I read this week that a survey indicated that over 50% of us were rather nostalgic about the original Lockdown. Really? Wonder who they spoke to. We have all developed coping mechanisms during the past 12 months and mine during these short, dark winter days has been pedalling over 1,200 miles on a static bike in our garage. It’s amazing what a Wahoo Kickr virtual cycle trainer coupled with an iPad, can do to create a lockdown exercise palace. Welcome to my cycling world.
Zwift is my chosen virtual app, like a peloton, but with nobody barking orders to step up the pace and a cheaper monthly subscription. However, I am not here to join the legions of virtue signallers or cast a smug smile at my personal achievements, I want to draw your attention to the dark shadow of indoor cycle cheats! It’s a “thing” and who knew?
Cycling out of “Innsbruck” earlier this week, the climb quickly increases to a rather brutal 10% and no matter how big a run up you take (I’ve tried) or how low a gear you drop down to, your speed quickly drops to around 6/7 mph. The monotonous climb continues for a laborious half an hour, frequently touching 15% and rarely dropping below 5%. Breathing becomes laboured, the burn in your legs ever worsening and even on a cold day with air conditioning on max, the sweat starts to run into your eyes. And yet the procession of riders passing my avatar at 2x, 3x my own speed continues unabated. The ride has a time trial in it and I quickly calculate that those topping the leader board have averaged 30 mph. On a hill. With an average of a 10% climb.
Rather than just feeling inadequate, I had a quick look at everybody’s favourite search engine. I am cynical at the best of times and I wanted to know if the performance of my fellow avatars was real. Or, was there something afoot? Had Lance Armstrong’s “legacy” reached the digital world?
Yes people, the world of “digital doping” is real alright. There are tips to enable you to falsely enhance your FTP test (Functional Threshold Power, or a measure of how fit you are), how to increase your road speed without putting the slog in (less air in the tyres, apparently) or just disconnecting the gradient part of your cycle trainer. You can even “edit” the data recorded during an event to enhance your performance.
The stakes these days are higher in the virtual world. Former Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas is a brand ambassador for Zwift and you can now ride virtual stages of the tour. For money. Even UCI (the world’s governing Cycling body) has got in on the act offering the world’s first online competition with a prize of £8,000.
For most of us, without access to Lance Armstrong’s bathroom cabinet or one of Dr Richard Freeman’s “special prescriptions”, if you want to compete with the cheats you have to change your data. People are lying about their weight (surely not!) as it impacts their power ratio, or engaging in “fabrication or modification of data” as banned British cyclist Lizi Duncombe apparently did last year. (Seemingly, in her defence, her “computer ran out of battery”.)
Even motor racing is not immune; only last year professional driver Daniel Abt was suspended by Audi after it transpired he cheated in a video race. It was an expensive transgression as Daniel was later “encouraged” to make a charitable donation of €10,000.
I did not take it as seriously as I should” he commented.
Clearly, he did, that was the whole point.
Alternatively, you could just be true to yourself. The whole point of exercise I (naively?) thought was to lose weight and get fit. Some people also enjoy it. After all, what’s not to like sitting in a garage early on an icy March morning staring at an iPad on a stand, whilst peddling furiously on a stationary bike?
Marginal gains were around long before Dave Brailsford and the British Cycling Team made them part of sporting parlance a decade ago. Competitiveness in business has long depended on them. Often, they aren’t necessarily honest as we saw from Volkswagen Audi Group’s “unfortunate” emissions confession a few years ago. The fallout though can be catastrophic. Apart from the serious brand damage, VAG were hit with an eye watering fine of $2.8 billion by a US federal judge. Mercedes Benz, quiet at the time of the original scandal, were subsequently fined £776 million. Any advantage previously won was washed away in the deluge of cost that inevitably followed.
Customers don’t forget, we are a pedantic lot at the best of times and many of us don’t generally buy from those lacking basic integrity. Integrity and ethics are not always as plentiful as you might expect, even in a life changing global pandemic. There are a good few citizens who have become instant millionaires as a result of selling defective PPE to the NHS over the past year. Some of them (gasp) are here on LinkedIn ladies and gentlemen! I would couch that there is no inner ethical turmoil battle going on with these individuals.
Maybe they and other unscrupulous marginal gains chasers don’t care. Perhaps it really doesn’t matter. As a supplier, I believe that it is fundamental to side with integrity and ethics. By all means look to secure marginal gains as part of your transaction, but make sure what you are proposing is ethical.
Ethics is definitely mutually inclusive. Over the years I have encountered Consulting organisations winning implementation projects on an initial low price and then undertaking margin recovery via change control and effectively doubling the initial price; but I have also witnessed large Government Departments, wilfully using software without appropriate licences in place. Virtual and IPR theft to the value of £5m in one example. I smile wryly as I remember the demand for a substantial discount on the basis that it was both morally and ethically repugnant not to do so,
Next time somebody blasts by you on the climb out of “Harrogate” or up “Box Hill” remember this: If they cheat at this you can be absolutely sure they cheat in other aspects of their life also and almost certainly in business. If that somebody is you, have a word with yourself will you?
