It takes more than strong legs to create success.
When it comes to winning bike races at the highest level, being a strong rider is only part of the equation. A team might have the strongest riders in a race, but unless they’re all working well together, with the whole team pointed towards a common goal, winning becomes considerably more difficult.
There are many elements that contribute to team cohesion, but one that’s not talked about terribly much in cycling is trust. A new study, though, from researchers out of the UK and Norway, has looked specifically at the issue of trust in professional women’s road cycling – the elements that help build an environment of trust, and how important that trust is in successful teams.
In some ways the results of the study aren’t all that surprising – as in any team environment, pro cyclists are more likely to thrive when they trust those around them, and when they are trusted themselves. But in a sport where team dysfunction is far from a rarity, this study is a valuable reminder of the importance of a positive team culture, and how to get there.
Ask the riders
At the heart of this latest research, published in the International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, are the experiences of 10 professional female road racers. All had raced for Continental-level teams, all had achieved podium results in international races, and nine of the 10 had represented Norway at some point. Each rider had between two and 10 years of experience to draw on.
Led by Marie Lind Larsen from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, the researchers conducted 40-minute interviews with each rider about their experiences of trust inside teams. As you can see from the diagram below, three main themes emerged from the interviews: the factors that lead to trust (left), a description of what team trust actually is (centre), and the consequences of that trust (right).
Let’s start in the middle. What does it mean to experience trust in a professional women’s cycling team?
What is trust?
The researchers define trust as “a mutual expectation that teammates have good intentions and perform their tasks … in line with the team’s values, strategies and goals.”
They highlighted one rider’s response as particularly instructive: “I think of trust as being able to rely on others to do what they are supposed to, and that I do my part in return.”
Simple enough. But how do teams get there? What are the conditions that lead to riders feeling that sort of trust within a team?
How to build trust
The leftmost third of the diagram above shows that there are many important ingredients. Here’s a breakdown of the most important ones:
Cycling competence
Riders tend to implicitly trust teammates who are more skilled and more experienced on the bike. As one rider put it: “[If] a teammate has more experience than I do and has done this more than me and can actually position herself ahead in the peloton, and I can see that she truly has the skills for it … then I trust 100% that she will do what she is supposed to do.”
Did we do a good job with this story?