Dave Mayer above has it right. Does anyone here even remember what races used to look like?

It goes back to what I said much earlier. The new rule is pros only race a max of 85 days a year. With injury list, scheduling, transportation, most are only racing 70 or 75 days. Less than half the schedule they used to ride. Do you think maybe this might change race tactics? Duh.

Current races tend to look like a criterium or even a miss and out for six hours. Of course a tightly packed field goes fast. It's also dangerous and limits the possibility of doing anything else.

With only 70 race days each rider has to impress the director sportif and the sponsor each and every time out. The pressure to perform is extreme. And of course the riders are all more rested than they used to be.

Riders used to race very day in season. Or at least five days out of seven. In late season lots of riders would race two crits a day. This just does not happen any longer. It was a job. get up in morning and race. The riders knew each other and it was a fraternity and a craft guild and they knew the men they raced with. They knew each other's families. Now they only know their own team. The long hours at piano pace with lots of socializing in the field just do not happen now. Of course they go faster. It has less than nothing to do with the equipment and the sales pitch for the equipment. It is a matter of how the sport is structured.

Predictive typing keeps changing director sportif to English spelling. It's like the forum is hostile to the sport.