Originally Posted by DocRay
There is an excellent article about this in the back of Velonews this week. When I first joined a team, we had lots of tough love from the older guys about riding technique and what not to do in a race, frankly, what I see out there now would have gotten the sh*t kicked out of you after a race by older riders, they didn't tolerate this BS and course directors would ban riders.
The good news is that master's level is not like this, but the master's guys are a tougher bunch to beat.
Havn't read the article, however agree that there is certanly less emphasis on coaching and the club system today. Part of that I beleive is the recent trend towards new riders to be older, a lot of 5's in their 30's or 40's. They tend to either shun coaching or dont have the time due to other commitments in life.
In the past many more new riders were Jr's.
Another contributing trend has been the rise of masters racing. A lot of us who would have naturally gone into coaching are still selfishly training and racing into our 50's.