Podcast: Loic Bruni & Finn Iles Talk to Dean Lucas About Building A Riders Union
In this episode of the podcast, I sit down with two of the fastest riders in the world, Loic Bruni and Finn Iles.
Both are teammates at Specialized Gravity and both are currently battling for the top spot at the UCI Downhill World Cup with them both finishing on the podium at the most recent round in Andorra.
Recently though their attention has shifted to fighting a new battle, a battle each and every rider has to face when competing. The battle? To have our voices heard on the world stage when it comes to a number of different issues such as safe riding conditions, fair rule changes, and better prize money.
All of these things we have little to no control over due mainly because of lack of communication and organization, two things Loic and Finn are trying their very best to make a thing of the past.
With rider meetings and group chats now becoming more common within the racing community due to Loic and Finn, it seems like there is a real chance this can pick up the momentum it truly needs.
I hope this podcast gives you all a better idea of the reasons behind uniting all the riders to have a single voice and also the issues we would like to see addressed to grow the sport and make it the best it can be.
Enjoy!
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I mean, being the King or Queen of crankworx is cool, or World Tour DH champ, but, as an athlete you still want to win the UCI DH WORLDS.
And if I am an XC rider, and want to go to the olympics, how do I do that without the UCI events in my diet?
Essentially, TTR is where the top dogs with the good sponsors are, battling in a format that much better suites the creative nature of the sport, whereas the square format ISF circuit is for second tier riders that have no other choice if they want some visivility.
I haven't followed for the last decade, but snowboard world kept spinning no problem.
Snowboarders as a whole agreed that ISF was actually about ski, but they'd be better off somewhere else; same thing with DH. UCI is about road cycling, XC could fit there too, but the dual crown side of mtb clearly doesn't belong there.
Although admittedly, many federations selection policies are built around rankings, so layers of complication there. But possible.
XC though.... much more of a problem. Given that Olympic spots for nation's are qualified from UCI points... you're not about to see XC riders walk away from UCI events
Was thinking of RedBull running 2 F1 teams, Air Race, Football clubs etc. - So I figured they could easily pull up a DH series and overtake the current UCI run version.
Man, what a bummer, I haven't been following any snowboard since about 2010 and everything was looking so good then.
If there's a vampire out there even bigger than UCI, that's the olympics :/
The XC guys can have the UCI; half of them are roadies anyway.
Its the pinnacle of XC only in non olympic years. On the road the Tour de France Yellow jersey is far more worshipped than the rainbow.
If we fans and all the racers decided that RB Hardline was the key event of the year, then it would be. People would still enter the UCI (and other) races with the aim of being invited to Hardline.
Wont even get started on the rest of the nonsense you've typed out...
We should be thankful that our forefathers had the courage, to risk it all and rise up against such tyranny. Today we see constant attacks from right wing governments, combined with media moguls like Murdoch, to successfully demonised the union movement. They have collective convinced the modern man, that unionism is somehow directly related to communism, and should be ashamed of.
Here in Australia, the Unions over the last 100 years have fought for the right to have….. 5 day working weeks, paid holiday leave, sick leave, rest breaks, injury compensation, maternity leave, free medical treatment, unfair dismal law’s and the right to a safe workplace. Individuals can only complain, but collectively together as a represented group you now have a stake in the game.
Each surfing event has a title sponsor and you watch ads. The live stream is usually excellent and often from very extremely remote areas of the globe.
Definitely more people ride bikes, buy bike parts, apparel, etc, than people buy surfboards and surf apparel. So where’s the $$$$$ going?
There is a huge problem in professional mtb. The bike industry giants and UCI are absolutely screwing the riders and laughing to the bank.
I expect at least the first year to be at least somewhat of a junk show- having them onboard might help pull some viewers over who would otherwise be skeptical.
That said, those commentators may not even be interested.
I'm only like 40% joking, I think there's a good chance that's what they're planning to do.
Mountain Bike World Cup is Red Bull TV's number one rating program. There is money there to pay the riders better. The prize money is embarrassingly small.
I have no idea how much Red Bull paid the UCI for being the broadcaster, but they don't seem to make money from free views, it's all advertising for their own product. And if the Pinkbike poll is anything to go by, Discovery will either lose a lot of viewers or make very little money from the WC races. This is the hypocrisy of the PB comment section. Lots of people commenting the riders should get more money, but it should be somebody else's money of course.
Sponsoring surf contests and pro surfers helps sell a ton of merchandise, that’s why.
Also, we can unequivocally day that riders main source of income is not the race purse. You can call the sponsorship money a salary or whatever you want, the point is the money is paid by the team. Football teams make money from the ticket sales and broadcast right from their games, not the purse from winning. Imo football does not have enough similarities to compare to cycling.
The surf companies sell a lot of clothing to people worldwide that love the surfing culture but have never surfed or been at the beach, but seeing events and media of the event stimulates buying. I’ve never seen mtb culture being something non-riders want to buy into, so MB probably doesn’t pay much for sponsorship.
Anyways, as I understand it, it's a "union" of governing bodies, not of riders.
Crankworx is one option for this. Once whistler finishes the creekside upgrades (lift and gondola), they'll be able to host a DH race and still keep almost the entire bike park open. They're already doing enough business that shutting down the park wasn't worth it. Soon they'll have capacity for an international event AND the bike park being open to all the fans. The possibility blows my mind. Crankworx is already crazy busy and this would take it to the next level.
Of course the key is prestige. Does crankworx have enough cache to lure talent on the same level as the World Cup?
Jenna = 100 Euros for 3rd
Bernard = 250 Euros for 9th
Amaury = 3,000 Euros for 1st Place
Bernard earned way more than all of them by making that video
However, there must be money in MTB. If a local event can scrape together $1000 for first place, you would think the top tier should be able to provide more money.
Not sure what the final answer is, and don't want to pre-judge Discovery just yet, but boy, are they running short on time to prove all of us wrong. (Personally, I think they are not allowed to say anything until the end of the season and Red Bull's contract is finished. Put's everyone in a bad place of not knowing for now but Vital did have some screen shots that were not supposed to have been shown publicly (they were taken down) and it did list races at the current venues for next year (I saw it before being taken down) plus a little on plans for races Down Under)
intensecycles.com/pages/podium-payback-program