Race Radios
Comments
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No. I think you and Rick have misinterpreted what I was trying to say.[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19710176#p19710176]Blazing Saddles[/url] wrote:Sensible tactics the product of race radios?
Those that want radios banned seem to think that the result will be that riders will start riding in a different manner. But they won't because they are not idiots. They ride as they do because they are sensible tactics - with or without radios. So what I was saying that what people really want is for riders to start riding in a more entertaining but also more clueless manner (hence 'banning sensible tactics'). It wasn't well expressed.
Also, people do know that live TV pictures (such as the DSs see) aren't actually live, don't they - they have a delay of at least ten seconds, meaning that DS is actually a poor person to make tactical decisions.
Ok let's clear a few things up.
1) radios/no radios changes the tactics. Take Froome/Wiggins in 2012 tour as a high profile example (but there are many. 2014 and 2015 het nieuwsblad as another). This is a fact. It doesn't happen hugely often but it does happen. It's not necessarily better or worse but the races are ridden differently depending on whether radios are used or not.
2) I think there is a something to be said for the skill of keeping track of what's going on on the road. 6 riders in the break and you only count 5 who have come back? Etc. I quite like that being tested.
3) reducing the flow of information to riders increases some unpredictability for obvious reasons. In the fog there are more opportunities for riders to capitalise on missing information (by chance or otherwise). I have no problem giving chance more of a say. That's the fun of it. (Hence why knock out competitions in football are so fun )
4) I can't see why not every rider is just given access to race radio rather then having to use a DS to relay the information. one way.0 -
No, once again someone hasn't properly read what I said.Ever so slightly rubbish and condescending. Are you saying that all racing below that which allows race radios is clueless and boring? the point is that the lesser the amount of extraneous information coming in the more self reliance in decision making riders would require and teams would organise themselves accordingly.
My point is that radios make little difference to how riders think or the tactics they use. Those that want them banned to make the racing more entertaining seem to think that somehow pro riders will abandon all the sensible tactics that they been using previously and race in a completely different way. They won't. They'll race exactly the same. Because they do make most of the decisions for themselves. The radios just allow them to get information to make more informed ones. Less informed decisions don't make for better racing.
'lesser amount of extraneous information' means less informed, and less informed is, by definition, more clueless. In your outrage you are actually agreeing with me. What you want is for riders to have less information so the quality of their decision making drops.
Once again someone hasn't properly read what I've said.
Where do I say that banning race radios will make the racing more exciting? That's a huge presumption on your part. What you will have is more honest racing as teams riders will have to rely on the knowledge available to them on the road.
Of course generally riders won't abandon sensible tactics. Are levels of racing below those that allow race radios less sensible? no I don't think they are. More exciting? nope probably not. More honest? yes
Yes riders do make most of the decisions for themselves but there are examples of where radios have had a major impact such as the 2012 Tour with Yates/Froome.
Quality of decision making to fall? no, the decision made will be based on the information available and so good decisions will still be good and bad decisions will still be bad.
I just don't see the need to proliferate all levels of pro racing with race radio0 -
I'm definitely with Rich on this one. And what is supposedly the race radio effect in the Froome/Wiggins 2012 tour? Froome knew exactly what he was doing, but didn't have the bottle to ignore the radio instruction that HE ALREADY knew he'd get.
But if were a rider I think the main reason I'd want the radio would be so I could place an order at the team car bidon takeaway. Far better than having to wait for a teammate to come up and check if I need anything before dropping back to pick it up.Warning No formatter is installed for the format0 -
Once again someone hasn't properly read what I've said, either."Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.0
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I haven't read properly what I said
So this is all going well
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This is a bit like a DS trying to communicate with a rider via race radio!0
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Why is it more 'honest'? This is an entirely spurious argument. Will DS be banned from talking to bottle carriers to maintain 'honesty'. Is a puncture that takes a minute and a half to get changed more honest than one that gets done in 30 seconds? Should DSs be banned from talking to riders that come back to the car to maintain the honesty? Are time gaps written on a board that only the riders at the front can see more honest than those relayed to all by radio inherently more honest numbers? Key information will get passed along somehow - radios just make it safer and more efficient
Where do I say that banning race radios will make the racing more exciting? That's a huge presumption on your part. What you will have is more honest racing as teams riders will have to rely on the knowledge available to them on the road.
Of course generally riders won't abandon sensible tactics. Are levels of racing below those that allow race radios less sensible? no I don't think they are. More exciting? nope probably not. More honest? yes
The DS could have just driven up alongside and told him to stop - like LeMond in the 1985 TourYes riders do make most of the decisions for themselves but there are examples of where radios have had a major impact such as the 2012 Tour with Yates/Froome.
Yes. There is there is correlation between the quality of decisions made and the quality of information those decisions are based on. Less information means more guesswork.Quality of decision making to fall? no, the decision made will be based on the information available and so good decisions will still be good and bad decisions will still be bad.
Don't worry, you won't notice the differenceI just don't see the need to proliferate all levels of pro racing with race radioTwitter: @RichN950 -
[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19710492#p19710492]greasedscotsman[/url] wrote:This is a bit like a DS trying to communicate with a rider via race radio!
Brilliant!!!
I don't really have strong views either way but it does make for good debate. Anyway we've got some road racing back for the next 3 days
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Why is it more 'honest'? This is an entirely spurious argument. Will DS be banned from talking to bottle carriers to maintain 'honesty'. Is a puncture that takes a minute and a half to get changed more honest than one that gets done in 30 seconds? Should DSs be banned from talking to riders that come back to the car to maintain the honesty? Are time gaps written on a board that only the riders at the front can see more honest than those relayed to all by radio inherently more honest numbers? Key information will get passed along somehow - radios just make it safer and more efficient
[quote="Yes riders do make most of the decisions for themselves but there are examples of where radios have had a major impact such as the 2012 Tour with Yates/Froome.[/quote]
The DS could have just driven up alongside and told him to stop - like LeMond in the 1985 Tour
[quote="Quality of decision making to fall? no, the decision made will be based on the information available and so good decisions will still be good and bad decisions will still be bad.[/quote]
Yes. There is there is correlation between the quality of decisions made and the quality of information those decisions are based on. Less information means more guesswork.
[quote="I just don't see the need to proliferate all levels of pro racing with race radio[/quote]
Don't worry, you won't notice the difference[/quote]
I accept that, good debate Rich0 -
I hope you didn't accept the standard of quoting. That was an appalling piece of formatting by me.
I accept that, good debate RichTwitter: @RichN950 -
I'm definitely with Rich on this one. And what is supposedly the race radio effect in the Froome/Wiggins 2012 tour? Froome knew exactly what he was doing, but didn't have the bottle to ignore the radio instruction that HE ALREADY knew he'd get.
You seem to have answered your own question - in your words he "didn't have the bottle to ignore the radio instruction" - if he didn't have a radio by the time he got that instruction via a car things could have been very different.
The main affect of radios though is that they allow for decisions to be made (by whoever) with more complete information and for those decisions to be disseminated quicker allowing for a faster more coordinated response to whatever has happened. Basically the point that Rick made above - radios increase the predictability of racing and reduce the chaos where people can take advantage of missing information. I just makes the chances of aggressive riding paying off that little bit less likely and that means people are less likely to ride aggressively.[Castle Donington Ladies FC - going up in '22]0 -
It's good (and not in the least bit condescending) of you to tell us what we want but your argument is quite difficult to understand.
No, once again someone hasn't properly read what I said.Ever so slightly rubbish and condescending. Are you saying that all racing below that which allows race radios is clueless and boring? the point is that the lesser the amount of extraneous information coming in the more self reliance in decision making riders would require and teams would organise themselves accordingly.
My point is that radios make little difference to how riders think or the tactics they use. Those that want them banned to make the racing more entertaining seem to think that somehow pro riders will abandon all the sensible tactics that they been using previously and race in a completely different way. They won't. They'll race exactly the same. Because they do make most of the decisions for themselves. The radios just allow them to get information to make more informed ones. Less informed decisions don't make for better racing.
'lesser amount of extraneous information' means less informed, and less informed is, by definition, more clueless. In your outrage you are actually agreeing with me. What you want is for riders to have less information so the quality of their decision making drops.
If radios really do 'make little difference' what is the point of them and why were teams so up in arms about their proposed banning? If a decision is 'informed' but nearly always results in the same action as an uninformed decision then, again, what is the point? If a decision is 'informed' and results in a different action then the fact of it being 'informed' has in fact made a difference so it would be entirely wrong to say that radios 'make little difference'.
In any event, I'm going to disagree with you about what it is I want to see. I want to see racers rewarded. By racers I don't mean a chancer who gets into a break and profits from a miscalculation by the peloton. The ability to be aware of what is going on around you in a race situation, to focus on the smaller and bigger picture whilst under physical and mental pressure is a valuable skill at all levels of racing where radios are not used. It's actually really difficult to do and is as much a part of cycling at lower levels as having strong legs or a decent team. I'd like to see those riders with that skill given the chance to profit from it in a Pro Tour race.0 -
What are tactics in modern racing, anyhow?
Radios or not, the vast majority of races follow, regardless of category, follow the tried and tested practice of letting a break go and then chasing it when the time comes.
Within this tactic, obviously different scenarios play out, depending on how the break performs together, or who amongst the obvious suspects will put their team to chase on the front, first.
We the odd exception, regardless of race category, this is it.
Over the course of this season, I'd conclude that having no race radio increases the probability of some from the break succeeding, but not dramatically."Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.0 -
[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19710492#p19710492]greasedscotsman[/url] wrote:This is a bit like a DS trying to communicate with a rider via race radio!
Very good.0 -
It's good (and not in the least bit condescending) of you to tell us what we want but your argument is quite difficult to understand.
No, once again someone hasn't properly read what I said.Ever so slightly rubbish and condescending. Are you saying that all racing below that which allows race radios is clueless and boring? the point is that the lesser the amount of extraneous information coming in the more self reliance in decision making riders would require and teams would organise themselves accordingly.
My point is that radios make little difference to how riders think or the tactics they use. Those that want them banned to make the racing more entertaining seem to think that somehow pro riders will abandon all the sensible tactics that they been using previously and race in a completely different way. They won't. They'll race exactly the same. Because they do make most of the decisions for themselves. The radios just allow them to get information to make more informed ones. Less informed decisions don't make for better racing.
'lesser amount of extraneous information' means less informed, and less informed is, by definition, more clueless. In your outrage you are actually agreeing with me. What you want is for riders to have less information so the quality of their decision making drops.
If radios really do 'make little difference' what is the point of them and why were teams so up in arms about their proposed banning? If a decision is 'informed' but nearly always results in the same action as an uninformed decision then, again, what is the point? If a decision is 'informed' and results in a different action then the fact of it being 'informed' has in fact made a difference so it would be entirely wrong to say that radios 'make little difference'.
In any event, I'm going to disagree with you about what it is I want to see. I want to see racers rewarded. By racers I don't mean a chancer who gets into a break and profits from a miscalculation by the peloton. The ability to be aware of what is going on around you in a race situation, to focus on the smaller and bigger picture whilst under physical and mental pressure is a valuable skill at all levels of racing where radios are not used. It's actually really difficult to do and is as much a part of cycling at lower levels as having strong legs or a decent team. I'd like to see those riders with that skill given the chance to profit from it in a Pro Tour race.
Essentially my thoughts, too.
What makes for exciting racing is often a heady mixture of unforeseen events coupled with supreme performance: race radios are a attempt to diminish the impact of the former.
Ultimately, it's very difficult know what effect race radios have on racing: but they are part of a bigger movement that I'm most wary about.
They are part of a process that is happening to cycling - like it does in all industries/businesses - where those "up the chain" are seeking to retain control in an environment where control is always being challenged. Slowly but surely we're moving to a scenario where the DSs (and coaching staff) will have a complete feedback system during races that can assess, calculate then inform riders what they need to do in response to whatever is happening on the road. They've already had TVs in the team cars for quite a few years to enable them to assess the condition of the riders in a break: this had led to the "game" of breakaways where break and peloton adjusts their speed/effort according to the info being feedback about what the others are doing. OK - so it could be argued that this was always the case, but now it is based on realtime assessments rather than sketchy occasional timing gaps. With all the info available to the team cars now, this has stopped being about "informing" the rides and is now about "instructing" them.
Race radios are the final link to creating a full circuit of management control.
Would it be a surprise to discover that software has been developed that enables the team car to calculate the exact wattage/duration that each team rider needs to ride at, in real time, to bring back/control a break? It could also assess the relative levels of fatigue with moment by moment updates from each rider's onboard computer. In other words, the riders will be micro managed.
With such technology in place, who will bother attacking? Small teams hoping for exposure and to gain the status with the fan's of "plucky heroes who don't win anything".0 -
Interesting comments from Boardman and Rochelle Gilmour lamenting the control that race radios have on a race...0
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Is this something that people just accept now? It just seems too controlling to me and contributes to reducing the entertaining frenetic activity we saw yesterday.0
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It's brains that keep things controlling. Sensible tactics. Taking away radios aren't going to make riders ride like idiots.FocusZing wrote:Is this something that people just accept now? It just seems too controlling to me and contributes to reducing the entertaining frenetic activity we saw yesterday.
Mostly they are used by riders to talk to each other rather than the DS.Twitter: @RichN950 -
fat daddy wrote:FocusZing wrote:Is this something that people just accept now? It just seems too controlling to me and contributes to reducing the entertaining frenetic activity we saw yesterday.
I dunno .. how would having more or less radios have changed what happened yesterday ?
I don't think yesterday could have been improved upon. We had rain, mountains, descents and AG2R as the masters of chaos, however stage 7,8 there was none of this, it was just a training ride until 5km madness.0 -
RichN95 wrote:
It's brains that keep things controlling. Sensible tactics. Taking away radios aren't going to make riders ride like idiots.FocusZing wrote:Is this something that people just accept now? It just seems too controlling to me and contributes to reducing the entertaining frenetic activity we saw yesterday.
Mostly they are used by riders to talk to each other rather than the DS.
I wouldn't say riding like idiots, just valuable information that could shut down a break.0 -
RichN95 wrote:
It's brains that keep things controlling. Sensible tactics. Taking away radios aren't going to make riders ride like idiots.FocusZing wrote:Is this something that people just accept now? It just seems too controlling to me and contributes to reducing the entertaining frenetic activity we saw yesterday.
Mostly they are used by riders to talk to each other rather than the DS.
No, especially when they can ride like idiots with them. Fuglsang and Aru come to mind...It's only a bit of sport, Mun. Relax and enjoy the racing.0 -
I wonder if Robert Millar would have a Vuelta win if there were race radios back then.Warning No formatter is installed for the format0
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I am surprised they are still using race radios, it seems ridiculous when they could be using television, it's been around for 90 odd years.
*I won't write that Froome does and that's why he's always looking at his stem, as that would be too obvious a joke.0 -
Quick question, has anyone actually used a radio in a noisy environment here?0
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Shadowrider wrote:Quick question, has anyone actually used a radio in a noisy environment here?
Why? Radios are used successfully in stacks of noisy environments just by using the appropriate kit.0 -
mfin wrote:I am surprised they are still using race radios, it seems ridiculous when they could be using television, it's been around for 90 odd years.
*I won't write that Froome does and that's why he's always looking at his stem, as that would be too obvious a joke.
Would be interesting to run a race with no radios and no TVs for the DSs. People seem to think if they get rid of them we'll have attacks from GC men at the start of the stage and epic 100 mile solos like we've had in the past. Can't see it happening to be honest, they'll still ride to power metres etc. It's tough to unlearn what you already know about racing0 -
sherer wrote:mfin wrote:I am surprised they are still using race radios, it seems ridiculous when they could be using television, it's been around for 90 odd years.
*I won't write that Froome does and that's why he's always looking at his stem, as that would be too obvious a joke.
Would be interesting to run a race with no radios and no TVs for the DSs. People seem to think if they get rid of them we'll have attacks from GC men at the start of the stage and epic 100 mile solos like we've had in the past. Can't see it happening to be honest, they'll still ride to power metres etc. It's tough to unlearn what you already know about racing
Plus it's not like people never got told the time gaps back then.0 -
I'd like to see
- radios for safety/mechanicals but not tactics (not sure 100% how to do this)
- no powermeter data displayed to the riders (like the track, you can collect it but can't give it to the rider)
- smaller teams
It'd be chaos! 0 -
There's nothing that says 'modern and exciting sport' quite like a man writing on a blackboard.bobmcstuff wrote:Plus it's not like people never got told the time gaps back then.Twitter: @RichN950
