It was a brutal year for the cyclists in this year’s edition of the Tour de France. It’s always a brutal three weeks of racing, but teamwork helps separate the winners from the rest. Geraint Thomas came across the finish line in Paris as the first winner from Wales. His teammate and favorite to win, Chris Froome came in third. Tom Dumoulin came in second place which is the position he finished in earlier this year in the Giro d’Italia.
The big suffering came in the group of the fast men competing for stage wins and the green jersey competition during the Tour de France. Mark Cavendish, Andre Greipel, Fernando Gaviria, Dylan Groenewegen, and Marcel Kittel never made it to Paris. Peter Sagan had a huge margin of victory in the green jersey competition, but a crash on stage 17 descending the Col de Val Louron-Azet in excess of 40 mph left him battered and bruised.
I would give the award for the most suffering to the American Lawson Craddock. He crashed hard on the first day and fractured his scapula. He finished riding that day and got on his bike every day to reach the streets of Paris. He used his suffering for good, raising money for his favorite charity, by asking donors to pledge money for each day he continued to ride.
It’s teamwork that gets the riders to the finish line. Geraint Thomas had Team Sky pacing him up the mountains for as long as they could, burying themselves to give the yellow jersey as much help as possible, then leaving him to finish strong over his rivals.
The team mechanics have the bikes in perfect condition. When a flat occurs or a crash happens, the mechanics quickly jump to help and get the rider back into the race.
The team chefs get needed nutrition into the cyclists for the brutal three weeks. Just keeping calories in your body and recharging your body for another day on the bike is a huge task.
Compliance is the same way. The lone cyclist on the road is unlikely to achieve success. It takes a team to be successful. Not just a team of compliance personnel, but a multi-disciplinary team across the whole organization.
One failing of the Tour de France is not having a female equivalent. That didn’t stop Donnons des elles au Velo Jour-1 from riding the entire route of the Tour de France. J-1 are a group of high-level amateurs riding the day before. There is a short La Course for professional racers. But it was just a single day of racing on a much shorter route than the men. It’s time to change this.
I realize that only a handful of you have likely read this far. The venn diagram between cycling and compliance is very small. (Hello Tom!)
Like Lawson Craddock, I too will be biking for charity. I’m riding across Massachusetts to raise money in the fight against cancer. I’m only riding 300 miles over 3 days, compared to the 2,082 miles in the Tour de France. Donations can be made here: http://profile.pmc.org/DC0176