Logistics: The puzzle of running a cycling team

With the globalisation of cycling and the expansion of the sport in the recent couple of decades; the time is long gone where the racing season started in the middle of February in Europe and throughout the season only few races were held at the same point on the calendar. Nowadays, Team dsm-firmenich PostNL race throughout Oceania, South America and the Middle East in the early months of the year, whilst sometimes participating in six races with their Women’s, Men’s and Development program all in one day.

This brings some logistical challenges, which are most often tackled by the team’s Operations department. Daily, the team of five ensures that all the right people in the team and materials are brought to the right place and at the exact right moment. For example at any given point in the year, operations look after the flights and hotels of 62 riders, 13 coaches and an average of 24 staff members, whilst taking care of the materials in the Warehouse in Deventer, the Netherlands, and all the vehicles of the team, such as team cars, buses, crafters and cook trucks.

So, already quite challenging, hey? Let alone when we’re racing in multiple countries. According to Marloes Poelman, Head of Operations and Finance at Team dsm-firmenich PostNL, this is quite manageable, until a certain point.

“Typically, we participate in a competition with the Women’s and Development programs while running two or three races concurrently with the Men’s program. Then, we have five racing lines, which we can manage effectively given the logistics; but adding a sixth race presents a problem due to the need to divide materials and cars across races.”

Flight races

You would say that is already quite demanding for operations, but it becomes even more hectic with flight races, which see almost all the continents of the world. Planning for these races starts long in advance both in terms of what materials are needed to be taken but also the administrational side of everything. This requires Marloes, Kim Bekhuis (Operations Manager) 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 Kim, 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 take to a race, so things must 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 to wash rider and staff clothing for a week in China and then sell it after the event was finished.

We also cannot bring our own cars to a flight race. In this circumstance, the racing organisation assigns us cars with roof racks, but our bikes are made for our own cars and roof racks. So, we must also adjust and adapt to the materials we have available.

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

Finally, communication is something that needs to be considered too. In some places it is not possible to use your European phone or 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 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 again collect the materials from the airport and bring them back to our HQ where unpacking begins, and things are put away neatly before they are needed again next time.

Marloes concludes: “Apart from the bikes, everything is actually different compared to a race in Europe. It’s always a nice 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”.