seppomadness

Hello. Looks like someone is finally listening to us.

Ban dem radio biatches!

Ok so its only in the U23 but still its a victory for common sense.

Dubbayoo

I think there should be one "throwback" classics race where radios are banned. Go back and figure out what it was like to rely on actual tactics. If you don't want to ride w/o radios just don't race but if you do this race you know radios are banned. If a team gets caught using radios ban the team from the race for the next two years.

svbiker

I think that is a great idea you are a pro negotiator haha but which race ?? any classic race?

TRaffic Jammer

Cool... I likey

waterrockets 

nice

EivlEvo

Does this mean the true domestiques are coming back? ie... having the team cars getting updates via media coverage on whats happening and when the domestiques come back to get food and water and such they tell them the info and they ride up with their strategies.

Thats hustler.

carpediemracing 

Baden Cooke tells a story of some pro rider's last race in Australia (I think the racer was retiring). Cooke was riding without a radio and didn't know who was up the road - some break was up a minute or so and didn't seem to be coming back, and lots of guys were riding so it wasn't like the field was just sitting around.

Cooke asks the soon-to-retire pro if he knows who's up there (the pro was in the leader's jersey of the stage race). He figures the leader of the race will have a radio and will find out by putting his hand to his jersey, leaning over, and asking the question into his mic.

Instead he stands up and rockets away, breaking away from the field. After a couple minutes he comes back, a little winded but definitely not hurting, and reels off a list of numbers to a very surprised and awestruck Cooke.

I have a love/hate relationship with radios. When they first came out, I tried to make my own with FM broadcasters and transister radios (FM of course). The USCF promptly made them illegal for races below Cat 2 so that project got junked. So I have to say that I'd prefer to have a radio for myself.

However, I've seen some really funny (to me) confrontations between teammates over radio air time, usage, what to report, and why they didn't mention that break of 8 that lapped the field until the break lapped the field (or whatever). I also see some of the stupidest tactical moves made based on observers on the sidelines.

I also don't like when pros, with 2 k to go, in a two man break, radios back to his director for instructions. Like wtf, it's one on one. If the director has something to say, he'll say it, but don't go crying to mama every time you're in a tactical situation. You need to be able to at least figure out what to do in such a tactically simple situation.

Finally I like hearing the directors leaning out the windows with megaphones yelling at their riders. That advice is interesting to hear because it's what they want to tell their rider. I like to hear if they're telling the truth or not, what sort of things they yell, etc. Plus it makes for cool pictures.

Since I can't use radios I can't really say if radios really would have helped me or make racing safer or whatever. But I think racers having to read their own races, or at least a delay in figuring out who is where, makes racing more exciting.

I'd prefer if there was no radios.

cdr

AlexTaylor

+1 for no radios, then you might get, for example, on stage races, a challenger for the lead sneaking away in a break etc...

waterrockets 

awesome

Voodoo76

A great day for cycling!! Funny things happen with radios and robot racers. My biggest dislike in the radio era is so many breaks miraculously caught with 1K to 2K left.

Bobby Lex

I agree in principle with all of a comments above, BUT....

The problem is that this is really a communications issue, not a radio issue. And I'm confident that clever teams will find alternative means of communicating with riders that will subvert any 'no-radio' rule.

Bob

YMCA

As an amateur stage racer, we used radios for important stuff, like flat tires, crashes, feeds, etc. NEVER did we get tactics dictated to us from the car.

Pro Tour is obviously a bit different with live TV in the front seat, but radios are still used mostly for the same things we used them for.

Keith99

Depends a bit on which communications. Teams will find a way to let riders know who is where on the road. At least for off the front. I think trying to prevent that is a very bad idea, it will work to a degree, but the net effect will be to give better funded/supported teams get an unfair advanage. But trying to cut the 2 way tatics discussion may be a better idea.

bdcheung

They make them in carbon fiber, too, though everyone knows 'steel is real'

ezoons

Funny how that "someone" is a blown-up bureucratic body, led by a hawkish loudmouth, unable to control its key subordinates, and with a rather dim future.

A victory indeed.

carpediemracing 

I was driving along and the pro's name came to me. Patrick Jonker.

The interview with Cooke I can't find.

cdr

botto 

was this when he was doped to the gills?

rockabilly808

I don't give a crap about this subject.....

carpediemracing 

Prob not. 2004. I think he was "past his prime" so it's doubtful. I think there was a whole "looking out for one of us" thing with the various flattering things every said and did for him in his last race. The whole Cooke story could have been a fairy tale but it's still a good story

cdr

Dubbayoo

I vote Flanders or M-SR.