Call me European, but a relegation battle, in my eyes is never a bad thing. Closed leagues are.
What is the basic problem in cycling's financing? Its reputation. Go straight over to the clinic. Also, as a guy recently told me, cycling, for him, is full of people really using their ellbows and willing to do everything for a win and he's not into that. I know it's a personal milieu thing, but I also think that some people really are not into this old school hardmanship anymore.
The points system is indeed flawed and it brings out the worst: passive riding.
Another factor bringing problems is that it is a world tour, and we all want a world tour, but 90% of pro cycling is set in Europe. So how can interest and money on other continents be brought in? - North America has money, but no interest. Africa has interest, but no money, at least not in the countries interested. Australia has some interest and money and it shows. It's really far away from Europe, though and the flight times are always immense, whether you have a race there or riders from Australia half-living in Europe... Asia doesn't have too much interest and not much of a connection.
Vaughters might be an ***, but he's not entirely wrong with the direction he wants to go in, gravel, coolness, style, relaxed outdoor environment, adventure, publicity stunts, all those things...
Question is, how can the audience that he has in mind or that is close to that, be brought in the sport without ruining the old essence of the sport?
For me, cycling would be more attractive if it embraced the clean mobility stuff, if it did even more to tackle doping and was really open about these things, reputation things that is, feel good stuff.
And I'm sure its the same for sponsors.
Now over to the more specific relegation battle:
Do I think that any of the teams now in trouble or danger have done everything right and were just screwed by the system? No.
Israel has chosen the wrong riders, gambling with a lot of money on Froome, when everyone could see Froome was, sorry, over the hill. I guess they had hoped for this PR coup to attract other exciting riders, but so far they didn't show they are interested in young interesting riders or exciting outside bets, only other old riders - sorry, but usually a bad strategy in any sports.
Lotto went with Caleb Ewan first, but if you hope for one sprinter to collect all points it's always risky - that rider gets sick, crashes, and all you are left with in the big race you targeted are helpers. They do have some good, young riders, de Lie more than anyone, but I think the scheduling - who does which race - could have done a lot better.
Now, Movistar war saved by Mas' Vuelta, but I think I've expressed my nonsatisfaction with the team's approach often enough.
EF simply has a very small budget. Overall, they are doing things rather well, but they have chosen to target big races only and I'm not sure if they couldn't do any better in that department. But most likely at least this time they won't be the ones relegated but teams with bigger budgets than them, which tells me the budget question is not the biggest reason for the relegation.
In my eyes there are too many WT teams already. 16 would be enough for me. Most teams don't bring much to the table in bigger races but to make up the numbers, fill the road, lead to less attackers being successful or are just invisible in races. I don't need that.
The points system favours the 30th place or something too much, as no viewer cares about that. It also favours wins in big one day sprint races in comparison to what those races are worth for viewers.
Races like the Canadian ones on the other hands with some elevation gain on a safe city course are great and should be worth the points simply to attract the audience which is then more likely to sta with the sport than some bored "what shall we do today? well, isn't there this cyclin race in the city today, let's go there" and then they see Alexander Kristoff whooshing by in Hamburg for five times and have forgotten the race within 3 minutes on their way home.
It would also be nice to have more high profile races in other parts of the world, but they need to be scheduled and organized as sustainable as possible. It cannot, in my eyes, be justified to fly around the world like that has no price. On the other hand it's great for the viewers to have races which use the specific landscapes and topography of certain areas, to have races with a specific flair, and that's definitely a direction that needs to be thought about more.
(In short: Use the points system also to attract riders to certain races which are interesting for the (tv) viewer, but think of the image of the sport overall at the same time.
While I think the points are often distributed very weirdly, that is not the reason Israel especially but also Lotto is now in trouble.)
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