how much a protour rider SHOULD make ?

[R.0.t.O]

It is a simple case of supply and demand. It is unfortunate that the salaries are low.

But, for every neo-pro making a starvation wage, there are many top-level amateurs who would gladly ride for the same pay.

+1. This is similar to the doping issue - you do get the occasional person that won't go along with it, but so what? A hundred other guys want his place.

...which is why the UCI put in minimum wage rules. The riders will also be covered by the minimum wages regulations of the country where their contracts apply, but of course there are problems with defining how much time the guys actually spend in work - is it only time racing?

Very important to me would be how expenses are paid. Sometimes young riders will have somewhere to live as part of their team arrangements. Food? I'd want to know how my transport costs to/from races were getting covered. Costs of supplements, medicines etc that the team doctor might specify? Laptop & internet for SRM-downloads, training plans from team? All these things could make a poor salary seem either pretty decent or really crappy depending on who pays for them. If you're getting €32k and putting that in your savings account (maybe €24k net?) then that's a very reasonable income - a few years of that and you've got a deposit for your house and a lump sum to start up a bar or a bike shop or whatever. Remember almost all of these kids have little other skills to fall back on, this wouldn't be a bad situation to find yourself in at 30. On the other hand if you're paying for all or most of those things yourself then you'll basically be a wage-slave with nothing to show for it at the end.

 

[luckyboy]

Looks promising about the wages going up.

What footballers (soccer) earn makes me genuinely angry though. I mean, a player over here paid some woman who he had an affair with £800,000 to not give interviews to newspapers. That's not even 2 months wages for him :/

 

[undencem]

I would rather prefer to be a domestique of Lance and get the Lance award instead of a second place on TdF . That is why Kloden , Zubeldia , Leipheimer chose to do so . This is a money issue and not a matter of podium mostly . And I believe pro riders earn much more than everybody thinks and cycling is sometimes a good way of money laundry for big companies and sponsors.

 

[reyan12]

I would rather prefer to be a domestique of Lance and get the Lance award instead of a second place on TdF . That is why Kloden , Zubeldia , Leipheimer chose to do so . This is a money issue and not a matter of podium mostly . And I believe pro riders earn much more than everybody thinks and cycling is sometimes a good way of money laundry for big companies and sponsors.

You could be right thats why some of LA's dometiques (during his heydays)were said to had been paid a hefty sum (sometimes or most of the times to discourage them to ride against him because some of them were his rivals and were potential TDF GC winners).