LastRide said:
Wrong, if you have $$$ you can buy riders and get yourself a start. All you need is some really big $$$$.
You then still need the sort of riders that are free and willing to sign up
and are persuasive arguments. There are not many that qualify for the "big enough fish" title.
So you have the $$$ in 2011. Now "all" you need a pedigree team to get a quick wild card. But you will now also be dealing with pedigree riders who are also seriously warned in 2010 about the likelihood of burnt fingers by the double whammy of Geox and Pegasus. And who will still get plenty of comparable lucrative offers from far more secure corners.
Forget Pegasus.
Even with the sort of direct investment that Vacansoleil pumped into ASO races, and some mildly attractive
French riders you still don't buy a TdF entry card. You need big boys and big cash.
Enter Geox. Even with the likes of Menchov and Sastre at the helm, a stash full of fresh $$$, a proven sponsorship track record in a key cycling market, you apparently are still not buying a PT status. (A decision I applaud actually, although I wish it had been applied as a golden rule from the start).
Sure, with those two names, a TdF wild card looks a lot more likely. I would be amazed of we don't see Menchov in the TdF this year.
But given the status of their current team, and this Pegasus pantomime, I expect that the next Menchovs and Sastres would be a wee bit more reluctant to sign up in 2011 for an Ozzie team, or
any team, that has not even got the appropriate status in the bag.
Heck, I expect that even the Traksels are more reluctant to sign until the ink is dry on a lot of other papers too.
And any upcoming rider with some ambition will seriously ponder how the risk of a year without a contract stacks up against a temporarily more lucrative offer, but that has "seriously risky" tattooed all over its chest. I'm sure what they will judge to be the more lucrative offer, in the long run.
Unless you can get into a shoe-in like the best of the ex-Saxo team with additions and enough financial backing..... If you think that is likely or readily available, indeed, look harder.
If Sky, RadioShack and Team Luxembourg are the sort of exceptions that people are now starting to see as a valid and reasonably likely route up for anyone with money, I think (apart from realizing once again how misguided and short-sighted the UCI was when they handed them out to Sky and RS), they are missing all the other signals that it really really isn't, or certainly isn't as "likely" as it was 1 year ago (and I suspect Sky only got it so "just" RS wouldn't be seen to be such a biased/corrupt call).
Again, I expect that Sastre and Menchov were a wee bit surprised when the PT status decline came in. But a lot of sideline observers will take that on board now, when teams without entry assurances are starting to wave seemingly attractive deals, halfway 2011.
No matter how much money people have to wave about, you will still need the riders. If Menchov+Sastre ain't cutting it for 2011, "just" 2012 Cadel wouldn't do either, for instance.
The Schlecks went their own way with the backing of patriotic vanity investors. If Contador had gone all F1 on us, and got the best of Caisse and Astana with him, or something, it would also have been a rider that can't be ignored going "his own way". Rare cases in which money is really only a secondary concern (albeit still a sizeable one no doubt).
It looks like Sastre and Menchov are now obliged to ride in places that they hasd no intention to, as it ruins the ideal run-up to their personal ambition targets. Just like Cadel this year, they will be stretched thinner than they want to, to make persuasive argument for 2011 season wild cards. Making a successful assault in France that wee bit harder, at a time when their annual attempts are getting more desperate and unlikely, with each year that passes. Age does that. And I bet that for both Sastre and Menchov personal ambition was more important, or at least equally important, as the money on offer, when they made the plunge.
I can't see any team without 100%-in-all-but-name entry security being an attractive option to anyone with genuine ambitions, for the 2011 signing season. Not after the fall-out of this year's team shuffles.
I also hear people talking as if 2012 is still 2 years away. It ain't. It is one recruiting year and one license application opportunity away.
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