Teams & Riders Derek Gee is the new G

[CyclistAbi]

Why are we even assuming money was a factor here, considering on how much Froome gets paid? Was it ever said from any side involved that the question of money was an issue here?

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

[content deleted] Of course you can be underpaid even if the contract you signed at the time might have reflected the conditions at the time. Hundreds of examples can be found in the music industry. The idea that you as an individual can be the held hostage because you did your job better than what was expected of you and better than your colleagues is asinine.

In that case Gee undervalued himself. If he believed that he would be better than the salary he was negotiating was offering he (or those acting on is behalf) should have included bonuses, or release clauses if someone offered more. Or he should have committed himself for a shorter time, if he believed that he would be worth more than he was at that time.

Of course, if he has a case for constructive dismissal, as he seems to suggest, that's a different thing, but the idea that the signatory to a contract should not be bound by that contract simply because he thinks better of it is just licensed irresponsibility.

 

[Berniece]

You can only be held hostage to the promises you freely made and that you asked the state to enforce for you. It's one of the most profound privileges our civilisation offers us.

Who says this decision was freely made?

 

[Red Rick]

Who says this decision was freely made?

Occam's razor does.

Assuming otherwise is absurd.

 

[Netserk]

Who says this decision was freely made?

His contract extension in 2023? I see no reason not to think so, and I'm sure he would have announced it to the world by now if he was compelled to sign that contract against his will.

 

[kingjr]

To be clear, I don't think he's particularly in the wrong for leaving. I'd be looking to leave too.

I just disagree with heroizing people for taking actions that are most likely rooted in self-interest first and foremost. Even if there may be consequences, it is still a self-interested gamble.

The fact that it took him this long to leave makes me think he got a big offer after 2 GT top 10s and there's no way he was on the biggest contract just after the 2023 Giro.

Everything everybody does is rooted in self-interest. It's just that people have different interests.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

In that case Gee undervalued himself. If he believed that he would be better than the salary he was negotiating was offering he (or those acting on is behalf) should have included bonuses, or release clauses if someone offered more. Or he should have committed himself for a shorter time, if he believed that he would be worth more than he was at that time.

Of course, if he has a case for constructive dismissal, as he seems to suggest, that's a different thing, but the idea that the signatory to a contract should not be bound by that contract simply because he thinks better of it is just licensed irresponsibility.

Whether he undervalued himself or not is irrelevant to the discussion. Being underpaid is subjective. It is not an objectively quantifiable term like "minimum wage" for instance. So maybe you are confused there as it can mean different things in different contexts. I already gave the example of the music industry, where it has been a strategy by record labels for decades, to look for teenagers who would throw themselves at the first opportunity of signing a record deal. As soon as one of them breaks through, you can be sure they are underpaid relative to the value/worth they generate. You can not see into the future when signing a contract. I also don't know when Gee signed his latest contract, and whether this was before or after the intention of turning him into a GC rider. If it was before that, then clearly any of the arguments made against my case by your or Netserk go straight out the window.

Regardless if you as an employer want to argue you are looking for 30 million euros, you can NOT make that argument unless that is reflected in the contract you signed with your employee. Which brings us back to "underpaid" being a relative term. Relative to the claim, relative to other riders, relative to the work, worth, value he offered to the team...

 

[Netserk]

Whether he undervalued himself or not is irrelevant to the discussion. Being underpaid is subjective. It is not an objectively quantifiable term like "minimum wage" for instance. So maybe you are confused there as it can mean different things in different contexts. I already gave the example of the music industry, where it has been a strategy by record labels for decades, to look for teenagers who would throw themselves at the first opportunity of signing a record deal. As soon as one of them breaks through, you can be sure they are underpaid relative to the value/worth they generate. You can not see into the future when signing a contract. I also don't know when Gee signed his latest contract, and whether this was before or after the intention of turning him into a GC rider. If it was before that, then clearly any of the arguments made against my case by your or Netserk go straight out the window.

Regardless if you as an employer want to argue you are looking for 30 million euros, you can NOT make that argument unless that is reflected in the contract you signed with your employee. Which brings us back to "underpaid" being a relative term. Relative to the claim, relative to other riders, relative to the work, worth, value he offered to the team...

The investments the team was willing to spend on him becoming a GC rider was affected by his contract status. That too was one of the benefits for Gee with the contract he signed.

If such investments nullify his contract, a team would obviously not be as willing to invest in long-shots.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Whether he undervalued himself or not is irrelevant to the discussion. Being underpaid is subjective. It is not an objectively quantifiable term like "minimum wage" for instance. So maybe you are confused there as it can mean different things in different contexts. I already gave the example of the music industry, where it has been a strategy by record labels for decades, to look for teenagers who would throw themselves at the first opportunity of signing a record deal. As soon as one of them breaks through, you can be sure they are underpaid relative to the value/worth they generate. You can not see into the future when signing a contract. I also don't know when Gee signed his latest contract, and whether this was before or after the intention of turning him into a GC rider. If it was before that, then clearly any of the arguments made against my case by your or Netserk go straight out the window.

Regardless if you as an employer want to argue you are looking for 30 million euros, you can NOT make that argument unless that is reflected in the contract you signed with your employee. Which brings us back to "underpaid" being a relative term. Relative to the claim, relative to other riders, relative to the work, worth, value he offered to the team...

It's much simpler than that: if anyone, musician, sportsman, or bus driver, wants the benefits of a contract, he has to accept the obligations of said contract. If there are commitments in the contract he is not willing to be bound by, he shouldn't sign it.

Unreasonable behaviour by the employer is grounds for a contract to be unilaterally put aside: I would think all legislations have some sort of equivalent to what I know of as 'constructive dismissal'.
But regret is not sufficient grounds.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

It's much simpler than that: if anyone, musician, sportsman, or bus driver, wants the benefits of a contract, he has to accept the obligations of said contract. If there are commitments in the contract he is not willing to be bound by, he shouldn't sign it.

Unreasonable behaviour by the employer is grounds for a contract to be unilaterally put aside: I would think all legislations have some sort of equivalent to what I know of as 'constructive dismissal'.
But regret is not sufficient grounds.

This was not my argument. I never said he should be able to break his contract without consequence, i said that the 30 million claim should be sent straight to the garbage bin by any normal labor court.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

I agree that the amount of 30m is laughable: opening gambit?

 

[Netserk]

He should have negotiated a price if he wanted the market rate. I think there's a good case for punitive damages to apply as his behaviour damages the sport more broadly and not just team Israel.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

He should have negotiated a price if he wanted the market rate. I think there's a good case for punitive damages to apply as his behaviour damages the sport more broadly and not just team Israel.

You honestly think that is even remotely in the cards? If it were, then why has no other team ever tried that before? I mean, they all could use 30m, i'm sure. Because it's not like Gee is the first rider to leave before his contract is up. So are all those other teams and their layers morons for leaving cash on the table?

Here is what will happen if they pursue that ridiculous claim. It will get tossed. No other rider will sign a contract at that team again without having a truckload of clauses in the contract stipulating the conditions in which they are allowed to leave under a crapload of conditions. And this is the best case scenario for them. Now imagine some drunkass judge rules in favor of their asinine claim and Gee is ruled to pay up. He does not have that money, it will ruin him financially. And no other self-respecting rider is going to sign a contract for that team, regardless of any release clause.

 

[Netserk]

You honestly think that is even remotely in the cards? If it were, then why has no other team ever tried that before? I mean, they all could use 30m, i'm sure. Because it's not like Gee is the first rider to leave before his contract is up. So are all those other teams and their layers morons for leaving cash on the table?

Here is what will happen if they pursue that ridiculous claim. It will get tossed. No other rider will sign a contract at that team again without having a truckload of clauses in the contract stipulating the conditions in which they are allowed to leave under a crapload of conditions. And this is the best case scenario for them. Now imagine some drunkass judge rules in favor of their asinine claim and Gee is ruled to pay up. He does not have that money, it will ruin him financially. And no other self-respecting rider is going to sign a contract for that team, regardless of any release clause.

I don't see why it would faze riders who would agree to terms that they would follow in case they want out. Just put an explicit fee in the contract.

 

[aphronesis]

It would seem that the rebranding would alleviate some of this anyway. Maybe though ethical clauses could catch on for Bahrain, UAE, etc.

 

[Unchained]

Whether he undervalued himself or not is irrelevant to the discussion. Being underpaid is subjective. It is not an objectively quantifiable term like "minimum wage" for instance. So maybe you are confused there as it can mean different things in different contexts. I already gave the example of the music industry, where it has been a strategy by record labels for decades, to look for teenagers who would throw themselves at the first opportunity of signing a record deal. As soon as one of them breaks through, you can be sure they are underpaid relative to the value/worth they generate. You can not see into the future when signing a contract. I also don't know when Gee signed his latest contract, and whether this was before or after the intention of turning him into a GC rider. If it was before that, then clearly any of the arguments made against my case by your or Netserk go straight out the window.

Regardless if you as an employer want to argue you are looking for 30 million euros, you can NOT make that argument unless that is reflected in the contract you signed with your employee. Which brings us back to "underpaid" being a relative term. Relative to the claim, relative to other riders, relative to the work, worth, value he offered to the team...

This might be structurally true in some countries but in the US the signer could also be responsible for damages. All the team resources and promotion for Gee could also be part of damage. And certainly Gee's breaking the contract and taking with him UCI points and prestige was all accumulated and accomplished using Israel Premier Tech, top to bottom. If I was Gee's lawyer ( I am not) I wouldn't argue anything about work, contract whatsoever. Instead I would focus on overwhelming fraud by all involved. Gee recipient of death threats as all the team and management, ownership. Gee was given multiple assurances from team, law enforcement, rider's union, UCI overview and Vuelta safety, security officials and race organizers that his safety, his teams safety was assured. It obviously wasn't. In fact attacks with injuries happened, the race course was constantly compromised to the point of stage modifications and limited cancellation of agreed race route. And any decent attorney would have a field day with near misses. People attempting to harm or kill people, video examples. And an argument for inaccuracy could be argued, was Javier Romo attacked because he was wearing blue kit? Possibly mistaken for IPT instead of Movistar. Really not important, social media, physical media like TV and printed news all had threats made against the team and the riders, spitting, verbal abuse and objects thrown at riders. Gee should not be expected to continue working with an organization that can't ensure his safety and in real terms, 24\7, his family, all are in danger from people promising to do him harm. I personally don't need to double, triple, quadruple confirm that someone, anyone is out to get me when physical and recorded examples are available of exactly that. .Gee should be able to break his contract with financial compensation because Israel Premier Tech created an unsafe work environment and nobody reasonable should be expected to ride down Spanish mountains at @80+ kilometers per hour and wonder if someone will jam a flagpole in your spokes, chest or skull. When someone says that they want to harm you, listening is a good idea. Gee should not be put into a position, labeled as soft or a whimp because he doesn't want to roll the dice on the next attack not being against him or his family. Romo or someone else could have been intentionally crashed and instead of road rash , gotten a head injury or cardiac arrest from impact injury and perished. It happens. Ridiculous that IPT is acting like threats made at work are business as usually ,acceptable.. and you see from their attitude they think it's normal.
Can't imagine some other fast action racing sport like cars, motorcycles, planes, sailboats, horses, track and field just carrying on if people were trying to crash you.. It wouldn't happen, try to tackle Usain Bolt and hurt him or someone racing around him, easy, easy to break a contract when you are unsafe.
And if UCI and IPT think a new dress and lipstick are enough, and the distance or association is not enough, the people who were angry before will carry on.. Team needs a complete do over. Minor cosmetics is not going to do it.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

This might be structurally true in some countries but in the US the signer could also be responsible for damages. All the team resources and promotion for Gee could also be part of damage. And certainly Gee's breaking the contract and taking with him UCI points and prestige was all accumulated and accomplished using Israel Premier Tech, top to bottom. If I was Gee's lawyer ( I am not) I wouldn't argue anything about work, contract whatsoever. Instead I would focus on overwhelming fraud by all involved. Gee recipient of death threats as all the team and management, ownership. Gee was given multiple assurances from team, law enforcement, rider's union, UCI overview and Vuelta safety, security officials and race organizers that his safety, his teams safety was assured. It obviously wasn't. In fact attacks with injuries happened, the race course was constantly compromised to the point of stage modifications and limited cancellation of agreed race route. And any decent attorney would have a field day with near misses. People attempting to harm or kill people, video examples. And an argument for inaccuracy could be argued, was Javier Romo attacked because he was wearing blue kit? Possibly mistaken for IPT instead of Movistar. Really not important, social media, physical media like TV and printed news all had threats made against the team and the riders, spitting, verbal abuse and objects thrown at riders. Gee should not be expected to continue working with an organization that can ensure his safety and in real terms, 24\7, his family, all are in danger from people promising to do him harm. I personally don't need to double, triple, quadruple confirm that someone, anyone is out to get me when physical and recorded examples are available of exactly that. .Gee should be able to break his contract with financial compensation because Israel Premier Tech created an unsafe work environment and nobody reasonable should be expected to ride down Spanish mountains at @80+ kilometers per hour and wonder if someone will jam a flagpole in your spokes, chest or skull. When someone says that they want to harm you, listening is a good idea. Gee should not be put into a position, labeled as soft or a whimp because he doesn't want to roll the dice on the next attack not being against him or his family. Romo or someone else could have been intentionally crashed and instead of road rash , gotten a head injury or cardiac arrest from impact injury and perished. It happens. Ridiculous that IPT is acting like threats made at work are business as usually ,acceptable.. and you see from their attitude they think it's normal.
Can't imagine some other fast action racing sport like cars, motorcycles, planes, sailboats, horses, track and field just carrying on if people were trying to crash you.. It wouldn't happen, try to tackle Usain Bolt and hurt him or someone racing around him, easy, easy to break a contract when you are unsafe.
And if UCI and IPT think a new dress and lipstick are enough, and the distance or association is not enough, the people who were angry before will carry on.. Team needs a complete do over. Minor cosmetics is not going to do it.

Romo wasn't attacked, nor was he wearing blue.

Gee's lawyer sent a letter of termination to the team on 9th August, two weeks before La Vuelta started, when there was no obvious threat.

If you believe the threats that you list to be real, what steps did you take to insist that the Vuelta should have been stopped? Who did you write to? Where did you try to drum up support for its cancellation?

 

[Unchained]

Romo wasn't attacked, nor was he wearing blue.

Gee's lawyer sent a letter of termination to the team on 9th August, two weeks before La Vuelta started, when there was no obvious threat.

If you believe the threats that you list to be real, what steps did you take to insist that the Vuelta should have been stopped? Who did you write to? Where did you try to drum up support for its cancellation?

The guy running down the hill attempting to run into the riders was bringing flowers? Greeting cards?
The police officer bravely took immediate action and his shortest distance was a straight line, causing the crash while attempting to stop the attack.
When you step in front of speeding cars, motorcycles, bicycles your overall objectives might not be death or bodily harm.. But from most early years of childhood, majority of Western citizens are taught not to walk in front of speeding, moving vehicles.
Not running into traffic has been a long established standard.
The steps that should have been taken were stopping the race until things like the time trial assault, the finish line assault and the "_aggressive greatings" like the one that caused injury to Javier Romo, who had to abandon the race as a result, were stopped.
Winging it, doing the best they could, damn the torpedoes, all of that was wrong. As you see all over the world, one person is holding a sign, wearing a t-shirt, waving a flag, but some have acid, knife or box cutters, other weapons.
Continue the race continued the conflict, while itself is serious. But tweets coming from Israeli government, congratulating team for continuing, cheering them on, saying that them continuing to race was symbolic, heroic, patriotic heightened everything to an absolutely unmanageable, ultra dangerous, indefensible event.
The things said and done by riders and team were not inflammatory or provocative. Instead they attempted to tell angry public, they are bike racers not soldiers, politicians or policy makers. Team tried to tell angry public that their association with the team was not an endorsement of government, military action and policy. The teams efforts failed to convince all and the team was targeted.
Even minor threats in current environment need to be taken seriously. The threats made against the race and team were nearly completely dismissed.
It's not up to bike racers, bike racing people, fans watching TV to make security decisions. Those decisions fall on others and when they saw the extent of security incursions throughout each race route there was no safe way to continue, but they decided to go for it, and as I said, Thank! God nobody did anything dangerous and dumb on extremely fast downhill sections of race routes, completely luck that nothing happened. There were not hundreds of threats, instead thousands, which were serious? How many were thoroughly investigated in real time during the continuing race? I have no idea. But if you have @10,000 threats and the next stage is starting in hours, I will guess that majority of the threats couldn't be checked out for lack of time and resources. Did they check out @10% of the threats? 1-5%? Don't know. Was anyone arrested for posting threats? Have not heard anything yet, or it's not widely reported.
Your timeline might want to be checked out, your premise ( incorrectly) assumes that the Vuelta was the only thing protested, threatened as a result of Israel association. That's wrong,
Gee working for the team had him in danger , many ,many, many months before Israel Premier Tech rolled out for 2025 season. The team was under threat before that, and mathematically, the number of threats made compared to the number of people attempting to disrupt the TDF and Vuelta was a fraction of the overall number.
But my biggest issue is probably language, you are riding ( racing) your bike a person jumps up starts running at you, what looks like an obvious pedestrian- cyclist collision, what is that action called? What is the word for the person or action of a person trying to knock you off your bike? I don't see any political component, no act of protest for someone attempting to knock down a bike racer..
If someone is trying to crash me off my bike, their motivation is of no, zero importance to me. I could care less why they think it's a good idea.
I think your views and opinions on this are widely, widely held, mainstream even. And will only change after the end results are much more serious.. You see all the terror attacks at concerts, trains, buses, nightclubs, schools, restaurants, shopping, all the time, it's only serious when injury or death that change perception of level of seriousness.
Personally I find throwing beer, soda,urine, rocks, sand phones, anything at a rider, attempting to grab them, step in front of them, other related behaviors to be violent actions. I am never OK with it, never.
Things like these can end very very differently..

View: https://m.youtube.com/shorts/lyCeGiuZDV0

View: https://m.youtube.com/shorts/g1Mps6PbxJQ

View: https://m.youtube.com/shorts/3taA_GS8XCs

View: https://m.youtube.com/shorts/Jj6AdK2vLBg

Someone could have easily died.