Crashes are a part of bike racing. Broken bones and the fear of breaking more compelled me to quit bike racing five years ago. All the dudes I ride with who poke fun at triathlete’s bike handling skills have to shut up when I point out that bike racers crash 10x more than commuters, newbies, or triathletes. Today’s tour stage was painful to watch and got me thinking a Crash Replacement Proposal for bike racing but all my ideas are more hare-brained than normal.* I won’t even mention them.
I did have another idea though. This is for a tertiary race like Tour of Poland, Tour of Austria, or maybe the even the prologue of Paris Nice i.e. races you rightly don't care about. Picture instead of the prologue at PN, which can be in 40-degree weather and is sparsely attended, race organizers rented out the Bataclan or an even bigger theatre in Paris and set up 10 kickrs on stage for a 20-minute TT on Zwift. Put on some jumbotrons with close-ups of the agony and data, sell alcohol and encourage gambling**, get sponsors to kick in serious cash premiums for max power durations (3seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute, 5 minutes), sell tickets obviously, stream it for a small fee, rank it by w/kg for GC, and have a time cut like relegation in the Premier League--> something like the bottom 5% of finishers have to pack their bags and go home or donate a grand of their own money to http://unforgotten.org/, which is a charity a college friend started apparently in order to make me feel like a self-absorbed prick, but the joke is on him because I donate monthly and it assuages 99% of my first-world shame.(Take that Amit Kapadia). How could the aforementioned possibly not be more interesting and more lucrative to do once a year than a stage in a race no non-fanatic really cares about anyway? The exact keystone cop nature of pro cycling governance that gives it the air of pro wrestling I enjoy so much half the time should allow it to buck tradition and try something new. I have actually never ridden Zwift, but I bet 50x more people have used Zwift in the past year than have raced a bike or give a crap about any race save Le Tour.
*A harebrained idea that does not suck is the The Indianapolis 50, a 50 mile race before the Indy 500 contested by Moms(or stay at home Dads) in stock mini-vans where during the race they have to guzzle 2 grande lattes, check social media 3x, text 4 times, and reach into the back seat 5 times. Get some cameras in the cars, some human interest background angles (She has twin boys in karate, Mathnasium, and ballet, she once got stuck with a closet full of Herbal Life, and a PB of Philly to DC in 2 hours!!!!). That shit would be entertaining as F. My wife would have as good a shot as Richie Porte did today. She is at one with the Oddysey, just woman and machineĂ 100k miles in 7 years, most in heavy traffic with a couple of kids in the back beating the sh!t our of each other.
**How popular would American Football be without beer and fantasy? Not very. Let’s be honest, it is only not boring if you compare it to Baseball, of which I have a host of ideas on how to make it not suck including but not limited to a pitch clock, backing the mound up 11 feet, and not just an automatic out if you take a strike, if you take a strike you are ejected. In my neighborhood in the 70’s you could get your ass kicked for taking a strike in cul-de-sac baseball, you would certainly be sent home or relegated to permanent left field.
Pardon grammar and spelling errors, I have given up proofreading and spell checking until Nov 2020. If the Prez don;t chek, I aint checkin'.
I did have another idea though. This is for a tertiary race like Tour of Poland, Tour of Austria, or maybe the even the prologue of Paris Nice i.e. races you rightly don't care about. Picture instead of the prologue at PN, which can be in 40-degree weather and is sparsely attended, race organizers rented out the Bataclan or an even bigger theatre in Paris and set up 10 kickrs on stage for a 20-minute TT on Zwift. Put on some jumbotrons with close-ups of the agony and data, sell alcohol and encourage gambling**, get sponsors to kick in serious cash premiums for max power durations (3seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute, 5 minutes), sell tickets obviously, stream it for a small fee, rank it by w/kg for GC, and have a time cut like relegation in the Premier League--> something like the bottom 5% of finishers have to pack their bags and go home or donate a grand of their own money to http://unforgotten.org/, which is a charity a college friend started apparently in order to make me feel like a self-absorbed prick, but the joke is on him because I donate monthly and it assuages 99% of my first-world shame.(Take that Amit Kapadia). How could the aforementioned possibly not be more interesting and more lucrative to do once a year than a stage in a race no non-fanatic really cares about anyway? The exact keystone cop nature of pro cycling governance that gives it the air of pro wrestling I enjoy so much half the time should allow it to buck tradition and try something new. I have actually never ridden Zwift, but I bet 50x more people have used Zwift in the past year than have raced a bike or give a crap about any race save Le Tour.
*A harebrained idea that does not suck is the The Indianapolis 50, a 50 mile race before the Indy 500 contested by Moms(or stay at home Dads) in stock mini-vans where during the race they have to guzzle 2 grande lattes, check social media 3x, text 4 times, and reach into the back seat 5 times. Get some cameras in the cars, some human interest background angles (She has twin boys in karate, Mathnasium, and ballet, she once got stuck with a closet full of Herbal Life, and a PB of Philly to DC in 2 hours!!!!). That shit would be entertaining as F. My wife would have as good a shot as Richie Porte did today. She is at one with the Oddysey, just woman and machineĂ 100k miles in 7 years, most in heavy traffic with a couple of kids in the back beating the sh!t our of each other.
**How popular would American Football be without beer and fantasy? Not very. Let’s be honest, it is only not boring if you compare it to Baseball, of which I have a host of ideas on how to make it not suck including but not limited to a pitch clock, backing the mound up 11 feet, and not just an automatic out if you take a strike, if you take a strike you are ejected. In my neighborhood in the 70’s you could get your ass kicked for taking a strike in cul-de-sac baseball, you would certainly be sent home or relegated to permanent left field.
Pardon grammar and spelling errors, I have given up proofreading and spell checking until Nov 2020. If the Prez don;t chek, I aint checkin'.