A few words from Lister, Ogilvie and Dawlatly

Almost three weeks have passed, since the last mighty climb up the Galibier. People are back to their normal riding routines, which for most parts, does not include 5 all-out efforts a week. It was tough, but now it is time, to sum up, and look forward to a new season. Tour de Monde was a great way to start the year and a fantastic success in almost all aspects. RGT pressroom has met up with the three guys behind the scenes, Mike Lister, Samir Dawlatly, and James Ogilvie to a chat on how they saw the tour, and what to expect from future events. 

First of all, congrats on a well-run event. How did it go, from an organizer's point of view?  

SD: I think it went well. I don't think we really set ourselves any objectives before we set out so it's difficult to measure success objectively. But there are lots of things I think we can be proud of
For example, the number of riders who did at least one stage, the number of riders doing all stages. Introducing the concept of racing as a team across an event. 11 new Magic Roads. A sense of community and participation. 

ML: I think the event showed a lot of people that they could push themselves harder when working for a team compared to working just on their own. I think that sense of team probably grew for the riders as the event went on and the team leaderboard moved around.

From a participant's point of view, it all seems to run so smoothly, but loads of work must have been put in, to make it seem so. Your teamwork must have been great as well. Do you guys know each other in real life? 

SD: I have never met the other two. In fact, the first time we spoke to each other was halfway through TDM. And actually one of the best things about the TDM for me was how we worked well as a team with the different roles we played. 

JO: We made a really good team and it felt like the work we needed to do flowed very well, lots of really positive words when something didn't go do well and lots of virtual high 5s. I'm super excited thinking ahead to next years' tour and working with the guys again. 

Does that mean, that you are doing a tour next year as well? 

JO: Yes. And you should watch discord for more from the 3 of us. In the meanwhile, Mike has his excellent TTT series starting up again, I've restarted our OTR Beginners and Improvers Saturday & Sunday races. Samir and I are also working on a non-competitive event coming up soonish.

Sounds great! Do you guys have any plans to enforce a larger degree of validity check with regards to performance in future events?

JO: On "Ask RGT" it was mentioned that something was coming and it would be community led. That's all I know, but as Samir says Mike may know more.

SD: I think this is Mike's area of expertise, but Personally, I don't really care, if there is no money involved. I have only been cycling for less than 2 years, never raced in real life and if someone did a sportive on an e-bike it might annoy me. But all we were racing for on Tour Du Monde was pride. Even if we had a live weight in, that could be tampered with, and if you calibrate your bike live what stops you from altering it just before the race? But that relaxed attitude is probably an exception among the racers on the platform so that's why I defer to the others.

ML: I think there will always be some people who try to bend the rules and some on badly calibrated equipment but if you encourage riders to use websites like the new eBio Passport and you can see people are trying to do the right thing it can give you some confidence in the results. If someone doesn’t have a public Strava profile for example and is putting out big numbers it looks suspicious. There is an onus to prove your legitimacy. It’s perhaps a little at odds with society, you have to prove your innocence. As Samir says we don’t pay to enter races or, for the most part, are we not winning money. That might change though. If I can see on Strava someone is doing 300km a week I can have some faith in their abilities. If they a private account I ask “what are they hiding?” It’s a shame for the sport really.

Do you plan to force people to have an ebio passport to be able to enter events?

It’s something we have discussed. It’s a balance between maintaining accessibility and providing credibility. I think we will start to see events separating into those for more serious racers and those of a more sportive style which are more open with lower validation requirements.

I doubt any of us, would have predicted we would be following e-racing on youtube a couple of years ago. And yet, here we are - eagerly awaiting the stream of the evening. Did you enjoy the streams? 

SD: I did, but I think that is because I wanted to know how Mike was doing, how the roads would look, and because I had developed an online friendship/relationship with those riding. So part was the interest of the race and part was wanting to support the rider.

ML: I have fun making the streams. After a bit of practice, it’s not too hard to setup. It’s nice having that company of people chatting to you like you would on a real-world ride. I think people watch it for different reasons too, some like to be on TV, some like to analyze the route before riding in a later slot, some like to analyze after the race - to see if they could have done better. For some of the riders, it was so their family could watch the event and see what they were up to for the two weeks. 

JO: Yeah, the family's watching was something really cool that I hadn't anticipated. Personally, I like to look the route over before racing (not necessary in TdM), I also like to watch people racing hard / suffering. There's connection when you're seeing someone toiling & you know that's going to be you soon enough.

ML: I know I’m pretty animated when I'm riding and I do show the suffering. One of the reasons I haven’t put a webcam on yet but when I do it will no doubt boost the entertainment factor!

Luckily the Tour de Monde is not the last event coming from these guys. In fact in two weeks time the Maratona challenge starts - which is a tour around the Dolomites designed by Ogilvie and Dawlatly.