At least for the foreseeable future, it’s over. Not surprisingly, the Grand Tours got what they wanted. Although there will still be something called the ProTour, there will also be something called the Historical Calendar including all events organized by ASO, RCS, and Unipublic. These organizers will keep full control over team selections and presumably won’t have their TV rights bundled in with the ProTour. I said a long time ago that the best the UCI could hope to get from ASO would be to handle drug testing, and that’s pretty much what they got. They also get to say that they “sanction” the HC races, which in practical terms doesn’t mean anything.

Furthermore, allowing the UCI to hang around means that the headaches of drug testing, global marketing, and athlete development for HC races are subsidized by the rest of the cycling world. Then again, the rest of the cycling world owes much of its existence to the Tour de France.

The UCI will claim that the ProTour still gives them the opportunity to expand globally, with the Tour Down Under, the Tour of Sochi in Russia, and the Tour of China that will eventually  get off the ground. That’s not insignificant, but the US market is has the most potential outside of western Europe and ASO remains the gatekeeper here because of their partnership with AEG and the Tour of California.

Pat McQuaid has said that he expects the teams to re-up on their ProTour licenses now that a settlement has been reached, but I’m not sure why they would. The license offers no guarantee of starting the Grand Tours or any cut of TV revenue, but still requires teams to send riders and staff all over the world to markets where their sponsors might not have any business interests. I don’t see the incentive.

Velonews.com has the projected calendars.

Lots and lots of goings-on at Interbike. It was a long couple of days. I’m not at the point yet where I have actual coherent thoughts but when I do, I’ll post them. Here are some things that were part of the experience.

And these guys:

10 Degrees Latitude from Neal Mueller on Vimeo.

I’ve used Twitter, Flickr, and Kyte to build a lifestream page from Interbike in Las Vegas. Here’s a preview:

Latest Tweet

Anyone at interbike want to split a cab to the airport? # 2008/09/26

Latest photo

More videos, photos, and text updates

(post frozen after Interbike)

As I learned from writing the Zipp catalog, the technology that goes into modern race wheels is amazing… and the prices reflect that. But now you can rent a $2000 wheelset for 100 bucks from Echappe Equipment. Well, insurance is $40, a cassette is another $10, and shipping is based on FedEx rates. Carbon-specific brake pads add $52 and you probably need ‘em if you don’t already have carbon wheels, which is probably the case since that’s what you’re renting. So it’s more like you’re getting a $2000+ wheelset for $200+ for the first day, plus another $25 per day after that.

Stilll, it’s a compelling option for a lot of folks, especially semi-serious age group triathletes who base their seasons (lives?) around a couple of race days. And if I’d rented some tubulars, I wouldn’t have pinch flatted a third of the way into the Heartbreak Hill GP that I dragged my bike across the country for (see Cat 3 results)

Kadisco friend/client MASH blogs:

We updated the MASH site today with new videos, 500 information links, a photo archive, a press archive, oh and Lance fucking Armstrong!

Right on. Have fun buying the Tour. (more thoughts on that tomorrow)

On my way to watch the San Francisco Twilight on Saturday, I stopped at the top of Fillmore St. and made this little video, thinking back to the San Francisco Grand Prix. Then I shot some photos and video at the race.

 
Fillmore and Broadway from josh kadis on Vimeo.

Before Cyclingnews, this was all the information you’d get about the Vuelta had until VeloNews came in the mail. (It’s on the left, next to the WNBA box score.)

Now that I’m commuting on BART, I get free coffee but no cell reception most of the way, so I’ve been looking at actual newspapers.

Well, sort of. MTV has a announced a new ad network based on “Tribes”, i.e. different subcultures within their audience. It’s a scaled-up version of the Hype Circle network that former Kadisco client Sneakerplay is a part of. They have a very specific look and get great CPMs, even if they don’t do a lot of volume.

What’s interesting is that it’s a move away from automation. The need for relevancy  is so great that you can’t rely on searches and tages; whoever’s managing the network really needs to know the subculture and make judgement calls about what sites (or areas of sites) to include and what ads the audience will respond to. Hype Circle seems to work for advertisers, so there’s definitely potential for this model even if it’s more labor-intensive.

via TechCrunch

Just felt like posting a photo of my desk, where I am currently working.

The video that MASH taped with Lance earlier this year will be released next Thursday at the RVCA x Cinelli show in at Mellow Johnny’s in Austin. I’ve seen the rough cut, it’s going to be a hit. Don’t forget to read the MASH blog on Arkitip.

I don’t usually geek out about bike parts, but this is really cool: the 3-speed fixed gear hub from Sturmey Archer. Apparently these were big for British time trialists back in the day. There are 134 comments on Sturmey’s blog post, so apparently I’m not the only one excited.

via BikeRadar

The good folks at former Kadisco client Bebo have a new partnership with ESPN to deliver ESPN’s web content through Bebo’s Open Media Platform. As Mashable points out, the content itself isn’t that compelling, but it’s a great brand for Bebo to align with as they try to go mainstream in the US. Nice work by Darius and the crew there.

Check out SportsCenter on Bebo here.