UCI to shorten pro tours

Quoted message said:

UCI to shorten pro tours
(http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2006/sep06/sep26news )

UCI is at it again with more silly proposals. UCI wants to shorten pro
tours to discourage drug use. This is one of the dumbest proposals I
have heard of. This reminds me of the UCI weight limitation regulations.

The 100 meter dash is a traditional hotbed of drug use. How short
are they willing to go?

Dan

In article <[email hidden]>,

Dan Connelly d_j_c_o_n_n_e_l@i_e_e_e.o_r_g said:

Quoted message said:

UCI to shorten pro tours
(http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2006/sep06/sep26news )

UCI is at it again with more silly proposals. UCI wants to shorten pro
tours to discourage drug use. This is one of the dumbest proposals I
have heard of. This reminds me of the UCI weight limitation regulations.

The 100 meter dash is a traditional hotbed of drug use. How short
are they willing to go?

Exactly - the Millar Line doesn't apply once the wheels are gone.

--
tanx,
Howard

Never take a tenant with a monkey.

remove YOUR SHOES to reply, ok?

On Wed, 27 Sep 2006 23:14:48 GMT, Dan Connelly

d_j_c_o_n_n_e_l@i_e_e_e.o_r_g said:

Quoted message said:

UCI to shorten pro tours
(http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2006/sep06/sep26news )

UCI is at it again with more silly proposals. UCI wants to shorten pro
tours to discourage drug use. This is one of the dumbest proposals I
have heard of. This reminds me of the UCI weight limitation regulations.

The 100 meter dash is a traditional hotbed of drug use. How short
are they willing to go?

Dan

"Let's see, we'll take off 500 miles. That will make them go sl...oh.
wait..."

In article <[email hidden]>,

Howard Kveck said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Dan Connelly d_j_c_o_n_n_e_l@i_e_e_e.o_r_g said:

Quoted message said:

UCI to shorten pro tours
(http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2006/sep06/sep26news )

UCI is at it again with more silly proposals. UCI wants to shorten pro
tours to discourage drug use. This is one of the dumbest proposals I
have heard of. This reminds me of the UCI weight limitation regulations.

The 100 meter dash is a traditional hotbed of drug use. How short
are they willing to go?

Exactly - the Millar Line doesn't apply once the wheels are gone.

Well, no: if Millar beats you in a footrace, you're definitely clean.

--
Ryan Cousineau [email hidden] http://www.wiredcola.com/
"I don't want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics
to think that they have to take drugs to succeed." -Paul Erdos

Dan Connelly schrieb:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

UCI to shorten pro tours
(http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2006/sep06/sep26news )

UCI is at it again with more silly proposals. UCI wants to shorten pro
tours to discourage drug use. This is one of the dumbest proposals I
have heard of. This reminds me of the UCI weight limitation regulations.

The 100 meter dash is a traditional hotbed of drug use. How short
are they willing to go?

Dan

0 (zero). No race, no dopers.
But I am not even sure that this would be true.

The true question is: who would benefit from shorter races?
Shortening the grand tours would open the UCI calendar for other races.
Shortening km's of classiques would decrease the importance of those
races compared to others.
It's all on the agenda of the UCI: Take away the power of ASO and
Gazette, etc and form a ProTour, controlled only by the UCI themselves.

At the same time, the UCI fails to see where the real problem is:
Smaller, but still fairly traditional races struggle to survive:
Milan-Torino, Paris-Nice, Romandie or TdSuisse, and all the one-day
races which dissapeared. Not talking about organizing _new_ races, U23
races, Women's, Junior's etc.
Shortening the surviving Big Guns will help nothing in this regard.
--
cy

The solution is to have a lifetime ban for any rider found positive of
drugs. Or a lifetime ban for any rider that is found be in posession of
these drugs. These are the only relevant factors that matter. All this
other rumor mongering about if a rider went to visit this doctor Fuente
others involved with doping is irrelevant.

Cyrus De Kline said:

Dan Connelly schrieb:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

UCI to shorten pro tours
(http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2006/sep06/sep26news )

UCI is at it again with more silly proposals. UCI wants to shorten pro
tours to discourage drug use. This is one of the dumbest proposals I
have heard of. This reminds me of the UCI weight limitation regulations.

The 100 meter dash is a traditional hotbed of drug use. How short
are they willing to go?

Dan

0 (zero). No race, no dopers.
But I am not even sure that this would be true.

The true question is: who would benefit from shorter races?
Shortening the grand tours would open the UCI calendar for other races.
Shortening km's of classiques would decrease the importance of those
races compared to others.
It's all on the agenda of the UCI: Take away the power of ASO and
Gazette, etc and form a ProTour, controlled only by the UCI themselves.

At the same time, the UCI fails to see where the real problem is:
Smaller, but still fairly traditional races struggle to survive:
Milan-Torino, Paris-Nice, Romandie or TdSuisse, and all the one-day
races which dissapeared. Not talking about organizing _new_ races, U23
races, Women's, Junior's etc.
Shortening the surviving Big Guns will help nothing in this regard.
--
cy

Quoted message said:

The solution is to have a lifetime ban for any rider found positive of
drugs.

Makes sense. Positive for cortison to treat a bee sting - ban for
life.

Make a mistake with cough medecine. Ban for life.

Yeah, great.

--
JT
****************************
Remove "remove" to reply
Visit http://www.jt10000.com
****************************

John Forrest Tomlinson said:

Quoted message said:

The solution is to have a lifetime ban for any rider found positive of
drugs.

Makes sense. Positive for cortison to treat a bee sting - ban for
life.

Make a mistake with cough medecine. Ban for life.

Yeah, great.

Dude, you're not thinking big picture. Put him in a secret prison without
letting him be able to examine the charges against him, without access to
the courts, and with regular water-boarding until [censored] Pound sez it's
okay. It's what we need in order to keep the cycling world safe.

In article <[email hidden]>,

Cyrus De Kline said:

Dan Connelly schrieb:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

UCI to shorten pro tours
(http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2006/sep06/sep26news )

UCI is at it again with more silly proposals. UCI wants to shorten pro
tours to discourage drug use. This is one of the dumbest proposals I
have heard of. This reminds me of the UCI weight limitation regulations.

The 100 meter dash is a traditional hotbed of drug use. How short
are they willing to go?

Dan

0 (zero). No race, no dopers.
But I am not even sure that this would be true.

Given the amount of cheating that is assumed to have happened in Gran
Fondos, I'd say it definitely wouldn't be true.

Quoted message said:

The true question is: who would benefit from shorter races?
Shortening the grand tours would open the UCI calendar for other races.
Shortening km's of classiques would decrease the importance of those
races compared to others.
It's all on the agenda of the UCI: Take away the power of ASO and
Gazette, etc and form a ProTour, controlled only by the UCI themselves.

In fairness, it is some of the wackier commentators and riders who have
made the claim that the 3-week tours were all but impossible without
drugs.

Quoted message said:

At the same time, the UCI fails to see where the real problem is:
Smaller, but still fairly traditional races struggle to survive:
Milan-Torino, Paris-Nice, Romandie or TdSuisse, and all the one-day
races which dissapeared. Not talking about organizing _new_ races, U23
races, Women's, Junior's etc.
Shortening the surviving Big Guns will help nothing in this regard.

The UCI's overall goal is to reduce the power of the GT's organizing
bodies, because they're essentially the big obstacle to a UCI-controlled
ProTour.

Now, I remember when CART broke away from the Indy 500 (or vice versa),
and the lesson there was that the big race was more important than the
cars or drivers involved; the Indy 500 endured while the CARTistes waned.

--
Ryan Cousineau [email hidden] http://www.wiredcola.com/
"I don't want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics
to think that they have to take drugs to succeed." -Paul Erdos

In article <[email hidden]>,

Ryan Cousineau said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Cyrus De Kline said:

Dan Connelly schrieb:

Quoted message said:

[email hidden] wrote:
> UCI to shorten pro tours
> (http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2006/sep06/sep26news )
>
> UCI is at it again with more silly proposals. UCI wants to shorten pro
> tours to discourage drug use. This is one of the dumbest proposals I
> have heard of. This reminds me of the UCI weight limitation regulations.
>
The 100 meter dash is a traditional hotbed of drug use. How short
are they willing to go?

Dan

0 (zero). No race, no dopers.
But I am not even sure that this would be true.

Given the amount of cheating that is assumed to have happened in Gran
Fondos, I'd say it definitely wouldn't be true.

True, but you know that a lot of the riders in those events more or less consider
them to be a race.

Quoted message said:

Now, I remember when CART broke away from the Indy 500 (or vice versa),
and the lesson there was that the big race was more important than the
cars or drivers involved; the Indy 500 endured while the CARTistes waned.

USAC (not the cycling one, of course) was the sanctioning body for all Indy car
racing back then. The Indy Motor Speedway was the one track that stuck with USAC
when the split occurred. A big part of CART's problem was they eventually began
acting exactly like what they'd said USAC had been. Add in poor product promotion
and (eventually) a lack of driver name recognition and there you have it...

--
tanx,
Howard

Never take a tenant with a monkey.

remove YOUR SHOES to reply, ok?

Howard Kveck said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Ryan Cousineau said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Cyrus De Kline said:

Dan Connelly schrieb:

> [email hidden] wrote:
> > UCI to shorten pro tours
> > (http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2006/sep06/sep26news )
> >
> > UCI is at it again with more silly proposals. UCI wants to shorten pro
> > tours to discourage drug use. This is one of the dumbest proposals I
> > have heard of. This reminds me of the UCI weight limitation regulations.
> >
> The 100 meter dash is a traditional hotbed of drug use. How short
> are they willing to go?
>
> Dan

0 (zero). No race, no dopers.
But I am not even sure that this would be true.

Given the amount of cheating that is assumed to have happened in Gran
Fondos, I'd say it definitely wouldn't be true.

True, but you know that a lot of the riders in those events more or less consider
them to be a race.

Quoted message said:

Now, I remember when CART broke away from the Indy 500 (or vice versa),
and the lesson there was that the big race was more important than the
cars or drivers involved; the Indy 500 endured while the CARTistes waned.

USAC (not the cycling one, of course) was the sanctioning body for all Indy car
racing back then. The Indy Motor Speedway was the one track that stuck with USAC
when the split occurred. A big part of CART's problem was they eventually began
acting exactly like what they'd said USAC had been. Add in poor product promotion
and (eventually) a lack of driver name recognition and there you have it...

Let's not mistake the USAC/CART split from the more relevant and recent
example, the IRL/CART(champcar). As originally noted, the big race
won over the other series. However, there are some important
distinctions: The UCI is a long-time sanctioning body, and it it not
breaking away as a new entity. In the USAC/CART split, CART won
because it got the names and eventually the sanctioning authority over
the big race, and it's teams were never excluded from the big race.
In the IRL/CART split, the big race got it's own and new sanctioning
body, and the teams from the other series were excluded for quite a
while. This led the series that lost the big race into a death
spiral.

If the grand tours said "intercourse the UCI", and invited whatever
teams it liked, then some non-ProTour teams would become the premier
teams, no matter what the UCI wanted. The UCI would lose, so it would
love some leverage on the ASO for the political positioning. A bunch
of FUD about Tour "ethics" would probably help a lot. The ProTour has
no such problems, so obviously it should run the GTs, don't cha know.
And send all the samples to Lausanne instead of LNDD, probably.

-dB

in message <[email hidden]>, Cyrus

De Kline (') said:

Dan Connelly schrieb:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

UCI to shorten pro tours
(http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2006/sep06/sep26news )

UCI is at it again with more silly proposals. UCI wants to shorten pro
tours to discourage drug use. This is one of the dumbest proposals I
have heard of. This reminds me of the UCI weight limitation
regulations.

The 100 meter dash is a traditional hotbed of drug use. How short
are they willing to go?

Dan

0 (zero). No race, no dopers.
But I am not even sure that this would be true.

The true question is: who would benefit from shorter races?
Shortening the grand tours would open the UCI calendar for other races.
Shortening km's of classiques would decrease the importance of those
races compared to others.
It's all on the agenda of the UCI: Take away the power of ASO and
Gazette, etc and form a ProTour, controlled only by the UCI themselves.

At the same time, the UCI fails to see where the real problem is:
Smaller, but still fairly traditional races struggle to survive:
Milan-Torino, Paris-Nice, Romandie or TdSuisse, and all the one-day
races which dissapeared. Not talking about organizing _new_ races, U23
races, Women's, Junior's etc.
Shortening the surviving Big Guns will help nothing in this regard.

Absolutely agreed. Cycling as a sport has nothing to gain and everything to
lose from a project to cut back its great showpieces.

People who will dope, will dope. Shortening the tours won't change that.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
Das Internet is nicht fuer gefingerclicken und giffengrabben... Ist
nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen. Das mausklicken sichtseeren
keepen das bandwit-spewin hans in das pockets muss; relaxen und
watchen das cursorblinken. -- quoted from the jargon file

On Thu, 28 Sep 2006 18:24:20 -0700, "Robert Chung" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

John Forrest Tomlinson said:

Quoted message said:

The solution is to have a lifetime ban for any rider found positive of
drugs.

Makes sense. Positive for cortison to treat a bee sting - ban for
life.

Make a mistake with cough medecine. Ban for life.

Yeah, great.

Dude, you're not thinking big picture. Put him in a secret prison without
letting him be able to examine the charges against him, without access to
the courts, and with regular water-boarding until [censored] Pound sez it's
okay. It's what we need in order to keep the cycling world safe.

Yeah, it's not like, when the new rider joins the team the MANAGEMENT is
the one that tells him he has to do hotsauce.

I mean don't penalize the mgmt., go after the riders. That will clean up
the sport. I call it the Dandelion Theory of clean cycling.

nobody said:

On Thu, 28 Sep 2006 18:24:20 -0700, "Robert Chung" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

John Forrest Tomlinson said:

On 28 Sep 2006 14:44:51 -0700, [email hidden] wrote:

> The solution is to have a lifetime ban for any rider found positive of
> drugs.

Makes sense. Positive for cortison to treat a bee sting - ban for
life.

Make a mistake with cough medecine. Ban for life.

Yeah, great.

Dude, you're not thinking big picture. Put him in a secret prison without
letting him be able to examine the charges against him, without access to
the courts, and with regular water-boarding until [censored] Pound sez it's
okay. It's what we need in order to keep the cycling world safe.

Yeah, it's not like, when the new rider joins the team the MANAGEMENT is
the one that tells him he has to do hotsauce.

I mean don't penalize the mgmt., go after the riders. That will clean up
the sport. I call it the Dandelion Theory of clean cycling.

Good idea on the dandelions, you just need a leaf blower.

Ron

In article <[email hidden]>,

Howard Kveck said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Ryan Cousineau said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Cyrus De Kline said:

Dan Connelly schrieb:

> [email hidden] wrote:
> > UCI to shorten pro tours
> > (http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2006/sep06/sep26news )
> >
> > UCI is at it again with more silly proposals. UCI wants to shorten
> > pro
> > tours to discourage drug use. This is one of the dumbest proposals I
> > have heard of. This reminds me of the UCI weight limitation
> > regulations.
> >
> The 100 meter dash is a traditional hotbed of drug use. How short
> are they willing to go?
>
> Dan

0 (zero). No race, no dopers.
But I am not even sure that this would be true.

Given the amount of cheating that is assumed to have happened in Gran
Fondos, I'd say it definitely wouldn't be true.

True, but you know that a lot of the riders in those events more or less
consider them to be a race.

Well yes, but a lot of riders consider the Sunday morning Vets Ride to
be a race, too. Or the Paris-Brest-Paris.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Now, I remember when CART broke away from the Indy 500 (or vice versa),
and the lesson there was that the big race was more important than the
cars or drivers involved; the Indy 500 endured while the CARTistes waned.

USAC (not the cycling one, of course) was the sanctioning body for all
Indy car
racing back then. The Indy Motor Speedway was the one track that stuck with
USAC
when the split occurred. A big part of CART's problem was they eventually
began
acting exactly like what they'd said USAC had been. Add in poor product
promotion
and (eventually) a lack of driver name recognition and there you have it...

The big break happened when USAC created the IRL, partly because they
disagreed with CART on what the future of the sport should be,
engine-and-chassis-wise. IRL was also conceived as an oval-only series
(spit!), while CART has continued with a large number of road
The big divorce's real result was that US-based open-wheel racing became
far less popular.

I would also point out the FIDE-PCA split in chess as a similar
sanctioning-body divorce.

I think the lesson for the UCI and the GTs is that they will likely make
cycling less popular if they contrive to split the sport between them. I
think the other lesson is that the golden asset tends to predict the
victor: IRL won because it had the Indy 500; PCA and FIDE were able to
reunify only after Kasparov (the best player in the world) left chess,
and I think the Tour de France can more easily do without the UCI than
the UCI can do without the Tour.

Think: if you were a pro cycling team, and you had a choice of the
ProTour sans any GT and the warm-up races run by the GT sanctioning
bodies, or the GTs and whatever day-races they could cobble on to that
skeletal schedule, what would you pick?

I think you'd see three Belgians interested in focusing on the ENECO
tour, a few classics-oriented teams that might do those, and everyone
else racing the Tour.

--
Ryan Cousineau [email hidden] http://www.wiredcola.com/
"I don't want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics
to think that they have to take drugs to succeed." -Paul Erdos

In article <[email hidden]>,

Ryan Cousineau said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Howard Kveck said:

In article <[email hidden]>,
Ryan Cousineau <[email hidden]> wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Given the amount of cheating that is assumed to have happened in Gran
Fondos, I'd say it definitely wouldn't be true.

True, but you know that a lot of the riders in those events more or less
consider them to be a race.

Well yes, but a lot of riders consider the Sunday morning Vets Ride to
be a race, too. Or the Paris-Brest-Paris.

Oh yeah. We can't forget that it goes on in weekly training rides. Um, allegedly.

Quoted message said:

The big break happened when USAC created the IRL, partly because they
disagreed with CART on what the future of the sport should be,
engine-and-chassis-wise. IRL was also conceived as an oval-only series
(spit!), while CART has continued with a large number of road
The big divorce's real result was that US-based open-wheel racing became
far less popular.

Okay, I was thinking further back than that. I really haven't paid much attention
to paved track open wheel racing in the US for a long time.

Quoted message said:

I think the lesson for the UCI and the GTs is that they will likely make
cycling less popular if they contrive to split the sport between them. I
think the other lesson is that the golden asset tends to predict the
victor: IRL won because it had the Indy 500; PCA and FIDE were able to
reunify only after Kasparov (the best player in the world) left chess,
and I think the Tour de France can more easily do without the UCI than
the UCI can do without the Tour.

The last statement is on the money. It's why the UCI will do anything it can to
prevent it from happening, and, if it does happen, prevent riders from taking part
in the GTs.

Quoted message said:

Think: if you were a pro cycling team, and you had a choice of the
ProTour sans any GT and the warm-up races run by the GT sanctioning
bodies, or the GTs and whatever day-races they could cobble on to that
skeletal schedule, what would you pick?

That's too easy a question.

Quoted message said:

I think you'd see three Belgians interested in focusing on the ENECO
tour, a few classics-oriented teams that might do those, and everyone
else racing the Tour.

Sounds about right.

--
tanx,
Howard

Never take a tenant with a monkey.

remove YOUR SHOES to reply, ok?