The Mailbag is a regular department on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have read in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to webletters@insideinc.com. Please include your full name, hometown and state or nation. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Writers are encouraged to limit their submissions to one letter per month. The letters published here contain the opinions of the submitting authors and should not be viewed as reflecting the opinions, policies or positions of VeloNews.com, VeloNews magazine or our parent company, Inside Communications, Inc.

Live updates are great!
Editor,

Wow, what a stage today. Thanks so much for keeping it so exciting. I have given up the TV versions of cycling so reading aloud the live updates to my husband is too much fun. We are both 'senior' road cyclists.

Thanks again and keep up the great work!
Nolan Winkler
Hillsboro, New Mexico

McQuaid doesn't get it
Editor,

In his letter to the newspaper Le Monde that VeloNews posted Friday, Pat McQuaid makes a statement that I think exemplifies that he doesn't understand commercial, professional sport.

He says "ASO is resorting to blackmail by using the Tour, which teams feel obliged to take part in from a financial point of view, and forcing them to choose between their short-term interests (participating illegally in the Paris-Nice in order not to risk being excluded from the Tour) and respect for an institution which guarantees the long-term health of their sport."

What the teams are facing is the loss of their sponsors if they don't participate in the most highly visible events and thereby give their sponsors value for all the money they shell out.

If they lose those sponsors and the money they contribute the teams may well fold. The survival of the team is not a "short term interest," as Pat McQuaid puts it. The UCI does NOT guarantee the long term health of a professional cycling team, witness the demise of Unibet last year and the difficulties teams such as Astana and others are having this year with regards to being allowed to participate in some major events.

What does guarantee the long term health of a team is giving one's sponsors good return for it's investment, and at present ASO, Unipublic and RCS give teams the most media exposure — and to the market most sponsor's customer base is centered.

Previously, McQuaid has said he wishes to have ProTour races in Russia and China. How do sponsors like AG2R, Cofidis, Francaise de Jeux, etc. etc., benefit from the dollars they're spending being used to send teams into markets they don't sell in?

There just aren't enough global businesses interested in sponsoring a professional cycling team; even if all the drugs in the world were eliminated. Europe has the interested businesses and the market, that's where the money is for cycling, and again, we're talking about professional cycling — which is commercial, which is a product and we fans the consumers.

A big aspect of the war between the UCI and the organizers, the underlying basis of this war in my opinion, hasn't been touched on in a long time. It's been cloaked in the smokescreen of the fight against doping. It was this statement in the UCI's press release from the Sept. 2006 ProTour Council meeting:

"TV Rights and Production: as from 2009, the TV rights of all organizers with a license will be grouped and sold together with those of the UCI World Championships."

Pat McQuaid may claim it is commercial interests on the part of ASO that is causing the current crises and that probably makes points with those just recently tuning in to the conflict. The origin of the conflict itself goes back several years and was the UCI's attempt to become a commercial player itself.
Mike Turner
Greensboro, North Carolina

More on McQuaid's open letter
Dear Editor,

After reading Pat McQuaid's "open letter" to Le Monde I think he needs to be fired or executed. How naive to say that the Tour de France belongs to "those who love it" and the riders. What a crock of crap. It is a commercial sporting event owned by ASO for the profit of ASO.

Then to go on to say that ASO only cares about their interest whereasUCI cares about the interest of cycling in general and characterizing ASO as attempting to grab power while he threatens to punish riders competing in non-UCI events is one of the worst pot-calling-the-kettle-black examples I have seen in a long time.

While I recognize there is more going on than I know, McQuaid seems like
more of the problem than the solution. Somebody who could work with the
organizers would have a lot more luck than McQuaid trying to bully them.

Thanks,
John Eaton
Burlingame, California

Avoid the "Roller Ball Effect"
Dear Editor,

In my opinion there is an idea that needs to be published about UCI vs. ASO et al. The concept of sport and the concept of athletics as they are amalgamated on the stage for the spectator. Without recasting to suit a circumstantial agenda, check out the operational definition and meaning behind those two words “sports & athletics.”

When we appreciate this we can then go to understanding all of the goodness that has come from the marriage of sports & athletics especially in the genre of cycling. Profit, distinguishment, sharing of diversity, advancing science, industry, etc.

What is being contested in UCI vs. ASO et al is how to set the stage for the cycling endeavor. Will it be set strictly for the sake of athletic industry or strictly for the sake of sporting prowess? In my opinion athletics and sports in the 21st century are joined at the hip with a bond that Neils Bohrs once called complimentarity. This infers that persistent domination of one over the other will result in the demise of the pair. Cycling would be reduced to a spectacle similar to the “WWF”, or vice versa cycling could become a lawn sport like croquette.

Moreover, a dispute which in the end is a process of uncovering truth, is being used to defend the rare goodness found in the adopted ethics and mores which are held in the global group of cyclist’s. In this dispute discussion and argument are being used to advance the uncovering of truth.

Discussion and argument hold the use of rhetoric, politics, and persuasion, and it has no good outcome in skill at uncovering the truth. If we appreciate the images being cast of this dispute we see the UCI as a gold mining parasite on the back of ASO et al the greedy & belligerent ogre. Somewhat comical taken out of context, but in context we see the ways and means of the things that give the cycling endeavor life being trampled underfoot.

I refer to the riders and their support network, the fans. The investment of the fans in the encouragement of the riders should not be reduced to a pure commodity but respected as a worth even in a value exchange. The investment of the riders in the lifestyle and loyalty of their teams should be held in a similar way.

Considering all of this, I believe that all the riders and teams should express solidarity with the only leverage available to them that will preserve their status as persons. Otherwise, the fictitious “Roller Ball” effect could become authentic, with cycling competition reduced to the spectacle and the commodities that pay to participate in it.

Producers and consumers don't constitute champions. It is real authentic persons who are champions and the sport that holds their precious sacrifice and talent should be guarded and shielded from those who would spectaclize it. The UCI is the only shield out there right now. The really authentic problem is framed by Riders/Teams vs. UCI, with ASO et al vs. UCI simply gorging on itself as legal fodder. I urge all fans, riders, and teams, to support the UCI and preserve our cycling endeavor.

Later on, if there are issues with UCI change it from within and make our shield more functional.
Brian Faulds,
Macon, Georgia

Tour de USA
Dear Editor,

Until the ASO/UCI spat resolves here's an idea for the 2009 calendar: Schedule the three week-long US tours back to back, with the rest days as transfer days. Tour of Missouri for the first week, Tour de Georgia, week two, and Tour of California to finish up. (Sorry, but the Seaside to San Luis Obispo stage is just too beautiful not to be in the final week.

We Americans are getting pretty tired of Old World diversions from the sport. The presumption of the best interests of the sport is too subjective to allow a fair decision. It is now clear that the personalities imagine themselves to be more important than either the competitions or the traditions of the sport. Let's just race until the whining is over.
Michael Munro
Lansing, Kansas

Riders: Get behind the UCI
Dear Editor,

"Power struggles be damned — everyone here just wants to race their bikes."

Well, if all the riders don't get behind the UCI on this one, then next race or next year it could be the ASO won't let THEM race their bikes. They had their chance with Paris-Nice to get the ASO back in line so that it's fair for everyone, and now they've screwed it up ... AGAIN.

I'm fed up with pro cycling at this point. There's no fairness to be found, and the riders are cutting their own throats. If I were a sponsor, I know I'd put my money elsewhere — where I KNEW for a FACT that my team would be included in the major races. Why put my money on the line in a gamble that my team will be allowed to race? The riders should have seen this and collectively boycotted the Paris-Nice race. It would have only taken the one time to get ASO to back off.

Shame on the cyclists that are racing Paris-Nice.
Becky Stanley
Lanett, Alabama

Pots and kettles ...
Editor,

It seems to me that it is ASO that is fighting to maintain the balance of power between teams, riders, event organizers and the Union. The UCI isn’t trying to balance power, as McQuaid is quoted in saying. Rather, McQuaid and the UCI want ALL the power.

Without ASO the future is an ever more powerful Union who dictates who rides, with whom, when and where. Every argument McQuaid has voiced through the press seems disingenuous to me as the UCI seems more guilty of the evils McQuaid says he’s fighting than ASO.
Paul Hardin
Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Volunteering pays off
Editor,

I thought I would share a fun story about how it pays to volunteer. I volunteered for the Tour of California. My task was to pick up the teams from the airport and deliver them to the hotels, prior to the start of the prologue.

A funny thing happened the first day. We picked up Team Credit Agricole, based out of France. When we dropped them off at the hotel, I asked if they knew the local rides. None of them had been to California before! Ignatas from Lithuania spoke English, but the rest did not. So in my broken French, I tried to explain to the team manager where to go and which roads NOT to ride on. He surprised me when he asked if I rode and if I could take them on a training ride … in one hour. He used the universal signal for a “nice pace to loosen their legs”… only 1.5-2 hours…

SURE! I figure a “nice pace” for them is aggressive for me, but I am IN! So this is the story of how I led Team Credit Agricole on a training ride. I rushed home through traffic, grabbed my gear, and was ready to ride. I pulled up, took my bike off the car, and we just rolled out.

Patrick Halgand and all others were leery of me initially, probably checking out my line. After a few miles, it was fine. The initial pace was hard (with me at the front), then I peeled off and rode in the back of the bus! This was much better. I would just yell out turns in French and chat with the team. We spoke French as we rode through the Portola Valley, past Eric Heiden’s hill, Larry Ellison’s house and through Woodside.

They reminded me of the French word for horse, and asked numerous times where Jennifer Anniston lived (umm…that is “southern” California, which is 7 hours away by car).

Even though I am comfortable racing in groups, I was actually nervous riding with them because I did not want to be the American to take one of them out with a biking skill faux pas. When we got back to Palo Alto 30 miles later, I took them on a Tour of Stanford campus, including a team picture at the Stanford Church! No, I did not get in the picture with them, but I should have! What a day!

Cheers,
Paul Besser
Sunnyvale, California