I addressed a group of triathletes this past weekend in Boston, and my address was less inspirational and more rantlike. Sort of a tantrum, really. It feels good to be a minor prophet. You can be as ornery as you want because nobody expects anything sweeter from you.
We're in an age when the CIA doesn't know what the FBI is doing, the CEO doesn't know what the CFO is up to, corporate boards are very busy performing their fiduciary responsibilities but not, it seems, to the shareholders of the companies on whose boards they sit. Generals and their civilian bosses know a lot of things, but not what problems their soldiers are faced with, and they appear not in the loop when it comes to any shenanigans a few bad apples are up to.
Today I read in the paper about a man in a car wreck two weeks ago. He was pronounced dead at the scene by an off-duty paramedic, and again by on-duty paramedics and then by the medical examiner. An accident investigator apparently went back hours later to the morgue and unzipped the body bag to make sure he knew the direction of the blow that caused his death, only to discover that the man wasn't dead. Several people lost their jobs or were suspended. But not the medical examiner who, according to the state's chief medical examiner, "Did everything the law required of him," and so escapes any censure. So reports the New York Times. (Apparently it is the medical examiner's job to only determine the cause of death, not the fact of death; determining the cause of death of someone not yet dead appears to fall under that category.)
When I ran a factory there was one sentence no one was allowed to utter. Nobody at Quintana Roo was ever allowed to say, or act as if, "It's not my job." I learned not to except this excuse as a teenager, when I was working in restaurants earning $2.90 an hour. Even as a busboy I learned that each of us had a specific job conforming to one's core competency, but everyone had the same responsibility: the health, welfare and prosperity of the organization.
I don't see that today. National and local governments, big companies and small, charities and non-profits, are all rife with inefficiencies and scandals and abject theft and dereliction of duty, yet it seems those in top positions are often made of teflon and they know it. When CBS faces the real threat of five and six figure fines by the FCC should it air what our Vice President says at a campaign stop, it's obvious we've got a very skewed idea of whom to charge with blame. Obviously responsibility is something many seem to crave, but no one wants to accept. A popular commentator apologizes for bad judgment for covertly accepting $240,000 from the government to share his "opinion" without disclosing the payola, but he won't give the money back because he "did nothing illegal." Our Secretary of Defense offers his resignation twice for things done by those in his charge, yet he's still there, because he knows his resignation won't be accepted.
There are two kinds of people in positions of authority today: Those who will not accept responsibility for things outside their closely circumscribed, narrow, line-of-sight areas of responsibility; and those who'll accept a broader responsibility—but only as a face saver—and only as long as they don't have to face any consequences for their inaction or lack of oversight.
This is the world in which we live, and it's so because we allow it. If we didn't stand for such a relaxed set of expectations, our corporate, governmental and moral leaders wouldn't live down to them. Commenting on this state of affairs is not ordinarily my mission, except this problem is cantilevered over the sport of triathlon, and the low expectations we often have for the professionals who earn their money selling us goods and services.
Specifically I'm talking about the corporate—well, I don't know how to put it nicely—laziness I see around me in just about every category and specialty pertaining to the cycling element of our sport. I'm not suggesting that bike designers, bike product managers, retailers, coaches, and magazine editors and publishers don't work hard. They're busy and probably most of them are harder workers than I am. My concern is that many of them don't learn, don't think, aren't "big picture" people. They often don't step back and consider the scope of their mission. Making you a better, happier, safer, more fulfilled, more content triathlete is, I'm afraid I'd hear, "...not my job." Each of these entities has closely scribed the circles inside of which they operate. They don't know, and don't want to know, what else is going on in your athletic life. This would be okay, except the other things that impact your performance creep over into these other areas of "expertise" you've purchased. What specifically do I mean?
Let's start by examining certain very simple elements of your race that would appear to be simple, intuitve, axiomatic, universally agreed upon. It doesn't matter what sort of bike race it is you're considering, if it incorporates a cycling race or cycle leg of a race that takes less than six hours, cadences are relatively high. Let us marry this notion with another. Let us say you're intending to try to race an 10-hour Ironman, and you'll swim an hour, ride 5:30, and run 3:30. As you're running your 8-minute miles, are you going to throw a 6:30 in there at, say, mile-15? If not, why would you throw a 380-watt effort in during a 112-mile ride in which you'll average 210 watts? You wouldn't. However, if I were to punch up the max power reading on your Powertap or SRM, had you one mounted on your bike during the race, I bet I'd find an eyebrow raising max power reading.
As you become aware of this—and especially if you train with power—you'll become cognizant of this and not muscle your way up a hill at a power output way in excess of your average effort. But, you'll notice a problem. You can't ride up a 6% grade at 90rpm, averaging 220 watts with the gears you no-doubt have on your bike (unless you're 120 pounds or you're smart, know this, and have a 110mm bolt pattern crank on your bike).
This is where the coach must know things the bike shop knows, that is, if the coach says, "ride up the hills in the aero position spinning 95rpm, and keep a steady power application throughout the ride," he can't just stop there. He's also got to know how, mechanically, it is you're supposed to achieve this.
Likewise, if the bike shop is selling you a tri bike, he ought to know more than whether the bottom bracket threads are English or Italian. He also needs to know how a tri bike is properly ridden. In other words, he needs to know quite a bit about what the coach's job is.
The crossover occurs at cadence and technique. Both the coach and the shop needs to know that tri bikes are great, but only if they're ridden the way they ought to be ridden, which is in the aero position almost exclusively, even when climbing, and always at high cadences. Both the coach and the LBS also need to understand the linkage between seat angles and cadence rates. Only if both know a fair bit about the other's job can either do his own job correctly.
Does your coach talk to you about bike handing, about when it's appropriate to be in the aero position and when not? Whether to climb in or out of the aero position, and when to stand versus when to sit? Does he talk to you about cadence, and how does he know that you know what your cadence is as you ride from day to day and week to week? Does he counsel you about race tactics, about power application throughout the event? Or, does he say about bike fit, bike technique and tactics, and the componentry that makes it all possible, "That's not my job."?
Let's talk about your retailer. These people hold a special place in my heart, because they really do put in the time. In most cases, this is the link in the goods and services chain who works the most hours, while facing the greatest financial fragility and peril. At the same time, they make choices regarding their core competency, and the circle they draw scribing that competency is quite large prior to the sale, but gets quite small afterward. "Are you equipped to be my LBS if I'm a triathlete?" you might ask.
"I can take care of you," is the reply.
"Good. I wonder if we can talk about the models of tri bikes you sell, and specifically the approach of your vendors as regards head tube heights? And whether I should therefore be riding hi- or lo-profile aero bars accordingly? And then can we talk about S-bend extensions and whether they'd be appropriate for me, and how one goes about deciding on where to miter both the proximal and distal ends of the extension?"
Watch the circle of core competency shrink like the pupil of a guy on speed. Honestly, the above is not a particularly hard question for a retailer who really deserves your business. But most of your local retailers won't know how to begin the answer to these questions, because, "It's not [their] job."
How is the manufacturer spec'ing the bike you ride? Does he understand the dynamics of the race for which you're training? Is he aware of the technical way his bike must be ridden in order for you to use his product successfully? Is he cognizant of this, and equipping his product accordingly? Or, is he only the fabricator of a product, and when it comes to the proper use of his product, well, "That's not my job."
Does the magazine to which you subscribe feel there ever a bike that is ill-spec'd? Is proper spec for the job you must perform even inside the core competency of your magazine's tech editors? Or, is pointing out that this is a "good bike" but with "bad choices made on gearing" their job? Is saying that a particular bike is certainly built and spec'd for somebody, but not for a signifcant segment of serious triathletes outside the "mission" of your magazine? And, what is the functional difference between, "That's not our mission," and "It's not my job"?
Back in my early days of bike racing, these sorts of questions were everybody's job. A bike shop owner, his mechanic, the coach of the local cycling club, the magazines you read, all pretty much knew the sport of cycling. Every shop owner in 1978, and certainly anyone even remotely connected with the construction of bikes back then, could define the term "trail" to you. Can your magazine editor, your chosen bike's product manager, your retailer, your coach, do that today?
Or, when you ask that question will the answer be, "It's where you ride your mountain bike? And, by the way, I can't talk to you about mountain bikes because that's not my job. But I can make your life as a triathlete easier You can now pay me every month via credit card on my online shopping cart."
