Re:Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much F...
by ekianjo on Friday July 20, 2018 @11:19PM
(#17580529)
The easiest way to remedy all the cheating with bikes and equipment in cycling would be to PROVIDE official bikes the equipment every single day, and make it rotate randomly. Otherwise, you are always playing catching up to discover the latest tricks they devised.
Re:Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much F...
by nradov on Saturday July 21, 2018 @12:08AM
(#17580639)
That would wreck the economics of pro cycling because most of the teams are partly sponsored by bike manufactures. Those manufacturers want to be exclusively associated with particular winning teams for marketing purposes.
Re:Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much F...
by ekianjo on Saturday July 21, 2018 @09:27AM
(#17581898)
So what? We have to be afraid of changing stuff because the current statu quo of pro cycling would be affected? That's a pretty weak argument.
Re:Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much F...
by saon on Saturday July 21, 2018 @12:37PM
(#17582562)
Motorsport is sort of similar where manufacturers build cars and there are independent regulations about the cars that define a class. There are spec racing series confined to single cars with very limited additions (safety) that are more oriented towards the driver in terms of competition (spec miata and spec bmw come to mind), but any international world champion type of sport is probably going to require enough monetary backing that manufacturer and aftermarket sponsorship is required to even afford to compete in the first place.
Re:Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much F...
by nradov on Saturday July 21, 2018 @02:04PM
(#17582987)
I don't think you understand how pro cycling works. Unlike other pro sports, cycling teams can't really sell tickets to spectators. Most of the revenue comes from sponsors for marketing purposes. So any change that makes it less effective as an advertising channel is a total non-starter.
Re:Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much F...
by teddyh on Saturday July 21, 2018 @07:58AM
(#17581707)
> make it rotate randomly
In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6.
“What are you doing?”, asked Minsky.
“I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe” Sussman replied.
“Why is the net wired randomly?”, asked Minsky.
“I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play”, Sussman said.
Minsky then shut his eyes.
“Why do you close your eyes?”, Sussman asked his teacher.
“So that the room will be empty.”
At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.
(http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/koans.html#id3141241)
Or, in other words, making something random does not make it fair; it is still just as unfair as before, only unpredictably so.
There were limits then and there have been limits since. No fairings. How long your helmet can be. I have a vague recollection about them banning inserts in your clothes (no teardrops for your calves, no articulated helmets or dorsal fins).
[edit: and apparently disc brakes were just approved last season]
These days Lemond is watchdogging for electric motors hidden in the bikes. Which is a side effect of trying to fix two other problems. First, PEDs aka doping. Second, paying to win.
The exotic materials some teams could afford resulted in light bikes that other teams couldn’t approach. They set a minimum weight for bikes, which meant you either put heavier equipment on the bike (eg, torque gauges in the rear hub) or you loaded weights into it. Or you hid a flashlight battery and a tiny 20 watt motor in the bottom bracket...