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Tour de France is the most drugged up sporting even in the world with most everyone wins being on steroids. I remember hearing that like 28th place was the best place for someone not taking steroids one year. All that to say I hope they let you take steroids in the game lol. Shit, if they want to make it realistic it has to be in the game.

Benji can just randomly DM 1/4 or the riders in a current WT peloton, gets personal invites to ridealongs (drop alongs :-0 ) with pro teams and plays the Lanterne Rouge for netflix. WOW!!. You have come a long way from making PCM content in your parents chicken coop.

If the UCI wants to ban certain types of messages they could still do it by monitoring the radio communication and applying fines/sanctions if violated (as for example radio commuincation in the warm up lap in f1). However, taking away the radio communicaiton in case of an emergency is just stupid.

I'd personally restrict it to the team leader and they can choose 1 other person stage ie an escape rider etc. and then only within 1 team vehicle. I feel there's far too many vehicles on the road during races and this should reduce that fact. This way if the leader is lost or the 2nd holder of an ear piece loses touch there's far more need for teams to work etc.

Thanks Benji for calling this out. I Always considered mr. Lapartient only as extended hand of ASO, a man, who will defend interests of major private company against basic interests of sport and riders. Your video only proves me right in this matter (btw when does his mandate expire? 😀). In the moment, you start see his claims and priorities in optics mentied above, It start make more sense right away. I find "making race more interesting and unpredictable" much more like interest of ASO, or RSA or Flanders Classics, because obviously, they make more money from it. I don't understand, why this should be issue of UCI in a first place. UCI should be governing body, controling and sanctioning work of Race organizers, heartlessly fining them for any preventable Safety issue. Not acting, like now they are, to 1) increase ASO's income 2) anything other.

yes

This will make Pogačar even more dominant, as he doesn't really care about team plans and instructions anyway.

No ear pieces does favor the offensive riders. Pay attention if you want to know what is going on. Only the safety with crashes and dangerous situations is a very viable point. Plugge would let his mechanic hang out of a car while going 80km/h to fix some gear issues, his opinion means dogshit to me as the most hectic situations in a race happens in between the DS cars.

well explained!

Just make the radio transmissions completely public in real time. It will be interested to listen ( at least for some people) and it wil prevent the teams to send messages that may be considered questionable.

Benji for UCI precident!!!!!

As a Pole, I can assure you, that selection of Tour de Pologne wasn't accidental. Czesław Lang(organiser of TdP) publicly stated during the studio on TV that he wants old-school cycling to be back because for him it is a real cycling, that's why that test is on TdP.

The teams should all strike. Where is the riders union on this?

Benji, its simple, the ds response is halted for some brief moments in the race only (ie before pinch points) when only rider-rider and race radio- rider comminations allowed, rest of time normal radio allowed.

Why are you shouting so often at me in this video.

Quality rant, Benji. LR must be proud of you😅

Good journalism

I think the main issue is that the *earpiece* is not the problem you have to solve. If the UCI wants to restrict specific tactical information, that's what they should focus on. As long as the radio transmission is not encrypted and secret, all they have to do is to penalise teams that send inappropriate information. Set the penalties as high as you want. The earpiece is not the problem.

What if the race radios get analized by AI. If the AI system argues that the radio has a negative impact on the riders safety because of what they say in the team car, the team could get fined. This way the radios could remain, without negatively impacting the riders safety

great video! the biggest danger to the sport of cycling today isn't doping, isn't reckless sprinters- it is the UCI. For me (and probably you) to agree with anything Plugge says is a big step, and you were right about the UCI response, crap. There was no reason for Remco to go apeshit in the Olympic roadrace with his mechanical if he had known the team car was close and ready.

Great video! I dont think they should get rid of them, could be very helpful if there is a major injury or the riders need help Plus this helps strategy and more exciting

It’s fine to like radios but it’s silly to say “that’s not cycling.” How many radios did Merckx, Hinault, or Lemond have? I think that having a general radio for official announcements would be great, but would like to limit the teams/cars talking to riders. Maybe have the team cars being able to listen but not transmit so that riders have to communicate with each other to make strategic and tactical decisions - your theoretical solution! I like it

Isn't it an option to monitor communication and bann tacktical communication? Like accept safety and comfort of life communication. But all other tacktical info/time/riders info should be talked about before the race

good video, but just a heads up, that thumbnail seems verrrry click baity 😅

In a word yes. It's more and more contrived the style of racing and less instinctive. Road racing without emotion and risk is like sex with a cardboard cutout. Let's go UCI, try it for a year.

People that never rode in 21st century packs of aerodynamic 45 km an hour average packs across 150 to 250 km of massively varying terrain, will never understand. It's not a video game. Radios brought the sport forward. Why is this even a discussion. Good job Benji!

Banning radios also results in a more uneven playing field, as wealthier teams can place team staff at the roadside in more places to enhance communication.

Safety aside, When the viewer has severely more information as the riders the riders will look really stupid a lot of times (chasing teammates, riding in the front while the leader has a mechanical and so on) this will damage the image of the sport and take away a lot of the tactics.

This question comes up a lot and the answer is always the same. No. I don’t know who seriously thinks races would be more interesting if they were less safe with less tactics. At that point, might as well take out the road and do all races via zwift.

Great work (and man, you're quick...) Such an infuriating topic. Safety of course the main thing. But in addition, I just dont understand how anyone can watch pro cycling and think the problem is that the riders know the race situation and can act according to (similar) information to what we have. Being in a race there's no way you can know 100 percent whats going on, whos going up the road, whats the timegap, how to coordinate teammates etc. They basically want randomness, stupid misunderstandings that ruin races for strong riders, and teams setting up their tactics to minimize chaos. We'll be back in the old days of morning break-bunch chilling and riding hard last 30 k's. Exciting sport is when top athletes battle to the best pf their abilities, with equal and maximal available information. If you think the way to make cycling more exciting is to make it more random, less about cycling ability and more about guesswork, I dont think you really like cycling that much after all (and in any case, if you think the racing is too defensive you cannot have paid attention the last half a decade)

From your video it's clear that to me that Rider > Car communication should not be restricted. Also riders need to be able to receive at least some race and safety information. So I think you can tinker with the latter. I think making the car radios fully public, like F1, would benefit both viewers (mostly the die hards, but still) and negates a little bit the tactical value. Otherwise a ban on tactical instructions from car to riders could be implemented. I think you should not go further than that.

I'm just imagining how pcm would implement this in team carrier mode. You will only be able to control 2 of your 7 riders at random for every race xP

Yes 🐳

Hello, my opinion/solution, for those who want another one : - Keep the radio, but just ban the tactical information having a official per team as a listener to the radio. That way you get both the technical information going up & down between riders and cars (and support, "Allez Allez !!") and you limit the pupeteering from DS. - Ban head unit instead. With those thing you now very rarely see a rider implode because he went too hard or anything the like. They ride with numbers way too much. Taking the risk to go over the limit plays a big role in unpredictability, suspense and so on in my opinion. That's my 2 cents ! Have a nice day if you read this far :)

Superb rant 🔥

Dans quels pays ce jeu se déroule-t-il ?

Why is it that I get a flat or mechanical I'm out of the running but a Pro cyclist gets one of these he gets a new bike? Shouldn't they be subject to the same circumstances. I watched the Olympic road race and it was great racing. Would have been more interesting if all the participants had teams of four riders but still there was a better quality of racing to watch and we didn't just see a massive group ride to the last 30k to go. I think the radios make the odds more controllable for the bookies.

No. Racing without radios would not be safer at all, every ds has veloviewer these days which they use to warn riders for danger. Cycling would be an amateuristic sport as well without radios.

From a pure race tactical/entertainment perspective, removing race radios is similar to removing football managers during matches. Managers can make the game very entertaining with their tactics. A DS in the car is playing the same role, and we've seen a lot of entertaining races of the years driven by tactics over the radio.

If 2 communications per team, does it mean a guy can pass it on to a teammate when in danger of getting dropped? Wouldn’t make sense to have Jacobsen miced-up if that mic is 50km behind the peloton 🤔

I want radios banned. It's a form of cheating.

Benji for President 🎉❤

I feel like you have not watched the stage that you are talking about extensively here. Go watch it and get informed

I just don’t understand why they’re so opposed to this from a pure race perspective anyway. Imagine watching a football match where they ban coaches from the sidelines and so neutralize the ability to sub. Why is that bad in the first place? I don’t understand it. Are they furious that Visma and UAE are winning a lot? Are the mostly lobbied by FDJ? I don’t understand.

More entertaining with smaller teams and NO radio.

All Benjis fans! Let's use our power and comment on this ridiculous tweet of David Lappartient. Thera are a lot of us and together we can make a difference and show UCi our objection. Maybe even we could influence UCI decision and save our favorite sport i will post the link to this tweet as a response to this comment.

Your theoratical idea is exactly my thought, maybe a beep or something to acknowledge a message is understood would be the missing element. If the dual channel would be possible that would be ideal. It's a bit unfair to state crashes would have been prevented with ear pieces. There have been similar incidents in races with ear pieces. If my memory serves me right the horrible Basque country crash still happened after someone in the break had a moment in the same spot. And of course an experiment will always be more chaotic because riders are not used to it. This will change over time once riders have adapted. So yeah, Plugge is doing a bit of fake news because he wants radios. Neither side is completely fair in this. No tactical instructions require different skills from riders, making more decisions on their own. Some will benefit, some won't. But making riders more autonomous in a safe way is a good principle in my view.

7:24 a team car is not allowed to overtake other cars in the convoy until the race jury contacts him. They'll contact him once they see a rider from his team at the back of the group indicating that they need supplies from the team car (usally lifts a bottle in thr air).

Eurgh why do the UCI hate us?

I can’t think of a modern sport where a competitor would be expected to compete without knowing where teammates and other competitors are located in the playing field, or in the results standings within the game.