shovelhd

I know you are being snarky and all, but they have a point. It's nothing against Doge and his priorities. His reasons are sound and in his kids best interest.

TheKillerPenguin

I know Nibali said they're not robots, but I'm watching this ITT and you can like totally see the battery pack on all of the riders' backs. If that isn't proof I don't know what is.

gsteinb

217

Enthalpic

I agree that the collegiate system should be focused on high-level development.

There could be an overlapping club system for those who think inclusiveness and social opportunities are more important factors.

revchuck 

I'm not sure that'd be a good idea. The model for that, at least in the US, is football and basketball, where athletes function as de facto university employees and pretty much attend class if they can find the time, and the system acts as farm teams for the NFL and NBA. My perception is that universities where cycling is a major sport have a more balanced approach...as in, they actually expect student athletes to attend classes and study. That would preclude using those schools as a farm system for pro cycling.

echappist

that's key. It's a zero sum game in the end, competing for a pie of finite size. Doge has every right to advocate that more share of it favors his kid, and Mikey and I have every right to advocate otherwise.


The "collegiate system," at least in the U.S., is a coalition of clubs who may receiving some nominal amount of funding from the affiliated universities. If anything, the ideal would be the British system where you have clubs awarding ribbons to the varsity level athletes, but that essentially is pretty close to what we have here stateside. Especially at the so-called "top-tier" schools, most of the participating athletes got in because of academics but have enough interest and genetics to reach the upper echelons. In Doge's world, the athletes get in mostly because of athletics, and the academics will be lacking for many of the recruits. This is a perverse peculiarity of the U.S. collegiate athletic system, and I'm all for not having more sports fall under such a system. My friends and I are not jocks, and it's doubtful we'd even feel welcomed in such a setting.


Places like Mars Hill and Marian have teams comprised of pro cyclists anyway, so i'm not sure if they are really "farm teams."

revchuck 

@echappist - Didn't know that, thanks.

spectastic

Monsieurs,

I do not possess le TV, but I would like to watch le tour. where on le internet can I watch le stages for FREE**********?

echappist

opps, i should clarify this a bit better. Taking Marian 2014 women's team as an example, of the seven riders who lined up for the collegiate championship, 2 rode for UHC that year (Rivera and Allie Dragoo), 2 for Farm team elite, 1 for Pista Elite. So two pros, 3 semi-pros.

On the men's side, for those in the top30 and from a school with varsity squads, Griffin Easter, the winner of the road race, rode for Fort Lewis and Airgas outside of school, ditto for 3rd place Zach Noonan, 4th place (and this year's collegiate crit champ) rode for Marian and Bissell development, 7th for Lindenwood and Jelly Belly, 8th for Marian and a lesser known devo squad, 10th for Lindenwood and Astella, 11th for Lindenwood and lesser known devo squad, 25th for Fort Lewis and Airgas, 27th for Lindenwood and lesser known devo, and 28th for Marian and Bissell. As an aside, what this also means is that some cyclists on club teams finished higher than pros and semi-pros.

It just seems that the varsity team isn't so much a farm team as the riders are "developed" elsewhere or are otherwise pros.

Which lead us back to why I (and perhaps Mikey) oppose top tier talent development as the main purpose for collegiate cycling . Assume that the goal of collegiate cycling as a whole is to "develop" top tier talent, it would obviate the need to have competition for anyone but cat 1 and 2 rider only (and perhaps some really young cat 3 riders). This would essentially be the collegiate A field as it currently stands, with everything below left to a club squad if there happens to be one. Furthermore, grad students, who make up a sizable portion of collegiate cyclists, would probably not be able to participate as they'd be deemed "too old" to be development material.

This would be the antithesis of the current model, which encourages participation of everyone, from beginners all the way up to the people who may have a pro or semi-pro contract outside of school. While not common, we have people who rose from the intro level to the upper level after 3-4 years of hard work, and much more common are people who went from cat-D (cat 5 eq) to upgrade to cat-B (cat 3/4) or cat-A (cat 1/2/3) field. Ultimately, this encourages more to get involved in the sport and grew the sport from bottom up, which in the long run would be better than focusing on the top level talents alone.

echappist

Sir,

If i recall correctly, you have a decent paying job as a petroleum engineer. I will let you know where you can steal stages of le tour for free as soon as you tell me how I can tap into a gas pipeline for free oil.

Yours truly

spectastic

they have those in mexico. the cartels are branching out their business, you'll like it. and I don't work in oil/gas anymore. **** oil/gas

echappist

Steephill

though really, for $5/month you can tunnel to another country with publicly accessible coverage (France, Netherlands, Italy, Australia, etc) and get much better coverage

spectastic

I'll give you $10/month, with benefits.

rideaz

I couldn't find it anywhere for free I ponied up the $30 for NBC sports coverage for the month. I can't always watch stages live, and have some traveling coming up, so this is nice because I can replay the stages I miss or just look at highlights. It's the only TV related thing I have paid for lately, we cast everything else for free.

echappist

VPN to England/Ireland is $5/month; Eurosport is like $8/month. You can pay me $5 referal fee and pocket rest of the savings yourself

Eurosport has on demand coverage for 7 days after the live event.

rideaz

well, I guess I should have checked in here before I gave my credit card number :-/

Doge

Anyone know how that Cyrpto lock thing gets in? I have a pc I use for uploading (cycling video) outside the firewall that got all the files locked up. Took me a couple hours to clean things up, but I'm more wondering how it got in/on. Seems to use RDP or something. That could cause some real issues when using Sync software.

Doge

On the college thing again. My other kid played varsity and is trying out for club this fall. You can have both in a school. Club is just not usable to gain entrance. Varsity cycling may raise the bar in college, but more in youth as parents see cycling as an alternative sport to getting some college entry benefit. It's too hard to do well at a top school and be at the top in cycling, I don't think it would change much in college. This would take way longer to implement than could possibly help my kid. It could help grand children.

big john

Lately when I try Steephill/Eurosport at work I get pop-ups and crap I can't seem to get around. I was able to use it in the past. Help a dumb mechanic out, please

Homebrew01

AdBlock ?
https://adblockplus.org/

big john

I suppose it's worth a try, thanks. It's fun to show racing, especially sprint finishes, to people who barely know bike races exist.

abhirama

The Gallium Pros have an Alu rear triangle?

mattm

Not sure what that is, but it sounds like malware.

Does it say "pay $$ and we'll unlock your files"?

Most malware comes from porn sites and torrent sharing, I think.

mattm

Btw if anyone has an iPhone/iPad, I wrote a steephill app for it: Steephill.ios - Bike Race Live Streaming on the App Store ...

tetonrider

i think I'm dense....can't find the replay links on eurosportsplayer. Any tips?