Rankings Idea

[ultimobici]

At present I think the UCI awards points to riders for wins and nothing else. As a consequence those teams that animate a race, but lack the firepower to control the peloton for their rider to be in with a chance of victory, get no recognition.

In the same way that the Tour rewards the most aggressive rider by logging the cumulative kilometres in breaks, I think that those smaller teams that very often "make" the race should have some recognition.

At the top of the sport teams have the cash to afford to hire and, more importantly, retain big hitters. Small teams at present have very little chance of moving up as they are constantly replacing their riders as they get "farmed" by the bigger teams.

By awarding points to a team that helps to bring the race alive they have a better chance of growing and moving up a level thus making it easier to attract bigger sponsors and in turn affords them a better chance of retaining riders they have nurtured.

Or am I nuts?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

They should award points for the minor jerseys. There are a lot of races where the KOM and Metas Volantes jerseys are simply for breakaways that are more than likely to be futile. The points jersey obviously comes down to ranking for positions in the stages (as you're obviously going to give points for anyway), so it does bias it in favour of accumulating results rather than adding things to the races; however, there has to still be a weighting in favour of actually getting results because that's what, ultimately, the teams are ranked on. I just think making the secondary and tertiary jerseys worth points would be a good way to sort this out.

However, I would insist on only those jerseys that are open to all riders, so no best young rider jerseys, and no regional rider or national rider classifications like the pink jersey at Algarve.

 

[Fester]

The UCIs points system takes the first few positions in a race: 1, 2, 3, for a stage in a 2.2, 1-20 for a GC in a 1.1 and give points and multiples there to far more in a GC or historic race where points are awarded for finishing.

It's heavily skewed towards big money team and leaves the little teams in a catch 22, fighting for the crumbs in 1.1's, 1.2's meaning it doesn't reflect honestly on the relative skill and achievement of the smaller teams.

Another thing it doesn't reflect on is work. 80% of the riders on a team should be there to give 100% for the leaders, and could in their own right achieve high individual rankings.

I think something like an Elo ranking would be best. Rank all cyclists against one another and get a global "all-rounder". It doesn't tell you anything specifically, but it would be fair. Some guy like Luis Leon Sanchez would come out tops.

Also anyone who has competed against anyone would be ranked.

Team rankings would simply be a summation of the top 6 in that teams rankings.

Small teams i.e. those with not enough capital to pay Pat to join the Pro Tour should be able to boost roosters beyond 16 to 30 and have a minimum of 9 riders.

Add to this all riders should be on the Bio Passport. And subject to the same scrutiny, so it's not a case of teams from (somewhere with no control) go where riders are controlled and mop up.

Pro Tour teams should, rather than have to compete in a minimum number of Pro Tour events have to compete in a minimum number of .1's and .hc's.

One day in the future?:

Ranking work: Ranking work is difficult, a "defender" in football wont apear prominently in most goals scored, but might apear well in other statistics. Maybe you could rank a cycling equivalent of "assists"? Lead out guy Mark Renshaw would score high, as would Benjamim Noval in the mountains.

For this you would need some way to measure peoples relative position and speed etc... An accurate gps or equivalent attached to each rider, then feeding the information into a program to measure work done versus result (achieved by the leader or first in race of that team).. Otherwise you'd get dim, less talented people riding of the front just to appear in the rankings and that would be very boring.

 

[ingsve]

They should award points for the minor jerseys. There are a lot of races where the KOM and Metas Volantes jerseys are simply for breakaways that are more than likely to be futile. The points jersey obviously comes down to ranking for positions in the stages (as you're obviously going to give points for anyway), so it does bias it in favour of accumulating results rather than adding things to the races; however, there has to still be a weighting in favour of actually getting results because that's what, ultimately, the teams are ranked on. I just think making the secondary and tertiary jerseys worth points would be a good way to sort this out.

However, I would insist on only those jerseys that are open to all riders, so no best young rider jerseys, and no regional rider or national rider classifications like the pink jersey at Algarve.

I like that idea. Right now not even the points of mountain jersey give points in other than GTs and PT events.