The slow decay of pro cycling?

[Waterloo Sunrise]

Is this ever screaming at the moon or what.

Cycling is declining, where it is declining, because it is extremely expensive to put on, the 'fans' all expect to be able to watch it for free, and the local governments are bankrupt.

 

[Dutchsmurf]

Just quietly at the tour 50 years ago teams were larger. So...not sure what your point is. At the olympics where the limit is 5, can anyone remember a sprint finish, there could have been one in London, Sydney, Athens, barcelona, Seoul so again I'm not sure of your point.

London is the only one of those that should have ended in a sprint and probably would have, if there wasn't such a whole media circus about how Cavendish's win was basically already in the pocket. The Olympics only recently became a major race anyway.

 

[karlboss]

London is the only one of those that should have ended in a sprint and probably would have, if there wasn't such a whole media circus about how Cavendish's win was basically already in the pocket. The Olympics only recently became a major race anyway.

You underestimate what sprinters can get over and what can be pulled back by concerted effort. The climbs in athens and sydney were smaller than 100m. That might not even be cat 4. Barcelona Zabel finished 4th, a bunch of 70 finished in a group 30 seconds down on the top 3. Seoul was the same. So again if the teams were strong enough and large enough these would have been sprints.

 

[Coolair2970]

What the...

Those "new markets" that the UCI are pursuing are nothing more than a figment of their corrupt imagination. Oman, Qatar, China...

What astounds me is that given all the noise there has been about the growth of cycling in the U.S., it's ridiculously difficult to get any respectable coverage of the sport. Here's a market that is just primed for additional exposure, and yet if you don't have a particular cable TV provider, you're not likely to see any of the races. And if you do, you likely have to endure the idiocy of Liggett and Sherwen.

They don't need "new" markets. They need to greatly, and substantially increase the exposure of the sport in markets where the audience is ready and waiting, and easily expanded upon. That is not likely to happen in China in my lifetime.

They have to expand the race calendar. That is how the top in UCI are elected to there posts.

You can like it or not, but a vote from Bokina Fasso counts just as much a a vote from Italy and there both only have one vote. So by promising support at major races in the future, Uncle Pat gets the voto at stays president for the UCI.

It's the same problem in all sports. They want to expand and as soon as it happens, the top chases the easy votes. If Fifa presidents where elected in europe and south america alone, Sepp Blatter would never be elected.

In my humble opinion professionel cycling should be removed from the UCI umbrella and become a business the same way as The European Golftour, All the american sports leagues and Formula 1.

If road cycling looses their olympic status so what. They have only had it for around 30 years anyway. With the business model some off the enormous power could be taken away from the likes of ASO and RCS,

Team could ask for part of the TV revenue and thereby become less dependent of sponsors.

Antidoping could be run by the company with different rules to WADA, so you could have an independent organ to run things and not the national association.

 

[icefire]

I don't think reducing the number of riders per team really changes anything. Sprint stages have ended in sprints for the past 50 years and will continue doing so the next 50. Every now and then someone gets away, but that will always be rare whatever you do. With smaller teams you will just get more teams working together instead of the main burden being done by one team. The only reason it worked in the Olympics was because the English were a bit arrogant and either didn't ask people to join them or nobody wanted to. That whole race was basically everyone against the English. In a normal GT stage that will never happen.

I also don't think radios are the problem. Things are more controlled now because teams are more professional than they used to be. Riders know their limits better, simply because the training information has increased a lot. They also know better how fast they can catch a break if needed.

Just quietly at the tour 50 years ago teams were larger. So...not sure what your point is. At the olympics where the limit is 5, can anyone remember a sprint finish, there could have been one in London, Sydney, Athens, barcelona, Seoul so again I'm not sure of your point.

I still recall teams of 10 riders in GTs and I wasn't born that long ago. Interestingly, most of them were off the front group after any serious climb. Nowadays I see teams with several riders going through a few HC climbs leaving their leader with 2 kms to go to the MTF. The conclusion should be obvious: if domestiques can get that strong (for whatever the reason), we don't need as many of them as 50 years ago.

 

[SKSemtex]

Interesting thread.
There were some interesting points so I would like to give my opinion.
1. Globalization – yes, if you want to bring top world sponsors it is inevitable. Europe is economically dying and nobody and nothing can change it anymore. World tour should expand to other countries. Especially China can afford to spend huge amount of money to some „Tour of China“ as a great advertisement of the country.
2. Doping – it won´t help cycling to keep complaining that other sports are effected also with doping but they stay out of newspaper headlines. As the most of the cyclists claim they dope to have "equal" chances we have only two options: either to allow the doping and let the biggest suicidal idiot to win or to do everything what is possible to make it as clean as possible. Imagine you are a potential sponsor. Would you prefer to invest your money, your brend your name to first or second variant of future cycling?
3. Long stages –somebody has complained about the length of stages (3 hours boring and 1 hour of excitement). If you want 100% excitement in cycling just changes to track or MTB. You cannot either shorten the stages to 50 km or want from riders to go crazy 200 km. Normally nobody broadcasts these 3 hours of boring riding, tv coverage starts usually when “real riding” starts. Of course anything that can help to bring more excitment in early part of races is welcome.
4. Time bonuses – the more bonuses you make during the stage the better. I do not mind 2-3 bonuses for one stage.
5. Radios– should be cancelled immediately. They will not make the races any better so why not to take rid of them. This is the easiest way how to increase excitement and element of surprise in cycling with no costs. If you are real contender, you should be able to control the race by yourself not with the help of the guy behind the comp calculating distance, time, watts and speed of all competitors.
6. Smaller teams versus bigger teams – less control of the race means more excitement, more breaks - so why not.
7. More one day races with UCI points – definitely.
8. Why we have 3 GTs with 21 stages (some pretty boring ones)? With transport and two days off it is 3 months. Then we have a “proper preparation” for these tours which means that the best cyclists are out and cannot compete against each other in other races, in other countries for almost half of the season. Of course nobody wants to invest money to the e.g. “Tour of Belgium” if he knows that the top riders will never be there. Plus none of these countries (Italy, France, Spain) is doing extremely economically well so the incomes from these tours will never save the year and compensate the loss of potential sponsors from other tours. If cycling wants to grow globally, these GT will have to be cut to 10-15 stages maximum.
9. World tour structure – there should be some positive and also negative motivation for teams to win as much as possible and to enter each race not as a “preparation” for GT but with 100% desire to win it.
10. Sponsoring – the whole sport business sucks in Europe. It is not business anymore it is hobby for certain sponsors. Sponsorship should not be hobby of billionaires; it should be an investment with certain return. (Increase of sale, PR etc.) NFA, NHL, NBA, MLB all of them are profitable with their system of salary cups and drafts. Competitiveness of all teams is the key world in sport business. In Europe we allow to have few super teams with several times bigger budgets than other competitors and then we wonder where all those local fans have disappeared. I doubt the same rules can by apply for cycling as for basketball, hockey or football but it will not help if we allow the condition that one team can buy all best riders in the world and give them much better training conditions, “doctors”, equipment that the other teams.

 

[Echoes]

"Pseudo fans"? I'm guessing that includes anyone who doesn't share your enthusiasm for your favored riders and favored races. Belittling them is a sure way to increase their general cycling enthusiasm.

Not my favoured races and even less my favoured riders (if I have any!) but all races that are not Bore de France or that are not GT. Which means 99% of the cycling calendar and the most entertaining of them.

I don't intend to increase their enthusiasm. That would be asking for the moon. I have much better things to do. When I registered here I really wanted to share my passion for small races but now 4 years later, even major races like the classics no longer interest those pseudo cycling fans. So I use CN forums only to have fun with those clowns. I mean a thread about Bore's stage profiles... as if that had not been discussed before ...



Cycling will die anyway (except in Belgium, of course) and it might not be a bad thing, after all.

 

[Viking]

How about more 1day races ?
You could have smaller teams so more teams can enter the races so hopefully it will encourage new sponsors into the sport .Bring back Bordeaux-Paris with the Dernys.

I'd love to see more single-day races. There's been too much emphasis on stage-racing

The most spectacular and successful "new" race on the calendar is Strade Bianche. They've only been doing it for 7 years, it's attracting the best talent in cycling, and providing some of the best racing of the year.

 

[Taxus4a]

I have never enjoyed cycling like now, and I see Hinault or Fignon or lemond riding
I think is alive and with bright future.

 

[asdfgh101]

1. Expand where there is interest in cycling, economic health is a positive but is transient.

2. Introduce lifetime bans for serious doping offences.

3. Improve television coverage. Intermediate jersey/competition (allow 5 or 6 jerseys in GTs), time bonuses for nominated GC rider (each team is allowed 3) over all mountains cat 2 and above. Film race from start and show fight to get into break + fight for intermediate points/bonuses before joining live (instead of peleton rolling along on flat stages). Cover marquee stages from start, join pan flat days later. More short but difficult mountain stages like TDF 11, combined with up and down days like Grand Bornand in TDF 09.

4. Covered above

5. Have radios with a central feed available in the main languages for WT and GT. Warns riders of potential dangers, gives gap info based on GPS.

6. 8 riders for GT and classics, 7 max for WT and below.

7. Better promotion of one day races, casuals would love the excitement if the presentation was good (lack of info and poor commentary confuses even knowledgable fans.

8. 15 stages for Giro and Vuelta has pros and cons, better spacing would help

9. Less WT races, new licensing structure, overhaul UCI management, have .1 (more than 50% highest level teams), .2 and .3 races where all teams can enter (would be great for TDU as domestics could compete).

10. Better coverage of women's cycling, sponsorship will follow popularity.

 

[SKSemtex]

1. Expand where there is interest in cycling, economic health is a positive but is transient.


3. Improve television coverage. Intermediate jersey/competition (allow 5 or 6 jerseys in GTs), time bonuses for nominated GC rider (each team is allowed 3) over all mountains cat 2 and above. Film race from start and show fight to get into break + fight for intermediate points/bonuses before joining live (instead of peleton rolling along on flat stages). Cover marquee stages from start, join pan flat days later. More short but difficult mountain stages like TDF 11, combined with up and down days like Grand Bornand in TDF 09.

this

I am sure everybody would like to see the 20 m of highlights instead of 3 hours of boringness.

Tour tracker like one in Cali in every tour could be also quite helpful.