If I know racer X is going out with her husband who is going to pull her to the win, can I not just latch onto their wheels?
Theoretically you could, but the husband isn’t going to slow down if you drop back a few bike lengths and he’s certainly not waiting for you at water stops. I’ve done a fair number of gravel rides where I’ve observed this: male/female duo riding with the male towing the female for 90% of the course. It’s the amateur level so it’s not a big deal, but I would be a bit chapped if I lost out on a prize because a woman brought her personal escort to tow her around. It’s not wrong by the letter of the law/book, but it certainly feels unsporting.
Edit to add: I personally participate in few “official” events and rarely race, so I don’t have a dog in this fight. To get my “super chill gravel” vibes, I just plan some fun weekend adventures with friends. No prizes, no money, no BS.
Some races I go to, I’m up against teams 6-7 deep and I’m unaffiliated. Sometimes, if that happens, I’ll work with another unaffiliated buddy in a race.
You just get on with it.
The amount of drama around adults pedaling bicycles, gravel or other, is incredibly tiresome.
That assumes it was known that LD had elite male teammates up the road and that everyone knew they were going to wait for her. I don’t think that was the case. So if I see someone heading up the road early in a long gravel race and I think it is a pace they cannot sustain, a reasonable tactic is to let them go…but that calculation changes if it is known who they are bridging up to. My impression is that the Cinch male athletes waiting was an unknown / unforeseen occurrence.
I don’t think anyone is saying "no stratgies are allowed…just that some strategies are questionable in the gravel ethos.
Agreed re: domestiques…it is likely inevitable. But I don’t think your example is relevant to this particular discussion. The question here isn’t about having workers, it is about the ethics of having male elite riders wait for a female rider to pace her to a victory.
Just to clarify my own positions:
I’m OK with having domestiques in gravel. As noted, there are already examples of buddies working together.
I’m OK with riders being willing to skip aide stations if they are willing to gamble on going solo without whatever they are carrying
I’m OK with women working with men as a result of happenstance / occurrence on the road.
I’m not OK with elite male “teammates” waiting for their female counterparts to arrive so they can then pace them to a win.
Tommy D is a proven liar and cheat, so it does not surprise me in the slightest that he is once again venturing into morally questionable tactics.
I have no idea how you can ever regulate #4, especially if #3 is OK…so unfortunately, my guess is that you will eventually see different start times for men and women’s fields.
That is my point. They want unwritten rules to keep it “super chill” but big races are not “super chill”. If it is okay for some people in the race but not for others, it is not a rule.
This is bound to happen when you’re mixing essentially a pro race and a fondo on gravel - a lot of the people at the back of the field are just there to get round and give it their best effort, often riding with some friends.
Even if you somehow banned team mates or intentional collaboration, riders will still work together in races for all sorts of situational reasons (which you couldn’t ban without turning it into a TT), so it would be totally unpoliceable. How would you prove that 2 riders had an agreement to work together and it wasn’t just happenstance/situational (they worked together for their own best interests)?
It seems to me that if people are getting paid by sponsors and supporting their lives/families then they are going to care enough to win to read the freaking rules and not just go off of some “ethos” or whatever gravel vibe unwritten stuff. You can’t really have both. So either 1) write down the unwritten rules and follow them, 2) keep the current rules and shut up, or 3) stop trying to get paid to race chill gravel rides where everyone races with honor and integrity or whatever.
Our attention economy is disastrous for our actual enjoyment of anything, in my opinion.
I can’t find the ‘Rules’ for SBT GRVL. Does anyone know, Was the ubiquitous ‘Don’t be Lame’ in there? I’d say having male teammates pull females to the win would fall under that.
“How would you prove that 2 riders had an agreement to work together and it wasn’t just happenstance/situational (they worked together for their own best interests)?”
The same way every has convicted Vino of buying his Olympic gold medal in 2012…
I’m being facetious but these situations happen all the time in racing. This idea of everyone racing according to an unwritten ethos is pretty silly. Everyone that’s in it for the win will do what they have to in order to win. Some may play games that others don’t like but they probably believe those games are their best chance of winning. I’m ambivalent about these situations and think the drama in gravel racing has more to do with gatekeeping than honor.
Vino’s an interesting but fairly common character in cycling. I don’t want to run the thread off the rails so I’ll only say that my point is only that a lot of this is about perception. There’s a line running from LA to Vino to Contador attacking while Schleck had chain problems in 2010 to Adam Roberge attacking through a feed zone during the Gravel Locos race to male racers pulling women. Before anyone chops my head off for comparing LA to this, just consider my point that people will do whatever they are comfortable with in order to win. The Colin Strickland’s of the world can write patronizing articles on Velonews all they want, but that will not stop this stuff from going on. If it’s not in the rules, you can’t police it. Even if it’s in the rules, some guys may find ways around them.
Sure, it is frustrating that it has come to this but I don’t think it’s fair to just call this ‘drama.’ These are women’s livelihoods and careers at stake, of course this issue is going to get people upset and talking about it from all sides.
Genuine question here, but why isn’t it fair as long as any one can do it? Probably answering it myself now, it seems the consensus is that if it happens organically it’s ok, but if a team goes in with that as a plan, it’s not fair. I could see the later being unfair as that gives the women with a teammate willing to pull for them an advantage - and this is where I’m naïve, but again even then, what’s preventing another woman from simply sliding in the slip stream of the planned pace lining?
I think the concern also is about the potential increased focus on having men ‘helping’ women win in women’s races. I don’t think anyone wants to make the sport more male oriented, especially when there are still efforts being made to encourage more women to participate. So that is part of the issue.
Sure other women can slide into the slip stream of another ‘team’ but that isn’t the issue, if these were all female domestiques i’m not sure there would be a huge outcry, it’s the fact that some women are using male domestiques and that’s what people don’t want.
I used the word drama but was speaking more to us keyboard warriors discussing the issue than the racers. This is serious stuff from within the race which is why these things happen.
have men & women who are going for the win have to declare that upfront
Only those declaring upfront they are going for the win can win
If you are in the declared going for the win, you get special colored numbers - different for men and women
If you declared you are going for the win, drafting off of anyone not in your category is automatic disqualification
Release the folks going for the win in waves: Men, then Women with 30 minutes between the men & women, and then another 30 min - 1 hour for everyone else
This isn’t perfect, but would put everyone on notice, and make it easier to identify “cheating”.
I actually did stage races in the early 90s (Whiskey Creek Stage Race in Mammoth, CA) that had this potential problem of people in different categories drafting off of each other, and the rules were clear: no drafting allowed off of people in a different category. Could the officials enforce this 100%? No. But at least the rules were clear.
There are no rules, so you can do whatever you want. Send it
This impacts only the top 10 in gravel at this point. The question is does gravel become a road race on gravel rather then a gravel race.
Seeing first hand men pull women around for the goal of a womens position makes no sense and to me isnt fair. Gravel is not a road race. Flats happen water stops happen and they are things that can slow you down. If having someone pull you around, grab your bottles and bring them back up to you and then pace you is what it takes to win the race, are you really race?
policing this is about as easy as catching someone taking a back side free lap at a night crit
It’s about opportunity and not taking away from what should be (and is) an exciting race between top athletes.
These women are badasses, but if one is prearranged to have a husband or friend, who’s not strong enough to compete in the men’s pro field, but certainly strong enough to influence the women’s, I don’t think that’s sporting.
To illustrate the point, think of a lead out train in Le Tour. A sprinter can hop on the back of another train, but it’s not the same as being guided by their teammates who know their strengths etc. A man could shepherd a women through the start or combative portion of a race that wouldn’t necessarily be “just follow the wheel” for her competitors.
I’m rambling now to try and convey a point that I don’t seem to have got across. I’d just rather see these ladies compete against each other, I don’t mind if they work with some guys that they’re passing. Mostly because we all know that the girls in this situation are stronger and crushing some dreams.
I think its awesome the women drafting men. They are racing a race.
But if they have male team mate pull them around and ride at there pace and slow down when they struggle and then pace them back or pace them back after a flat, that’s not really what I want to see the sport become.
