"PRO" Cycling Discussion

[JamieL]

There's only one team that pays their riders anything (Drapac have to, as part of being Pro Conti) and that's Avanti. Even then it's not a huge amount.

The trade off is they get to keep a whole lot of gear and sell it at the end of the season. Plus they the vast majority of the racing and training needs covered.

If they paid them they would not be able to provide anywhere near the support they do. And they would have to charge riders for a lot more. So in instances like this, getting a wage is a false economy.

Phil Gaimont covers this pretty well in "Pro Cycling on $10 a Day". Basically he set up a couple of other revenue streams, slept in his car or on the couch at friends places and hope that one day a WT or at least a Pro Conti team comes knocking.

[CulBaire]

Phil Gaimont covers this pretty well in "Pro Cycling on $10 a Day". Basically he set up a couple of other revenue streams, slept in his car or on the couch at friends places and hope that one day a WT or at least a Pro Conti team comes knocking.

Jamie, is it a good read?

[JamieL]

I really liked it but it's quite a particular style... I'd give it a go for sure if i were you

Here's the youtube link for Brandle's Hour Record for those looking for motivation for a turbo session

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYqVdAI-1zw

[djconnel]

Definitely read Phil Gaimon's book -- it's addictive, funny, well-written, and illuminating.

[djm]

Gaimon even had a few paragraphs on people misspelling his name, how well did you read the book JamieL?

[Stefano]

http://velonews.competitor.com/2014/10/ ... dal_351527

Whoosh. Any guesses who it is? It says lots of pro road and cyclocross...

[bearsdidit]

The entire Belgian National Cross Team.

[petepeterson]

Gaumont and Gaimons book's couldn't be more different....

[KWalker]

janez brajkovic to UHC. Nothing against UHC at all, but this is one of the bigger step downs that i've remembered in a most recent years

Nothing beats Lloyd going from Lotto to Jelly Belly and its not much worse than the number of other WT riders stepping down to a Pro Conti team.

A birdy told me two years ago that Janez was basically untouchable in the WT because he refuses to listen to coaches, overtrains, malnourishes himself to lose weight, and basically sacrifices his performance every year. At a point last year he was on twitter asking nutritionists for advice or racing on a no-carb diet when he had a full coaching staff at Astana. Supposedly he was making absolutely nothing there and was only on the team as he was buddies with some of the management that went over there from Radio Shack.

It will be great for UHC as they can keep their crit guys doing their thing that quite honestly, is boring as hell, and have a decent road team for the bigger Conti races they get invites to and the foreign races they have been going to but have been anonymous in (minus Langkawi).

The funny thing about UHC is the owner of the team also owns a local shop and tried to tell me last week that they're going to re-use a lot of the bikes from last season. Seems weird considering the budget you need at their level.

[boots2000]

Janez strikes me as being very much like Andy Schleck.

[scott91]

The entire Belgian National Cross Team.

Just a flashback to 2012 cross worlds....

1 Niels Albert (Belgium) 1:06:07
2 Rob Peeters (Belgium) 0:00:24
3 Kevin Pauwels (Belgium) 0:00:30
4 Tom Meeusen (Belgium) 0:00:34
5 Bart Aernouts (Belgium) 0:00:35
6 Klaas Vantornout (Belgium) 0:01:09
7 Sven Nys (Belgium) 0:01:11

[dereksmalls]

"Mertens, the report says, is suspected to have performed blood transfusions with ozone, which involves drawing blood, infusing it with ozone, and then putting it back into the body." Isn't this exactly what Kittel had done and got off claiming it was for an injury?

[luckypuncheur]

Yes, but it wasn't banned when Kittel did it. Interestingly, there are to my knowledge no known performance enhancing effects related to those ozone treatments.

[djm]

The entire Belgian National Cross Team.

Just a flashback to 2012 cross worlds....

And a flashback to 2012 road worlds..

1. Philippe Gilbert (BEL)

[kbbpll]

Why would anyone want to deliberately put ozone into their blood?

When infused into human blood, ozone produces reactive oxygen species (ROS) or free radicals,[15] an over-abundance of which is known to cause oxidative stress and cell damage, and is implicated in the progression of some degenerative diseases.