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UCI WorldTour 2017

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Re: Re:

Commoner said:
El Pistolero said:
The problem with the World Tour is that it tries to combine things that don't mix well... Classic races with stage races...

We need two different rankings: the old World Cup (+ jersey) and a new ranking based just on the stage races (no jersey as that could become confusing with all the leader jerseys in stage races). I still remember how classic specialists really cared about winning the World Cup, while right now almost no one cares about winning the UCI World Tour and it's always the same riders winning because the system heavily favours GC riders.

The World Cup should consist of the following races:

- Omloop het Nieuwsblad
- Strade Bianche
- Milan-San Remo
- E3 Harelbeke
- Gent-Wevelgem
- Ronde van Vlaanderen
- Paris-Roubaix
- Amstel Gold Race
- Flèche Wallonne
- Liège-Bastogne-Liège
- Clasica San Sebastian
- GP de Montreal
- GP de Quebec
- Paris-Tours
- Giro di Lombardia

Gilbert in his prime would have dominated this World Cup I propose: he won 9 out of 15 races on this list! Amazing. :)

I have to agree with El Pistolero regarding the World Cup. That ranking brought something to the calendar that's quite absent these days. I'm fairly frustrated with the specialization taking place these days, though a few riders still ride diverse calendars. The problem is that there's no overarching reward system for that, and it promotes a further separation of one-day specialists and stage race riders. The World Cup also brought some suspense to the end of the season, whereas now Lombardia often feels like an afterthought for many, and Paris-Tours is... well you all know.

I might, however, nix Omloop and Strade Bianche from the World Cup El Pistolero proposes, but overall I think it's spot on.
No, I think both races should definitely be there. If a race is prestigious and many of the best classic riders ride it for the win there is no reason why the race shouldn't be considered as one of the most important ones. And honestly, I want Strade Bianche to become as prestigious as possible because that race just deserves it.
 
Jul 14, 2013
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Re: Re:

Gigs_98 said:
Commoner said:
El Pistolero said:
The problem with the World Tour is that it tries to combine things that don't mix well... Classic races with stage races...

We need two different rankings: the old World Cup (+ jersey) and a new ranking based just on the stage races (no jersey as that could become confusing with all the leader jerseys in stage races). I still remember how classic specialists really cared about winning the World Cup, while right now almost no one cares about winning the UCI World Tour and it's always the same riders winning because the system heavily favours GC riders.

The World Cup should consist of the following races:

- Omloop het Nieuwsblad
- Strade Bianche
- Milan-San Remo
- E3 Harelbeke
- Gent-Wevelgem
- Ronde van Vlaanderen
- Paris-Roubaix
- Amstel Gold Race
- Flèche Wallonne
- Liège-Bastogne-Liège
- Clasica San Sebastian
- GP de Montreal
- GP de Quebec
- Paris-Tours
- Giro di Lombardia

Gilbert in his prime would have dominated this World Cup I propose: he won 9 out of 15 races on this list! Amazing. :)

I have to agree with El Pistolero regarding the World Cup. That ranking brought something to the calendar that's quite absent these days. I'm fairly frustrated with the specialization taking place these days, though a few riders still ride diverse calendars. The problem is that there's no overarching reward system for that, and it promotes a further separation of one-day specialists and stage race riders. The World Cup also brought some suspense to the end of the season, whereas now Lombardia often feels like an afterthought for many, and Paris-Tours is... well you all know.

I might, however, nix Omloop and Strade Bianche from the World Cup El Pistolero proposes, but overall I think it's spot on.
No, I think both races should definitely be there. If a race is prestigious and many of the best classic riders ride it for the win there is no reason why the race shouldn't be considered as one of the most important ones. And honestly, I want Strade Bianche to become as prestigious as possible because that race just deserves it.

That seems fair, Gigs. I am a fan of both of those races. Omloop has a long history, and it is often a really good race. My rationale for excluding it would actually be in an effort to retain its historical role as an opener: an important one to win, but not exactly at the same level as, say, De Ronde. And Strade Bianche is a really unique race, and I agree that that it's a race whose status deserves to be cultivated (and I would say the riders are doing so in practice). I'll confess there's also just the nostalgia of Milan-San Remo being the first World Cup of the year.

Now that I think about it though, I'd consider letting you have either one of those on the calendar in return for yanking Fleche... But then the balance between cobbled and hillier races starts to teeter. Either way, I welcome the return of a prestigious year-long chase of the vertical stripes at the expense of cats going to Abu Dhabi for end of the year vacation crits. Cheers.
 
The Australian and Middle East races are really just giving Teams a place to ride when its too cold in Europe - they don't clash with any other. Likewise the Canadian races fill a gap in September. Money talks in some cases too of course.
 
Re:

Yingge said:
The Australian and Middle East races are really just giving Teams a place to ride when its too cold in Europe - they don't clash with any other. Likewise the Canadian races fill a gap in September. Money talks in some cases too of course.

The oil races clash with the traditional early season races in the Mediterranean.
 
Feb 7, 2016
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Besides the "new races" of little added value, (Rund om Finanzplatz seriously?) why does Vuelta start so early (19) in August? Do we really want riders doing a race in 45 C ? They should move it, to begin in September only. Then it will never clash with the Olympics. I think Tour of Turkey is also misplaced in the calendar, maybe it should be moved to September?
 
Re:

del1962 said:
Don't think ride London should be world tour as it means UK based continental teams will not be able to enter.

If anything, it should be the Tour de Yorkshire or Tour of Britain, with the latter in particular being a somewhat well established race. UK should definitely have a WT race given the surge in popularity of cycling here but RideLondon is not the right one
 
RideLondon is by far the least interesting race, but at least it isn't in spring like Yorkshire. WT+additions is already too many races during that period.

Tour of Britain is at a good time of year for another WT race. The racing is usually exciting but I guess that would change with extra WT teams and larger squads. Also excluding Conti teams from biggest race in the country would be very bad.

If Yorkshire was in September it would be perfect imo.

Hopefully Conti teams can ride Cali and RideLondon anyway.
Only 7 WT teams turned up to RideLondon this year. They'd have to add 3 for 2017 but they would lose 8 Conti/National teams.
Cali had 10 WT, 3 PCT and 5 Conti..
 
Re: Re:

yaco said:
del1962 said:
Don't think ride London should be world tour as it means UK based continental teams will not be able to enter.

They already have enough races for competition - Competing against WT's is a bonus.

It's good for the CT teams sponsors to be able to compete in the bigger name races against the bigger name teams and riders, so yes they already have plenty of races to compete in but not with the type of exposure they get in races like RideLondon
 
Re:

Alexandre B. said:
So I just read in L'Equipe that Ronde Van Vlaanderen will be held before all other (semi-)classics in Flanders.

Ronde Van Vlaanderen / Tour des Flandres - 22/03
GP E3 Harelbeke - 24/03
Gent-Wevelgem / Gand-Wevelgem - 26/03
Dwars Door Vlaanderen / A Travers la Flandre - 29/03

Nonsense.

Edit - may be an error.
https://twitter.com/Gregounet_/status/768361966045888513
The calender in the twitter reply is much more likely, especially because I think March 22nd isn't even a sunday. However it's bad anyway. In the better solution there would be 3 WT cobbles classics in 5 days and all of them are only preparation races. Therefore probably more riders will skip E3 or G-W and RVV might be the only race where all the favorites ride.
 
I would put a rule that each WT team would take part in at least 2/3 GTs, 10/14 shorter stageraces and 15/20 one-day races. At the same time, each race would be guaranteed at least 2/3 of the WT teams participating.

Teams would opt out of certain number of races in order of team standings of the previous year. Meaning if current order stays until the end, Movistar would have first choice, then Tinkoff and then Sky etc.
 
Re:

El Pistolero said:
The problem with the World Tour is that it tries to combine things that don't mix well... Classic races with stage races...

We need two different rankings: the old World Cup (+ jersey) and a new ranking based just on the stage races (no jersey as that could become confusing with all the leader jerseys in stage races). I still remember how classic specialists really cared about winning the World Cup, while right now almost no one cares about winning the UCI World Tour and it's always the same riders winning because the system heavily favours GC riders.

The World Cup should consist of the following races:

- Omloop het Nieuwsblad
- Strade Bianche
- Milan-San Remo
- E3 Harelbeke
- Gent-Wevelgem
- Ronde van Vlaanderen
- Paris-Roubaix
- Amstel Gold Race
- Flèche Wallonne
- Liège-Bastogne-Liège
- Clasica San Sebastian
- GP de Montreal
- GP de Quebec
- Paris-Tours
- Giro di Lombardia

Gilbert in his prime would have dominated this World Cup I propose: he won 9 out of 15 races on this list! Amazing. :)
I like this list :)

I'd add to it Brabantse Prijs, a couple of flatter races (maybe Frankfurt, KBK or Scheldeprijs), and either Giro dell'Emilia or Milano-Torino later on in the season. A single day TT race also, like chrono des nations. Have the WT teams then pick which they want to go to, and the rest, minimum 5, going to wildcards. Oh, and 6 or 7 man teams.
 
Re: Re:

Brullnux said:
El Pistolero said:
The problem with the World Tour is that it tries to combine things that don't mix well... Classic races with stage races...

We need two different rankings: the old World Cup (+ jersey) and a new ranking based just on the stage races (no jersey as that could become confusing with all the leader jerseys in stage races). I still remember how classic specialists really cared about winning the World Cup, while right now almost no one cares about winning the UCI World Tour and it's always the same riders winning because the system heavily favours GC riders.

The World Cup should consist of the following races:

- Omloop het Nieuwsblad
- Strade Bianche
- Milan-San Remo
- E3 Harelbeke
- Gent-Wevelgem
- Ronde van Vlaanderen
- Paris-Roubaix
- Amstel Gold Race
- Flèche Wallonne
- Liège-Bastogne-Liège
- Clasica San Sebastian
- GP de Montreal
- GP de Quebec
- Paris-Tours
- Giro di Lombardia

Gilbert in his prime would have dominated this World Cup I propose: he won 9 out of 15 races on this list! Amazing. :)
I like this list :)

I'd add to it Brabantse Prijs, a couple of flatter races (maybe Frankfurt, KBK or Scheldeprijs), and either Giro dell'Emilia or Milano-Torino later on in the season. A single day TT race also, like chrono des nations. Have the WT teams then pick which they want to go to, and the rest, minimum 5, going to wildcards. Oh, and 6 or 7 man teams.
I think that would be too many races. 15 races like in the list above is already a lot but then again I don't know which race one could kick out.

I think Sagan would have dominated the competition this year. He didn't participate in the Ardennes (he maybe would have if there would already be a world cup) but he rode the first 7 races. He was ofc unlucky in Paris-Roubaix and Milan-San Remo, but still his results were 2-4-12-2-1-1-11. That consistency is incredible.
 
I know it's a large number, but that's why I think WT teams should pick the ones they want to go to. Maybe only 5 or 6 will go to Emilia, say, but all 17 want to go to a monument race like MSR or Liege - ones where you don't need a specialised team for results. No team I think would go to all, in fact no team would go to 15 out of those 20. It's up to them.
 
Their were 27 races in the 2016 WT which will increase to 37 races in 2017 - It won't cause as much grief as some expect, but the issue will be, when there are three WT races at the same time or close to the same time, or when you have a Grand Tour and there are 2 or three other WT races during this period.

Let's use Orica Bike Exchange as an example with a 26 rider roster - Competed in all 27 WT races in 2016 and of the additional 10 races for 2017 they competed in 5 of those in 2016 - So they've fairly much fulfilled their quota, seeing the new 10 races must have 10 WT teams. Though it will put pressure on say French and Belgian WT teams who also have a large domestic calendar they must support. I think WT teams will need to have close to a 30 rider roster.
 
Re:

Brullnux said:
I know it's a large number, but that's why I think WT teams should pick the ones they want to go to. Maybe only 5 or 6 will go to Emilia, say, but all 17 want to go to a monument race like MSR or Liege - ones where you don't need a specialised team for results. No team I think would go to all, in fact no team would go to 15 out of those 20. It's up to them.

What I would potentiall consider is granting each WT "X" number of "leave passes" per season (maybe in the range of 5-6 maybe 8 top-side). How I would regulate it, however, so as to not make a joke of certain races would be a proviso of only allowing "X" amount of "leave passes" for each event; maybe again 5-6.

This would then allow certain teams to potentially avoid expensive long-haul trips to races where their sponsors may not have particular commercial interests (to AUS/N.Am/MEast etc) or to skip races where they have never had any particular aptitude (ie cobbled races). It would, however, require intelligent planning to make these calls but hey, this is top level professional sport.

As for the "rights" of Conti teams; I have mixed views. Not averse to them getting certain outings within reason but in some places, esp North America & TOC; they've been feather-bedded for years ...... and hopefully, they've now got their come-uppance. Maybe they can pony up/or hit on their long-term sponsors to take the rise to Pro Conti but otherwise; if some of their "pore lil all-American" hearts get broken ..... tough you know what !! :p
 

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