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The Roar

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Peiper calls the BMC tune

BMC's Cadel Evans of Australia, negotiates a curve (AP Photo/Claude Paris)
Expert
22nd May, 2014
2

BMC are a team transformed this year. Just look at the way they are riding in the Giro d’Italia in support of race leader Cadel Evans. They haven’t put a foot wrong so far.

BMC 2013 and 2014 are like night and day.

This time last year Evans gave BMC a rare up-blip in their season’s profile, with a battling third in the Giro, while and Tejay Van Garderen won the Tour of California, but that was as good as it got.

BMC’s profile dropped off the chart during the 2013 Tour de France, because behind the scenes it was a team in turmoil.

They are back on track now, and an Australian played a huge part in getting it there.

Allan Peiper was a good pro rider. A winner when he got the chance, but above all a great team rider who studied pro-racing so he could be the best he could be. Riders like Peiper often make good team managers, and he’s done that with Davitamon-Lotto, HTC-Colombia, Garmin-Sharp and BMC. While he worked with those teams Peiper became a student of modern cycling, and he embraces its spirit.

After a crisis meeting during one of the 2013 Tour de France time trials, Peiper was given a new role in BMC. His official title is sporting manager, but his job encompasses team building, or re-building in BMC’s case, and everything from day-to-day organisation to the team’s overall vision.

Earlier this year Peiper explained why BMC hit such a hard time in 2013, “We’d grown from Cadel winning the Tour in 2011, when the team had a core group of eight riders around Cadel, to having 29 riders with six team leaders. The team grew, but its foundation didn’t grow at all”.

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Peiper had to go back and dig those foundations, and he had to do it between the end of the 2013 Tour and the start of the 2014 Tour Down Under.

He went right back to basics.

“The first thing I did was go through a process of identification,” he said.

“I identified what our vision was. Then I identified our weaknesses and our strengths. Now I’m trying to control the processes that go on around those things as we go forward.”

One of the things he’s done is create a better coaching environment, the lack of which he identified as one of BMC’s major weaknesses.

“We had no sports science platform, and no British Cycling or Australian Institute of Sport background to draw on like Team Sky and Orica-GreenEDGE had,” he said.

“It’s early days but we’ve got that in place now, with specific coaches working with a group of riders each, and everybody talking together.”

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Then he worked on more straightforward things like lines of communication.

“You can’t do that from a directeur sportif‘s role. The directeurs need to focus on their races,” he said.

“A big team like ours with the money to do what’s needed has to have somebody working in the back lines, keeping their finger on everything that’s happening and making sure everybody knows what’s expected of them.”

But it’s no good having just anyone in this back position, it has to be someone who understands the demands on riders and directeurs, and they have to have the eye for detail and the ability to plan that Peiper has.

Then above all they need people skills, and Peiper has plenty.

The overall effect of the hundreds of little changes and the platforms Peiper has built is a cohesive team that punches its weight now. Everyone in a big organisation like BMC must feel valued, but it’s easy to lose touch. That’s what happened with BMC.

“It doesn’t take long for a big organisation to descend into dysfunction,” Peiper said.

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“When you are small it’s easy to identify vision, and for everyone to go in the same direction, share an objective and know where they are moving towards it. Bigger organisations lose that.”

BMC has looked solid this year. Riders who were expected to perform in races did so. They appear far more committed, and within the team they say they feel there’s better support and a sense of direction.

It will be fascinating to watch this tested in the Giro, as Cadel Evans comes under attack. You’ll tell how committed his teammates are by where they are and what they are prepared to do for him.

If they commit then Evans will be hard to shift from the top spot.

Note: The full story of how Peiper transformed BMC appears in the July 2014 issue of Cycle Sport magazine.

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