Are Shorter Races The Future Of Professional Cycling? | The GCN Show Ep. 282

Welcome to the GCN Show! This week we're asking whether shorter races, and new race formats like the Hammer Series, are the future of bike racing? Or does cycling need the traditional long, hard days in the saddle?


With attention spans reportedly getting shorter and shorter, many sports are switching up their traditional formats to cater to modern consumers? Cycling seems to following suit, not only are shorter explosive stages becoming common in Grand Tours, but organisers are looking at completely new race formats. From the Hammer Series, to the Formula 1 style gridding on stage 17 of the Tour de France, are these sorts of events the future of bike racing? Or are they lacking a key element of professional racing?

We'd love to know your opinions, leave them in the comments below 👇

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[gcn]

Are short races the future of cycling?

[markwhitley]

Caption: Nice bike, what is it?
A Giant!

[sandiegocyclingnutz]

Great show GCN! While I don't need permission from my spouse to watch your show, I probably should get approval from my boss. :-)

[TheWaxChainFanClub]

Caption: It was at this point that Emma began to wonder if Dr Neils Boon's bike fit was legit.

[TheWilliamBogart]

CAPTION: Lovely setting, but the photo isn't taken from the drive side and the elf is wearing sandals. It's a "Nice" from me, I'm afraid.

[JCoe-mhrt]

Caption:
Emma's mom, "Don't worry dear; you'll grow into it."

[beeble]

Be careful with your Twenty20 analogy. The English Cricket Board have now decided that even that is too long and they now want to have yet another form of cricket that’s about 20% shorter still. Ok, great, but in ten years’ time does it get shorter still? You have to be very careful about targeting your sport at people who find it boring and continually chasing them. Fundamentally, they’ll still find it boring whatever you do but, now, you’ve also risked losing the people who bought it was interesting in the first place.

[jayshockey]

Ha ha, you guys made my day! 😂😂😂😂 I saw at the 36:25 mark you mentioned my comment as I was watching the wrong one of a year ago! My wife could not stop laughing cause you guys were so nice about my screw up but we’re sort of laughing at me! 😂 love you guys!

[PhilippeCarphin]

The initiative by team sky to eliminate single use plastics is really cool.

[justsomeguy]

GCN is the only channel I know to interact with it's viewers every video, especially the involvement they give the viewers in the Channel itself, at 18 (19 on Monday) I'm hooked on road bikes and it's all thanks to GCN

[donalobriain]

There’s always been short stages on the Tour, but they’ve usually been part of a split stage with a TTT or even 2 mass starts.

There’s definitely room for short stages, but at the same time we do want to see some 5-pass, 240km stages as well. Otherwise we’d never get those epic Chiappucci or Virenque escapes.

[frankritman]

Good to see an article about EDS. I was diagnosed later in life after years and years of pain and injury and frustration. It is a hard one to understand as at a quick glance someone with EDS can look fairly regular and have trouble getting taken seriously. Even with an official genetic diagnosis some doctors struggle. I was out riding the other day on my Mountain Bike and my "good" knee, the one that hasn't been operated on, hyper extended backwards while riding off a 30cm drop. It felt like a bomb went off in my knee but it popped back in and I kept riding saying to myself "don't look at, it don't look at it, don't look at it". Seems fine. Haven't told my wife about that yet, or maybe I just did. PS still available for GCX network duties.

[jonburnell]

Does anybody else have a bottle of beer waiting to celebrate with Dan on Wiggle of Fortune?

[Starclimber]

I often find myself at odds with your 'Hacks/Bodges' ratings. Isn't a 'hack' a quick, workable solution to a problem that arrived with little to no warning, generally? For example, the inner tube lashing down a suddenly detached saddle is to my mind a solid hack. Ok, possibly 'not' that solid, but you get my drift. Best use of what was at hand. Conversely, a 'bodge' is something constructed over time with plenty of...let's call it 'thought'...and fully inappropriate materials resulting in a product blessed with likely unexpected behaviours, such as concatenations of 3 handlebars and a hand brake activated with a solid application of a knee or groin. So-called hacks that require, say, 3D printing, are actually 'replacement or substitute parts'. I will now lock my head and hands into the stocks provided and await the decayed apples of public outrage I expect will soon be winging my way. BTW, good show, lads.

[joelklingenberg]

An honorable mention for caption! Thanks GCN! And you got my last name right, Dan! Not as hard as Ottawa I guess :)

[mikelove]

I am honestly one of the luckiest people out there. My partner not only encourages my fitness and cycling, but she is also an avid cyclist herself!

[ZOB]

One of my favorite days on the calendar is the Red Hook Crit in Brooklyn. You can go all day, see a bunch of heats and then the men and women's finals, none of which last more than about 45 minutes. It's a great day as a spectator, and helps build really exciting racing.

[lkbrd]

Expanding the fan base doesn't mean the racing is better necessarily.

[nickerickson]

I defiantly have to get permission to watch the GCN On the length of stages: Phil Leggit made those lagging stages so much more interesting by describing stuff other than the race, I loved that and will miss those tidbits when he's retired.

[elizabethcottis]

CAPTION: Emma Pooley signs new sponsorship deal to ride Giant bikes!