rjc_43 wrote:
Evidence please. Other than criteriums, track racing and cyclo cross.

fenian_1234 wrote:


The Japan Cup charged an entry fee to those wanting to enter the finishing area in 2009. Presume they did it again in 2010.

rjc_43 wrote:


Thank you.

It still would affect my choice of whether to go see a race or not, especially if it was on open roads and I was charged for that priviledge. Charging for someone to sit at the end of a Tour stage, or any other BIG race, I can see the financial benefits, as it wouldn't prevent people who couldn't afford to pay to see the race from seeing the climbs/cobbles/etc, but otherwise I just disagree with the notion.

It should be about the cycling, not about the money.

rjc_43 wrote:
It should be about the cycling, not about the money.

Aquarius wrote:
Oh, and don't you feed trolls (I know it's tempting, and I want to feed them myself at times too ).

People: I thought I'd take a minute to comment, since the discussion is somewhat mislead. The riders on our team are NOT under contract with us until 1/1-2011. They are commercially and legally committed elsewhere - all the way down to the fact that their salary is not paid by us. That restricts our ability to embed journalists, film crews, bloggers in the process we're in the middle of right now. Our team presentation is on 6/1-2011. I'm sorry for giving you the impression that we're being cagey about the team, but we start next year and apart from duly announcing riders and being fortunate enough to bring everyone together last week for meetings and socializing, 1/1-2011 is when we roll out. All the work we've done so far, is to get everything ready for that. With regards to the "lacking financial transparency", alluding to our team, I'm left a little puzzled and slightly offended. As you know from the Pegasus debaccle, you need to have your stuff in order to be an approved team - even more so to get a ProTeam license. Here you need proper contracts, insurances, bank guarantee etc, ect. This process is run by the UCI, controlled by Ernst&Young and then, the final approval is granted by an Independent License Commission. We have received our license for 4 years, which is the maximum length available. If you have any doubts about the strictness of that process, you're counter-factual. If you have doubts about our openness and availability to the press, you're disregarding the fact that we open our team presentation to everyone (for free) - albeit with the limited amount of around 4500 people. Still pretty good and fairly un-cagey I think. Oh, and by the way, my Brand and Marketing Manager, the brilliant Ken Sommer used to work at Cervelo where he was in charge of the fan access. All good things come to those wait - even during the so-called silly season (which clearly peaks right now!) of professional cycling.

Kind regards. Brian Nygaard