Brian Holm rips into Lappartient's reform ideas
No_Ta_Doctor
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Not seen this mentioned on any thread so far and thought it deserved a wider audience and some discussion.
Holm pretty much rips Lapartient a new one.
“I wonder, has he ever seen a cycling race before or just doesn’t have a clue?”
https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/raci ... ong-389055
I was really pleased with how he basically outs the UCI/Lappartient as being totally reactive to the twitter tin-foil hat brigade with his comments on motors.
Holm pretty much rips Lapartient a new one.
“I wonder, has he ever seen a cycling race before or just doesn’t have a clue?”
https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/raci ... ong-389055
I was really pleased with how he basically outs the UCI/Lappartient as being totally reactive to the twitter tin-foil hat brigade with his comments on motors.
“Road racing was over and the UCI had banned my riding positions on the track, so it was like ‘Jings, crivvens, help ma Boab, what do I do now? I know, I’ll go away and be depressed for 10 years’.”
@DrHeadgear
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@DrHeadgear
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I wonder what the 37 delegates who voted Lappartient into power are thinking about his performance so far.
"This Chateauneuf du Pape 2010 is rather marvelous, I must remember to thank David when I see him at the spa break he promised"
@DrHeadgear
The Vikings are coming!
@DrHeadgear
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This.
I really can't believe the head of the UCI being so open about hating the most successful team. Talk about pitching your sport to big sponsors.
Maybe our glorious president thinks the tour would be better served by national teams instead of trade. I think GB would have a reasonable chance of a 123 on the podium, a green jersey (whistful thinking) and the polka dots and i suspect that would be unpalatable.
Perhaps we could have mixed teams lolol
Holm has obviously read my comment in the Sky What Next thread
"I wonder if Appartient actually follows bike racing at all, given all the jobs he seems to hold down at the same time."
If the local Councillor wants to make it exciting maybe he should legalize drugs. It was pretty exciting in the Armstrong era with everyone doped up doing impossible rides breaking away 2 or 3 cols out and riding up the final climb like they were on motorbikes.
As someone else on this Forum mentioned, French cycling went back to the dark ages under Lapartient's reign. The two major women's grand tours disappeared as did numerous other races and French cycling is now in the doldrums.
As for the Tour, France TV were boasting about their viewing figures the other day, claiming the tour was getting an over 50% audience share at times. So maybe the housewifes are not switching off?
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By far the most interesting thing Holm had to say.
Antwan Tolhoek, Sam Oomen, Tom Dumoulin, Thymen Arensman, Remco Evenepoel, Benoît Cosnefroy, Tom Pidcock, Mark Cavendish, Romain Bardet
Jeez! Why not just play around with the sport for your own self promotion and the disruption of the the sport? Why not shut the F up and let the sport get on with it run by your juniors who probably know a lot more about it than you (certainly more than me).
It strikes me that every so often there is talk on cycling forums about how the sport is being dominated and needs to change. Radios, power meters, etc are often talked about. Every discussion the ones with the most convincing arguments and opinions are the ones who argue against these changes. I'm certain I've read such discussions on this site probably every year since I joined (can't remember how long ago that was, feels like a couple of years but if I looked it up I'd probably be shocked to find it's 5+ years or something).
At what point do you decide that there has been enough changes to the sport?
7 years mate, Seven. Years!
- @ddraver
Antwan Tolhoek, Sam Oomen, Tom Dumoulin, Thymen Arensman, Remco Evenepoel, Benoît Cosnefroy, Tom Pidcock, Mark Cavendish, Romain Bardet
Sky seem to have adapted well to all the changes so far. They won't dominate forever but take away power meters, radios and reduce team sizes.. they'll still find a way to win.
Yes, Lappartient speaks of Sky's efficiency not exciting neutral fans (but some of us would agree), and also mentions some other factors which negatively affects Sky's popularity (but only stuff most everyone already knows - jiffy bags, parliamentary inquiry, etc).
On the other hand, he criticises ASO for trying to prevent Froome's participation, defends the UCI decision, and doesn't agree with the booing. Also, he says he is against a salary cap.
His waffling about possibly even smaller teams is stupid and I imagine will come to nothing, but I was glad to see his dept who will “analyse everything” may still review two-way radios, which some of us here would like to see go. Although clearly not Holm …...
Which is pretty much what I said over in the 'rate the tour', thread.
Lapparient is aiming to downsize teams, when he should be begging the ASO to downsize the Tour and spreading some of their investment across other ASO events.
Of course, that would probably mean them downsizing their bank balance, so it's never going to happen.
Still, it doesn't hurt to dream, though.
It needs more safe chaos. The first week everybody following on the stage threads were saying how formulaic it was. A faux break then action around 5K to go.
They did try no race radios in 2009 for two stages of the tour.
If the limit was 6, Sky could feasibly field a team comprising 1 leader plus 5 support riders who could be considered leaders elsewhere. I would hazard a guess that the average salary on the resulting team would be higher than with 7 or 8 riders (assuming that is a reasonable guide for rider ability). What other team could compete with that? And where's the space for the new riders in that scenario?
I think a lot of that would be solved by getting rid of full stage coverage and limiting everyone to a 45 minute highlights package...
I don't see a lot of evidence that it has got any more formulaic than it has been for the last couple of decades or more, it's just that now you (the royal you) can sit through an interminable 6 hours riding on flat roads then whinge about it online afterwards. Maybe ban twitter and forums as well
Ha. That's a fair point, oh well see you next year for the highlights:)
When Contador called for a ban of power meters there was perhaps more acceptance of the idea than now. I think all riders rely on them more than just a few years ago.
The problem with these propositions, besides there being some evidence they wouldn’t achieve the desired outcome of more exciting racing (e.g. the radio study by Professor Guegan), is that the UCI (or Lappartient pending his “attractiveness studies”) is just parroting suggestions from the peanut gallery, and mostly from the French peanut gallery at that.
I expect more from the UCI. If it was my job to propose ideas, I’d do better than this. I think any of us would. All the more so for Lappartient to try harder. We should be hearing innovative ideas that we hadn’t thought of, not these stale propositions.
Personally I'd like to see a further reduction in team size, say to 7. I don't know why some fans have a problem with this. I don't buy the "fewer young riders" line, they'll pick the best 7 or best 8 depending on how many are allowed. In any case it's a race not a charity to help young people get on in life - who cares if a rider is 22 or 44 why does that matter? It should also allow for more teams to enter.
I'd also like to see radios banned. Power meters I'm less bothered about, neither here nor there but it's notable running races don't allow pacing devices so it's not an absurd idea to ban power meters or at least a visible readout. The issue with radios is are they a safety device, some argue having all the DS yelling to get up the front makes racing less safe but clearly being able to communicate could be important say to warn of a dangerous surface, crash etc.
What running races ban pacing devices? I've never heard of that in any race!
Cycling has a long history of that, after they decided using a spotlight to ghost the previous hour record was considered cheating.
I tend to agree tbh.
Nibali crashed on a mountain finish.