General News Thread

[Wyndbrook]

Unbelieveable that 18 months later nothing has been implemented.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Things are going very poorly in the world of Swiss cycling. After the financial situation of the Tour de Suisse caused it to be massively downscaled, the Tour de Romandie is running without a main sponsor this year - and the organisers say they don't have the financial reserves to do so next year too. There is a gap of nearly 10% in their annual budget for this edition.

It's also interesting that this potentially fatal issue surfaces in the year Pogacar is taking part, and the year after Evenepoel did - further evidence that the biggest names in the sport aren't as commercially interesting as a lot of people think?

Link

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

A brief flurry of activity on my cycling club WhatsApp this evening about a report that Garmin were buying out Strava....







an April Fools' story from some running website

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Jaume Guardeño was involved in a severe crash with a vehicle on Tuesday. He was lifted from the scene by helicopter and is still in the intensive care.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2039650050314305899

 

[search]

there's a bit more information on As. According to that article, he lost control on a descent and crashed into a car.

Guardeño, sedado y en estado grave tras un accidente

Según pudo saber AS el ciclista del Caja Rural, que tenía previsto debutar en el Tour de Francia, se encuentra ingresado con un traumatismo craneoencefálico

as.com

 

[YavorD]

Tour de Romandie route has been released.
Strangely, no ITT (except for the usual prologue.
I like it, but Pogacar can win all the road stages if he wants.
Profiles:

Tour de Romandie (TDR) - official website

On this site you'll find all the information you need to make the most of this latest edition of the Tour de Romandie!

www.tourderomandie.ch

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Of course the one year they put together an actually-good route is the year that Pogacar is there to make it completely irrelevant.

 

[Red Rick]

Of course the one year they put together an actually-good route is the year that Pogacar is there to make it completely irrelevant.

Specifically so he can win all 5 stages.

It is completely ridiculous

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Specifically so he can win all 5 stages.

It is completely ridiculous

To be fair, he could have won all stages on last year's route too.

 

[Eagle_Alps]

The one and only biggest superstar of the sport is attending, and they still don't have a main sponsor for the leader's jersey. Something really is wrong with cycling's business model 🤔 😕

 

[Unchained]

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nB4y7aMy29E

 

[RedheadDane]

'A massive affront to women's cycling' – Paris-Roubaix Femmes to get reduced TV coverage

Less than an hour and a half of women’s race to be shown on TV this Sunday

www.cyclingweekly.com

And to think, they could have kept it on Saturday, and given us full race coverage.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

'A massive affront to women's cycling' – Paris-Roubaix Femmes to get reduced TV coverage

Less than an hour and a half of women’s race to be shown on TV this Sunday

www.cyclingweekly.com

And to think, they could have kept it on Saturday, and given us full race coverage.

I think we can be quite certain that wouldn't have happened anyway. Moving it away from the day of the sportive isn't necessarily a bad thing. We just need them to start broadcasting before the end of the men's race if they keep this format going forward.

 

[RedheadDane]

I think we can be quite certain that wouldn't have happened anyway.

Okay, maybe not this year... (Buuu) but by keeping it on Saturday it would at least be theoretically possible.
I'm sure ASO thinks moving it to Sunday is a brilliant idea, so they unfortunately probably aren't going to let smarter heads prevail and move it back to Saturday for next year.

 

[Wyndbrook]

The issue is made worse by also moving the junior mens race to Sunday as from last year, now adding the women just creates this rather poor situation.
Make the big boys get up earlier and put them on first.
Now if Zwift offered to sponsor the womens race Pruddy might become interested in changing the timings.

 

[RedheadDane]

The issue is made worse by also moving the junior mens race to Sunday as from last year, now adding the women just creates this rather poor situation.
Make the big boys get up earlier and put them on first.
Now if Zwift offered to sponsor the womens race Pruddy might become interested in changing the timings.

The Junior (men's) race has been on the same day as the Elite Men's race for years.

And I'm pretty sure the U23 (men's) race got moved to the same day in 2024.

 

[Wyndbrook]

The Junior (men's) race has been on the same day as the Elite Men's race for years.

And I'm pretty sure the U23 (men's) race got moved to the same day in 2024.

The Junior (men's) race has been on the same day as the Elite Men's race for years.

And I'm pretty sure the U23 (men's) race got moved to the same day in 2024.

Yes the u23 was moved in 24, I recall spectators jumping out of the way at the last moment not realising the race was coming.
The issue is there has never been four races on the same day before.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Yes the u23 was moved in 24, I recall spectators jumping out of the way at the last moment not realising the race was coming.
The issue is there has never been four races on the same day before.

Gent-Wevelgem infamously used to do seven on the same day (including a couple of non-UCI ones) and those weren't point-to-point routes.

The fundamental problem is that it's still very difficult to make women's races (not to mention the U23 and junior ones) profitable, and needing to run the whole logistical operation two days instead of one doesn't help with that (yes, there is the cyclosportive on Saturday, but that isn't subject to the same rules and logistical requirements - for starters, you don't have spectators to deal with). ASO have presumably been running the women's race at a financial loss for the past five years (Gouvenou did mention financial and organisational reasons when explaining the change), there is no reason for the local government to prefer the old arrangement (roads closed for longer, police operations required for longer), and it also requires either more volunteers or volunteers to be available for longer when it's becoming harder to find volunteers pretty much everywhere. That wasn't a sustainable equilibrium.

It's also another warning sign that the ground beneath women's cycling remains very shaky in spite of its growth in the past decade. We already knew the teams were struggling to make ends meet when even some of the bigger ones had to reduce their squad signs to cope with the new WWT regulations, we learned in December that ASO were struggling to make ends meet with women's Roubaix (not as big a deal for ASO, but it should be obvious that smaller organisers have similar issues), and now we're learning that it's having a greater effect on media exposure than already feared. For years, women's cycling was obviously in an upward spiral: I don't think it is anymore, and I also don't feel like it would take that much for things to enter a downward spiral instead.

 

[RedheadDane]

Yes the u23 was moved in 24, I recall spectators jumping out of the way at the last moment not realising the race was coming.

So, we agree that there were no schedule changes last year?