usa cycling has to think about what it wants to do to develop track racing... if they want to organize things and have a situation where we develop good riders and racing.. or if they just wanna have a free-for-all...
i think that if they want to have a nice development scene they need to limit the amount of riders per team in endurance events to two... because as it is you have the j-me carney mafia and tiaa-creff making the racing negative and its very difficult to compete with two teams of 4 or 5 riders in the final of 24 guys... it ends up lop-sided and its kind of like a big crit on the track...
if the want to have a free-for-all like they do now, then go ahead and dont change anything...
i think in order to make the racing better they should limit the number of guys in a club that can compete... internationally you only get one rider per nation and thats how it is... and the racing is different as a result...
if 6 guys in an international race would have lapped early like they did at nats there would have been more opportunity for other guys to gain back the lap later because the team factor that shut the race down at nats would not have existed...
usa cycling just needs to figure out what they want out of the scene here...
i think its best to try to create events that are most like international track racing than crits... its better for all the riders to have a more fair and open competition...
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Ahhh,history repeating itself like the Shaklee versus everyone else days, Shaklee v. National Team, Carney-camp v. Marty-camp, blah, blah, blah. Same story, different year.
Ya, that type of thinking really helps the future of track cycling. You see new riders out there really trying to give it a go and with all this stuff going on they really don't have an honest chance.
usa cycling will never do anything. and i've been watching them do nothing for 30 years. with self-interested dim bulbs like Och in charge, nothing will change.
Your exactly right E, that's why this shit stays as far away from the mainstream that's possible. Carney is as irresponsible as USAC concerning this and has no interest in "promoting" the sport or he'd ball up and limit his team.
You obviously cant see the objective to Carney's team. USAC is irresponsible enough to throw away talented, young, endurance rires and he is picking up the slack. What happened to the guys like Timmy Reinhart and John Retsech? Those are two very talented riders who are not riding anymore because there was no program for them. Carney is providing a program for today's young endurance riders becuase USAC can't be bothered to help anyone who isn't a sprinter or Brad "wonder boy" Huff. Is he guilty of creating the first real endurance program in the country since USAC dumped their program after the Sydney games? Yes. Other riders who are nearing the end of their career should take a page out of his book. Give back to the sport. Share some knowledge and make it easier for the next generation. If you can't see that what he is doing is a good thing then you need to learn how to look at the bigger picture.
i dont disagree with you on that.. carny helped me a lot when i first came to t-town... i trained with him for two years... i say all the time that he is good for the sport and that he is always making time to help people who share his enthusiasm for track racing...
but that has nothing to do with the widespread collusion that happens at nats and at t-town... it ruins the racing and stifles the development of riders that arent in carney's team... it makes for negative racing... when you have 5 guys in a race who sit up and dont pedal their bikes so that one guy can ride away thats not doing anything to make a good race...
carney's team is great.. those guys are good and they train hard... i think their interests would better served if they got in the race and rode as individuals instead of an armada... imagine that!.. if all the best riders actaully rode against eachother!... what a concept... the competiton would be great and the racing would be dynamic.. and all the riders would get better...
is what those guys are doing in the interest of the sport or in their own interest.. i think that it is agreed by most that are close to the sport that it makes thing quite bad in the end...
that goes for also the tiaa-cref armada as well...
as it is a lot of good riders stay away from the track because they hate the collusion and the negative racing... so all the BS has the real effect of limiting competition and involvement from potential athletes... not really making it any better...
i bet we see next year some guys going it alone because they dont like to soft pedal for their buddies in the bike races...
if i were in charge of a team and all the riders had the potential to win any given race then i would havce them all go for it because it will make them stronger.. under no circumstances would i have them sitting up for eachother.. or chasing guys down as a team.. or any of that crap...
all those national team sprinters train together all the time but they battle eachother in the races... and thats how it should be...
usac sucks.. ok... but the thing that really matters is good racing.. if we actually had good racing then we would have more good riders... and we wouldnt need usac so bad to take these few guys out of teh country to get racing that they cant get here because of all the lame ass collusion...
thats why i am not at t-town this year...
Why is teamwork acceptable on the road but not on the track?
traditionally the track is like mountain biking where you have one rider alone against the others...
in international competition its in the rules that every nation gets only one rider and one team in the madison...
i think its jjust plain not fair... if there are going to be teams and usa cycling doesnt care about fairness then thats shitty, but what can you do?... i would be ok with limiting the amount of team members in a race.. but ehn when you go through heats you would get a lopsided picture if all of one team went through and less of another did.. and it wouldnt be fair because we wouldnt all have the same chances... like in pro races they limit the number of riders per team to keep things even...
i would most like to see two riders per team/club at most be able to register for nats... that way if they both went through to the final it wouldnt be as bad as it is now and the deck would not be so stacked...
its hard to explain why its not cool to have 5 guys riding together unless you have been around the track and been in that situation... but i think it just comes down to fairness...
you can only fit 20 or so guys on the track anyway at a time... and to have half of the riders teamed up working for 2 riders just isnt right... especially when they are all the strongest riders and the level of the rest of the field isnt that great... traditionally at teh highest level on the track teams are made up of ONE riders... and it works out really well that way... the racing is explosive and there is a lot that goes on.. its exciting to watch... everyone who saw colby get second in that world cup knows what its like to see a race where its fair and you have to pedal your bike to win...
carney is at least getting riders to do well on the track! hopefully with his work we will at least start medaling and placing at international events. the track cycling program is lacking a lot in the US and carney is at least attempting to do something about it.
road, mtn, and cross are all doing extremely well internationally however track is another story. hopefully the riders that Carney is working with can elevate the playing field and make cycling more known in this country.
in the end what matters is that a lot of guys go out and ride their bikes hard in the races...
not one guy training a handful of guys... you can only get so good racing here because the competition is so poor...
but if there were a lot of guys going out and riding hard everyday in the races then the competition would be better...
its about the average level of competition...
Maybe all this "collusion" is harmful to the overall picture. But with money/medals/placings in world cup events only going to the top three or less, the racing will tend toward one strong team working hard for one man.
Carney has said before that the best thing that could happen to track racing would be to have the payouts spread out deeper. This goes for Natz riding as well.
There needs to be incentive to race for 5th. Is there now? No. Result-people ride to help their man get 1st.
You can't blame Carney and NWM for playing the system, especially since his team didnt break any explicit rules at this Natz. TIAA_CREF did break the rules, but somehow it goes back on Carney. If you think the system is wrong blame that, but don't push it on Carney cause he knows how to work in the system to get good results without breaking the rules.
dont think i am picking on jay,mie...
i have a big problem with the system...
but also it needs to be said that i consider it a better approach to operate on a higher standard... if the rules allow you to play it low, and you play it low... you are still playing it low...
to me the goal isnt to get americans to medal at worlds.. i dont care... if i would have won something i would not have gone to the world cup because i dont care to... its hard and they dont pay you to train all winter for it when you could be relaxing and doing other more important things with your time...
i care about guys having the opportunity to discover themselves through cycling and being able to take something as far as they can (at least while they are young and single)for what it will mean to the rest of their lives and how they are able to grow into superlative people... thats what i have gotten out of cycling and i believe in it as a means of selfdiscovery for all those people who would like to give life a shot in the same way that a lot of us have...
to do this there needs to be a healthy scene... and thats why i care about a healthy scene...
I think the status of track cycling, and all the shady teamwork is a result of the overall lack of participants. Since there are so few who go to every track race, cliques form, grudges start, because these guys spend way too much time just racing each other. And the funny part is that the atitudes & grudges passe from coach-rider (i'll admit marty and gil helped me develop many of my attitudes) Its almost like going to a small high school vs a big high school. I'll hafta agree with the guy that commented about a lack of programs for Tim and Retseck, i started racing with those guys when i was 13, and we were inseperable, but as time went on Tim and Jon went endurance and i went sprint, but when it came down to moving from junior to elite, there was nothing unless you were a national team golden boy who was already living in the springs. I think that if more road guys made it out to the track, it would throw a monkey wrench into the who track racing scene and make things much more competitive.
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