Pro-cycling thread

Ah, my mistake, it was Unzue. Still, Lapartient, the David Cameron of cycling. Slick, untroubled by self doubt and full of worthy thoughts and bad ideas.

I agree with the test of endurance. However I’m fed up of seeing racers put their long term health at risk due to team need.

Good point. It might increase team rosters, which have been cut however. Employing more at pro level.

The sport is already financially biased.

It would be so unfair; even if a team doesn't game the system if it loses, say, three domestiques in a crash half way through the race and is able to replace them it still then has a great advantage over other teams, especially the ones with riders who are not that badly hurt they can justify being subbed.
And, again, riders want to finish so they would be more likely to carry on, pretending they are ok and not getting treatment, because they don't want to be subbed. It would have the perverse effect of making some riders decline treatment and end up worse than they are now.

There's also a proposal for a budget cap for teams that's been floated.

Salary caps are a necessity in other sports. Could benefit cycling.

Introduce an independent panel of race doctors who assess riders injuries and have the power to overrule DSs and team doctors, and forcibly remove severely ill or injured riders from the race.

Of course it would still be difficult to remove riders for non-visible injuries or illness unless there were also rules along the lines of: all riders involved in a crash must report to the docs at the end of the stage for a checkup, and All riders must be checked by docs on each rest day.

It wouldn’t catch everything but mandatory removal from the race on medical grounds might remove some of the (apparent) pressure to continue at all costs.

Can you give me three examples where team doctors have forced riders to continue despite their injuries?

There have been times when riders with concussion have not been withdrawn straight away but I think proper caution about head injuries is getting better and not just in cycling.
I don't know where these independent doctors would find the time to assess riders on days when 30 or 40 of them have been on the floor.

Nope. Sounds like American football or some shit.

And what Will says, even though it's tl;dr

Agreeing with Will: it's an idea that sounds good in theory, in execution it would be open to all sorts of abuse. I imagine it would really suck for the subs too, annoying that you're not racing and difficult to maintain form and focus.

‘You’re going to the tour, doing one stage, threshold for 4 hours and you can then go home’

Fans of the old finish of de Ronde should be happy, Het Nieuwsblad will finish in Ninove next year, with the Muur and the Bosberg as the final two climbs.

Excited for Boswell to katusha. Perhaps we’ll see what he’s really capable of.
Katusha have been buying up some fire power.

Have you seen the new BMC kit?

Pukes on cock.

Looks like any other, mix a bunch of different corporate sponsors together, kit.

AG2R is still worse.

AG2R won’t look like they are wearing Superman undies.

Ah I didn't see the shorts.

Tom Poomoulin, would be good at AG2R.

Looks like BMC's kit caught a virus.

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http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/orica-scott-teams-become-mitchelton-scott-in-2018/

One of the most interesting and well publicised teams in the peloton continue to struggle with sponsorship. The mining bucks ran out which sees Orica exit leaving Gerry Ryan funding the gap out of his own pocket.

That’s not going to last beyond 2019, so something has to give.

I tried to offer some help but they refused to race in jerseys printed with my face and "hippy's faster than me" written on it. There's just no helping some people.

Isn't it a natural consequence of Australia's appalling attitude towards cyclists? If the media treat them as second class citizens then it becomes a very hard sell to the size of company you need to attract to sponsor a WT team.

How many WT teams are now funded by a sugar daddy - five, six?

Mitchelton Scott
BMC
Sky
Katusha
Astana
Quick-Step?