1. Reraise jersey wearing
Increase increase... why?
Leader: I don't really see 20k as too little. It's 20k when I get it, another 20k when I keep it. And how much I invest to keep it is decided more by other factors than by the money. Good for me tactically to keep it, can I actually hope to keep it, etc. If for many 20k is not enough, so they rather not do anything to keep it. Ok, look at it this way, it opens up races more, something that seems to be in vogue to demand. Increase it to 25k or 30k? Not the end of the world either...
Other jerseys: 15k? End of the world, finished. 10k is enough. In most of the cases. The one group that IMO gets a bit fucked is the sprinter teams.. they don't seem to make that much money anyway.... I saw Marzahns finance page during the pavétour... shockingly low income. And that gets lowered further now, sprinters that ride tours are not necessarily that cheap even without a real classic rider. Just a guy to keep the distance low on the +4+5 etc. lots of flat riders and 1 or, why not, 2 sprinters. For them wearing the jerseys was important I guess, unlike most others they don't really have the possibility to go gain more money in other places. The rest has, point jersey wearing classic riders, climbers etc, mountain jersey chasers etc. Pure sprinter teams get a bit fucked, agree (with myself since I'm the only one saying it) but... sorry, keep it at 10k.
2. Team classification
no change I think... think about one, read above somewhere. Basically cut the per rider part, just give a fix amount per day.
New stuff:
Waiting for Ari is getting boring. Where is the guy?
3. +20'000 for stage wins and one day races wins
Ok, you say +20k for stage winners and one day races. 120k for a win. Agree, good idea. Do it. If then you want to change more in the whole money scale for one day races and stages, ok too, can be the next step and you do the +20k first... or can be the same step too, but then I'll discuss too of course.
4. Same for points, kind of
+25% points for the winner of one day races and stages? Like that too after all. IMO the same counts as for money, do it now, if you want to change more, next step, if you want one step, will take longer because the ape likes writing.
5. Money according to categories for tours
You're opposed to it I'm for it: so just do it. You don't need to really understand everything I think, just implement the great ideas
Ok.
Tours, money according to category. Only tours, not one day races. Why?
We all know that SOME tours are pure moneytours. Southland every year, for me this year Qatar too, but there's many more. 1 reason, jersey, has been cut a bit, good, the second one is: x riders in the top 20. Those moneytours have one thing in common. Low category. As soon as it's a bit higher, the group gets stronger, much more difficult to get x riders in the first 20. Occasionally still happens maybe, but occasionally not a problem. The problem is when it happens for x participants to make huge profits. And then basically it puts teams that don't have the time, like Ari for example at a huge disadvantage financially. You can't compete at the same level with only one day races, even if you win many of them. Even if it gets you 20k more per win.
So, why not adjust the money scale for small tours a bit?
Something like I wrote in the small post on page 1. Keep the prize money for the winner the same,
Cat 1: Only top 20 get money.
Cat 2: Top 25
Cat 3: Top 30
Cat 4: Top 35
Cat 5: Like now. Or if a change, why not give a small money present, 50 credits to all the finishers. You finished a GT, here's 50 credits. Irrelevant I know.
IMO that would make sense, place 11+13+16+18+21 in a 5 day cat 1 tour now gives you 38k per day. So 190k for well.. not really much, not actually anything worth remembering. Cut that. With the proposal in the short post on page one that would be 13k per day. So 65k. And that's what these places really are worth IMO. Of course it's nice when I get don't remember how much for my 5 top 20 or so in Qatar, think the best one was even top 10 though, but does it make sense? IMO no. Less money in winter is one of your arguments... yes. But is the money that my proposal would cut really the money you want to give out? In a way it would just adjust more to the real season, where there are fewer cat 1 tours, more cat 2+3. So actually in a way less money around because often, not always, the teams will be stronger, bigger fight for the TOP places, teh real top ones. And by giving less money to cat 1 etc. tours, also more incentive for bigger teams to participate in the big events during the season. Less incentive to go ride the cool race "5 days around a palmtree" and earn shitloads of money, more incentive to go to the parallel cat 3 one day races. A good thing IMO.
If I somehow manage to convince you to do this, then
7. Jersey wearing per category
becomes an option. TdF 20k for yellow. Not really much. But for the 5 palmtree days (and just one palm tree actually, not 5) is almost too much. Then you could make a scale there too. Cat 5 40k 20k, cat 4 30k 15k cat 3 25k 10k cat 2 and 1 20k 10k or even lower for cat 1. Something like that. Because the fixed rate doesn't really work. Too low for the Giro. but rather too high than too low for the maple tree tour (3 days, around 6 trees, you ride an 8 every day). Would be so much easier if you could adjust it. So adjust both, the final GC money according to the tour and the jersey wearing for the tour.
8 Category 0
Yep, a new category. Points? ZERO. Money? Normal. And it's not provocation, I'm serious. Right now we're riding criteriums. Aux is on a mission, he wants to ride club races, criteriums, "show races" everything, because it's real. If he continues like that in August 2011 we'll be riding every second post Tour criterium .Ok, let him have his fun, but let's be realistic. There are no points for those criteriums, club races, shows and what not. There is money. Give out money, ok. No starting fee, the organizer pays your whole team, even if it's 700'000k. Ok. No problem. BUT. Make it for those mind numbing club races etc, criteriums. Not for any other races, not for fantasy races. And keep having a real race, a real RSF race every day. Cat 1 up. The ones who want to ride criteriums, please, the ones who want to ride normal race, they ride a normal race. No more days like tomorrow where everybody is forced to ride some Argentinian thingy nobody ever heard about before, nobody cares about and looks like complete shit too, if I'm allowed to say that here. So, make it easy, introduce category 0 and lets keep shit out of the real calendar.