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Opposition to radio ban growing

by Neal Rogers

• July 13, 2009
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By Neal Rogers

The ongoing debate over the use of radios between riders and team directors will take center stage at the Tour de France on Tuesday’s stage from Limoges to Issoudon.

In response to the chorus of complaints that the rise of race radios has made the sport too predictable and formulaic, Tour organizers Amaury Sports Organisation asked the UCI management committee to agree to a directive banning radios on two stages, meaning virtual radio silence for both Tuesday and again on Friday’s 200km route from Vittel to Colmar.

The UCI approved ASO’s request on June 19, but team managers and riders associations never formally consented to the directive.

And with 15 of the 20 teams in the race signing a petition to protest the decision, the radio ban could provide added drama to a Tour that has also delivered controversial subplots surrounding the intersquad rivalry between Astana’s Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong as well as Tom Boonen’s successful eleventh-hour appeal to participate.

Two-way radios were first introduced into the peloton by Armstrong’s former Motorola squad in the 1990s and have become a crucial element of team tactics; managers communicate with riders, who race with earpieces, to advise on strategy, approaching hazards and other important information.

“I think [radios] have quite a big outcome on the race result,” said Columbia-Highroad’s Michael Rogers. “Teams are so organized now, 30 seconds after break has gone, everyone knows who’s in it, and we know the average speed we need to keep to the finish line to bring them back.”

However Rogers’ Australian compatriot Cadel Evans disagreed, saying two-way radios don’t add as much of an advantage as many believe.

“I think they’re perceived as ruining racing or something, but they’re not always what they’re talked up to be,” Evans said. “I think the best team and the best riders will still win.”

Criticisms against the ban include the added security that radios provide, by allowing directors to alert riders of upcoming dangers, as well as the added danger that would result as directors drive alongside the peloton to speak with their riders.

“At the Tour de France there is always something happening, a motorbike crashes, a car blocks the road, or people protesting something, or there is an oil trace on the descent,” said Saxo Bank’s Jens Voigt. “For these reasons we should have the radios.”

However not every rider agrees that radios increase safety on the course.

“For all those people that say it’s a safety issue, I think it creates more of a frenzy in the peloton than anything,” said Garmin-Slipstream’s Dave Zabriskie. “If a right-hand turn is coming up, the directors tell 150 guys to get to the front at the same moment. Otherwise we’d just take the right-hand turn and be done with it.”

Astana’s leaders, Armstrong and Contador, have both stated they are against the ban, with Contador saying, “Without them, a fall or a puncture could cause the strongest rider to lose the race.”

Armstrong took it a step further, arguing that technological evolution is part of the sport at every level.

“Technology evolves, the bike evolves, the training, the diet, everything evolves… the fabrics that we wear.” Armstrong said. “Look at [reporters’] cameras, the microphones… the transponders on the bike… all of it has evolved. So we are going to go back to a place where directors will have to ride up into the peloton to give orders to riders. That is not a good thing. I remember those days, I have been around long enough to remember them, and that is stupid too. A few of the guys think it is a cute idea, but I don’t agree.”

Another criticism of the radio ban is ASO’s choice to prohibit them for only two stages. Astana team manager Johan Bruyneel opposes the ban, saying the Tour is not the time to experiment.

“You can argue about it, but the Tour de France should not be a test ground,” Bruyneel said. ‘The teams are an important player in cycling and I don’t think we should just accept something ordered on us if it doesn’t make sense.”

A statement released Saturday by Tour de France organizers stated, “In keeping with a decision by the [UCI], the Commissaires’ Board would like to confirm that the 10th stage from Limoges to Issoudun on July 14 will be held without the use of radio communication. The Executive Committee of the [UCI] made this decision on June 19, 2009, and it will be upheld for the 10th and 13th stages of the race. We will do everything in our power to facilitate the job of the team managers.”

Asked what he expected would happen if the ASO turned a deaf ear to the teams’ petition, Bruyneel said the same question could be asked in reverse, opening the door for a potential showdown in Limoges.

“What happens if we don’t agree with the obligation? You can ask that question, too,” he said. “It just doesn’t make sense to do this in the middle of the Tour de France. I don’t think any argument justifies this. We have a lot of arguments to say we want to use the radios every single day, and against that I don’t see any arguments that make any sense. With all teams together we don’t accept this decision.”

Tour officials have said a compromise might be made, allowing riders to wear radios during the two stages, but only for the closed circuit radio tour transmission transmitted to all caravan vehicles — not for two-way communication with team directors.

And though the radio ban originally stemmed from ASO, Tour de France chief Christian Prudhomme stated he would be very surprised should organizers yield to the teams’ demands; the Tour boss even deflected the fate of the situation on to the UCI.

“I can’t imagine that the UCI wouldn’t go through with one of its directives,” Prudhomme said. “Nothing has changed since the decision was taken on June 19.”

Bruyneel said he expected a meeting to take place in Limoges on Monday’s rest day between parties from the UCI, ASO and team managers, however word on the outcome from that meeting had not reached the Tour pressroom by midday.

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Riders and directors react to radio ban

Jens Voigt, Saxo Bank

You can’t turn back the wheel of time. If you were to ask Formula 1 to do a Grand Prix Monaco without radio communication to their pits, they would say “Excuse me? Is anyone home upstairs?”

The radio, yes you can say it works against people in breakaway because the teams get information quicker, who is in front, time gaps quicker, they know how fast they need to ride to chase them back. But also the radios provide information and a lot of security.

At the Tour de France there is always something happening, a motorbike crashes, a car blocks the road, or people protesting something, or there is an oil trace on the descent. For these reasons we should have the radio. That’s how it works in modern times. You could also say let’s have two days without helmets, just to make it interesting, or for two days let’s cut the cables on the brakes.

Lance Armstrong, Astana

I don’t agree with it. I think that technology evolves, the bike evolves, the training, the diet, everything evolves… the fabrics that we wear. Look at the cameras, the microphones, the transponders on the bike… all of it has evolved. So we are going to go back to a place where directors will have to ride up into the peloton to give orders to riders. That is not a good thing. I remember those days, I have been around long enough to remember them, and that is stupid too.

A few of the guys think it is a cute idea, but I don’t agree. I think we keep the radios the way they are. And the Tour de France is not the place to experiment, if you want to roll something out, do it in Paris-Nice or Circuit de la Sarthe, but not on the Tour.”

Bjarne Riis, Saxo Bank team manager

There will be a lot of talking about it during this Tour. The way I see it, it puts a big risk on to the teams. Our sponsors put a lot of money into this team, and to win the Tour de France. Are we going to lose the Tour because Andy or Frank Schleck, or anybody important, might crash in bad moment, 10km from the finish, and we have no communication? It will be really bad, and I would say there would be a scandal out of it.

That’s a huge risk our leaders would be out of the classification by losing an important minute on a stage. It would be hard to swallow that one. Another thing, maybe more important, is security. It’s pretty nervous all the time at the Tour, with all the roundabouts in France and sometimes bad roads. These two days without radios, the sports directors will be panicking. I know they will be panicking. They all want to be in the top spot, in the front, near the peloton. If we need communication, do we need to do like in the old days, where we have to go up in the peloton to talk to our riders? That would be very dangerous.

Imagine you are sitting 15km from the finish line, there’s a big crash, 30 men down. We have any of our riders in the caravan because they are on the way back, and there’s a panic because another team’s leader has crash, and their sport director wants to be up there, and he’s going to hit one of my guys because he doesn’t have enough respect for the rest? That’s not going to be funny, and I just pray that is not going to happen. I think we can all pray for that. Another thing is, I teach my sport directors to be communicators, to communicate with the riders, to coach them, to lead them, to guide them. Not to be a travel agent. That is his job, to guide the guys. To take away the possibility for him to do that and put him in backseat as a travel agent is not okay.

Michael Rogers, Columbia-Highroad

I’m actually a bit of a fan for (the ban.) Obviously radios help for the safety of the race, but I think it has quite a big outcome on the race result, too. Teams are so organized now, 30 seconds after break has gone, everyone knows who’s in it, and we know the average speed we need to keep to the finish line to bring them back. I think it will change the outcome of the race, and hopefully the race organization still has a mode to get the critical information back to us during the race.

They’ve done it in the past so I’m sure they can still do it now. It’s not such an issue for the more experienced guys in the race, but there are a lot of guys who grew up with radios as juniors, under-23s and professionals, for their entire careers, and they are just robots. If there’s not someone making a decision for them, they don’t know what to do. So I think it’s a good way to stimulate the younger riders. They’ve already stopped radios in the younger division. I don’t think they completely have to stop them, but I think it could be interesting to race a few stages without them.

Matt White, Garmin-Slipstream team director

I’d rather we banned radios. I don’t mind if we lost radios altogether. We go through the stage everyday in the morning, and what I am telling them on the radio is only what I’ve told them in the morning, just reminding them. The Garmin units have nothing to do with the radios; we have more information on their bikes than in their ear anyways… The only difference (without radios) is that I’m not telling them in the race. We have the same tactics, the same plan before, and the boys have to think and act themselves. That’s like cycling was 10 years ago.

Whatever the Tour decides, just go with it. I think it’s a bit strange doing one day. I’d rather do no radios or all radios, but as for safety issues, I don’t really see that as a problem either. The amount of times you actually tell riders there is something dangerous on the road it just creates more stress because everyone knows about it. The guys are riding five or six hours a day, you can’t point out every dangerous bit of the road, so I don’t think it’s a real safety issue. I think some of the younger guys have struggled thinking about it. They are so used to being told what to do, they aren’t used to thinking for themselves, and I think that’s going to hurt some teams more than others.

Cadel Evans, Silence-Lotto

For me it doesn’t change much at all. I was counting on having at least three stages at the Tour de France where my radio didn’t work, so if we don’t have them at all it’s all right. My race radio didn’t work at all on Mont Ventoux on the Dauphiné. I think they’re perceived as ruining racing or something, but they’re not always what they’re talked up to be. I think the best team and the best riders will still win. I don’t think it will change a great deal of the race. Pro cycling went on for years without them. The main reason I wear a radio is to be not disadvantaged against my competitors. I don’t think it provides such a great advantage.

Stijn Devolder, Quick Step

Nobody has the experience to ride without the radios. It’s something they did 10 or 15 years ago. Now it’s two stages here at the Tour, and the stages are pretty difficult. I think it will be a different kind of racing. Different results, also. For everybody, and for safety, I think it’s better with the radios. Now it’s pretty easy to know everything from the car and what position the breakaway is and if you have to do it yourself you have no information you will react on situations later than you would react with radio.

Dave Zabriskie, Garmin-Slipstream

For me I’m excited to see it happen. I don’t like the EMFs floating through my body when the radio is on my back anyways. For all those people that say it’s a safety issue, I think it creates more of a frenzy in the peloton than anything. If a right-hand turn is coming up, the directors tell 150 guys to get to the front at the same moment. Otherwise we’d just take the right-hand turn and be done with it. I think it will be something to try out. I don’t know if they are going to make it a mandatory rule or not. If they (banned radios permanently), are they still going to have the guy with the chalkboard? I think there will still be information, so it’s not really like we are just running blind out there. It would be cool if they eliminated all the cars and spare bikes and we raced with tubes and things like that, but that’s probably another kind of racing.

Marc Sergeant, Silence-Lotto team director

In my opinion it’s going backwards. We have to go with our (era), and in every sport it’s a habit of coaching to give information to your athletes constantly. If you are taking that away it can even be dangerous. Certainly it’s a new way of thinking and riding for this generation. (Some say radios have made racing less dynamic), but if you are managing a team you want to be active in it. I think if you take that away, it can be nice, I agree, but I think the professionalism, the money we put in, we want some results, and I think if you can give hints to your team through radio, it’s much more professional.

Stuart O’Grady, Saxo Bank

It’s part of the sport, and half of the guys are flicking them out of their ears because their directors are pissing them off with their information and instructions. At the end of the day it’s about security. At the Tour of Switzerland we were hurtling down a mountain I’d just been dropped, and I heard over radio there was a big crash, and if it hadn’t been for that I would have plowed straight into that along with 40 other guys. If you are going to take away radios, then let’s take away all the press motorbikes in front of the race and all the photographers, and let’s put barriers up lining the course so there aren’t a million people standing on the course. What extremes are we going to take this to? It just seems to me to be a really ridiculous move — especially for just two stages.

Tom Boonen, Quick Step

I don’t really have an opinion. I think it’s pretty stupid to even think about it. What’s the problem of a radio? If you have to put time into this … I think there are bigger things to think about than of putting a radio in or out of a race. But I think it will be more dangerous for us. All the directors are going to ride into the peloton like they did 50 years ago. The objective is not to go back in time.

Johan Bruyneel, Astana team manager

We think it’s not right to do this on the Tour de France. It’s the biggest race of the year. The Tour de France is not a place to do a test, or an experiment. On top of that, nobody asked us for our opinion. We weren’t actively involved in this decision. What happens if we don’t agree with the obligation? You can ask that question, too. It just doesn’t make sense to do this in the middle of the Tour de France. I don’t think any argument justifies this. We have a lot of arguments to say we want to use the radios every single day, and against that I don’t see any arguments that make any sense. With all teams together we don’t accept this decision.

Alberto Contador, Astana

I am against taking away the radios, because without them, a fall or a puncture could cause the strongest rider to lose the race.

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