The end of cycling?? I doubt it.
Comments
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Here's a link to the last couple of road racing calanders. Those in black, crossed out, were cancelled. Koln was posponed due to snow, but may well go under, next year, as a result of German developments:-
http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/?id=cal08
http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/?id=cal07
Quite a few US events in amongst them.
Hard to avoid making speculative, unsubstantiated comments, huh?
Seems it's not just the negative dope mongerers who have trouble sticking to proven facts.
"Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.0 -
The cancellation of some major races recently, especially in Germany, is directly linked to doping revelations, but many of the other races folding is not.
The dissappearance of kermesse races and semi-classics in Flanders, crits, classics and classic regional tours in France, and 6 days in the winter has been going on for many decades.
The 'end of cycling as we know it' process is nothing new. And it does not mean the end of pro cycling full stop; yes, loads of once high profile races are disappearing, for instance many Flemish village pro races, but at the same time there are larger TV audiences for weekly live races on Flemish TV than ever, cyclo-cross attracts larger audiences than ever before, the 6 days of Amsterdam has been recreated. We're in a very rough phase of transition of cycling that works out differently in different countries.0 -
I think we should maybe put our concerns about organisational difficulties and, in particular, grass roots participation in perspective. As we often say on Doping issues "it's not just Cycling" and this also applies to many of the problems we have referred to above - i.e. Volunteer Support, Youth Participation, Fan Support. OK, I'm only talking about the UK and use my own relatively rural area as an example, but the decline on every front over the past 30 years is very clear. We here were effectively the Rugby Capital of Scotland until about 20-30 years ago and now find ourselves with a struggling Team in the top league but, even worse, clubs struggling to field one team when they used to easily run three. One club has even folded altogether. The standard is poor by comparison and volunteer support and spectator attendance is in serious decline.
Football is not quite so bad but participation is decreased and our top team is a joke !!
Athletics is suffering at least as badly as cycling with participation in general down but, in particular, by youngsters even more so. A school friend and ex-neighbour of mine now lives in Turkey and still returns every year to run the Ben Nevis race but for the last two years has been our local clubs ONLY participant !!! We have no Squash courts any more where there used to be at least two very active leagues, there are no Badminton leagues. No, once again "it's not just cycling". Of course there are reasons for this but the fact of the matter is that things have changed. My own experiences in cycling suggest a few main reasons viz. -
People are less inclined to competition but more to recreation,
Volunteers are put off by over-complicated and bureaucratic requirements
People have more alternatives as regards what to do with their lives.
Despite all the grass roots problems though, I still marvel at the media profile of cycling at the highest level and appreciate the sheer volume and ease of availability of racing coverage. Yes it has it's problems but it's not all bad !!!0 -
aurelio wrote:
Peasant banks? Well, if you to advertise your ignorance (or prejudice) what better place to do it than on a public forum? :roll: Credit Agricole is actually the second largest bank in Europe and the eighth largest in the world...leguape wrote:The only change I see happening is sponsors ceasing to be from flooring manufacturers and peasant banks (Caisse, Credit)...
You seem to be trying to argue that getting sponsors is a good measure of the health of cycling as sport, rather than being simply an indication of how TV coverage of just about any event will attract someone looking for an advertising opportunity. If so then does the sponsorship of other sports also show that the sport concerned is in good health and has a booming grass-roots fan and participation base? Consider the example of Kellogs who dropped their support of the Tour of Britain in order to sponsor the Gladiators series...
You need to lighten up. Big as they, are CA and Caisse both retain and continue to cultivate their connection with France's rural banking network. They both started life bankrolling the rural poor, ie the peasants (or "paysans" as they would say). In which territories outside of France do those two brands operate? They're on cycling teams to emphasis their roots, not to promote their multinational banking status.
Kelloggs dropped ToB after they'd been milking it for 8 years. You seem to think there's some moral obligation for sponsors to support cycling. Hmmm, network ITV 1 primetime pulling 14 million guaranteed eyeballs, or the Tour of Britain? Not a toughie when it comes to marketing spend. The same year they dumped the ToB they took on grassroots in swimming as well as Gladiators as part of a broader strategy covering "activity".
I didn't realise that the sponsorship of tier one of the sport brought an obligation to sort out the rest of the mess, but I do believe it it is a good indicator of the market value of a sport and in which territories. To that extent, did News International decide that putting a million a year into grassroots cycling and their name across the national team was a bad idea because they didn't see cycling (as a whole, covering utility and sport) as offering an excellent ROI for them?
Did the largest GPS device manufacturer decide to throw itself at the sport because it thought it wouldn't see value in growing its European presence?
Barring the financial sector melting down it's likely there would have been a few banks sniffing around deals as well.
Last time I looked sponsors don't just pin their money on the televised races, they pin it on the whole season. If these advertisers wanted eyeballs, they'd have a football shirt sponsorship which costs you about the same as the cost of underwriting a team for a year and gets you more guaranteed views on back pages and broadcast.
Oh and sponsors cover costs, be they regional development agencies, banks or newspapers. If you haven't got them, you haven't got events. I'd say they were pretty vital as a measure of the health of the sport.0 -
According to wikki, CA `has in excess of 21 million clients and a presence in over 60 countries`. See also:leguape wrote:Big as they, are CA and Caisse both retain and continue to cultivate their connection with France's rural banking network... In which territories outside of France do those two brands operate? They're on cycling teams to emphasis their roots, not to promote their multinational banking status.
http://www.credit-agricole-sa.fr/rubriq ... brique=255
Not at all. All I am pointing out is that there is, at best, a very tenuous link between the ability to attract sponsors and the health of the sport per say, especially at the all-important grassroots level. Kellogs saw the idiotic Gladiators series as being a good commercial sponsorship proposition, but there is no grassroots participation in fighting with giant cotton buds whilst wearing super hero costumes. Similarly, even if the sponsorship of pro racing continues, due mainly to the access this gives companies to our TV screens, this in no way means that the sport of cycling is healthy.leguape wrote:Kelloggs dropped ToB after they'd been milking it for 8 years. You seem to think there's some moral obligation for sponsors to support cycling.
I would also argue that the move from road-side spectating at local events to slobbing in front of a TV screen whilst watching some pro-Tour event has also robbed the sport of much of the meaning and intimacy it once had. This is not just a matter of times changing, it is a definite change for the worse. For one in a world where all the spectator is looking for is on-screen entertainment cycle sport may well end up being displaced in favour of other events with more immediate appeal for the tabloid-blitzed masses, such as `Gladiators` and WWF wrestling...0 -
Ultimately it doesn't matter whether we as cycling fans/tifosi/couch-potato slobs care or not because no matter how much hot air is spent on the subject there is nothing we can actually DO to affect what happens in the professional peleton.
Thus, If your glass is half full , like mine, then you might like to believe that change is happening for the good and. after an indeterminate time, things will be much better, perhaps the best they've been since before the 60s.
However, If your glass is half empty (or completely drained as in some cases) then there is little (or no) hope.
Either way, for the foreseeable future, there will still be pro cycling and we'll still be watching it (yes - even you who have 'given it up', so don't lie...).Spring!
Singlespeeds in town rule.0 -
Again, tell that to the Germans and the French.
Someone is responsible for the change and it sure as 'ell ain't Patty.
Everyone wants change, we just differ on the degree of effectiveness, thus far.
Nice vagary with the forseeable future. How long is a piece of string, exactly?"Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.0 -
aurelio wrote:
According to wikki, CA `has in excess of 21 million clients and a presence in over 60 countries`. See also:leguape wrote:Big as they, are CA and Caisse both retain and continue to cultivate their connection with France's rural banking network... In which territories outside of France do those two brands operate? They're on cycling teams to emphasis their roots, not to promote their multinational banking status.
http://www.credit-agricole-sa.fr/rubriq ... brique=255
Not at all. All I am pointing out is that there is, at best, a very tenuous link between the ability to attract sponsors and the health of the sport per say, especially at the all-important grassroots level. Kellogs saw the idiotic Gladiators series as being a good commercial sponsorship proposition, but there is no grassroots participation in fighting with giant cotton buds whilst wearing super hero costumes. Similarly, even if the sponsorship of pro racing continues, due mainly to the access this gives companies to our TV screens, this in no way means that the sport of cycling is healthy.leguape wrote:Kelloggs dropped ToB after they'd been milking it for 8 years. You seem to think there's some moral obligation for sponsors to support cycling.
I would also argue that the move from road-side spectating at local events to slobbing in front of a TV screen whilst watching some pro-Tour event has also robbed the sport of much of the meaning and intimacy it once had. This is not just a matter of times changing, it is a definite change for the worse. For one in a world where all the spectator is looking for is on-screen entertainment cycle sport may well end up being displaced in favour of other events with more immediate appeal for the tabloid-blitzed masses, such as `Gladiators` and WWF wrestling...
In how many of those territories does CA operate under the CA brand and not some other subsidiary one that it has acquired into the group, let alone insurance, private banking or finance which are all but invisible to the general public? Let's take Belgium for an example. Credit Agricole is know there as... Landbouwkrediet. I'm sure I've seen that name mentioned somewhere to do with bike racing.
As for Kellogg's : http://www.kelloggs.co.uk/cyclometer/ Now what was that about investment at grassroots level?
Kellogg's sponsorship of Gladiators fitted perfectly with their broad brush strategy on active lifestyles:
http://www.thetimes100.co.uk/case-study ... -267-1.php
As it encouraged people to lead active lifestyles and promoted exercise and physical fitness to the masses. A heck of a lot more people watch ITV 1 in prime time with their kids than are willing to drag their poor offspring to some damp roadside to watch 5 seconds of riders going past.
Which is probably why there's a bit of a push next year, in the UK certainly, to put races where people are and can see them, both in Sweetspot's Tour Series run in city centres and the Face Partnership Nocturne Series.
As idiotic as you may think Gladiators was/is, there is no doubting that in terms of promoting living an active lifestyle it represents a far better opportunity that the ToB did. Incidentally Gladiators probably had a far tougher doping policy than cycling at the time.
Still you showed your colours clearly enough with your description of "the tabloid-blitzed masses". Those tabloid blitzed masses are probably the same ones who made up the vast majority of the audience for the Olympics and who contributed to figures of about 2 million plus on each of the days the Tour was in Britain in 2007. Feel free to sneer at the people the sport needs though.0 -
Hey Dennis - great post, well said and thanks.There's no time for hesitating.
Pain is ready, pain is waiting.
Primed to do it's educating.0 -
leguape wrote:aurelio wrote:
According to wikki, CA `has in excess of 21 million clients and a presence in over 60 countries`. See also:leguape wrote:Big as they, are CA and Caisse both retain and continue to cultivate their connection with France's rural banking network... In which territories outside of France do those two brands operate? They're on cycling teams to emphasis their roots, not to promote their multinational banking status.
http://www.credit-agricole-sa.fr/rubriq ... brique=255
Not at all. All I am pointing out is that there is, at best, a very tenuous link between the ability to attract sponsors and the health of the sport per say, especially at the all-important grassroots level. Kellogs saw the idiotic Gladiators series as being a good commercial sponsorship proposition, but there is no grassroots participation in fighting with giant cotton buds whilst wearing super hero costumes. Similarly, even if the sponsorship of pro racing continues, due mainly to the access this gives companies to our TV screens, this in no way means that the sport of cycling is healthy.leguape wrote:Kelloggs dropped ToB after they'd been milking it for 8 years. You seem to think there's some moral obligation for sponsors to support cycling.
I would also argue that the move from road-side spectating at local events to slobbing in front of a TV screen whilst watching some pro-Tour event has also robbed the sport of much of the meaning and intimacy it once had. This is not just a matter of times changing, it is a definite change for the worse. For one in a world where all the spectator is looking for is on-screen entertainment cycle sport may well end up being displaced in favour of other events with more immediate appeal for the tabloid-blitzed masses, such as `Gladiators` and WWF wrestling...
In how many of those territories does CA operate under the CA brand and not some other subsidiary one that it has acquired into the group, let alone insurance, private banking or finance which are all but invisible to the general public? Let's take Belgium for an example. Credit Agricole is know there as... Landbouwkrediet. I'm sure I've seen that name mentioned somewhere to do with bike racing.
As for Kellogg's : http://www.kelloggs.co.uk/cyclometer/ Now what was that about investment at grassroots level?
Kellogg's sponsorship of Gladiators fitted perfectly with their broad brush strategy on active lifestyles:
http://www.thetimes100.co.uk/case-study ... -267-1.php
As it encouraged people to lead active lifestyles and promoted exercise and physical fitness to the masses. A heck of a lot more people watch ITV 1 in prime time with their kids than are willing to drag their poor offspring to some damp roadside to watch 5 seconds of riders going past.
Which is probably why there's a bit of a push next year, in the UK certainly, to put races where people are and can see them, both in Sweetspot's Tour Series run in city centres and the Face Partnership Nocturne Series.
As idiotic as you may think Gladiators was/is, there is no doubting that in terms of promoting living an active lifestyle it represents a far better opportunity that the ToB did. Incidentally Gladiators probably had a far tougher doping policy than cycling at the time.
Still you showed your colours clearly enough with your description of "the tabloid-blitzed masses". Those tabloid blitzed masses are probably the same ones who made up the vast majority of the audience for the Olympics and who contributed to figures of about 2 million plus on each of the days the Tour was in Britain in 2007. Feel free to sneer at the people the sport needs though.
What are you on about, Leguape? Gladiators and wwf wrestling are about healthy living? No, it's just easy entertainment. Both are all about spectacle. Cycling is too, but people don't want the real thing; they'd rather go and see Rocky or Rocky two at a cinema than go and see a real boxing match.
It's because gladiators and wwf are sensationalised and a show put on for the masses, just like pantomime. Cycling can try all kinds of tactics in order to sell the brand of it's sponsors and the sport itself but it can't ever be a pantomime like those... events.
I think it's this kind of pandering to spectacle: high speeds, crashes, sprinting up mountains and all the rest of it that drives, in part, the doping culture. Instead ofthat we should focus on the sport being about real human drama. People bonking on Alpe D'Huez and doing everything they can just to grind on the gears is more appealing than seeing endless streams of riders, most of whom are not physiologically put together to move at speed up a mountain, tanking up mountains with too much oxygen in their system.0 -
Patrick1.0 wrote:What are you on about, Leguape? Gladiators and wwf wrestling are about healthy living? No, it's just easy entertainment. Both are all about spectacle. Cycling is too, but people don't want the real thing; they'd rather go and see Rocky or Rocky two at a cinema than go and see a real boxing match.
It's because gladiators and wwf are sensationalised and a show put on for the masses, just like pantomime. Cycling can try all kinds of tactics in order to sell the brand of it's sponsors and the sport itself but it can't ever be a pantomime like those... events.
Gifted stage wins and post-tour crits. No, never a pantomime.
Gladiators had training diary video inserts in almost every episode and stressed heavily the fitness and physical ability of the contenders. There was a kids spin-off called Train To Win. Encouraging healthy living is not mutually exclusive of entertaining and spectacle.0 -
leguape wrote:Patrick1.0 wrote:What are you on about, Leguape? Gladiators and wwf wrestling are about healthy living? No, it's just easy entertainment. Both are all about spectacle. Cycling is too, but people don't want the real thing; they'd rather go and see Rocky or Rocky two at a cinema than go and see a real boxing match.
It's because gladiators and wwf are sensationalised and a show put on for the masses, just like pantomime. Cycling can try all kinds of tactics in order to sell the brand of it's sponsors and the sport itself but it can't ever be a pantomime like those... events.
Gifted stage wins and post-tour crits. No, never a pantomime.
Gladiators had training diary video inserts in almost every episode and stressed heavily the fitness and physical ability of the contenders. There was a kids spin-off called Train To Win. Encouraging healthy living is not mutually exclusive of entertaining and spectacle.
Scraping the barrel a bit, don't you think? It's not like there are clubs around the country that don't operate to make a profit and in turn get kids into riding their bikes and evetually, if they want, road racing or any other branch of the sport...0 -
Hi,
yea I agree but I really felt the sport was getting back on track prior to this years Tour de France, then all of a sudden.....BOOOOM! Ricco wins an unbelievable stage and I start to question his ride that day, then 2 days later he's positive. Why when a rider does an amazing performance to we automatically think "what's he on?!"
Then there are more positives in recent weeks and my upbeat feeling about pro racing plummets to the deep dark depths again.
Pro riders just need to accept that the sponsors won't come on board until ALL riders are clean. There will always be guys trying to beat the system - thats human nature but they have to get it into their heads that its basically down to their actions. Turns my stomach.
I accept that cycling is doing more than any other sport and that it has become somewhat a scapegoat but the sport also has a chance, albeit a small one, to prove to the world that it can do some good and get its credability back.
I've been in touch with several top pros and teams who i know are 100% clean. They really want to help and they will be helping at the first ProTour event, the Tour Down Under . Fans and sponsors will begin to see a new voice from the clean riders. Watch this space.
yours in cycling...
A.
bikepure.org0
