Landis not happy with Lance....

JRMDC

I am curious as to why you feel so strongly that Landis was a charity case. Your next sentence is certainly true, but it doens't meen LA acted to do Landis a favor. Instead, LA acted because he saw potential in Landis. And he was right.

Do you have evidence that there was some prior relationship between the two, or other circumstance, sufficiently strong that LA would potentially weaken his TdF chances just to do some charity for Landis? Absent that evidence, this makes no sense...

It makes much more sense to me that Landis was grabbed for potential.

limerickman

In relation to Landis - LA was quoted in Cycle Sport late 2003 - "Floyd Landis is a potentially a great cyclist. We have only begun to untap his potential and we're very excitied about just how far we think Floyd can go"
"Of all the signings we have had to USPS, I think Floyd Landis has the potential to go all the way"

That doesn't sound like a charity case to me : sounds more like a person who knows that Landis is a good cyclist.

mitosis

In Armstrong's book he claims to pay his riders above going rate and at the end of one tour he gave them all large cheque's (about which they were all suitably happy).

I always had the impression that he did this to (my words) suppress their personal ambition.

musette

There may be no problem with DC salaries (taking into account individual TdF riders' contractual bonuses if LA wins the GC and taking into account the sharing of team winnings), but that doesn't mean that Landis didn't leave for money reasons. Phonak was offering him considerably more than DC was paying him. Bruyneel at the time suggested he might have been willing to match the Phonak monetary offer, but that Floyd seemed intent to leave. Floyd had been having certain internal fit issues within DC, as I understand it and as suggested by a recent book on that team.

sopas

Of all the great Champs Indurain was indeed very nice. Perhaps that's why he didn't win more races???????

limerickman

40% below the market rate suggests a real problem with DC salaries.

LA did top up the team winnings in the TDF 2004 : by the princely sum of
$25,000.00, according to Dave Harmon today on Eurosport.
Big deal.
In real money that's Euro 20,000 between 8 guys : works out at euro 2,500 per man.
Real generous, eh ?

limerickman

Dave Harmon just talked about this on Eurosport.

Santa Clause Armstrong added $25,000 to his teams prize money at the 2004
TDF.
That's $3,125 dollars per man :
Less than a dollar per kilometre !

musette

Well, obviously if people were unhappy with their salaries or otherwise unhappy with DC, they would leave, wouldn't they? I don't know if the basic salaries used to calculate the % described includes the contractual bonus each TdF rider gets if LA wins the GC that year.

Also, Ace is being paid at least 800K (I think euros) because that was disclosed around the time that the economics of DC's receipt of compensation from Liberty Seguros for Heras was discussed.

Finally, there are many aspects of non-monetary compensation to DC domestiques. (1) "Making history" with LA, (2) High chance of glories of having leader win GC, (3) High visibility throughout the cycling world (e.g., Ace, Noval), (4) Likely sharing (at least while LA was around) in TTT win, (5) No pressure to get individual stage or other individual results, (6) Nice accommodations and a high budget (e.g., nicer hotels that CSC, nicer training camps in the US), (7) Team wins.

limerickman

Did anyone else notice that www.cyclingnews.com has lifted the L'Equipe article
detailing what Landis said about LA.
It was on Cyclingnews yesterday and I notice that today the article has "disappeared".

Has LA's already overworked legal department, sent a shot across the cyclingnews bows ?

Curious.

rejobako

The notion that Armstrong and DC would have been able to put a team together including several exceptional climbers, a two-time Giro winner, the probable white jersey winner, and a 3-time defending TdF TTT winner by paying them 40% less than the going rate and then insulting them with bonus money does not compute.

In the meantime, a man with the credentials of Vinokourov made it public that the only team who's membership he covets other than T-Mobile is Discovery. If Disco is underpaying its ridership, he wouldn't be interested.

In the meantime, as has been noted, it is disingenuous to suggest that Armstrong is somehow disrespecting his teammates by giving them a small bonus at the end of the TdF. In the past, GC winners gave no bonuses to their teammates at all. As for Armstrong, he has typically followed the tradition among TdF winners, by distributing all of his personal GC prize money to his team. That is all that is expected of any GC winner, and that's all they typically ever do. I cannot find a link to what Armstrong did to supplement that bonus last year. If it was $25,000, then that's $25,000 more than a GC winner normally gives his teammates.

In 2002, Armstrong , Armstrong not only distributed all of his $400,000 prize to his team, he doubled it.

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/loca...303&ID=s1380969

In 2003, he did what is traditional and gave his team his entire $465,000 check -- no bonus. No one uttered a word about ingratitude or suggested he should have given more.

Last year, apparently, he gave them an additional $25,000, in addition to his winner's check, out of his own pocket. Certainly not a fortune for any of them, but more than is customary.

If Armstrong was insulting his teammates or if DC was being grossly underpaid, that team would not be able to maintain the quality of its riders. You think a guy like Salvoldelli would stand for being paid at 40% less than the going rate to serve as a domestique in the greatest race of all?

Finally, I find it interesting that Floyd Landis, even in the context of an article in which he takes issue with Lance's meanspiritedness, acknowledges that riders who serve him are rewarded for their efforts:

"I agreed that my job would be to help Lance. There was no reason for me to be unhappy in that role. I agreed to do it, and to do it as best I could. Certainly Lance pays bonuses to the guys that help him, so there's no reason to be.... I think it's clear that everybody coming into that team knows exactly what the role is, and rightfully so."

http://www.velonews.com/tour2005/ne...les/8339.0.html

In the meantime, I would appreciate a link from anyone confirming what L-man says has been "bandied about" (how wishy washy can you get?) that Discovery's riders (aside from Lance, of course) are paid on average 40% less than the market rate.

limerickman

Here's where it's bandied about my LA supporting friend :

Tour De Force by Daniel Coyle : ISBN 0 00 719183 9

Daniel Coyles book "Tour De Force" : page 166
"In my opinion we're treated like kids by them (LA and Bryneel)".
"I don't know what LA wants.
Sometimes he can be a normal guy and be your friend. But now it seems like he's somewhere else"
"They try to tell me that it's a privilege to ride for 40% less (in salary) than other teams are prepared to pay me."
"USPS tries to act like it's one big happy family but it isn't - it's a business, period".
Mike Rutherford (Landis agent) "Floyd is a big talent and he can win races.
He's stifled here at USPS - Armstrong is like a black hole he sucks in everything"

sopas

I would also like to point out that Lance Armstrong probably makes more money selling his books and sponsoriship than as a profesional rider.

wolfix

[QUOTE=limerickman]Daniel Coyle in "Tour de Force" suggested that USPS/DC riders are paid a pittance, compared to other team riders in the peloton.
40% less is the figur that has been bandied about.

LA.[QUOTE]

Landis may have been offered about the bandied about figure of 40% but that does not mean that the other riders at discovery were. Once Landis's value as a possible team leader went up , his value to other teams also went up. But Discovery already had a team leader and did not have to pay "Team Leader Status Wages." But the other riders must be getting wages that are in line with the going rate or else they would not have signed. I believe Landis's leaving had to do with the money and with a personality clash with LA.. I believe also that anyone who signs with Discovery knows the situation. LA brought him on board becuse he saw his potential to help LA win the TDF. Landis being an American with no Euro experiance may have benifited because an Euro team might not have taken the chance LA did. But when I read that comment of what Landis wrote I did not get the impression that Landis was actually insulting LA. Sometimes the media loves controversy. And so do I.... LA and Landis may have a "I'm going to kick your ass mentality" towards each other. Boys will be boys....

rejobako

That is the only one of the quotes that refers to what a Postal/Disco rider is paid, and whomever said it is referring only to himself --- "they try to tell me that it's a privilege to ride for 40% less than what other teams are prepared to pay me."

Here's your original spin in the previous post:

"Daniel Coyle in "Tour de Force" suggested that USPS/DC riders are paid a pittance, compared to other team riders in the peloton.
40% less is the figur that has been bandied about."

You have Coyle quoting a single rider in his book about a complaint that he alone is being paid less than he could receive from other teams. There is nothing about USPS/DC rider compensation in general, nor anything relevant to general market price of rider salaries. What you have revealed is that Coyle apparently found a single Discovery/USPS rider who apparently can command more compensation elsewhere. That is a far cry from you attributing a statement to Coyle that USPS/DC riders are paid a "pittance" in comparison to the other team riders. That implies that all of them are underpaid, and we don't even know if this particular rider may have been underpaid. How do you know that the other team wasn't willing to overpay him by 40%.

Point being, for the second day in a row, you are as guilty as anyone of drawing conclusions out of context. I suggest you take that particular criticism out of your repertoire.

(By the way, the other quotes you included have nothing to do with compensation to Lance's teammates, so I'm not sure why you included them, as they do not support your statement.)