Unibet speak up

Walrus said:

Unibet have released an 1800+ word open letter, appealing for a resolution to the battle of UCI vs "The Cartel".

cyclingnews.comnews.phpOpen ↗

They make a suggestion to reduce the size of teams, to make way for more teams participating in races. That way, the GT boys can invite their Contintental buddies, and the ProTour teams can be guaranteed a start.

To me, this sounds like a great idea. I know it's been raised before, so why has this not been adopted?

Open letters are Red Herrings and thus completely meaningless.

This is a classic fight over televison revenues, signage fees, endorsement income, and illegal sport book splits. This fight will be resolved---like doping crimes--in secret, behind closed doors away from outsiders.

In the end--whichever event franchise that is strongest will prevail, whilst the other will concede to a lower slice of the financial pie.

If neither side blinks---it will blow the season--a al NHL Hockey, and the 1993 MLB strike.

It is much like Jan Ulrich retreat into doping oblivion. Behind the stage.

You didn't answer my question.

Walrus said:

You didn't answer my question.

The people qualified to answer that question WILL never do so publicly. The financial insiders (partners, underwriters, organizers, media executives) of the rolling pharmaceutical freak show--called road cycling.

We might as well speculate on Operation Puerto plasma code names. Is 'Cowboy' Lance Armstrong?

I say yes!

Asked and answered.

Walrus said:

To me, this sounds like a great idea. I know it's been raised before, so why has this not been adopted?

A team that attends a GT consists of much more than just the riders. There are the mechanics, soigners, chefs in some cases, two team cars, etc. Reducing the number of riders from nine to eight does not reduce the fixed size of the support crew, and that is one of the things that the TdF is struggling with now.

I would like to see the teams reduced to eight or seven because it would lessen the strengh of any one team. I think doping has increased the impact a single team and made races easier to control.

P.S. Put F'er on your ignore list or at the very least stop responding to the troll.

Bro Deal said:

A team that attends a GT consists of much more than just the riders. There are the mechanics, soigners, chefs in some cases, two team cars, etc. Reducing the number of riders from nine to eight does not reduce the fixed size of the support crew, and that is one of the things that the TdF is struggling with now.

I would like to see the teams reduced to eight or seven because it would lessen the strengh of any one team. I think doping has increased the impact a single team and made races easier to control.

P.S. Put F'er on your ignore list or at the very least stop responding to the troll.

Ok, that makes sense. I had heard that some towns in France can't be used as TdF locations because of the size of the "entourage". I can see that it's not as simple as dropping a rider. 😉

ps. FF is on my ignore list, but when she responds, I still get an email...so it's not a full "ignore".

Walrus said:

ps. FF is on my ignore list, but when she responds, I still get an email...so it's not a full "ignore".

You can turn off that e-mail thing. I don't know why it's on by default.

Bro Deal said:

You can turn off that e-mail thing. I don't know why it's on by default.

Or you can become elightened.

The NFL is a titanium plated and steroid example of a successful sporting cartel. The franchise owners are all BILLIONAIRES, it remains a secret society, the players have a perfunctory union---with a ex-player minority lapdog at the helm, Gene Upshaw collects $3.5 MILLION per year to do EXCTLY what his NFL remote controllers tell him.

They have anti-doping policies (also a black box secret) and plenty of violence, on and off the field--all the players are on lots of drugs!

Road Cycling as an industry remains highly disorganized, which necessarily means the media marketing, the doping cover-ups, and the doping protocols themselves are not properly positioned for MAXIMUM profits.

Still, as an amateur hour pharma fueled WWE freak show---it still pays healthy dividends to the TDF people.

That's our glorious sport on drugs!

Free Tyler! Free Floyd! Free Jan!

Bro Deal said:

You can turn off that e-mail thing. I don't know why it's on by default.

I don't think you can turn it off just for "ignore" members...I want it on for everyone else.

Bro Deal said:

A team that attends a GT consists of much more than just the riders. There are the mechanics, soigners, chefs in some cases, two team cars, etc. Reducing the number of riders from nine to eight does not reduce the fixed size of the support crew, and that is one of the things that the TdF is struggling with now.

I would like to see the teams reduced to eight or seven because it would lessen the strengh of any one team. I think doping has increased the impact a single team and made races easier to control.

True Bro Deal, but if I recall correctly one of the big reasons that the limitation on number of teams was placed on the GTs was that there was a 'safety issue' with too many riders in the field, making the peloton much more prone to bad crashes.

Of course as you stated, the huge size of the support-teams/etc of the GTs must be contained (you will note that often, on the mountain top finishes, you can see the team cars/buses parked halfway up the mountain in whatever parking they could find. Imagine finishing a stage on the Zoncolan or Alpe d'Huez and then having to turn your bike around and ride 10 km downhill through the crowds to get to the team bus... :eek🙂.

Powerful Pete said:

True Bro Deal, but if I recall correctly one of the big reasons that the limitation on number of teams was placed on the GTs was that there was a 'safety issue' with too many riders in the field, making the peloton much more prone to bad crashes.

That is true also. I am just saying that it is not as easy as looking at the riders. Just looking at the riders one might think you could reduce the team size to seven and invite twenty-six teams. The ProTour would get their twenty and the organizers would get six wild cards. But that does not take into account the entourage accompanying each team.

Powerful Pete said:

Imagine finishing a stage on the Zoncolan or Alpe d'Huez and then having to turn your bike around and ride 10 km downhill through the crowds to get to the team bus... :eek🙂.

No problem if you are FLandis. You trade a yellow jersey for a beer on the way down. 😄