Competition, Collaboration and the Tour de France

I admit it: I am a sports fan. I love the intrigue of competition. There is always at least one protagonist, a villain and many sub­characters. Of all the sports out there, cycling is my favourite, especially the 21 stage races or Grand Tours.

This summer, I travelled to Europe and attended a couple of stages of the Tour de France and I have to say that it lived up to my expectations. The first two stages took place in Holland and it was made more exciting because I attended the event with my nephews, cheering with the Dutch fans as multiple cyclists from that country rode by.

With all the controversy that cycling has faced over the past several years, you might wonder why I am still such a fan -­ it is the intrigue. Each of the 21 teams entered into the grand tour have 9 riders. These 9 individual team riders have both their own goals they're striving to achieve, but also team goals they work together to attain. On each team there is a mix of riders including a sprinter, mountain specialists, the rider they hope will win the race or GC (general classification) and domestiques or support riders.

There are 21 days of racing in a grand tour like the Tour de France, each with a different aspect -­ it might be a sprinters' stage or a mountain top finish which means the sprinters will be left far behind. Over the course of the 21 days, the individual cyclists and the teams jostle for position and for the coveted jerseys that are presented each day ­- yellow for the leading cyclist, green for the sprinters, polka dot for the king of the mountains and white for the best young rider.

The Tour de France is a study in competition, collaboration, negotiation and innovation. In many ways, it parallels community change strategies. Perhaps that is why I enjoy cycling so much; intrigue, challenge and at the end of each day and ultimately the end of 21 days ­- impact!