Social Analytics and Cycling

David Walsh on the BBC says Sky's rivals are "basically amateurish and hopeless."

— Jeremy Whittle (@jeremycwhittle) July 15, 2015

A melted road kind of a day. Nice to get to the cool air conditioned hotel room. Oh. Wait. #hotnightahead

— Dan Martin (@DanMartin86) July 17, 2015

It was a bit of fun looking at the hotels used in the Tour de France. On the Cycling Podcast, Lionel Birnie was exasperated - "what use is that?" he grumbled.

It wasn't meant to be science, not even pseudoscience.

But it does have uses.

Business and Governments around the world are increasingly using social analytics to plan ahead. They monitor conversations, look at what is being said and adjust what they do as a result. Here's one  example from the UK. You can Google plenty of others.

How is this useful for cycling teams? A quick look at Trip Advisor shows right away that the air con isn't great in Dan Martin's hotel.

A more advanced approach would see cycling teams using social analytics to analyse all their hotels and identify where such problems might exist. Then they could develop appropriate coping strategies. Mobile air conditioning perhaps?

No doubt that marginal gains is precisely what Team Sky would have done.

Maybe.

The hottest day ever, and of course no aircon on the hotel @letour #TdF2015 #TeamSky

— Henrik Orre (@ChefOrre) July 17, 2015