Paris-Nice: Cyclists Strike!

Enough! It is time the riders took matters into their own hands. All of the invited team riders should show up for Paris-Nice, ride one kilometer, stop, lay down their bikes and refuse to ride another inch. Strike! Just like they did in the 1998 Tour de France. If the ASO and the UCI can not immediately resolve their issues and write a joint communique of agreement, the teams should pack up and go home.

I have no sympathy for either side in this fight. As far as I am concerned both the ASO and the UCI can drop dead. The riders are being shoved around the board like chess pieces. Blackmailed and threatened by the UCI with sanctions if they ride Paris-Nice, threatened and blackmailed by ASO if they refuse to race. No Olympics or World Championship. No UCI sanctioned track events. If riders don't ride Paris-Nice ASO will refuse to invite their teams to the Tour de France. Other ASO organized classics are out too. Clerc, Prudhomme, McQuaid, they all are thugs.

Micheal Ball is right. It is time for the riders to organize a union with teeth. They should pay union dues so if a rider should encounter problems he/she will have people who will represent their interests!

The team sponsors need to organize and grind out multiple year non-negotiable contracts with these insane people. RCS, Unipublic, ASO, and the UCI. Astana, never again. If the sponsors are willing to make multiple-million dollar commitments to cycling they should be assured that the team will be invited to race no matter what an individual rider may be accused of doing. The only exception to this rule would be systematic doping by a team like Festina. These theater like exclusions of riders and teams that have been going on since the 2000 Tour de France must end, now.

If there is not a resolution of the Paris-Nice conflict soon I am considering a boycott of the Tour. I want Levi Leipheimer. I want Andreas Kloden. I want Alberto Contador. I want Cadel Evans to prove he can win the Tour de France against the best riders in the world. No gifts. Otherwise, I may spend July looking over old films of past Tours and do some historical research.

Back in the day the Tour was a race, not a circus.