Professional cycling is a complicated sport, and oftentimes it can be difficult to explain to people how much of a team sport cycling really is. Doesn’t the strongest rider just ride away and win, you might ask? In fact, it is not nearly that simple. Due to tactics based around aerodynamic drag, cycling turns into a bit of a chess match on two wheels, and thus the winner of a race is extremely dependent on the cohesion and coordination of his team.
The group incentive, the defining characteristic of why cycling teams exist, is to put their “team leader” on the top step of the podium. With the help of a team, the probability of success rises significantly, and the entire team will benefit if their team leader wins.
It can be very easy, however, for one rider to abandon the common team interest in order to maximize his own utility by seeking his individual interest of winning the race himself. Due to the competitive fight for contracts in pro cycling, this is more common you might think; team Movistar has recently received a lot of press and criticism for this conflict of interests. If a rider succeeds in winning, he will be better off himself, with a race win on his resume; however, the probability that he, or one of his teammates will win, falls tremendously when he abandons the team strategy and thus the common interest of the team. A possible solution to this problem could be adding selective incentives in the form of a metric riders could put on their resume that quantifies “enhancing team performance” similar to an “assist” in soccer. This would allow individual interests to align more closely with common team interest.
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