Blog post 18 Invent

INSIGHT 14 | ENVIRONMENT MATTERS?

Are you built to sprint or endure?

Both will get you to the finish line, just not at the same time.

The trick is knowing which race you’re actually in.

And whether the environment you’re in is helping or hindering your pace.

in¹⁴  | Environment Matters

Sprint or endure… Finding the balance

Are you the pace setter who pulls out of the race to let others past, your job done? A sacrificial pawn in a game of chess, never meant to be the winning piece, only to pave the way for checkmate. 

When I said ‘I believe you are the hare’ this isn’t what I had in mind. Your mission isn’t to simply help others win their race or set a personal best along the way. 

By setting the pace that may happen naturally, others will sit in your slipstream, enjoying a free ride as you disrupt the air ahead for them. But the real point isn’t to propel them; it’s to run your own race. Set a pace only you can sustain, always just within your limits. Keeping energy in reserve for that final push as the line draws near. 

Now that’s the type of hare I know you can be, one with a consistent cadence over distance. Better still, the stamina to glide through the gears on the final lap, surging ahead into the home straight. 

Think Sir Mo Farah and Sir Chris Hoy. Both track athletes but in very different arenas. Both understood the value of pace setters, deploying them to time and amplify their own performance. 

Take Sir Chris for example. He dominated the Keirin, a most bizarre spectacle of an event. Whoever would have envisaged a field of sculpted athletes clad in skin-tight Lycra and alien-style helmets, led out by a motorised e-bike called a Derny. The rider casually dressed, as though heading off to the beach, winding up the pace lap by lap.

Behind, the cyclists follow perilously close. Their bikes, stripped of gears and brakes, are built to save weight, not lives; all in pursuit of pure velocity. Then, at the perfect moment amongst all the chaos, Sir Chris detaches from the slipstream. He unleashes explosive power and pace in a frantic sprint for the line.

Now the Keirin may be quirky amongst events hosted at the velodrome, but it exists in the same environment as less theatrical races on the Olympic schedule. All are the product of their highly regulated indoor arena. Artificially lit, temperature-controlled still air, smooth timber track, steep banked bends are all significant factors.

Add to that the close-proximity crowds, the hum of anticipation, and a technical pit encircled by noise and motion where athletes prepare and warm down. It’s an ecosystem built for precision.

Whatever the discipline, the environment defines performance. Every product must perform within conditions that either enable or erode its potential.

Imagine if Sir Bradley Wiggins or Mark Cavendish MBE (that knighthood is surely just a matter of time) simply cycled home on their track bikes, then set out to conquer the Tour de France. Same rider, same equipment, yet an entirely different result. The high-tech track bike suddenly becomes a liability. No brakes and no gears are just the start of the problem. The unpredictable elements, rough surfaces and gradients of the open road change everything. Good luck lads, but all that gear is no good here.

Now as a cyclist myself I know the saying “all the gear and no idea” but having completed a 100-mile charity ride, I do have a vague idea of how big an impact the equipment and set up choices you make have on the journey ahead.

Wrong gears, die on the hills, lag on the straights.

Wrong seat position, inefficient action, and numb nether region, now that’s discomfort right there!

Because products, like athletes, only perform at their peak when they’re built for the world they’ll actually compete in. Clarify your arena, be specific, not generic, in your observations. Consider the unimaginable, imagine the inconceivable and you won’t go far wrong. 

And ask yourself: is your product designed for the world it will live in, or the one it was created in?

Lab or Life?