Sympathy for the Devil

I’m not an especially big fan of the UCI, but don’t let the apparel fool you—they’re far from useless. In the past two decades, the governing body has actually made some pretty solid steps for the sport.

When I began following cycling about a decade ago, most sponsors were essentially unknown to me—small French and Italian firms like Bonjour and Pata-Chips. But a concerted effort from the UCI to entice bigger, more secure, more international backers has lead to a host of brands I’d heard of before—Columbia, HTC, Discovery Channel, T-Mobile, Skype, RadioShack, Garmin, Transitions, Chipotle, to name a few—at least dabbling in the sport since then.

I got to guest post on The Selection today, and my basic thesis was that, despite the fact it means going slower and not winning, being a mid-pack racer is kind of awesome.

Further reinforcement of that theory from today’s Paris-Nice finish: it’s several hours later and the Twitterati still can’t believe it—Sammy Sanchez lost a heads-of-state sprint. Not only did he lose it, but he lost it to Andreas Kloden, who famously lost the closest (and most gangly-limbed) finish in TdF history back in 2005.

Craig Lewis is dead-on about the outright quality of Montepaschi Strade Bianche in his most recent Versus post. The race is sensational, but unfortunately, that’s why the UCI will likely do everything in its power to keep it out of cycling’s top tier for the foreseeable future.

Strade Bianche was founded and is organized by RCS, the Italian Media Conglomerate that owns the Giro, Milan-Senremo, Tour of Lombardy, Tirreno-Adriatico and (I believe) a few other notable Italian Races as well.

Despite the fact that they are not “true” classics, this past weekend’s racing at the Omloop and KBK marked the first time that (to my day-job addled knowledge) trade teams have taken each other on in a high-profile one-day event without the use of radio earpieces. And while I hesitate to view a single weekend in February as a referendum on the quality of the sport without radio earpieces, I’d have to say that if it was, the jury is very much still out.