Sometimes I wonder should we go to basics in many sports.

With things like banning any equipment including clothing and shoes... Or with cycling giving one standard mass manufactured piece. And then a pile of standard replacement parts and standard tools. All bought from cheapest supplier randomly distributed to participants.

How 'spartan'...

That aside, regarding cycling, standard mass manufactured piece? In one size that all have to fit to?

Naa...

Lookup Japan's Keirin racing. I think it's pretty much that. IIRC at the top levels they also require the racers to stay onsite under observation for several days before a race.

That would essentially kill cycling as a professional sport. Much of the team revenue comes from equipment sponsors. And while many of the equipment innovations get a bit ridiculous, some of them have really benefitted amateur cyclists. I would hate to still be stuck with a 10-speed drivetrain on a steel tube frame with mechanical friction shifters just because that was "standard".

You saw this with cyclecross bikes for a long time. I had a beautiful cyclecross bike that I rode everywhere and I loved that bike but the cable-pull brakes sucked - like rear-end a car in traffic bad. Nobody made a cyclecross bike with disc brakes until the UCI allowed them in competition; now they all have disc brakes. Same for the extensive use of carbon. Love it or hate it, carbon has fueled intense innovation that you can see on display in higher-end consumer bikes and, while I don't have it or want it, electronic shifting is crisp and perfect. I don't like yet another electronic device but for a weekend rider to never need to tune a mechanical derailleur again is a game changer - you know they already have their phone with them 24/7 (especially you, roadies)

I'd be perfectly happy on a steel tube 10-speed from 1975 if I was allowed a modern click shifter and modern disk brakes. Steel frame bikes are really nice, and 10 gears is more than you need anyway. Steel frame bikes from 1975 won't win you a modern race, but they won't be far behind.

Yes Steel is Real but the last Tour winner on a steel bike was in the '90s (and that's the subject). Bikes weigh no more than 8kg. The weight weenies are winning, carbon everything down to brake rotors.

> I was allowed a modern click shifter and modern disk brakes

Doubt you'd see a bike equipped with anything else at the Tour.

At the top level - which is pretty much the definition of a tour winner - grams make the difference between a win and loss, so of course they will not be riding steel.

I'm not at top level and never will be. If I want to go faster there are many things I can do that are more effective than playing what my bike is made out of.

Somewhat. UCI has a minumum weight (6.8kg) for bikes and often teams have to add weights to their bikes to hit the minimum limit. You easily get lighter bikes but your bike needs to be 6.8kg to be race legal. It certainly limits how many bits and bobs on the bike get switched over to using titanium or carbon fiber.

I'm not that deep into racing, but I'll guess that teams still want to be way under that weight so they can strategically place weight where they want it.

They may want it, but the technology only recently converged to the point where you can have an aerodynamically optimized bike under the limit weight. Before that there were special lightweight ones for the mountain stages and heavier but aerodynamically faster ones for the flatter stages. Most teams still got these two, plus of course another bike for time trial, because time trial stages are not mass start and the bikes and rider positions can be even faster and less safe there.

Some bikes are over the minimum weight, by a wide margin, and rode by the race leaders too.

You can make a steel frame bike which will be lighter than the UCI weight limit with modern technology. It's just nobody cares to make one because the "unracer" crowd who believe steel frames are magic, won't be spending a couple grand on a light steel frameset and the actual racers are fine with the carbon frames, where it's much easier to control properties of different parts of the frame through fiber layout.

What I want as a non racer is different from what racers want so I prefer a cheaper steel fram, as the gains from an expensive one won't be worth it.

of course the above is a guess, if someone makes such a frame I may try it and decide it is worth it.

Non-racers appreciate light and comfortable bikes too (if anything it's much easier to load a 20 pounds bike on a car/bus rack than a 30 pounds one), this is why carbon is now even in the midrange consumer segment. And with the tubeless tires even on the road bikes nowadays, the magical suspension properties of a steel frame are hardly noticeable over the effect of lower pressure in the tire. So I don't think steel frames are ever coming back.

That's not really true, if you can make a ultralight full-featured steel-framed bike there will be buyers. There is a not so small crowd of "weight weenies" and/or steel frame fans willing to spend big.

How do you know? Do you believe weight weenies are only into steel and this is why they don't buy ultralight carbon bikes (there are few under 3kg carbon/composite bikes that had been made but nobody bothers with industrial production of 100K bikes somehow).

3kg bikes are not practical. But I'm pretty sure a complete modern (electronic groupset, disc brakes) circa 7kg steel bike would find buyers, especially as titanium bikes still do find buyers even at prices and weights both higher than comparable carbon bikes.

You could buy a 5.42kg steel bike with a carbon fork in 2019 https://www.bikeradar.com/news/worlds-lightest-steel-road-bi..., given that a regular steel fork is about 800g, even if the original carbon fork is 0g, you can throw in a steel fork for total 6.2kg. Disc brakes instead of rim brakes would be another 200g. Something tells me those don't sell very well though and the company had not been updating this model ever since. Looks like they've done it for publicity.

It’s the same problem in golf. Equipment has gotten so powerful that the strategy of the game has fundamentally changed. They can not realistically continue to make courses longer. So they’re “rolling back” the ball which will limit drive distances a bit but nothing regarding clubs.

And the reason why is the pro game makes a lot of money on endorsements. If a top pro is forced to use a club that is different from what amateurs need then the gravy train could stop.

But yes, golf is really hard and for amateurs the innovations help make the game more enjoyable. But for pros it’s just too much.

It's impossible to take technology out of the equation. I.e. that one person may have superior insights in their physiology/glucose levels, or a superior diet before the race. And so on.

Similarly in football, by studying your opponents in previous matches, so that you can identify weaknesses during the match, even if playing in isolation.

I get what you're saying but a part of the culture in my experience is tinkering and upgrading your bike, that doesn't have to necessitate spending huge amounts of money, especially if you do a lot of work yourself and buy parts second hand. The sport might appeal less with all that stripped away, but who knows maybe it would also be interesting to standardize some aspects.

This sounds similar to windsurfing, tinkering with your board, sail size, fin size, etc. is a big part of the sport.

Yet, at the Olympics, the gear is the same for everyone.

Btw, I can't remember where, but I heard that, in the old editions of the Tour de France not all gears were allowed, shifters for example weren't allowed even though they were available to amateurs.

Why not then allow motorcycles? They are just bikes upgraded with motors... Would make competition lot shorter too and interesting. Seeing them driving around without speed limits.

I'm guessing because they don't meet the criteria to participate, what's your point?

That adding a motor would be upgrade and tinkering of a bike. So why should it not be allowed? Isn't it entirely in same spirit?

Do you want me to enumerate the ways in which a bike is not a motorbike and the parameters in which people who are interested in bikes operate in their hobby or profession? Or are you asking why professional racing puts guidelines around what types of bikes can participate?

You’re being disingenuous and down right annoying. By your logic why not just use a F-18 and win the race in 10 minutes? Stop being asinine.

Not sure if you honestly believe this or just trying to be "edgy" but because a motorcycle is not a bicycle.

I assumed it was a reference to this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_doping

From a bit of reading, it sounds like there's a fairly widespread impression (or at least suspicion of) cheating. And that enforcement is quite weak, because the authorities care more about preventing public scandal than about preventing actual cheating.

Sounds like the typical case of people not looking at the core work required in order for the very expensive individual items like tailored nutrition, top-end (and even customized) parts, per-race-specific optimized chains and what not to make any sense whatsoever.

If your times are, say, 20% or more above the absolute top times for a given course, you've got a long way to go by improving yourself - on just about any bike whatsoever. The super expensive parts make low single digit differences.

It would require a different business model. Cycling is like F1 in that sponsors are trying to sell their equipment.

All the cycling equipment in races has to be available in mass market and usually can be bought, if you've got the money. It's not cheap but also it's not a F1 car. It's more like.. why would you buy it when you are not a racer.

It's not a sport of the 0.0001% when anybody can go buy a bike and ride.

At the top level of any sport and in the top race or competition of that sport, it is going to represent the pinnacle of that sport.

I guess the point is that in cycling - relative to other sports - money gives you an easy edge. You can afford much better equipment, nutrition, coaching etc... . Compare that to (say) football in the UK: you just need a £5 ball and a few friends, and if you show promise you can track into your local team's programme and get top quality coaching at minimal cost.

It depends on the culture as well. From what I read about China, they're constantly scouting primary schools for Olympic talent, so you can come from any background and reach the top in a sport that would be limited to wealthier people in other countries.

If you do well on a cheap bike in a local race someone will notice and start asking if you belong on a major team with money. The teams with money want to win, they cannot afford to keep out a poor person who otherwise is good.

At the top level of any sport, the expense comes from the coaching, exercise science, travel and other support over the course of years. That's true whether the game is cycling, or football. A $20,000 bike is peanuts in comparison to this cost. Unless you are at the top 0.001 percent of cyclists, better/more training has a much bigger impact than gear. $1,000 gets you a competitive road bike that you can win your local races with. Even cheaper if you buy used.

> From what I read about China, they're constantly scouting primary schools for Olympic talent, so you can come from any background and reach the top in a sport that would be limited to wealthier people in other countries.

This is what wealthy countries do as well. Most wealthy nations have programs to identify and develop top-level athletes. An obvious example being the very lucrative scholarships offered at American universities.

At least food-wise, the article claims that cycling was (until recently) far less spare-no-expense optimized:

> Not so long ago, the professional cycling world's approach to fuelling was remarkably basic.

> Options for riders barely extended beyond a monotonous menu of pasta, rice or whatever fare that night's hotel kitchen decided to serve up.

> These days, it is an entirely different prospect, with vast sums spent on...

At levels lower than the very top, it's easier and cheaper to lose 10 pounds of your own body than 10 pounds of bike. You can go far - even into racing at low levels - on rather cheap equipment.

The performance difference between cheaper bikes and top end bikes won’t make the difference in being a successful cyclist.

Anyone can pick up a bike and start training and racing in competitions and be talent scouted in the same way that you would in football, it’s what happens here in Australia.

Yes a football is cheaper than a bike, but it’s not 0.0001% type stuff like Formula 1. Where you legitimately need to pay millions just to get a look in.

Theres plenty of people on $8,000 bikes I pass on my 8 year old bike worth $2,000.

Is $2000 really "cheap" though? I personally would need to use a cycle to work scheme, and I consider myself pretty well off. I know people on lower incomes who would find that very off-putting as a barrier to entry. I think you'd need to go to the $150 or less range to be appealing to people in that situation.

$2000 is not bad looking at what it costs to play hockey. A lot of sports are less expensive though.

Otoh, around me, $100 gets you a circa 1980 road bike off craigslist. That'll do fine. I'm seeing a much more recent road bike for $500, if you don't like old stuff because it's old. Plenty of more expensive stuff too. I like the early 1980s bikes because road bikes were in fashion and there were a lot of makes competing and quality (of surviving bikes) is pretty good. Later, mountain bikes started trending, there was consolidation and I don't feel that those bikes are as good on the road as a general rule.

In my team there is an ex professional cyclist from 80s. Sometimes he come in the Sunday group rides with one of his 80s bikes and he is able to overpass everybody.

At the other side, I tried climbing the same hill at same power with my 2017 bike and with my 2023 bike. There was a 4% of difference in the time, probably because better wheels and improved position.

What makes the largest difference is how physically fit and how well you can ride (technique) rather than equipment.

Money can help in any sport, but talent and physical attributes trumps all. At least with cycling, people can cycle almost anywhere. Sports like golf are hard to break into if someone doesn't have money because rounds and practice almost always have ongoing costs.

I'm not sure how that's any different than football (soccer) or football (American) or anything else.

You need talent as a kid. You need money to fund travel and equipment (either from mom & dad, or the local academy/development squad, or donors). You need to find a coach who can get the most out of your genetics AND find a path for you to go pro. And on and on.

Peter Sagan started career winning on Tesco bike that he took from his sister.

But I think most accessible sport is running. You just need some shoes. Open the door and you are good to go (run). For games like football you also need the ball, playground and other people.

There's even a subset of runners that would argue you don't even need shoes!

Not if everybody plays, in every school recess, every park, rec center, etc. That's how football is in most countries. "Pay to play" is a very US thing.

I've never seen so many young people on bikes in the UK as I do now. Sure, the bikes are likely stolen and the kids up to no good, but at least one of them has TdF potential

The kids may be doping, too.

From a quick skim here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_teams_and_cyclists_in_... - all but one team are from well-to-do Western countries, or rich Gulf States. Cyclists seem similarly all-but-a-few white.

Anyone can learn a bunch of gymnastic moves, too. But last I heard, "Olympic Gymnast" implies a >1k hour/year training regimen, starting at an extremely young age.

Primoz Roglic was a ski jumper before he was one of the best cyclists. There are several others like him.

Most of the cyclists are white, yes, for me this is an issue (and I am white), but what I like is that there are now many from Colombia (because of the mountains there? And probably also some cycling culture), a few days ago a cyclist from Eritrea won a TdF stage.. it's slowly getting more diverse.

A UCI WorldTeam has a budget of about 10 to 60 million euros. That's peanuts in a lot of other sports.

Maybe mainstream sports, but not when you spread it across the number of fans and account for their intensity. The Tour de France is likely the only cycling event most people can name. It's an awful lot of money for a very niche sport.

The TdF is apparently the 2nd most watched sporting event in the world, with 3.5 billion viewers. That's not very niche.

-- https://www.roadtrips.com/blog/the-most-watched-sporting-eve...

The number, which by the common person is to be interpreted as unique viewers, is blatantly absurd.

It's a niche sport in the US, but it's huge in lots of European countries. Conversely, most Europeans would struggle to name a single baseball or American football team, but they're far from niche sports in their domestic market.

If that budget is for an 8-man team, in a sport with a 3 1/2-week season...

An (American) NFL team has 53 "active" players (plus a practice squad, plus ...), and plays a 5-month season. And has a lot of "maintain a major stadium"-type expenses, which (my guess) cycling teams don't have.

Based on your figures, and trying to scale...no, the cycling team budgets really aren't peanuts by comparison.

NFL Data: https://shareholder.broadridge.com/pdf/2022-packers-annual-r...

It's clear you don't know much about cycling. A pro team often consists of ~30 riders, and then 8~12 of them are selected for various races during the year. And similarly, that's the main team and they have development teams on the second level, junior teams, women teams etc

The season is longer than tour de france, that's just the most prestigious tour. There are other tours and other races. It's about 8 months long.

And I don't really think how long the season is has any relevance. You still train and need your apparatus whole year round.

The stadium stuff also doesn't really work in the favor of nfl. A pro team makes no money on tickets or concessions, and has to travel the world with their gear instead of a few states away.

The tour I think of like the World Series or Champions League tournament. Only one, highly visible, piece of a long calender (roughly Februrary to October)

> An (American) NFL team has 53 "active" players (plus a practice squad, plus ...), and plays a 5-month season. And has a lot of "maintain a major stadium"-type expenses, which (my guess) cycling teams don't have.

Cycling teams have all kinds of expenses too. True, they don't have to maintain a major stadium. But hey do have cars to assist the riders with food, drinks, spare tires, spare bikes if needed (sometimes multiple types of bike for some of the riders); team busses with showers, more food, meeting room (I think they also have washing machines in them, to provide the riders with clean clothing every day in a stage race); a service course for all the equipment, and to adjust and fix the bikes. Plus personnel to equip all those, plus personnel along the road with more food and drinks, and in some races also with spare wheels. Pro teams often participate in multiple races at the same time, so they need all that equipment times two or three. These days many teams haul mattresses along on stage races, to guarantee good sleep for the riders. All of that stuff, and the people involved, need to be transported to each race on time, sometimes to the other end of the world.

I don't know how that compares with say an NFL team, but I do know my head starts to hurt when I think about how to organize all of that (and more; I most likely forgot some stuff) throughout the year.

> I don't know how that compares...

The financial part of the report I linked shows the NFL team spending $40M/year on their stadium & other facilities. And similar-ish amounts in several other non-player-compensation expense categories.

(Yes, I wish that report's financials were far more detailed.)

>If that budget is for an 8-man team, in a sport with a 3 1/2-week season...

The tour de france is 3 1/2 weeks, the cycling season is much longer.

Even you think it is peanuts in comparison when expecting it to be for one particular race.

> a 3 1/2-week season

This year's UCI World Tour season runs from January 16 to October 20. Where are you getting "3 1/2 week season" from?

25,000 people took part in last month’s Ride London. It was awesome

Maratona de Dolomites, probably the most beautiful amateur cycling events in the world, has more than 50k subscribers and they selected only 9k.