Thirty years ago Sergio Neri wrote a text dedicated to riders, outlining the guidelines of their professionIt was full of values such as travel, discovery, inspiration, character, dedication, commitment, taste for hard work, sacrifices made to support the commitment of a sport that is not a game, but the perfect metaphor for lifeThe rider's profession.
«When I think of the years in Belgium with Ballerini – he Andrea Tafi remembered I remember the long time we spent talking together.Spying on each other to understand the technical choices the other riders were making. It was nice. We didn't have the stress we have today. Every time I talk with Bettiol, confirms it for meYou have to be super focused, and that's not enough. The way we train and run has changed. Before we had more fun, we had a different spirit. But now cycling has changed, it has moved forward like the world."
With the 2023 season starting from Australia e Argentina, we want to focus on on a sum of thoughts that have formed in the last few weeks, talking about preparation, scores, constraints and riders' lives.
Like Nibali and Valverde
In the lyrics of the time, life as a rider was a tiring yet poetic flow. Is that still the case, or is being a rider a suffocating pursuit of schedules and rigidity?
Madiot spoke about the Pinot's paradox, who refused various tools to go faster. Like the high-altitude retreats he resigned himself to a couple of years ago. While professing his desire for normalcy, he shares his workouts on Strava. And when one of the team's sponsors came to give him his sleep tracker, he looked at him as if he were a Martian.
Those who quit early probably didn't manage to to hold the thread of the conversation, letting the outside world impose itself on his inner world. It has Dumoulin told it very well, explaining how at a certain point he began to lose control of his career.
The riders who lasted longer, such as Nibali o ValverdeThey were born from a more conscious foundation. They learned to say no a few times. They shared the same genius and understood that the foundations of the work remained the same.. Instead, the context, the speed, the demands, and the vision of the sport have changed.
The transition phase
If you were born a rider, the values Sergio Neri described were ingrained in you. If you were born a rider In the transition phase, you may have found yourself in troubleHalfway between the romantic pace described by those who were there and the dizzying momentum of those who are already at the next step.
And if you are born a rider today, prepare for a high-speed career, not necessarily a very long oneYou'll have lots of contacts and very little time to settle in, but it will seem normal.
Exceptions are called champions. Evenepoel, Pogacar and Van Aert seem capable of staying in the saddle without taking too much away from their normalityIt all depends on the processor speed, what is considered normal and what is not, what is necessary and what can be done without. handing the same smartphone to a sixteen-year-old and a fifty-year-old at the same timeMaybe the youngest one won't be able to explain to you the reason for certain functions or what needs they arose from, but it's certain that he will be able to use it immediately and better and with crazy automatic functions, without needing the manual.
The big mistake is to evaluate the present by wanting it to be the same as the past. At most, if we're really good, you can redesign the present without forgetting the pastLeaving it in the hands of special interests, on the other hand, means having no plan, much less control over the situation.
Whose interest?
Technology is useful, but it's not everything. Even when it comes to riding position, it has been understood in recent days that positioning systems They are useful, but athlete observation is more soIf those who manage the training of the younger athletes are aware of this and allow them to grow by listening to your head before your own orders, the approach to their careers will be one of true awareness.
For this it should be careful in transforming grassroots sport into a laboratory at the service of professionalism: there are other needs too. The interests of the teams (who aim to monetize their talent scores), the interests of the WorldTour sports groups (who do everything to get the best athletes) and the interests of the agents (who earn on the sum of the percentages) do not distract from the primary interest: that of the rider.
Whether they are destined to live in a romantic or mathematical cycle, the only objective fact that remains is this: too many pass, many stop and just as many do not have the career they had hinted at.. villella He did well in the Italian Liquigas team, but got lost in the foreign teams he joined later.
The pretext why this happens is the principle that it is right to give everyone the opportunity to leave and try. Woe betide anyone who thinks of it. put a stop to itBut we wondered if everyone was really ready to receive it or if they really needed it.
