No Team Cars?

Raam

http://www.cervelo.com/en_us/news-blog/article/cycling-vehicles-the-solution-part-1/2761/

In a recent blog, Gerard Vroomen of Cervelo, suggested the following changes to cycle races...

OK, so the problems with race vehicles should be clear from the yesterday's post. The solution is pretty simple: Get rid of most of them. I would propose four steps:

Step 1: No more team cars.

1. It makes no sense to have 20 or in Grand Tours 40 cars drive the entire route to hand out food & drinks and the occasional rain jackets, give tactical advice and assist with mechanicals. Yep, I am wearing a bullet-proof vest while I type this.
2. Food & drinks could be done by neutral support vehicles (of which you would then need far fewer).
3. Tactics could be done either by having the riders decide it all for themselves or through radios (I'm not getting into THAT debate this time).
4. Assistance for flat tires would be given by neutral support, just as it happens today. Same for small problems and adjustments. If you break your bike, you're out (unless you can find a local blacksmith to weld your carbon bike back together).
5. Not only does this mean we can clean up the race, it also incentivizes teams to use equipment that can take a beating, and it forces equipment suppliers to focus their efforts on reliability instead of stupidity. Imagine the technology that could be developed in that case and go straight into the market for regular consumers (who also have to survive without a team car for assistance).
6. If we decide there is some reason sports directors should talk to other sports directors or riders, why would you put them in a car with its bumpy ride and bad reception anyway? There is no advantage to being "in the race" if that means looking at a team car in front of you and a team car behind you. They rarely get close to the riders and when they do, that's exactly when the problems occur. Put them in a central location, with good TV access, good communication tools and even the chance for the media to interview all of them during the race. THAT's entertaining.

His fifth point is actually the one that I find most interesting.

mgmt

To put the above post into perspective:

I see four major problems with all these cars:

1. It endangers the sporting value of the race (ha!) when you have the sprinters hang on the cars for dear life as they did up Etna.
2. It endangers the sporting value of the race (ha! ha!) when the combination of team cars, VIP cars, motorcycles and assorted other transportation regularly hinders the riders, especially on the bad roads of the classics and in the mountains. Many a breakaway attempt is foiled not by the other competitors but by a vehicle that is supposed to be a inert part of the race.
3. It's plain dangerous as sports directors often drive like idiots. Most countries have passed laws that make it illegal to talk on a cell phone while driving. Many sports directors do that while at the same time talking into the team radio AND watching television. They all think they're such great drivers and invincible, which makes matters only worse.
4. It kills any notion that cycling is an environmentally conscious sport (and cutting 300 trees for nothing doesn't help).

Tomorrow, my proposal.

To me the reasons he wants to get rid of the team cars are nonsense.

Hermy

Slightly off-topic but one change relating to team cars I'd like to see brought in immediately is that someone other than the driver be designated the job of handing out bidons, food, gillets etc. The risk to riders taken by DS's hanging out the the window while they negotiate hairpins is ridiculous and quite unnecessary.

ednwireland

4. Assistance for flat tires would be given by neutral support, just as it happens today. Same for small problems and adjustments. If you break your bike, you're out (unless you can find a local blacksmith to weld your carbon bike back together).

superglue

Lumen

It would finally kill off integrated seatposts. Hurrah!