Endurance cycling is similar to market research?

This past Saturday kicked off the cycling season for Team SensorPro when I joined the small group of riders who were going to ride the Santa Rosa Cycling Clubs ACP 200k brevet.  Now this is not a race against anyone but yourself, but still you are there to compete against your prior times and to build your network of cycling friends.

So with 25 other riders I headed off from Healdsburg to Napa and then to return back to Healdsburg. There were riders from Oregon, Idaho and San Jose, so it looked like it was going to be fun.  I was feeling very good and felt confident that I would beat my goal for the ride of finishing in less than 7 1/2 hours.

Everything was great until we were cruising down the descent into Calistoga. I was riding second in a pace line in the second group when the leader swerved to the right but I did not react. I hit a large pot hole at about 35 mph and about two seconds later I heard what sounded like broken glass. My first thought is that my iPhone had fallen out and broken.  But then I had to take a sharp turn and I proceed to fall on my left side at about 25 mph (luckily I was slowing down to pick up the "pieces" of my iPhone).

Well I had two compression flats but not to be deterred, I started to change the tires (I did have two tubes), the first went without a hitch, but the second blew out just as the CO2 canister was finishing. I thought I must have pinched the tube (I was in a hurry to get back to the group as I was now being passed by the third and fourth groups). I had to call my wife to bring me another tube and luckily I got her before she headed out on her own ride.

When she finally got there, I was now 30 minutes behind my group, but I felt I could still catch them if I skipped lunch, but we put this tube on and double checked that it was not pinched and yes it went flat again.

So now I had to throw it in and go to the local bike shop where they looked at the tire and thought it looked fine.  But guess what when they put the tube in and filled it, pop it goes. After a close look at the tire you can see that I had torn it right at the rim so now I had to replace the tire, to go along with my bruised ego and my road rash on the left arm and hip.

So how does this story relate to market research.  There are several common but critical points.

First in both cycling and market research you need to have a plan for your research, an object of what you are trying to measure and a contingency plan for when things go wrong.

For example if you have a good plan for your research including what your objectives are, what will be considered a successful project (measurable objectives) and what are your contingency plans when things go wrong, then you are ready for what the market will throw at you.  Remember you are dealing usually with consumers who will not always think the way you believe they should nor will they always react to the message that you are sending to them.

Second, you have to realize that there will be times to call in the experts from your agency when the preliminary results are significantly skewed from what your initial estimates were.  Are the variances due to how the questions were framed, is the sample representative, could there be outside influences that are impacting the results?  There can be many different reasons for the interim results varying from the initial estimates, so it is always good to get some outside help from your advisors.

Finally market research as well as endurance cycling is always subject to Murphy's Law.  Sometimes you will have a great plan with measurable objectives, a great sample, well defined questions and an appropriate contingency plan.  But guess what, s#*t happens and sometimes the research will just go astray.  Here you need to be flexible to retain as much value and critical information you can obtain.  Maybe the original hypothesis was too broad but can you gain some nuggets of knowledge from the project?  Is it possible to evolve the project without compromising its integrity?  Or maybe you just need to write this one off to the failure bin.  But in all cases remember to be flexible, adaptive and listen to your respondents.   They are always trying to tell you something.