Radio-controlled Racing?
This year's Tour de Pologne is marked by UCI's test of racing without radios. For every supporter of the less controlled racing, there is a hater pointing out disadvantages. Today, there has been another incident fueling Richard Plugge's narrative against radio ban."It was chaos today, without radios. UCI cannot continue with this radio ban. It turns the race into a complete farce like we saw in the olympics where riders cannot call the car for basic assistance (in case of a mechanical)," Plugge complains on X."Today we saw Cofidis' Nicolas Debeaumarché crash hard on a descent in latter parts of the stage. The French rider clearly wasn't in a very good shape, however it has taken a substantial amount of time before he was treated. Hopefully no one was too badly hurt today," Plugge added.
Here's the second:
"I would like to conclude my column with my opinion on the discussion about earphones (race radios) in Poland. As is well known: the cycling association (UCI) is conducting an experiment there: only two riders per team are allowed to be in radio contact with the support car. If I am well informed, there were not even any earphones left in the past few stages.”
“I find this measure completely ridiculous and symptomatic of the lack of unity that still exists within the peloton. I have seen twenty emails in which the teams wrote emphatically: ‘never in our lives’. Now it is happening anyway. Not coincidentally in the Tour of Poland, with race director John Lelangue, the most flexible person in the world when it comes to the wishes of the UCI.”
Lefevere doesn’t hold back: “It is also a disgrace for the AIGCP – the umbrella organisation of the teams. I have come to know Brent Copeland as someone who always knows best at meetings, but as chairman he now shows little backbone. I wonder: what if there is a big oil slick on the road and the peloton is not aware of it? I hope that a number of people will then feel deeply ashamed.”
Zio Lorenzo has two words in response - the first is BULL. You can guess the other.
I'll point out to "Mr. Never in Our Lives" race radios were introduced by Motorola for their team in the early 1990's. I think the man was around back then, in fact a quick internet search shows he ran the GB-MG team back then and probably didn't much like Motorola having those radios until his team had them as well?
Zio was around then and remembers how the Motorola team touted these gizmos as a great advantage when racing. No longer did the DS have to drive the car up to the road captain and yell out whatever he wanted them to know for all to hear. Now instructions could be shared in-secret directly from the DS to the riders AND the riders could communicate with each other out of earshot. Seemed like a real advantage even when all the other teams had them eventually. They could all share secret instructions without the other teams knowing.
I'd also like to know how/why you call the Olympic Games roadrace a farce, Mr. Plugge? I was there for both by the way.
When TV screens were introduced into the team cars the real era of "radio-controlled racing" began. I'd say the worst example was during the BigTex era on the infamous climb of Mont Ventoux. Tex' DS, watching TV images from the team car dialed up an infamous doping doctor who was watching the race on TV (one who worked with Tex) to sort of "compare notes" on the performance of Tex' big rival, Il Pirata.
Doping Doc told DS how long he thought The Pirate could go at that pace, which was then relayed to Tex via the radio earpiece so he could adjust his own effort accordingly. If that's NOT radio-controlled racing I don't know what is!
Back in the pre-radio "fog of war" days Tex would have had to look the Pirate in the eyes and determine how much strength he had left with maybe at best getting some advice yelled at him by the DS from the car...which the Pirate might well be able to hear too.
The real hypocrisy here is the blathering about safety by these team bosses combined with the total avoidance of mentioning any tactical benefits of radio-controlling your riders. Is it just a coincidence that these two team bosses have two riders well-known for incredible watts/kg ratios but not so much for tactical racing smarts?
I watched a video clip asking riders their thoughts about radio earpieces and I don't think a single one of them mentioned anything about safety - it was all about tactics and the day's route, something that can be (and was) figured out well in advance before the introduction of radio communications. More than a few even admitted to yanking the earpiece out when the DS wouldn't shut up. How does that work for safety?
At least now the UCI has fired back:
“Hey Richard. You have been caught spreading fake news! The crashes in the Tour of Poland have nothing to do with the absence of radios and you know that. All riders have been helped according to our standards. The UCI’s priority is safety. You want to keep radios for instructions to your riders, not for safety”
Zio Lorenzo thinks these blowhard's bluffs should be called. If it's all about safely as they like to claim, simply connect all the race radio reception to the race organizer ONLY. Give the rider a "I've fallen and I can't get up" button to push in-case of an emergency but all the warnings about "oil slicks" and other dangers on the course would then be warned about by the organizers, no DS' required.
Riders would have to communicate the way they did before the early 1990's and an experienced road captain might have to drop back to the DS' car for his instructions. No TV screens in the cars either...the occupants of those should be taking care of their riders and watching where they're going, advised by the race organizer via radio...the same instructions/warnings, etc. the riders and everyone else involved all hear.
What excuse could Lefevere/Plugge, etc. come up with to oppose this idea if SAFETY is the reason they so much want radio earpieces?
Will we find out? Call their bluff UCI! Propose this solution rather than a ban/restriction on radio-earpieces.
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