CYCLING’S CULTURAL ARCHITECHS
Adversity can be a better stimulus than the good times. EF-Nippo’s Mitch Docker recalls when the 2019 Vuelta a España went badly wrong for the team on stage 5, and how they turned their race around.
“We had a big crash and lost Rigo Urán and Hugh Carthy. Tejay van Garderen pulled out the next day. We’d lost our GC men, it was a disaster. But I thought, ‘It’s time to step up. These boys need firing up and we need to think about our next goal.’
“I told Sergio Higuita to follow Lawson Craddock and Dani Martínez to follow me and Logan Owen. From that moment we became a five-man unit and made that Vuelta happen. Sergio won stage 18.”
Docker had to be positive and motivating – in that challenging race, the Australian exhibited the traits required of arguably the most important member of the team. The road captain protects the leader, reads the race and calls the shots. But their true value lies in setting a team’s culture.
The road captain is the in-race conduit between the DS in the team car and his or her team-mates, a rider who the team trusts to change strategy on the ground if the situation demands. At SD Worx you have Christine Majerus. On the men’s side, there’s Deceuninck-Quick Step’s Iljo Keisse and, of course, Luke Rowe at the Ineos Grenadiers.
Physically, the road
