Don’t lose sight of winning
Ribble-weldtite had our first team gettogether last week. This was unfortunately on Zoom, but it did mean I was able to wear a pirate hat thanks to modern day filters, and set my background to the beautiful Wolverhampton. I’m not sure what the new riders thought of this.
A large part of the talk was about the team’s culture. This is a balance of cuttingedge aerodynamics and engineering – working mostly with innovative British brands to aid our personal and team performances – and being a team that really understands the importance of creating value for our sponsors. I’m sure we would all prefer cycling to be a complete meritocracy that relied purely on results and the strongest legs to generate income, but this is no longer the case. It’s about boxing clever in terms of races that actually have a media presence that helps your sponsors. There is very little incentive to come 12th in some nails race in the south of France that has zero social media.
The one thing that does consistently create value is winning, something that I think a lot of riders lose sight of. No matter what the race, a picture of you with your hands in the air means something. There is sometimes a certain snobbery from riders or teams that look down on winning lesser races, but the head of marketing for your main sponsor probably does not know the difference. I was once the main image on the front of the KTM bikes global website by winning a Nat B in Kent. But 99% of people on the site would not have had a clue what the race was. So, we also want to focus on winning. We will still have a calendar that allows riders to move up in the sport, as James Shaw did last year, combined with also having a focus that allows every single rider to be successful in their own right. Anyway, isn’t winning what sport is all about?