Analysis: Professional Cycling Changing Part 2

This is the second installment of a two part series focusing on how professional cycling is changing and moving into the 21st century.           

            Investing in a professional cycling team is not a profitable endeavor. In an effort to do something about this, during the Tour de France in 2013 many of the World Tour teams got together and created a group called Project Avignon. This project has now morphed into Velon and is made up of 11 teams, all from the World Tour level. According to Velon’s website their goal is to “create a new economic future for the sport and bring fans closer to the riders, races, and teams – by working together and in partnership with others.” In essence, Velon’s goal is to make the teams profitable so that cycling will have a stable foundation and make the sport more popular. In this day and age money drives everything. Cycling is finally moving into the 21^st century and realizing that a sponsorship driven basis is not a solid foundation for running a team. Every year it seems there is a question on whether the World Tour will have a complete 18-team field, this year it will not. Velon is good for cycling and cycling needs Velon.

Analysis: Professional Cycling Changing Part 1

This is the first installment of a two part series on how professional cycling will be changing drastically in the coming years.

            There was a buzz heading into December as everyone anticipated the release of the preliminary report of the reforms that are set to change how the professional cycling season looks. The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), cycling’s governing body, created a Reform Commission to work on changing the calendar of professional cycling in order to make the sport more “entertaining.” This massive transformation, which focuses on the top tier of the sport, the World Tour (WT), is set to take place in time for the 2017 season, though all we have are a bunch of rumors, as the UCI has not definitively confirmed anything. Recently, the President of the UCI, Brian Cookson, elaborated that the process is taking longer than expected. That does not sound promising and as the 2015 season looks to get underway next month, is it too late for these changes to be implemented in time for the 2017 season and are all of them necessary?

Commentary: Chris Horner is Good for Airgas-Safeway and North American Racing

            Last week the young U.S. based continental squad Airgas-Safeway signed Chris Horner to a one-year contract. This signing dramatically changed the outlook of the 2015 North America racing season. Chris Horner is the 2013 Vuelta a Espana champion and oldest person to ever win a Grand Tour. Horner is not ready to hang up his wheels yet and since there was no place for him on a ProTour team, he chose to sign with a “small” US continental squad. This is not about whether Horner doped or not (many assumed he is rider #15 on the USADA Reasoned Decision), but how he is going to grow American cycling whether you like him or not.