Doubt it. If he’s dropping current and former WT pros who are still in prime fitness and putting big time gaps into them, then I’m sure there’s a team out there who’d give him a shot no question. I imagine he’d be taking a paycut and it’d be a big lifestyle change, so might not be worth it.
Quinn Simmons mentioned on Paysons podcast that his Leadville power file was something that kind of legitimized his ability/potential to ride at a WT level and turned some heads at Trek. And he didn’t even win. He was also super young though…whereas Keegans in his prime.
I agree it was about publicity, being an american team and all. EF kind of beats to a different drum on this stuff, they have been supporting riders doing alternate events like Unbound and Leadville for some time. Running a cycling team is all about publicity and driving views. Winning helps, but it’s not the only thing. If it were, you wouldn’t see Sagan and Froome still making more than basically everyone else in the peloton. If putting Strickland or Keegan in the mix makes more folks engage, then it’s a good move. I’m not saying Keegan should/would entertain a WT offer, it seems like a miserable life for most of those guys. I have no idea what motivates Keegan, but it seems like he’s thriving in his current approach. Does he make any $ from all this? Again, I don’t know. He isn’t getting rich on prize $, even the lifetime grand prix (all the buzz about $250k purse) only pays the winner $25k. That’s for the entire series, so basically pays for your travel with a little bonus. I hope he’s making well into the six figures from sponsors, but who knows. Cycling is such a niche sport (especially in the US) that there is no real $ in it. Top athletes in mainstream sports make 10’s or 100’s of millions per year (before all the endorsements). Again, it’s hard to say what motivates folks to race bikes for a living, but I doubt (and hope) that $ wouldn’t be the thing that pulled him into a WT role.
When up and coming Suga Sean was asked if he was happy with his current UFC contract he said- he uses his platform in the UFC to sell merch. That’s where I makes my money.
It’s no surprise that young WT riders like Harry Sweeny are starting Youtube channels. That kid has generated more publicity from Reddit than he has from all of his racing combined.
Yeah, I don’t claim to understand all the economics of youtube or other social media outlets, but it can clearly drive significant $'s. I think the cycling “niche” market still limits the potential here. You look at some of the successfull youtube cycling personalities (Dylan, Vegan, etc.) and they might get a couple hundred thousand views for their videos (which are pretty well produced and polished). Then, you see a 1m+ views in 1 day for a crappy video of a pretty girl fishing in a bikini or some redneck smashing stuff. If you follow the $, it doesn’t lead to cycling content.
Keegan is a fantastic ride and dominating in his niche, but its a small niche that is basically USA only at this point. The European road cycling scene is ten times the size, many countries probably have a bigger cycling scene than the US. He is absolutely crushing it, but he is not at the world tour level. He has never even raced a legitimate world tour rider (as far as I know, I’d love to know if I am wrong though!) He lost at unbound to Ivar Slik, who is a strong UCI conti racer, but has never raced at worlds. Keegan raced two XCO world cups last year and came 58th and 81st. The only XCO WC riders than can make it as World tour riders are the absolute phenoms, like Tom Pidcock and MVDP, and Keegan isn’t in the same league.
I think alot of north americans don’t understand how insane the level of cycling is in europe. I have a friend who was a national champion in cyclocross, absolutely dominated all the road, xc, and cross raced. First race in europe he got lapped multiple times, and after two seasons he retired without ever cracking top 100.
All 3 of them guys had 0 success in the WT and unlike Keegan can actually top 10 in a WC. Those are some of the best of XC racers and haven’t done anything in a WT race.
My point is not necessarily disagreeing with your one. I’m just saying don’t use Pidcock and MVdP as examples of WT vs XCO WC. Those guys got picked up because they had the potential to do something at the WT level (Vader is still with JV but had that bad crash).
Few if any riders on the WT could be pack fodder in the XCO circuit too.
For a while the NorCal Cycling YouTube channel was posting bike race videos from a Dutch cyclist doing club races in the Netherlands. He was racing at a level similar to Cat 1/2 here in the US (e.g. The fastest local guys but not pro). The difference between that and virtually any US racing is crazy. The races posted all had 100+ racers and it looked like there was a multi hour road race every weekend. The level and depth of the riders was crazy by US standards. Other than the guys who are racing the USA Crits type national races, no one here is seeing that level of racing in the USA on the way up. And this was club level in Europe. The fastest guys where just hoping maybe they’d get a look from a Continental team. Its not just the speed, but the level of skill and tactics the Europeans get to deal with even as young juniors. Even if US riders have the raw fitness and numbers, they generally have at best 5% of the experience racing in 100+ rider road races on narrow European roads that your average newly signed European pack fodder neo pro has. Its not just that jumping the pond means you’re racing WT riders, it means your racing guys who have been doing real road racing in big competitive fields since they were little kids.
I agree with most of your argument, but I think you only view this from one direction. I reckon that Keegan would have most pro road racers for breakfast if they raced him on a worldcup-level XC course simply because his bike handling skills and his ability to navigate terrain are superior. I’m of course excepting people like Pidcock, MvdP and Sagan who have a mountain biking background. Mountain bikers are not “failed road riders” just like enduro riders are not failed XC riders, you need to bring a different skillset to the table. Likewise, even though many triathletes start out as “failed” swimmers, runners and cyclists (and I use “failed” very loosely), you couldn’t just take Michael Phelps in his prime and expect him to dominate triathletes in an iron man.
To me mountain biking and road cycling are different in three major ways:
Road cycling is a team sport whereas mountain biking is an individual sport. Yes, I know there are exceptions (e. g. the Olympic road races or team events like Cape Epic), but by and large you are competing by and for yourself, and nobody is sacrificing themselves for you offroad. That means you are judged by your individual achievements. Road riders are treated very differently. Not only do you have specialists like sprinters, domestiques and climbers who are not expected to perform well in races that does not suit their strengths and abilities, but domestiques aren’t even judged by their individual race results — all that matters is whether they fulfilled the team objectives. I reckon that this attracts a very different kind of athlete. @ambermalika loved the moments she managed to help someone else win. But does MvdP love helping others win when he is the undisputed no. 1 in another discipline and very much competitive on the world level in another? I am not sure. Personally, I’d find that frustrating. Keegan also doesn’t strike me as a team athlete. GC riders and sprinters have the most visibility and tend to be viewed as the heroes just like the “best” soccer players tend to be attackers who score the most goals and not defenders.
Bike handling under pressure is not as big a factor in road cycling. Yes, there are people who are better at descending than others, but you can perform well if you can make up for that in other ways. Not so offroad, the bike handling skills you need to participate are not just on another level, they have increased over the years as the XC courses got gnarlier and gnarlier. 10 years ago a sizable share of XC riders were on hardtails. Now it is pretty much nobody, you need a fully. Perhaps there are some XC marathon races that are an exception, but even here, I think the default for most athletes who want to be as fast as possible is a fully. The type of training you need to do to be good at bike handling is just very different. Jolanda Neff showed bits of her gym routine and some of the drills were completely insane: she’d stand on a balancing board with a broom handle in front of her like virtual handlebars. And then she’d jump, turn 90 degrees and land while keeping her balance on the balance board
For stage races in particular, you don’t need to be good at one sport, road cycling, but two sports: road cycling and eating. (Just like triathletes have to train in four disciplines — swimming, cycling running and nutrition.)
My outsiders understanding of the economics of WT racing is unless youre a “cycling household name”, youre hardly making pro athlete money…its closer to a grade school teachers salary (which is a different problem). Continental guys are making so little that being able to sell your team bike at the end of the season can be a large portion of your take home for the year
Compare that to guys doing gravel as privateers, finding their own sponsors and funding, are actually doing fairly well for themselves.
The economics simply arent there. Hes almost 30…theres 20 year olds that have a decade of development ahead of them that would probably make a better long term team investment. Would I like to see him get that contract? Hell yea!
You’re correct that they haven’t but it’s not that simple. The might be on contracts/team where it’s not their job to go for the win but to help others go for the win (see OreoCookies excellent answer on WT road riding being a team sport). Compare to belgian cyclocross rider Qinten Hermans (Inter-Marche Wanty) who is comparably behind mvdp/van Aert in CX as Vader, Koretzky et al is in XCO, and has performed well in big races (2nd in Liege-Bastogne-Liege, won a stage in Baloise Belgium Tour) but that can be all down to team orders and team strategy not that he necessarily is stronger than the others.
Granted, Hermans has more seasons on the road than e.g. Koretzky but a lower levels.
I completely agree with you. Just have a look at my first posts in this thread. Even in the post you are referring to, I start with “I agree with most of your argument.” and only disagree/add to the part where you talked about athletes in more generality rather than just Keegan.
You may very well be right, but that is not what I was responding to.
Someone asked if he has been approached by WT teams and most responses were pondering why he would want to ride WT. If given the opportunity, I think it would be a tough decision.
If the thread was “should keegan quit gravel/MTB and start doing US road races, taking a chance that he will be able win the biggest races in order to sign with a low level team in europe. Again taking the chance to that he will win enough races to be noticed by a low-level conti team… and then get noticed by a world tour team”,
I read the first post, everything in between, and your response. I responded accordingly. The first post also said that they would be surprised “if no one has tried to get him” and “I could see Keegan becoming a GC contender”.
As many others have pointed out, he’s probably not in the same league. Of offense to Keegan, but 99.99% of riders aren’t GC contenders. And we’ll never know until he goes and pursues road racing or Vaughters tries another publicity stunt.
Does anyone have any idea what a guy like Keegan can pull in over a year? Presumably most of his income isn’t prize money as it just isn’t that high. Any ideas on order of magnitude? $50k, $100k, $200k, more?
Here in New England we’ve always had strong CX racers, but they only occasionally race in Europe. I’ve always assume it’s financially ‘better to be a big fish in a small pond’ than consistently finish 20th in a WC race.
I don’t think the differences between GC riders and WT riders is as big as people are making it out to be.
In every sport its like this… a rider gets into a team, a bike, a coach, a mental state, etc and they are dominant and everyone calls them an alien. A couple years later things have changed, someone else is dominant, and that previous “alien” is now just a pack rider.
Sometimes things just come together. But the difference between athletes at this level is not what people are making it out to be. The vast majority of those top guys are capable of winning if everything goes right.
That said, Europe is on another level with competition. Not that Europeans are better… its just that there are so many more of them in a small area. I remember racing motorcycles in Germany. As an amateur, in Europe. Guess who was scheduled to race against me? MICHAEL SCHUMACHER. WTF?? There are just so many people in Europe that the talent pool is bigger and it starts at the very lowest levels. You really have to be good to move up.
Look at MotoGP. Europeans dominate. They have all of these feeder programs to find talent and grow it.
At least we have the the remote gravel roads. Europe is beautiful, but nature wise, it doesn’t compare to some areas of the US!
