Tomorrow is the start of a whole new venture in cycling here in the US. It is the debut of the World Cycling League. The World Cycling League is track racing. The format is co-ed teams, representing different regional, racing head to head on indoor velodromes. The first race is tomorrow night at the Velo Center in Carson CA.
I first heard about this from Dave Chauner at the Pro Challenge last year. I’ve known Dave for a long time. He was the man behind the original Philadelphia Professional Road Championships. He was on two Olympic teams, wrote a book and now is the behind the WCL. Busy guy.
Dave contacted me asking if I would want to come to the premier event of WCL. I was invited as media. I don’t really consider myself media, but maybe I should. I kind of just do what I do, not really reporting on anything, just writing down my observations of things I’m interested in. It doesn’t really matter how I’m labeled I guess.
Anyway, there are three sessions. Tomorrow night, Saturday afternoon and then Saturday evening. If you live anywhere near LA, why not go and check it out. I’m sure it is going to be crazy exciting.
I hope to meet up with Seth Davidson there on Saturday night. He wrote a post about the event too a couple days ago. For more information, to buy tickets, or just check out the WCL, click here. The events are also going to be streamed live at WorldCyclingLeague.com.
Tucker not knowing what to do with such a big amount of water.
I remember something similar back in the early 90’s the “US Cycling League” (or something like that). It was televised on something like ESPN3. I’d watch guys like Mike McCarthy chasing guys around a small criterium course (devoid of spectators). It didn’t last long.
They had ESPN3 in the early 90’s? That’s their online channel. How many AOL trial CD’s did you have to burn through to watch each race?
Krakatoa – I did that too. Won the “World Championships”. Have the ring to show for it.
https://stevetilford.com/2012/07/31/ncl-world-champion/
For laughs, you should wear one of the skinsuits on one of your group rides.
Since watching track cycling is about as exciting as watching bowling or fishing on TV, I predict this won’t last more than one season.
I’ll say this. The recent Madison World Championship snared by Cavendish/Wiggins was most exciting tv, dare I say scintillating.
It was way more exciting than a flat Tour stage.
LOL, whatever channel I watched it on (trust me, it was not prime-time, and it was very “cable”), it was entertaining to those of us who knew the names of the riders involved. It was pretty obvious that it was just a “side gig” for all of those involved. I’m sure the same couldn’t be said for the ownership, but heck, it was an attempt at proof-of-concept testing.
Too funny, Steve. I remember that none of the teams had any riders on their rosters that lived anywhere near where the teams were supposedly based. It was just a collection of already existing “new era” pros.
Maybe, but that flat Tour stage has Phil Liggett’s scintillating coverage!!
Krakatoa,
I’m not sure why you had expectations of riders being genuinely local to the city-based teams. As far as I know you don’t find that in any professional city based league, major or minor. or even D1 collegiate sports for that matter.
I’m sure none of the owners thought the NCL was going to be their primary revenue source. Heck, the proof of that is that none of the owners had a cycling background. If you will recall, the Pittsburgh team owner was Franco Harris, for example.
So as you say, it was a side gig for the riders, if for no other reason than we have all seen teams disappear overnight before, during, and after the season.
IMO, Peter O’Neill was a fast talker who got some investors to buy into his plan. The main thrust of the promotion was that the riders were gladiator-esque in a NFL/WWF kind of way with plenty of crashes and gore.
What track racing have you seen? Perhaps you should check it out before downing it. I agree that track nationals are horribly boring. But this isn’t track nationals.
Why so down on the WCL of 30 years ago? You got paid what was promised, generously – got to race your bike for a good wage and get on TV. Sounds like you were living the dream. We need more of those promoters and less of riders ripping on them because they actually got treated well. Maybe if you just got screwed over you would have fonder memories.
Co-ed? Really? I can barely think of anything in cycling scarier than a co-ed Madison. Are they trying to appeal to the NASCAR crowd or what?
I wonder who the CO guy is and how many times I’ve raced against him. He should be arrested for theft, might have stolen some of my amateur glory!
It’s funny to me what depths some are willing to travel for such little gain. Master’s bike racing…..we’re all going “pro” in something other than cycling…..get over it.
My son and I went to the WCL event last night and had a blast. The PA announcer kept talking about it being the “first” event of the new league; given only about 300 folks in attendance we joked that it was probably the finale! But the racing was, in fact exciting — the events selected by the league all had at least six riders on the track at one time so there were none of those one v. one events with competitors half way around the track from each other or strategic track stands, etc. Just a lot of really fast, dramatic, and gutsy racing.
As for the co-ed part, that just means that they had separate mens and women’s events in the 12-race program scored towards the overall team competition; there was no event in which male and female riders competed head to head.
As LA residents, if the league survives to open an actual season in October 2016 as planned, we’ll definitely be going back.