THE CAPTAIN AND THE PILOT

How long have you been racing together for?

SHANE ARCHBOLD: Six years.

What were your first impressions of each other?

SAM BENNETT: I didn’t like him! Nah, I’m joking. Actually, the first year in An Post we didn’t talk much.

ARCHBOLD: We lived together but we didn’t speak so much, Sam didn’t speak so much.

BENNETT: I never speak so much.

ARCHBOLD: We were racing together in the same team, but we weren’t necessarily racing together so much.

When did you start working together in terms of the sprints?

BENNETT: It was kind of my last year there [at An Post], 2013 wasn’t it? And then we started preparing for races more as a lead-out combo. The main one was the Tour of Britain at the end of the year and leading up to that, there were some kermesses, but it wasn’t until that [Tour of Britain], that it really was a big idea to put us together.

Have you always worked well together?

I think, yeah. The way Shane’s power delivery is… is perfect. Like, he can go so long and hard in the final. He also comes from a track background so he can go through the