Dumb!

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Here's the short of it because I don't feel like typing a lot. Astana was thinking of sending Levi, Lance and Chris Horner to the Tour of Gila, a pretty old US Stage Race that takes place in New Mexico, for some last minute race training for the upcoming Giro.

Apparently, somewhere in the stupid UCI rule book they've decided to enforce a rule that seems totally retarded that says these guys can't race it because they are ProTour riders, but it's a Continental race. Or some shit like that. All the different levels of professional cycling take no less than a PhD in chaos theory to actually start to understand who is what and how it works.

The part about this that bugs me is it seems like the UCI is stepping in and saying when and where these guys are allowed to earn a living. Would Lance or Levi or Chris win the Tour of Gila? Who knows. It's certainly not guaranteed, but that seems the only viable reason that the UCI would be stepping in and saying now. I read this as the UCI saying, "You guys are too good, you can't go to that race, give those guys a chance." I may be wrong on that and honestly I hope I am.

If I am a guy racing for a smaller domestic team and I get the news that those three icons of US cycling are coming to the race I'm at, you best believe I'm licking my chops at my chance to beat them. That's a story for the grand kids, even if it does take place in New Mexico.

From a simple financial standpoint the UCI is really hurting a lot of people. Look at the turn out for the Tour of California. It was huge. Sure it was CA and there were a lot of big names, but I was there, and well over 50% of those crowds were there because it was maybe their last chance to get to see Lance race in person. I know it motivated me when trying to decide whether it was worth it to drive 8 hours to watch for 20 seconds. If Lance was there that race would have fan turn out like they'd never experienced. All the little towns in New Mexico that I can only assume are struggling with the economy would have a short but much needed boost in their economy.

This race almost didn't happen this year because of the organizers inability to secure a title sponsor. Luckily, SRAM stepped up and the race can go on. You don't think sponsors in the future would like to put their name on a race that Lance did? It'd make that sales pitch a whole lot easier.

Bike racing in America has been around for a long time, but it's not a secure sport by any means. The modern day races that come to mind are struggling to stay or have already been scratched off the calender. Anybody heading to Georgia this year? Didn't think so! We don't have Paris-Roubaix, the Tour of Flanders or any of those other European classics that versus cuts down to a convenient hour. What we've got are a bunch of small, but beautiful races that maybe in 50 years can make the cut for Versus "Cyclism Sunday" or "The Epic Cycle" or whatever it is they're calling it this year.

I don't know who's in charge of the UCI or where it's located but I think this is a stupid show of brute force. It doesn't accomplish anything and does a lot more long term harm than if the final podium at Gila was all Astana. Nobody wants to win a watered down Tour. It's not Carlos Sastre's fault that it happened to him, but it did. The Tour of Gila had the opportunity to have what's already an impressive field of domestic pros be three deeper. But the UCI put a stop to that. I hope that whoever wins the Gila this year won't be remember as the guy that won the year that Levi, Lance and Chris weren't allowed to race.