Finally a Non-Doping Cycling Controversy

The latest cycling controversy has nothing to do with anything that can be put in your body to help you perform better. Well, that's not entirely true. Radio ear pieces are inserted into your ear and without them as a modern day rider you probably perform less efficiently.

As most are aware the UCI wants to ban the use of two way radios used by riders and their directors in professional cycling. This year they have instituted a ban on the radios at all but the largest races and the riders are not happy about it. Most of them cite safety concerns about being alerted to road conditions and other crap like that. But, let's face it, most of these guys have matured through the professional ranks with someone in a team car, watching the race feed on a tv, telling them exactly what's going on. I don't have any specific statistics to back it up, but I'd be willing to bet way fewer breakaway attempts succeed these days because the team directors can tell their boys exactly how fast to ride to catch the break inside the final kilometer. This is insanely valuable information if you're the guy/s who is/are assigned to lay down a pace that will ensure the break gets caught. You don't want to catch them too quickly because other attacks will get launched. You don't want to leave it too late, because, well, you lose. Without a team director in a car with a calculator and a radio you've got to send a guy back to that car to try and find out this information. The riders can give me all the lines about safety they want, I'm not buying it.

But, the real concern here shouldn't be safety or the dissemination of information. The real concern should be what long term affects this fight between the riders and the UCI will have on the sport. We've already seen our first protest by the riders at the Mallorca Challenge. They all defied the rules by using radios and the UCI fought back by neutralizing the stage and not recording results. Tyler Farrar won the bunch sprint, but without real results he basically won a group ride on closed roads. Minus the closed roads, I now have something in common with Tyler Farrar.

On twitter this morning Robbie Hunter writes that the UCI will lose the fight. But, I'm not so sure. The UCI is nothing if they aren't stubborn and I think we can clearly see with their constant denial of ever doing any wrong and their need to always be the ones dictating policy, I don't know that they'll ever back down.

The way I see it the two sides both have these chips to play. Riders can continually defy the rule by wearing radios. Which, they've already shown is sort of a weak hand to play because even after their first little exhibition at the Mallorca Challenge they already folded for the rest of the race and will not use radios out of respect to the Mallorca Challenge fans and race promoters. At the Tour of Qatar, same thing. Riders were going to protest and then the chest beating ended when a punishment that nobody was really willing to chance was laid out in front of them. Every time the riders decide they want to protest by using radios, the UCI, who has the power here, can simply lay out some harsh punishment and call everyone's bluff.

The real test is going to be for much bigger races with a larger viewing audience and much more prestige to the winner. Sure Tom Boonen really likes being the winner of the Tour of Qatar, but I'm sure he'd trade every Qatar victory for just one more Paris-Roubaix (They can use radios at Roubaix). Criterium International and Ghent-Wevelgem are both big races where radios are banned. Player lockouts and strikes happen in other sports all the time. Maybe a unified rider strike at either of these races would get the point across. But, it just seems apparent to me that as soon as riders stop racing big time races over something as frivolous as the use of radios, sponsors start fleeing and taking their money elsewhere.

We've already seen big time teams struggle to find title sponsorship and with the other controversy that is consistently hanging over the sport like a black cloud, who in their right mind is going to pony up a few million bucks just to have their logo on the butt of some cyclist planted firmly on the ground?

I'm not saying the riders are completely wrong. And I'll admit this opinion completely omits a larger problem that the radios are really just a piece of the total problem. The UCI is basically a tyrant writing new rules without consulting the constituencies they represent. But, in the end, like most things, it's going to come down to money. If the riders stop racing their bikes I hope they all have some other form of gainful employment lined up because the money that feeds them is going to dry up pretty fast.

And, while I clearly think the safety argument from the riders is stupid, I'm not in favor of the ban. I actually think Craig Lewis has the best idea.