Pro Cycling needs an overhaul says Sir Dave !

Why do people keep saying cycling should be more like F1? It's a sport that risks falling apart at the seams.

edit: That has nothing to do with the actual comments in the article - will read after my exam which is up shortly. Just my reaction to the headline.

Macaloon wrote:

The_Boy wrote:

Why do people keep saying cycling should be more like F1?

Beats me.

Well played.

Is this so the audience (or Dave) can hear "Tinkov's* paying us twenty thousand Euros not to chase"-type orders? Perhaps we just shorten the stages to the 'important' bit - the finish - and just have a massed start 200m sprint and save everyone the time and effort? It would make the logistics a lot simpler, it would be easy to film and would get just about as much airtime as a full stage/one-dayer (in the UK at least). In order to get there, we could start be reducing the open stages and having smaller, pay-entry loops and circuit races. For those we can have a title sponsor that gets his name all over the jersey and do away with those pesky team sponsor logos .....

I couldn't give a hoot about radios and would rather do away with them; let the road captains and the individual riders figure it out.

*Example for illustration only. Other team bosses/DSs are available ;-)

100% agree with the plea for boredom, there's nothing like watching a race develop over several hours. Similar to the contrast between test cricket and a game that's played in pygamas. The Velon images, split screen and more data all add to our enjoyment, but I doubt they will bring a single new punter to the sport. I've loved the slow-mo HD images from the Giro, but what's made the race has been the racing, over a demanding and intersting percorso. The Tour seems increasingly to avoid difficult and narrow roads (with the exception of set-peice days on the cobbles etc.) and is far duller as a result, too big for Ventoux says it all really.

Cycling is fine and it does not need an overhaul... the radio thing is just ridiculous...

I really really don't like Brailsford... I really don't like anything about him... the things he says, his view of cycling, the way he looks (like the average white van man/London cabbie who is on a mission to run you over).

I hope he goes back to doing track things...

Just saying...

RichN95 wrote:

He's absolutely right. TV coverage is tired and the whole sport is clinging too hard to nostalgia. It's still a sport designed for selling newspapers.

Someone mentioned cricket above. That was a similar sport with it's staid traditionalists grumbling about Twenty20. But it was sport that was dying both financially and in popular support. Only England and Australia cared about test cricket any more. Twenty20 saved it. And it was also helped by inovative TV production which helped to involve the viewer.

Any organisation which clings to its history and resists inovation is doomed to fail.

The problem is that Twenty20 didn't save test cricket it further endangered it. Perhaps there is a market for short road races, but personally I don't really see it. I would rather watch the last two hours of a six hour road race than two hours of a two hour race, but each to their own.

Innovation for innovation sake is far more likely to cause failure.

ThomThom wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

Someone mentioned cricket above. That was a similar sport with it's staid traditionalists grumbling about Twenty20. But it was sport that was dying both financially and in popular support. Only England and Australia cared about test cricket any more. Twenty20 saved it.

... and now, still, only.. England and Australia care about cricket..

Plus India and Pakistan... but yeah, pretty much

Well I look forwards to cycling becoming a series of evening criteriums and track cycling events which is what the fans are obviously crying out for.

I think people who don't like to watch races, should watch something else, simple as that... it's not for everybody and it doesn't need to be.
I don't watch golf, yet golf seems to do OK without me

The epic proportion of some races is the only interesting thing about cycling... if races were full action 60 miles long, then folks would not aspire to ride the Etape du Tour or the many amateur events which are linked to epic races, because they would be no harder than your sunday ride. Brailsford is relatively new to road cycling... he doesn't understand road cycling... he has won a few races, but his connection with that world is pretty feeble

ddraver wrote:

With respect Ugo it's exactly that attitude that has to die. it is nothing more than snobbery. I suggested the Packer/Cricket combination becasue he did exactly that. Remove the snobbish old-empire (wacky stick! wacky stick!) attitude that pervaded cricket and make it a sport that everyone could enjoy watching. Given that cycling takes place is beautiful places, is very gruelling and is, basically, not too hard to understand it has the potential to be much more popular than it is.

edit - I agree about shortening the races though - but even then it's the first 30 mins that we need to see, not the 2 hours before an inevitable sprint finish

The TdF is the biggest sporting event which is run on a yearly basis, in terms of revenue... is that not successful enough for you? Do we need Brailsford great ideas to make it bigger?
Shorten the races or even the stages and there won't be much selection and even fewer breakaways. A 120 Km Paris-Roubaix with 28 Km of pave' could easily be won by Kittel or Cavendish, who have nothing to do with that race. Personally I think PRo cycling is already too easy... technology and training have moved on and races have become easier... if they can average close to 40 Kmh on a mountain stage it means it's too easy... too many riders are still in the first group on the last ascent... sometimes as many as 50... means it's way too easy. In the good days maybe you had 5-10.

Flat stages are boring? Indeed they are, you need the terrain and/or the weather, otherwise it is bound to be boring... however they are already reducing them... in the 90s the Tour de France was a long flat course in between Alps and Pyrenees, now it's no more.

ugo.santalucia wrote:

ddraver wrote:

With respect Ugo it's exactly that attitude that has to die. it is nothing more than snobbery. I suggested the Packer/Cricket combination becasue he did exactly that. Remove the snobbish old-empire (wacky stick! wacky stick!) attitude that pervaded cricket and make it a sport that everyone could enjoy watching. Given that cycling takes place is beautiful places, is very gruelling and is, basically, not too hard to understand it has the potential to be much more popular than it is.

edit - I agree about shortening the races though - but even then it's the first 30 mins that we need to see, not the 2 hours before an inevitable sprint finish

The TdF is the biggest sporting event which is run on a yearly basis, in terms of revenue... is that not successful enough for you? Do we need Brailsford great ideas to make it bigger?
Shorten the races or even the stages and there won't be much selection and even fewer breakaways. A 120 Km Paris-Roubaix with 28 Km of pave' could easily be won by Kittel or Cavendish, who have nothing to do with that race. Personally I think PRo cycling is already too easy... technology and training have moved on and races have become easier... if they can average close to 40 Kmh on a mountain stage it means it's too easy... too many riders are still in the first group on the last ascent... sometimes as many as 50... means it's way too easy. In the good days maybe you had 5-10.

Flat stages are boring? Indeed they are, you need the terrain and/or the weather, otherwise it is bound to be boring... however they are already reducing them... in the 90s the Tour de France was a long flat course in between Alps and Pyrenees, now it's no more.

The TdF might be big, but that is skewed by a lot of other cultural factors. The rest if cycling remains a minnow sport

I've already said I agree with you about the stage lengths, what needs to change the iis TV coverage of that stage, not the stage itself

Above The Cows wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Brailsford is relatively new to road cycling... he doesn't understand road cycling... he has won a few races, but his connection with that world is pretty feeble

With respect that's b*llocks. The man rode as an amateur in France for four years in his late teens/early twenties. He started on the road as a sportsman and only then moved to track cycling in management capacity because he realised that is where he had a better chance of kick-starting a concerted British cycling effort.

Like his great role model, John Major, who also ran away from a circus to become an accountant, Dave has had his fair share of feuding in his teams about events in Europe.

RichN95 wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

The TdF is the biggest sporting event which is run on a yearly basis, in terms of revenue... is that not successful enough for you?

It really isn't not even close. The Superbowl, Champions League final and the F1 season absolutely crush it for a start.

They don't... the combined 3 weeks are worth more than the Superbowl... of course if you compare one stage only, then yes, of course... most one day mega events will surpass it

ugo.santalucia wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

The TdF is the biggest sporting event which is run on a yearly basis, in terms of revenue... is that not successful enough for you?

It really isn't not even close. The Superbowl, Champions League final and the F1 season absolutely crush it for a start.

They don't... the combined 3 weeks are worth more than the Superbowl... of course if you compare one stage only, then yes, of course... most one day mega events will surpass it

The ASO's revenue in 2012 was 166m euros for all its events (not just cycling). The 2014 Superbowl weekend brought in $500m

Source 1: http://inrng.com/2014/01/problem-revenue-sharing/
Source 2: http://www.thestreet.com/story/13135106 ... venue.html

Ugo - if you let go of the short stages thing, which seems to be occupying your mind, what do you think of the rest of the ideas?

If Bjarne had said them, would you think differently?