Why mountain biking is a team sport !
When someone speaks about team sports, it’s probably not likely that cycling comes to the forefront of one’s mind. Road cycling operates in a team format, albeit in quite subtle ways when compared to ball sports; with riders having jobs within the bunch, often setting up for one general classification rider or sprinter to get over the line first. Mountain biking is even less of a team sport: all of the disciplines within mountain biking are essentially arduous solo time-trials over different distances and terrains.
Words: Anna Beck Photo: Robert Conroy
So what if I was going to make the case for mountain biking being a team sport, of a different kind? Sure there are trade teams, shop teams and groups of brightly coloured youngsters supported by the latest and greatest energy goop, but that’s not the sort of team I am talking about.
Anyone who has raced or trained in the sport at any level has experienced the team, to a lesser or greater extent.
So what is it? It’s not team Australia. It’s not team ‘wicked dirt shredders’.com. It’s the team of those around you that enable you, directly or indirectly, to get out there and have a go.
For someone like athlete and track cycling superstar Anna Meares the team is truly epic; with a multi-million dollar budget (evidently attaining a gold medal is quite an expensive affair!), featuring coaches, physiologists, dieticians, biomechanists, physios, managers as well as family, friends and corporate sponsors.
For most of us, the team we rely on can be found by looking around us; it’s those who enable us to ride. Your team is your health-promoting workplace that allows a flexible rostering system or late starts to enable some mid-week action. It’s your other half, exasperatedly waking every morning to an empty bed so you can go out in the dark and chew your stem in the hunt for watts. It’s your friends, indulging your questionable neon lycra attire and talking about ‘shred’ while at the pub. They think you’re having a mid-life crisis but they love you anyway.
Your team is the club that provides local and affordable racing, and an excellent sausage sizzle to boot. It’s the long suffering parents/friends/support crew that stand in the sun and thanklessly hold out bottles for you, at risk of getting corked by an incoming slow lob of another riders’ bidon.
On a different thread, your team also consists of the ambulance crew that picks you up when you land on your head, the medical staff at hospital, and the physio that assists with your clavicle rehab after that tabletop went wrong.
Mountain biking isn’t, in it’s essence, a team sport. There’s no positions of play on the field (just your position within the field), and no one to pass the ball to. There’s no time like being a solo mountain bike racer in another country, away from your teams, to make you realise how good having a support network is; especially when getting home from course prep features a full bike scrub, a load of washing, trip to the shops and making dinner before a big race. There’s nothing like missing home to make you realise who the important players in your team are.
So this post is just a heads up; there are more people involved in your riding than just yourself and your two-wheeled steed. Maybe give them some love and appreciation as a part of your own team.
