The Mailbag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. If you havea comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen incycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write toWebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name andhome town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Writersare encouraged to limit their submissions to one letter per month.The letters published here contain the opinions of the submittingauthors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, policies or positionsof VeloNews.com, VeloNews magazine or our parent company, InsideCommunications, Inc.

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How about those American women at Geelong?
Editor:
How about a mention of the excellent finishes of two American women on the Colavita-Cooking Light team in the Geelong Women's Tour in Australia? Dotsie Bausch won the opening time trial and Tina Pic won the final stage. It's pretty impressive!

Beth Gavrilles
Athens, Georgia

The ProTour can’t succeed
Editor:
The ProTour may look great on paper, but ultimately it can't succeed. The reason is the organization itself, UCI, is too far removed from the money that drives the sport.

Neither the UCI nor the national associations who belong have any money. They perform administrative functions that have value, but they don't provide the money to make the sport run. The teams, their sponsors and the race organizers make this sport happen, not the UCI or any national licensing body. If there is going to be a UCI, the folks who pony up the money should decide who the president is, not a bunch of country delegates.

Take a lesson from the NFL, NBA or MLB, where the owners select their commissioners. The form (UCI) has to follow the function (teams and money). Right now they are misaligned and deadlocked. The little gods at UCI are dictating to the people who pay for this sport, but eventually the people who pay will have their way.

If the UCI takes a hard look around, they will find that the UCI is the part of this whole mess that is expendable. If the whole bureaucracy disappeared tomorrow, who would care? Organizers still organize, teams still get sponsors and riders still ride and get paid. Give the ProTour an A for effort and an F for results.

Ted Leech
Woodinville, Washington

Form a new league that cuts out old organizers
Editor:
The current struggle between ASO and the UCI should be seen as a golden opportunity for the riders/teams to form an elite league of their own with a clearly defined set of rules in concert with the UCI.

Forming such a league would, of course, mean that some new races would have to be organized to replace those controlled by ASO, RCS, and Unipublic. Frankly, I read about and watch the races to enjoy the efforts of the best riders in the world. It matters less to me which events they are racing. And in any case, many of the new races could or would probably be held on the same roads used now.

I do understand the historical relevance of the great races that could be threatened by such a move, and I'm sad to think that they may be compromised. But teams have invested millions to become a part of the ProTour only to find themselves victims of the whims of the organizers, who feel their races are more important than the riders, teams and UCI regulations.

What other choice is there but for those that make bicycle racing at its highest levels the beautiful sport that it is — the riders — to strike out on their own and run their own show?

Weston Reid
Los Angeles, California

Why is Unibet in the middle here?
Editor:
In all the hyperbole surrounding the ASO-ProTour flap I seem to have missed something. Why is it exactly that ASO has decided not to invite Unibet? And further, why is it exactly that the rest of the ProTour teams are unwilling to come to Unibet’s defense? Seems any of them could be subject to the same treatment, so I'd think they'd be telling ASO themselves that "all are invited, or none.” Just curious.

Neil Hickey
Lake Stevens, Washington

Neil, we posed your question to VeloNews editorial director John Wilcockson, who tells us that the problem isn't really Unibet. He explains: "ASO announced last fall that in 2007 they would accept only 18 ProTour teams into their races. At the time Astana and Unibet were not ProTour teams, so they aren't being accepted. Astana got a wild card for Paris-Nice. Unibet didn't." Hope that helps.— Editor

Regarding the rant
Editor:
O'Grady hit it on the head in his latest rant. Hold a race that has no affiliation with the UCI, ASO or CrackerJack and show the suits that we want racing, not politics. We get enough of that without having to turn to pro cycling for it.

Dan Burros
Minneapolis, Minnesota

O’Grady’s on the money
Editor:
O'Grady's on the m-o-n-e-y. The riders should seek to dis’ both the phat organizations. There's no show and no profits without the riders. I hope they can hold it together and make a solid stand vis-à-vis ASO/UCI.

Gary Noe
Sacramento, California

Wrack ‘em up!
Editor:
I believe O'Grady should be at the meeting with the UCI and ASO, and he should be wielding a cue stick to break some balls if Clerc and McQuaid can't make nice. Once again, O'Grady puts the right amount of English on it to make the shots drop where they're intended. Wrack 'em up!

Shane Waldon
Warner Robins, Georgia

The 8-ball’s still standing
Editor:
O'Grady ran the table but the 8-ball is still standing. To sink it, we need a total boycott of all races by all teams and riders for a few months — including at least one grand tour — rather than a "charity kermesse".

Tom Smith
Ithaca, New York

Up the organizers, down with UCI
Editor:
O'Grady's right of course; it is all about the money. Pat McQuaid looks enviously at Bernie Ecclestone's bank balance and fancies some of that. ASO looks at Spa Francorchamps losing its F1 round and worry that the ProTour might one day be big enough to dictate terms.

Is F1 better today than in the 60s? Well, there's a lot more money around. But is it a better spectacle? I don't think so, just a more expensive one.

As a watcher not a player, I have to side with the grand-tour organizers and suggest the UCI go back to worrying about the weight of bikes and the size of wheels.

Stan Thomas
Wrexham, United Kingdom

No one tunes in to watch the suits
Editor:
This time O’Grady has hit it on the head. The guys running the table have decided, much like F1 leadership, that they and their interests are more important than the protagonists playing the game.

But you know what? I have never tuned in to “Cyclysm Sundays” to hear about the freakin’ UCI, and I have never gotten up at 4:30 a.m. for F1 to hear about ol’ Bernie Ecclestone. I was riveted to the tube to watch Lance blow away his rivals, especially after stunts like selecting him, out of 189 riders, for a “random” drug test, after everyone already did compulsories.

Just remember, UCI, ASO, et al., the results of American baseball and hockey strikes. Some fans come back, yeah, maybe for the playoffs, but the basic pleasure of watching a ball game is forever tainted by greed and selfishness. Only this time, the problem isn’t the players. So they will still have our support, maybe even more so because you treat them like pawns in your little game.

And if you start screwing over the classics and riders that keep us coming back, then like O’Grady suggests, you will be forever diminished, but the game will go on, with or without your blessing.

Aaron Hanna
San Jose, California

Best amid the worst
Editor:
Best yet. When cycling is at its worst, O'Grady is at his best!

J. Scott Schoel
Decatur, Alabama

Look to kids for inspiration
Editor:
Even hardcore fans who love it all despite the press reports run out of motivation sometime. I recently started coaching my 8-year-old’s U8 AYSO soccer team, an “open registration, everyone plays” pack of kids age 6-8, and I am learning a lesson in the meaning of sport.

I know it is a jump worthy of “Star Wars” to go from a kids’ soccer match to the ASO-UCI grudge match, but I will put my eight Black Dragons up against every exec in cycling when it comes to the real meaning of sport.

It is sad. Careers are being ruined, and the press, executives and riders are starting to look like clowns, puppets, victims or simply innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire. By any of those definitions, O’Grady’s “Hustler” analogy hits home . . . side pocket.

I haven’t turned my back on my beloved sport – hey, how can you when true heroes like George Hincapie fight back from a crash to chase down a break with a broken arm — but when it comes to looking for inspiration, I can’t look any further than my Black Dragons.

Volunteer to spend some time with a bunch of kids until all this blows over and we can get back to racing.

Peter B. Erdmann
West Palm Beach, Florida

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The Mailbag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. If you havea comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen incycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write toWebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name andhome town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Writersare encouraged to limit their submissions to one letter per month.The letters published here contain the opinions of the submittingauthors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, policies or positionsof VeloNews.com, VeloNews magazine or our parent company, InsideCommunications, Inc.