Velochimp: Astrochimp on Cycling

The Tour of California bike race is in its second year and growing. Latest word is that the organizers want to grow the race to become a major Grand Tour. Of course with a successful bike race following the same format for two years in a row, the organizers have nothing to do but dream of ways to make the race grow. In the past thoughts of growing the race to step on the toes of the major Grand Tours would be met with scoffs, laughing or at least a “we can dream can’t we” type of response. Not this year though as cycling as a sport is at a major crossroads where everything is up in the air for its future.

The latest battle between the Grand Tour organizations such as the A.S.O (Tour de France) over Paris-Nice is bringing cycling to a stand still. The current situation is not good for cycling fans as all of the ProTour teams are being asked to support the UCI and not race in Paris-Nice under its new “open format” which must mean that Pro Continental or even club teams can participate (I wonder if I can get enough MaxPowerCycling guys ready in time). This is just the latest in the long line of spats between the Grand Tours and the UCI which deals who controls what and how much money each gets in return. These are central issues of money and power. The Tour de France is the big boy on the block and they can pretty much do what they want no matter what the UCI says.

Add to the ProTour vs UCI debate the numerous drug controversies and you have a sport that is not very stable. Operation Puerto and the constant headlines of cycling and drugs have had an unknown toll on sponsorship. Liberty Mutual pulled out last year as did Phonak. Other sponsors may have been scared off not wanting their company name to be associated with cheating.

Cycling’s long tradition and “Monument” races have kept the sport together. Races such as Paris-Roubaix, the Tour of Flanders, Liege and more are the Classics that every rider dream of as a kid and they provide great results year after year. These races are what makes cycling and despite the negative headlines the races seem to attract large numbers of spectators.

Not all of these races are untouchable though as the Tour de France lost some of its luster last year with the Floyd Landis drug controversy. The Landis situation would be bearable if the runner up were someone other than Oscar Perierro who was not really a Grand Tour contender and was only in second place because Landis’ Phonak team let a breakaway gain 30 minutes. Perriero will not be getting any more 30 minute breaks in the future, however he could turn out to be the Claudio Chiappucci of this decade. Chiappucci burst into the spotlight in the Tour de France in 1991 when a breakaway gained more than 10 minutes. Greg Lemond slowly reeled in all of the members of the break that included Steve Bauer and Ronan Pensec. So the Tour does bring out new stars from unlikely places and Perriero could go on to do great things.

The Giro D’Italia defending champ Ivan Basso is under a cloud of unprovable suspicion since no solid evidence was ever found and his name was dragged through the court of public opinion.

With all of these problems and the ambitions of several races in the USA there is a great opportunity to make cycling grow much more in the USA. The USA is as large or larger market than Europe. Many large companies that sponsor cycling are based in the US or at least have a major interest here. There are a large number of American bike manufacturers that are involved in top level cycling and there is a growing market for bikes and cycling related products. Many club level races have large fields especially in Cat 4 where most races such as Battenkill-Roubaix have their fields filled in a matter of minutes.

Cycling is getting bigger in the USA. Several races such as the Rochester Twilight Criterium have upgraded to UCI level races. The Rochester Crit brings in a huge number of non-cycling fans to downtown Rochester every year and this is in an area that has snow for 7 months out of the year (well not exactly 7 months of snow, but close).

With all of these factors is seems that cycling is growing the most in the USA. More money and more events could potentially help to draw top talent away from Europe and make the US Circuit more appealing to racers. The limiting factor would be tradition since most races such as the spring “Classics” have a long tradition that would be hard to compete against.