Valuing a rider: past performance vs. future prospects

Visit a stockmarket and you’ll soon learn the value of a company tends to be based on expectations of its future performance. The on-screen prices flash and change as tiny pieces of information, as well as big news, have their effect on the valuation of a stock.

Traders
On screen stock prices... or is that a race profiles or maybe a power curve there?

A stockmarket isn’t the only place where assets are traded. In the world of pro cycling a team owner will regard riders as assets. Some teams do this openly, for others managers it’s more of a subconscious calculation.

Either way, teams need to put a value on a rider in order to decide whether to hire him. There are various factors at play. Obviously a star rider has a high price but this is based on expectations about his ability to win future races more than his stock of past wins. In addition, can the rider contribute to the team, whether in riding or via other means, from leadership to a sense of humour? Will the rider bring additional sponsors? Will the the rider keep away from scandal?

Past performance is a guide to the future
So far all these questions involve the future tense, they are about what the rider might offer once they’ve been signed. It’s like stockmarket assessing the outlook for, say, Nestlé or General Motors. It’s not so much what has happened in the past but how things will turn out in the future, what will happen to sales and profits. But there’s a new factor at play in cycling that is not about the future but the past: ranking points.

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Bottom bracket failure?

Willer

I don’t do too much tech on here but it seems to go down well, my piece on the possibility of an electric SRAM group in particular proved popular. Today I’m interested by the variety of bottom bracket standards on the market because it’s something that seems fairly unique amongst consumer goods.

It’s common for industries to have various “standards” when it comes to technology, for example a Android smart phones or maybe those with Windows; a Blu-Ray disc or HD DVD. In times past VHS famously saw off Betamax and there are many more examples. But I don’t remember other industries offering so many options and above all, so many parts that won’t work together. Yet this is what the bike trade is doing with a variety of proprietary bottom bracket designs.

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Weekend round-up

The weekend’s racing threw up some interesting things. The Giro looms big but don’t let the anticipation overshadow some interesting stories from neo-pros succeeding to old dogs having their day over the weekend.

Degenkolb wins

First to Frankfurt, the Germany city that styles itself as Mainhattan, where a sleepy town meets global finance and skyscrapers. The traditional 1 May Grand Prix, these days known as the Tour of the Financial Square Eschborn – Frankfurt, a bit of a mouthful. I preferred the older name, the Henninger Turm, named after the local brewery’s visible grain silo. The race heads to the Taunus hills but it can come down to a sprint finish. As we saw yesterday several big names get ejected by the climbs, in particular in Mammolshain and it came down to a bunch sprint but not after several names got left behind.

This might be a bit mean but it was lucky John Degenkolb won. Why? Well go through the other 68 riders in the group and you’ve probably not heard of many of them. Even the top-10 isn’t quite star-studded.

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Joaquim “Purito” Rodriguez – the nickname explained

Joaquin Rodriguez nickname
One purito

Joaquim Rodriguez finished 2010 as the number one rider in the UCI rankings. He had a great year with several wins and many consistent finishes.

But how much do you know about him? With many riders it’s common to know where they’re from, what sort of person they are and more, at least to know their public persona. But I know nothing about Rodriguez except his nickname, Purito and that he’s from Catalonia. It sort of means “clean” in Spanish, a diminutive term… but that’s not the origin of his name.

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Italian Cycling, Part II – regions

This year’s Giro celebrates the 150th anniversary of the unification of the country, marking the moment when a collection of kingdoms, fiefdoms and other lands on the peninsula were finally united into a single nation, in part by military force.

Italy might have obvious geography, being bordered by the Alps to the north and its long “boot” standing out from the Mediterranean sea. But the country is still very much a collection of regions. I’ll generalise but ask an Italian abroad where they’re from and they’ll often state the region; if two Italians meet outside their country they will quickly enquire which region they are from. To this day there’s plenty of local pride, indeed rivalry.

il Mezzogiorno

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Divorce in the Kingdom: Omega, Lotto and Gilbert

Not all marriages last. Today came confirmation of a split in the Kingdom of Belgium between Omega Pharma and the Belgian lottery, Lotto. Both are long term sponsors of pro cycling. Omega boss Marc Coucke is a big fan of the sport and cycling is the most popular sport in Belgium, meaning the state lottery is almost obliged to get involved.

Reynders + Gilbert
Reynders and Gilbert: a classic "politician with sportsman" pose... or is there more to it?

But there’s a twist, as explained by Greg Ienco of Cyclisme Revue. Lotto is effectively under the control of Belgian politician Didier Reynders. He’s perhaps the top representative of the Walloon region, being both deputy prime minister and finance minister. Plus as there’s still no government, he was also an informateur, a role appointed by the King to help form a government but like others, couldn’t get a parliamentary majority in place. Put simply, Reynders is big in Belgium.

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The Giro d’Italia is bigger than Everest

Swiss scenery

Let’s play word association. When I say “Switzerland”, what do you think of? Punctual trains, chocolate, hard currency and secret bank accounts? Cheese, cows and yodelling?  I bet mountains are an obvious thought, whether for the skiing or the postcard images of lush Alpine pastures. So when you think of the Tour of Romandie, you tend to think of a stage race for climbers. Romandie is the French-speaking area and like the whole Swiss confederation it has plenty of mountain passes.

More precisely the 2011 Tour of Romandie has 6,100 vertical metres of climbing (~21,000 feet). Despite several first category cols and plenty more other climbing, whether categorised or not, this is not the most mountainous edition of the race. Still, there are six days of racing with the prologue and you can’t escape the hills. But all this is less than one single day of mountain madness in the upcoming Giro d’Italia.

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Pineau attacks the UCI’s point system

It’s the UCI’s points system that’s ruining everything. Teams think about finishing sixth or ninth instead of playing to win but maybe finishing tenth. They say the race radios are killing off panache, but the points system does just that. You play it defensive. Those are the words of Quick Step’s Frenchman Jérôme Pineau in … Read more

The UCI’s new private business

There’s a new Swiss sports event management company called Global Cycling Promotions SA. Big deal you might say, after all there are many sports promotion businesses around the world. But there’s difference here: GCP is owned by the UCI.

UCI logo

It’s a curious situation where the governing body owns a private promotion business. There’s no mention on the UCI website, at least I’ve had a trawl, used the UCI search feature and checked via google too where there’s only a press release that mentions Alain Rumpf’s dual role, as both UCI official and “Global Cycling Promotion Director”. Here’s hoping the UCI website gets updated and that the accounts are published too.

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Team rankings: UCI conspiring against riders?

UCI plans

I’ve long wondered about the UCI ProTeam licence criteria. They rely on four pillars: sporting, ethical, financial and administrative but it’s a grey area. One example, we’ve seen teams like Pegasus can push back administrative deadlines whilst all along there’s no money secured. Or take the ethical component, it’s very hard to enforce, a suspect team can only really get ejected if senior management are directly implicated in scandal and even then it’s possible to keep the team going if the management changes, we saw this with Astana in the past.

Secret rankings
The sporting element of a team is determined by a points-based ranking system that has been kept secret… until now. Even teams and their sponsors did not know what was involved but lobbying by the teams has made the UCI open a bit here, after all teams trying to convince sponsors need to know the rules of the game, rather than sending off the paperwork and crossing their fingers that they’re ok. I’ve found this secrecy very odd and it’s something team managers openly criticised.

What’s interesting is that the UCI has given the scheme’s details to the teams. And a great scoop by Cyclingnews.com’s Daniel Benson and Stephen Farrand means they can reveal the way this works. The piece refers to the UCI saying:

The UCI has always refused to reveal the complex tables and points scales used to award the licences, claiming riders would use them when negotiating their contracts.

Just imagine that, a rider with points being able to negotiate with their team! This reticence by the UCI suggests the poor rider is a long way down the pecking order.

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