• The Cycling News forum is looking to add some volunteer moderators with Red Rick's recent retirement. If you're interested in helping keep our discussions on track, send a direct message to @SHaines here on the forum, or use the Contact Us form to message the Community Team.

    In the meanwhile, please use the Report option if you see a post that doesn't fit within the forum rules.

    Thanks!

The 'Chloe Dygert is a Phenomenom' Thread

She's a track rider at this point, so it seems a bit unfair to say "not good in the bunch." She won Colorado like Remco, basically riding solo TTs. I suppose she could slug it out on the road race circuit, but let's be honest here: There's very little money and even less glory in women's road racing, especially in the US. Winning a track gold medal or 3 in Tokyo -- where she'll have exposure on the world's biggest sporting television stage -- is a very honorable and realistic goal. And there are plenty of riders who like the challenge of going against the clock better than banging handlebars.

(I'd also love to see Ashton Lambie have a crack at WT-level ITTs also...he would probably crush any sub-10k flattish GT prologue)
 
She's a track rider at this point, so it seems a bit unfair to say "not good in the bunch." She won Colorado like Remco, basically riding solo TTs. I suppose she could slug it out on the road race circuit, but let's be honest here: There's very little money and even less glory in women's road racing, especially in the US. Winning a track gold medal or 3 in Tokyo -- where she'll have exposure on the world's biggest sporting television stage -- is a very honorable and realistic goal. And there are plenty of riders who like the challenge of going against the clock better than banging handlebars.

(I'd also love to see Ashton Lambie have a crack at WT-level ITTs also...he would probably crush any sub-10k flattish GT prologue)
I think tokyo 2020 schedule allows her to participate and win the road ITT too ;)
 
She's a track rider at this point, so it seems a bit unfair to say "not good in the bunch." She won Colorado like Remco, basically riding solo TTs. I suppose she could slug it out on the road race circuit, but let's be honest here: There's very little money and even less glory in women's road racing, especially in the US. Winning a track gold medal or 3 in Tokyo -- where she'll have exposure on the world's biggest sporting television stage -- is a very honorable and realistic goal. And there are plenty of riders who like the challenge of going against the clock better than banging handlebars.
She's definitely more than track rider but you have a point about the women's circuit in the US.
 
She's definitely more than track rider but you have a point about the women's circuit in the US.

I was exaggerating a bit, but this article (the second half) makes the point that her pack experience is limited and she's at her best riding solo. That reminds me a a bit of a certain young buck who finished second in the men's elite TT today. https://www.cyclingnews.com/feature...nalysing-usa-womens-world-championships-team/

Actually, after reading it, I wonder if the US strategy ought to be sending CDO up the road at the 30.4 km mark :), forcing the field to chase and hope that Rivera can sit on and save energy for a sprint if Chloe can't hold them off on her own. Am deffo going to watch the women's race now...
 
TBF Canyon's statement (they posted one from their perspective about having talked to Chloe) almost looks like it was written before the ink was dry on the contract. They copped a lot of stick for the signing despite, on bike, it obviously being potentially the coup of the off-season. But off-bike, Chloe has the potential to be a liability. Women's cycling is a lot more dependent on social media for promotion and distribution than men's, so she will probably have to take extra-special care at first to stay on-message. Therefore I think this isn't so much the case of her already taking action since signing that has annoyed her new employers, it's her new employers putting their foot down to say that they don't want her stirring up the same social media controversy anymore, especially now, being based in Europe and on a WWT team, the audience for her social media presence will change and will come with their brand attached, so they're laying out a marker with her and trying to prevent any troublemakers from poking the bear, because they don't want to see their big investment go down the tubes or make them the villains of the piece either.

It will be interesting to see how she adapts to Europe. I have no qualms about how she will deal physically with the racing, especially at first with a road-track split so she'll be doing carefully selected races rather than a full on road calendar against all the stars all the time. But how she adapts to the off-bike stuff in Europe and/or with a European audience will be pretty key, I think.
 
If they were genuinely unprepared for such a reaction, then they've really not done their research. I mean, if a men's team announces they're signing Gianni Moscon, they should know that a lot of people are going to react negatively to Gianni Moscon the person, regardless of the positive impact that Gianni Moscon the rider will have. I mean, it's not like Chloe's points of view are not well-known. I had anticipated that they may have underestimated the extent of the antipathy Chloe has begun to attract (and the heavy social media dependency for branding and exposure will exacerbate this of course), but they had to be aware that it was going to be a divisive signing and they had pounced based on the feeling that the on-bike positive exposure and the potential tapping into that US market with a successful and high profile rider would outweigh any negative off-bike exposure or damage to the brand in other countries... right?
 
  • Like
Reactions: shalgo and Bolder
yes, agree, "underestimated" is the right word. let´s say they knew, but had no idea of the hysteria-driven comments on Instagram, those were unexpected and totally bonkers. also, Moscon got pieces on websites and tv and forums and acted bad a few times. she almost did nothing compared to him
 
It's not that complicated and not even about politics. It's PR. Teams have sponsors. The sponsors want to sell things. To sell more things, most companies want to be as inclusive as possible in their target customers. Riders are hired / sponsored to represent a positive image of the company. If anything the rider does negatively effects the company image, the sponsors won't be happy.

Trek-Segafredo wouldn't be happy if a rider started posting or liking posts about how much they hate coffee. Movistar wouldn't like it if a rider started posting about a negative travel experience they had in a target market like Colombia. If a rider can't learn to understand this, then the rider probably shouldn't be on a big team. Dygert made the "cycling is for everyone" post, some maybe she's starting to understand now?
 
It's not that complicated and not even about politics. It's PR. Teams have sponsors. The sponsors want to sell things. To sell more things, most companies want to be as inclusive as possible in their target customers. Riders are hired / sponsored to represent a positive image of the company. If anything the rider does negatively effects the company image, the sponsors won't be happy.

Trek-Segafredo wouldn't be happy if a rider started posting or liking posts about how much they hate coffee. Movistar wouldn't like it if a rider started posting about a negative travel experience they had in a target market like Colombia. If a rider can't learn to understand this, then the rider probably shouldn't be on a big team. Dygert made the "cycling is for everyone" post, some maybe she's starting to understand now?
Good explanation and I’ve tried to give the same points in the Simmons thread. I think it’s particularly hard to understand for Americans who may, even if they follow cycling, may not understand how the ownership and management structure of the sport, which is so different than mainstream American sports (although some may argue NASCAR is similar) in a certain sense, Riders are hired essentially to be brand ambassadors for products, which may not even be related to cycling. It’s more like what many of us have in our own work lives if you work for a private company with some kind of social media effort to publicize its products. Except that if a cyclist makes an opinionated post that runs against the mission or marketing goals of the ownership, tens of thousands of people see it, as opposed to the 3 dozen followers I might have.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Kaptain Kool

TRENDING THREADS