It’s almost impossible to watch a bike race without caring about the result. Try it sometime. I challenge you to sit through the last 20 kilometres of any race without experiencing an emotional response to how well or badly at least one or two of the bike-monkeys do.
Multiple national champion on the bike and award-winning author Michael Hutchinson writes for CW every week.
You can try to tell yourself that the most important thing is that it’s a good race, that the fortunes of the individual riders are no concern of yours, and that what matters is that cycling is the winner. But ultimately, you care. There is a deep-seated need to pick a side.
So the question is, who do you support and why? There is a variety of algorithms available to help you choose. The most obvious one is simple – are any of the riders your son/daughter/brother/sister? If so, you’ll probably be on their side. (Among acing siblings, there is a Yates/Bäckstedt caveat if more than of one you is in the same race. If you’re the parent of racing siblings, I’m sorry, but you have to pick a favourite.)
Next, are you a friend of someone who’s racing? For the purpose of this, we’re defining “friend” as, “Can you tell me a fact about them that isn’t available on the internet?” If the rider is famous enough and the fact is embarrassing enough to publish in a magazine column, you can be my friend too.
In many ways a friend is the perfect relationship – you know about their career, you care about their success. But you’d probably also find something to enjoy in their failure. Especially if it occurs in a manner offering opportunities for ongoing mockery. When a friend of mine arrived alone on the finishing straight of a Giro d’Italia stage with only a stray three-legged dog running in circles between him and victory, I have to admit that a tiny little bit of me hoped he’d crash over the dog.
Next down the list come riders you’ve met once and who seemed OK. It might have been at a race, or a bike show, or just a random encounter on the road after you sat on their wheel for two hours. But they didn’t swear at you, spit at you, or take out a restraining order, so they must be a sort of mate.
Then come riders you met once, and who weren’t nice. This can go either way. You can wish them well nonetheless, or you can wish them ill. Whichever you choose, it can give you the personal investment you crave. (Note that as a matter of probability, wishing riders ill is much more likely to produce a result you like, at least up to the point where you’ve met and insulted more than half the field.)
The question of “riders you know” crosses heavily into social media, since it’s easy to think you truly know someone from their Instagram, and thinking you know someone is all you really need. It can offer an opportunity to “get to know” a rider – if their social media manager replies to your comment, they can be confident their employer has a fan for life. That is, in fact, why they do it.
There are riders you develop an affection for based on a single incident – for example, Pascal Eenkhoorn, a mid-ranking WorldTour pro who won himself an unexpected crop of UK fans when he gave his bottle to a youngster riding alongside the break at the Tour of Britain a few years ago. Could he have podiumed on the penultimate stage of last year’s Tour without us? It seems unlikely.
Finally, accept that logic only takes you so far. One of my best friends has spent years supporting Adam Yates while wishing nothing but ill fortune to his twin Simon Yates. He has absolutely no explanation for this.