trails means riding as a team and swapping turns to set pace is doable. Although, in another race, racing on tight singletrack with multiple teams of four might get crowded!

One thing I like about the two-up teams racing is watching the racing unfold as you get to see double the riders on the livestream. If it was a singles race, there might be a solo breakaway and then riders behind come through alone, which isn’t great viewing. Watching a team of two is interesting as you get to see how they ride, communicate and act as a team… or not. And obviously if two teams are together you get to witness four riders battling it out.

I do wonder how a team of three would work in a mountain bike XC race. Having those extra set of legs to share the workload if one rider is feeling off in a stage race could keep a team in the running. It would also be interesting to see the dynamic out on the trails as teams try to stick together. I’d imagine it would be harder, which would make it interesting to watch. It would also be good to not only ride with one friend but two.

Although finding another rider could be an obvious problem, finding another like-minded rider for a duo race is hard let alone adding an extra person. At the top level, it would be also difficult to find three top riders seeing that the MTB talent pool isn’t that big compared to other sports, but it would make very interesting racing to watch. Maybe one day!