Not on the bikes, not on team cars, but on TV crew - sure.

Maybe an exception for CAMs on bike controlled by TV crew.

But I crave randomness and creative racing again.

Creative racing doesn't sell hardware.

I wish all bike races were simply a bunch of guys on bikes, racing. Several months after the event was over, some magazine could publish a list of riders and results. Otherwise, no one but the riders would know it was even happening--they way it was meant to be.

Riders would need to carry all tools and parts, all food and drink, or buy what they needed roadside ... but vendors would not be allowed. Let riders use panniers or knapsacks like the rest of us have to.

If I rider was injured on the course ... well, hopefully another rider would notice and report it when the race was over. If not .... well people complain the teams are too big anyway.

And of course, riders would have to mine and refine their own ore, draw their own tubes, and build their own bikes. it might be tough for some riders to own and operate both smelters and rubber plantations, but if they want it bad enough ....

Even in Hemingway's day, teams used chase cars. The sport was already spoiled by then.

How about just no radios? It would make chatting breakaways much more important. Anyway, this is a slight tangent.

Bah. I say, bike racing would be more "pure" if they didn't even use bikes. All the modern technology just spoils the sport.

What a lot of people have said is that folks who want to see that st\yle of bike racing can simply watch any of the races below I think it is Pro Continental ... better still support the local cycling scene.

No radios, fewer electronics, at the lower levels.

Should the motos be allowed to display chalk boards with time gaps? Should all communication have to be done by shouting? These two are closely related, because race strategy often hinges on chasing the break, or not .... How exactly would racing be improved if teams had to chase every breakaway because once the break was out of sight, the peleton wouldn't know if they were 30 seconds or three minutes ahead?

On flat stages no one would even try to make a break, probably .... why bother? Then, flat stages would be dull all day long until the last ten k when some ridfers might try to escape----but they'd fail because the peloton was fresh---and then it would all be fighting for position for the sprint. Three minutes of action in a three-hour stage (in other words half as much as there is now. :) )

On climbing stages the GC leaders would all just mark each other until the very end of the final climb, and then try to attack ... but since everyone still had good legs, no attacks could succeed. Any team which did try to attack repeatedly would risk burning itself out and losing everything in the final few kilometers of the last climb. if a rider who was say, fifth in GC or something took a flyer, Every other GC team would crush it immediately .... so eventually every climbing stage would be a group of reasonably fresh riders trying to sprint for a K uphill on the last climb.

That would be great--every event could be covered from pre-race to summary to finish to interviews to post-race analysis, in a half-hour segment.

That is what "no radios" might look like.

(Didn't they try that during the Tour of Turkey for a few stages a few years ago? Basically, it didn't seem to matter much. Every stage has a different complexion from every other anyway .... )

Should riders be able to drop back to get bottles from the team car? Where does one draw the line? Obviously breakaways couldn't get bottles without team cars ... riders cannot drop back from the break to get supplies and then ride back into the lead.

Without speedometers and odometers, riders would have no idea how much of the stage was left and would be more likely to ride conservatively.

As I said, even in Post-War France team cars supplied the riders and told them intervals and such .... would it be that much different if the cars had to drive through the peloton more often, spreading information? I guess that depends on how much one likes cycling in crowds of cars.

To me the debate is similar to that concerning team sizes ... people say teams are too big for Grands Tours ... But there are the vast majority of events with much smaller teams, and they are not uniformly more exciting.

Similar also to the debate over parcours--a lot of epopel say stages are too long, and point to the one sucsessful short stage in this year's Tour. They seem to forget that other stage races have had short stages and nothing happened .... and that sometimes long stages are filled with action.

As i see it there are So many variables, from which GC contenders have crashed, to which young riders or new teams are suddenly hot, to who got lucky to not crash in the prologue or got hit with a mechanical in the first mountain stage or whatever ... Chris Froome attacking a on a Flat stage and taking time from the rest of the GC contenders .....

You cannot plan for this stuff. One year all the GC contenders (well Contador and Froome) might be gone in the first eight stages (Froome in five I think) and the big three-way fight is suddenly Vincenzo Nibali cruising to a win. One year--almost by luck--Froome gets four minutes in the first several stages and no one can compete---and Sky doesn't need to compete because the race is over so long as Froome never races hard.

Just luck.

I really worry about micro-management ideas because it is invariably one person fixated on one aspect of a polyvalent equation, and changing, fixing, or eliminating that one variable never has the expected effect.

But ... I confess I would still watch all the races I could no matter what the rules changes, so long as A.) the riders are not doping excessively (I have zero hope for a "clean" sport because there is just too much money in the hands of too few) and B.) everyone has about the same bike.

One of the things I like best about cycling as a sport is that it is a naked competition, so to speak---the technology doesn't give any advantage---unless you have Dr. Ferrari and the U.S. Postal System stocking the medicine cabinet. it is all about Human competition, and the bike is just a small part of that. it shows what each individual and each team can do--you can see their faces, their body language, you can see that they are actually making efforts or saving energy, strategizing and making tactics ... battling psychologically as well as physically.

So long as there is a level playing field, the sport will appeal to me.

Yup. I love the 'ban power meters!' crew. They claim that the technology ruins racing somehow and that they would like to see races without them. Yet they only tune in to the Tour de France. And complain it is boring. All the while missing the tons of other exciting races that occurred throughout the season (with radios, power meters and everything.)

What a thread.

Some people are faster than others. Most slow down with age. I ride with a couple ladies that will tear your legs off....and they aren't all that "young" either.

Genetics are a cruel mistress.

This is my favorite thing to do when I pass someone in full kit on a nice bike :p

Anyway I love getting passed because it allows me to give chase and steps up the bar for my own goals. The other day I was doing a short climb at 80% effort on the road and a 14yo(?) kid paced me on the sidewalk. I though it was great and congratulated him on the effort (pretty sure he was on a single speed bmx). We exchanged brief pleasantries as he smartly stopped for the red light and turned back to his peers as I continued on.

Rule 38 infarction.
Reported

Velominati ? The Rules

Most Saturdays as an old come backer, I enjoy a B ride with a local club. It's gotten more like a B+ ride with 4 of us pushing and breaking away. For a couple of months I was just a wheel sucker. Riding and pushing has really helped my fitness and recently I started to take a turn pulling. This last Saturday I was up front chugging at 21-23mph and feeling very good about myself and my 65 year old body when out of nowhere this 20 something chisled angel of women blew by us, smooth as silk. Well I started after her, legs burning, 25 mph, heart exploding 26-27 mph (I think we are gaining I thought). Just than I heard from the back "Forget it she one of the area's top triathletes"........as Client says "A man's gotta know his limitations"....O well.....

I drove ~1,300 miles this weekend.
I got passed a lot, I also passed.

Some cars speed up as they are about to be passed.
I think because I had an ugly rental car it was more offensive to some I passed them, as they did not expect me to.

Then the real fast cars, that were not going that fast, didn't seem bothered at all.
They were in fuel saving mode - Zone I.

I love that.
I got very used to Autobahn driving. But our laws are different. We really don't teach etiquette on the road.

I have no apologies for passing those parked in the left lane.

If we could actually teach these morons to drive, we may actually be able to entertain the thought of higher speed limits.

Higher speed limits are bad for the environment.

That's true. We don't want the environment to spend too much energy by going faster. The environment can go 55 like the rest of us.

With the explosion of ebikes, seems getting passed may happen more often.

Anything the reduces changes in velocity is better. That is where a lot of energy is used.
Flow vs acceleration/deceleration is better. No speed limits, no stop signs, no stop lights can make things less energy wasteful. Replacing stop signs and lights with traffic circles and yield signs.

Got news for ya....there's always someone faster.

Draft her & enjoy the view is my advice lol

Matt

I think I got passed only once by a women when commuting by Citibikes on hudson river greenway, we might have passed each other back and forth a few times because I dart around joggers/slower cyclist/turning vehicles instead of slowing down. But she eventually pulled ahead of me, and with the limited gearing of these SUV of bikes, I had to let her slowly pull away. That happens with men also, but in general, if I do pass them, they usually charge back with a vengeance, passing me at such speed in which I cannot catch a draft, and then settle to a slower speed in which I can keep up with them at a distance, and maybe slowly reel them in. The women I pass, they either don't have their ego bruised and insisting on passing me back, or when they did, it wasn't a sprint pass me. I myself being over 50, and only rides Citibike for commutes, can't complain when more serious riders pass me. But using them as rabbits to chase is the only way for me to step it up given the complete lack of speed/cadence/watt monitoring on these bikes.

Samsung make ebikes?

May be...

:D

You can already see it and it is only going to get more common. People making sure to tell us stories of being passed only to catch up and realize it was an e-bike, that is. The new 'I was on a recovery ride.'

Most have been an e-bike, how else could they keep up? I was going 18mph.