Riders banned because of team affiliation

[MattTuck]

certainly up to the race organizer....

In fact, this seems to be a sad commentary on the UCI's feckless and ineffective approach to doping in the past the legacy of doubt and suspicion that it has left. If they had been more serious in their obligation to keep the sport clean, perhaps race organizers would not feel the need to use their unsanctioned races to make a point.

[spinarelli]

There's got to be more to this story. Mariposa as a bike company, as well as Bicycle Specialities, have such a great reputation going back decades. It seems petty to focus on the USPS scandal. The fact that the organizers suggested a monetary contribution shows that their high morals are not so high.
If anyone is visiting Toronto you should stop and see their shop. Lots of cool old steel bikes.

[rousseau]

Some great videos on Youtube for Paris-to-Ancaster:

https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...aster+to+paris

[jtbadge]

I thought gravel racing was supposed to be fun without all of the 'roadie bull****?" Turns out it's more bad attitudes. Who'da thunk it?

[FlashUNC]

I don't know the organizers thinking on this, but Barry's newfound religion about his days with Team Sky make clear he gets outta the way the second its expedient for his own reputation.

His USADA admission and statements at the time mentioned nothing about the widespread sleeping pill and Tramadol use at Team Sky -- who he was riding for at the time. Now that the walls o' Castle Brailsford are tumbling down, Michael's suddenly there to bring up the doping that was going on at Team Sky.

It just feels a tad opportunistic to try to save face rather than truly trying to break through the omerta.

I did like his writing in Le Metier though.

[fignon's barber]

I see this "classic" has Giant as a bike sponsor. Didn't Giant support Team Telekom, when Ulrich,Riis,Zabel et al were all proven to dope? Where does it end?
My hunch is that they really banned Barry because he is Canadian. He made the "classic" less "europeanish".

[saab2000]

Originally Posted by HenryA

Is it even a real race? Looks like a put on to separate a bunch of MAMILS from their money so they can claim they “raced”.

That's what all amateur racing is these days and ever was for the most part. There are some unsanctioned gravel events where I live that have grown to near national prominence. Nobody is making anyone race in them and I know the organizer. He does it for a living. It's a for-profit enterprise he runs. I see no harm in that.

[e-RICHIE]

Does anyone have a link to the story mentioned in the OP? Not the event site, but the details about this banning.

PS

arrange disorder

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by Veloo

We have a point to point gravel / cross race up here called Paris to Ancaster (P2A) that has been a spring fixture for the last 25 years. It attracts thousands and is extremely popular. There's both an elite and a citizen race, each a different length. The elite event attracts some very high-caliber riders as well as some pros. Paris Ancaster has been mentioned here a few times. See link for more info. http://parisancaster.com/

It appears that the organizers have a problem with a local team, Mariposa Bicycles, riding under the sponsor’s name. The team has some nationally ranked riders and a previous winner of the event. Mariposa Bicycles is owned/ operated by Michael Barry, an ex-pro from Team Sky and other teams, who was a teammate of Armstrong and got swept up in the USPS Postal doping ring.

It appears the P2A organizers don’t feel Michael Barry has sufficiently paid penance, suggesting things like monetary contributions to P2A and to clean sport organizations could clean up his name and brand and open the doors to riders under the Mariposa name. Not dissimilar to the Olympic organizing committee banning Russia but allowing the country's athletes to compete as "OAR", the P2A race directors have offered to allow Team Mariposa riders to ride as independents.

Is it fair of race organizers to ban riders because of their team owner's personal history?

How long do you vilify someone for making a mistake or violating a rule? And why should the vilification extend to people who had no involvement with the original sin?

Get some plain white jerseys and go ride the thing, as 'team white jersey'...

Their event, their rules. IMHO.

[saab2000]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

Get some plain white jerseys and go ride the thing, as 'team white jersey'...

Their event, their rules. IMHO.

Yes, but it seems incredibly petty to punish the riders for the long-ago sins of a sponsor. Also, as noted, nobody who sponsored pro cycling is clean. Are Trek sponsored teams going to be banned? After all, they’re as tainted as anyone. No way they didn’t know what was going on and approve of it, as long as nobody found out.

[JStonebarger]

Originally Posted by fiamme red

Speaking of which, I like their latest commuter...

Nice looking bike, but a $5000 commuter? I'd be afraid to leave it outdoors!

[adub]

Some people just want to be important and seem powerful, all about stroking ones ego.

Whoever made this decision is a loser.

[BdaGhisallo]

Originally Posted by adub

Some people just want to be important and seem powerful, all about stroking ones ego.

Whoever made this decision is a loser.

Yup. Ban them if you want. The organizers own the race and make the rules as they see fit. But to suggest they would allow the team an entry if Michael Barry donated money to the race undermines their moral stance in banning the team.

[e-RICHIE]

Originally Posted by BdaGhisallo

Yup. Ban them if you want. The organizers own the race and make the rules as they see fit. But to suggest they would allow the team an entry if Michael Barry donated money to the race undermines their moral stance in banning the team.

I'm not denying this ^ happened, but it appears that this thread is the only place I can read about it. No search I can concoct brings me to a statement or news story that explains anything. 'Would love to read something official and get more depth regarding this.

[Brucer]

I’m baffled at the implication made by P2A organizers (and other inflated windbags like Dick Pound, who now makes a good living out of traveling around the world to bang the anti-doping drum) that professional and elite-level sport was once a lily-white activity pursued by a bunch of noble athletes who played strictly by the rules and never dreamed of reducing the weight of their cranks, eating a prescribed diet of kelp and frog’s balls, rubbing their legs with horse lineament or snorting a few lines of cocaine before a race. All of these upstanding individuals like Henne Kuyper, Tom SImpson, Gianni Bugno, Laurent Fignon, Beryl Burton . . . participated in cycling because of the joy it brought to their heart and always made sure that they beat their competitors fair and square by riding identical bikes on identcal tubulars inflated to identical pressures, following identical training regimes, sleeping for exactly the same number of hours every night and peeing twice a day whether they had to or not. Then suddenly, and almost overnight, a band of scurrilous deceitful reprobates infiltrated the sport and began riding to victory by enormous margins, and everyone thought for a long time that they were doing it on the same terms as their predecessors. Suddenly and almost overnight these scurvy bastards stained the lily-white culture of cycling, brought it into disrepute and rode away with millions of dope-fueled dollars while the innocents of the sport either stood around with their thumbs up their asses watching it happen or drew the attention of the world to doping when it began in the 1990s Or was it the 1980s? Or possibly the 1970s? No, wait, it was the 1960s. Or maybe the 1950s? Well, whenever the **** it happened, all the cleanly run well-intentioned incorruptible participants in the sport jumped up and down until the world paid attention; never for one second did these saintly paragons weigh the options and add doping to their arsenal of tactics for winning races. And once the world paid attention (in the 1930s or 40s or whenever) and learned the truth about the unscrupulous tactics used by competitors in cycling, the number of spectators attending races like the Tour de France plummeted from the millions to about three guys standing alone by the roadside waving signs that said, “Bobet dopes!” and “Up yours, Moser!” and “Eddy go home!” Sponsors immediately withdrew from the sport, television coverage stopped, viewers around the world abandoned cycling for shows like “How to change your baby’s diaper” and The Donny Osmond Happy Hour. And every rider who was ever suspected of doping pitched in with a contribution to a “clean sport initiative” that has changed the minds of millions of athletes who now compete not to win but simply to have good clean fun. And that, boys and girls, is why we can now eat slices of the moon on our grilled cheese sandwiches.

And by the way, I also think cyclists should stop wearing those tight pants.