Hi Ed,
Current Canadian registered UCI trade teams:
- Symmetrics
- EVA
- Calyon Litespeed
- VW Trek
RACE was not a UCI trade team this year, but they certainly were good and I think they were a CCA registered trade team. They will be UCI next year. And they will have a very good budget. I would put them on the list of good teams -- especially with Bauer at the healm and the plans they have for the next few years. The Lazy Boy team out of BC, and the Red Truck team were quite good this year too.
Canadians racing in the US on Trade Teams were:
- M Walters
- D Rollin
- D Perras
- F Parisien
- R Roth
- M Gilbert
- K Lacombe
- Ryder H
In the 90's it wasn't uncommon for teams to be only 6-7 riders. Now teams are generally 10+, often 12-14 and even more.
In the early 90's there were only 3-4 quality teams racing domestically in the US. Now there are 8-9:
- HNet
- Toyota
- Priority Health
- Kodak
- Navigators
- Jelly Belly
- Slipstream
- Rock
- AEG Toshiba
- BMC
The infrastructure on teams these days far exceeds what was standard in the early 90's. For example at the tour of Missouri - which I recently attended - teams had upwards of 9 staff to support 8 riders or a greater than 1:1 support to rider ratio. A typical team like the ones I've mentioned above will have vehicle fleets of 6-9 cars/vans/trucks etc. In the early 90's 2 vehicles were luxury, 3 vehicles were rare. I remember Saturn's first equipment truck in '94 being a simple little cube van. Today team's like BMC, Navigators, HNet have $100K super-rigs fully kitted for mech's and soigneurs. But you need that to manage the upwards of 80-100 bikes a pro team in NA will use in a typical season now... compared to what... 2 bikes per guy or a 14-20 bikes back in the Evian/Magicuts days?
Infrastructure and support has a direct impact on increasing performance. When athletes are better supported they can focus on greater acheivements.
Granted you are right in citing Gord's quotes. Prize money today is less than in the early 90's. The calibre of races in Canada - if you call prize money calibre -- is lower. But the calibre of the athletes overall is higher... the Canadians just have to race more often in the States or abroad. But that is another change. The evolution of the internet and cycling niche media has made the world seem like a smaller place and riders these days don't think much about going and doing a race in China, Japan, Europe, Australia whatever. Dipping down to the states today is kinda viewed the same a trip between Montreal and Toronto would have been in the early 90's.
Training has improved, and riders understanding of training has improved since the 90's. Thanks in great part to the ubiquity of power training, which really does eliminate the guess work. This has balanced and raised the level accross the peleton, that and the increase in well supported teams has changed the dynamic of racing to be more 'pro' style, rather than gung-ho 'amateur' style from the 90's. I think that too is what Bauer was refering to. He did specifically cite Beauce and the Nationals.
I did not see Gord and Steve's recent comments being in conflict. Rather I took them as talking about two aspects of the sport. Steve was talking about the calibre of teams and opportunities on teams -- which is better than in the 90's when arguably Canadian riders were competing for the 21-28 spots available on Evian, Magicuts, Toronto Italia and Espoir Laval. Now they have a shot at upwards of 70 spots on the teams listed above.
Gord was right, prize money sort of sucks now compared to then. And the loss of the CT / Canada Cup series has never been replaced. Likewise races like the Tour of Southern Ontario, North York, Fonthill Classic are all gone... but maybe we can thank Laura Robinson for that?
Teams however are much healthier than they were in the early 90's and Canadian riders are seeing more opportunities than at that time... or that is my opinion.
And I think you might owe Svein Tuft a bit of an apology. He is much much more than a just a TT rider. Saying as much sort of shows a bit of ignorance to contemporary cycling on your part Ed. I've spent more than 70 race days with the guys on Symmetrics the last two seasons, and I can assure you Svein is a savvy savvy road racer in every way. Sure he's no super sprinter and never will be, but he can friggin win a road race and totally know's what's going down.
In another thread I was told you claimed Symmetrics budget is not greater that Evian's was in its heyday.. .I heard you said Evian's budget was 325K. I can assure you Symmetrics budget exceeds this.
Its tough to compare one era to another... like comparing Merckx to Armstrong. Cycling changes, and those changes make comparisons hard. But I feel pretty comfortable saying that Symmetrics is a bigger team than Evian was. And I mean no disrespect in that. In many ways Ed you paved the way for a team like Symmetrics. You opened alot of peoples eyes to possiblities they'd not thought acheivable by a Canadian team. Instead of trying to slam today's teams and riders maybe you should -- rightly so -- claim you paved the way for them.
But the simple increase in scale of cycling now compared to then has required Symmetrics to be bigger. And Symmetrics has backed that up by now winning the individual and team classification of the Americas Tour this season, and the team has 5 of Canada's top 10 UCI ranked riders... and has earned about 60% of the UCI points that moved Canada up to 3rd ranked Nation in the UCI standings. Its hard for me to keep track of the count, but I think the team has won more than 75 races this year. The US Open win, was a calibre of win I can't ever remember a Canadian on a Canadian team ever acheiving before?
