Let’s fly, let’s fly away! – How we prepare to compete in non-European locations

With the globalisation of cycling and the expansion of the sport in the recent couple of decades; the time where the racing season started in the middle of February in Europe is long gone. Nowadays, you can find the peloton in action throughout Oceania, South America and the Middle East in the early months of the year.

With a lot of teams, including us, based in Europe – this does bring some logistical challenges as it’s not entirely feasible (or possible at all) to take your own fleet of vehicles to these races. Furthermore, different countries require different visas or passes to get there; all of which must be accounted for too.

We thought it would be interesting to peel back the curtain so to speak and give you an insight into just how a professional cycling team manages these challenges, so we sat down and gathered insight from two of our colleagues Kim Bekhuis (Operations) and Yannick Runhart (Warehouse).

A common struggle for all travellers

Planning for these races starts long in advance both in terms of what materials are needed to be taken but also the administration side of everything. This requires Kim, Yannick and the rest of our colleagues to work in harmony to make sure everything is prepared.

One of the first stumbling blocks is arranging for all material to make it to the race location safely and on time. This firstly requires some days to be arranged at our HQ for the mechanics to make sure that everything is packed before the material is taken to the airport. Some organisers have specific flights to take materials while for other races the bikes etc might have to be taken by the riders and staff.

This leads into one of the “main challenges for packing” according to Yannick, which for like any normal person when going on holiday, is the weight of luggage and the limited space we have. That means we are limited with what we can all take to a race, so things have to be prioritised, such as the bikes and our own tools, while for example it is sometimes cheaper to buy certain materials in the country itself, like a massage table, rather than paying for shipping. Interestingly, this has seen the team in the past buy a washing machine for a week in China and then sell it after the event was finished.

Paperwork and more paperwork

It’s not just the physical side of things that need to be accounted for, Kim also explains that a lot must be sorted digitally too – with a lot more to take into consideration than the “normal booking of flights and hotels” that we would do for European races.

This can be ensuring that all the appropriate custom forms are filled in correctly, which varies greatly depending on the country we’re going to – as if not then it can cause hours of delays or in some cases the material or person aren’t allowed to travel.

We also have to apply for visas for riders and staff that are attending races and this can take a lot of work and planning, with people sometimes even having to visit their local embassy as a final step of the process.

Furthermore, Kim must liaise with our medical staff to make sure that everyone has the correct vaccinations, or if they need a booster, or a vaccine to combat a disease that might be more prevalent in a specific country.

Finally, communication is something that needs to be considered too as in some places it is not possible to use your European phone / phone number so for those instances SIM cards, and sometimes even specific phones, are purchased to use for that country. Likewise, we often bring our own in-race communication systems and for that we also need an approved license from the local governments to use certain radio frequencies between the riders and the following car.

Doing it all again

Of course, it’s not only the way there which causes a logistical challenge – we need to make sure everyone and everything gets back smoothly too! So, for the return journey it is much the same, making sure that all of the materials are under the weight limits, reach their drop-off points correctly and that paperwork is correct for riders, staff and materials.

On return to Europe, it often requires a few staff members to then collect the materials from the airport and bring that back to our HQ where unpacking begins, and things can be put away neatly before they are needed again next time.

All-in-all it can prove to be quite the challenge, but we have a great group of people within the team working as hard as they can to make sure that things go as smoothly as possible; often on-hand to react in any last-minute changes or disruptions. That means the riders can focus more on what they need to do and every little bit helps play into the success of the team – and our great start to the 2023 cycling campaign!