Charter for the Future?

With less than 2 weeks to go until the greatest annual sporting show on earth kicks off in London, the UCI picked the moment to launch its “Riders' Commitment to a New Cycling” initiative.

At a press conference in Switzerland, Mark Cavendish and Sandy Casar shook hands with UCI President Pat McQuaid as the Irishman, never one for beating about the bush, announced that as a central plank of this new charter, the UCI and the management of the 20 Pro-Tour teams had agreed that in addition to regular sanctions, signed up riders caught doping will be fined a year's salary.

The UCI are 'urging' all Pro-Tour riders to sign up to the charter before they take to the ramp for the Prologue of the Tour de France and McQuaid has been quoted as saying he doesn't expect any rider who hasn't done so to start the event.

Sadly, I can see a horizon littered with glaring chasms in the idea, each of them big enough to ride the entire professional peloton through.

The initiative is entirely voluntary. Refusal to sign, on whatever grounds, would almost certainly be looked upon as admission by silence. How many riders, I wonder would not sign and risk such implied guilt on a matter of principle? Inevitably, there are several reasons why they might not want to:

Firstly, nowhere it seems, are any other professional cycling personnel urged to sign a similar charter, surely an oversight by the UCI? Riders are already becoming aggrieved that the collective practices of the past have not been matched with collective responsibilities. A rider's initiative is not enough. What harm could similar initiative carrying similar penalties for non-riding staff do?

Secondly, in a deal brokered with ProTour teams, where is the provision for Professional Continental and Continental teams, for juniors, or espoir teams? It is surely here that the UCI should broaden the scope of such a charter? After all the whole purpose of a charter is bring together people, from all sides, on a point of principle.

On the subject of doping, if not others, the UCI, ASO and the other grand tour organisers appear to be singing from the same hymn sheet yet I find it inconceivable that come the big day in London a fortnight from now, riders from the invited pro-continental teams would be excluded for not signing up to a ProTour initiative.

So Sean Kelly and I will continue to prepare for the start of Tour the way we have planned and hope that this edition can avoid lurching from one scandalous footstep to the next.

With just a handful of days to go Sean and I will be getting as much riding in as possible before we have to leave the bikes at home.

Richard Hallett, myself and the rest of the RoadCyclingUK crew have been mashing the pedals, or 'clogging it' as Hallett would have it, alongside super coach Dave Lloyd, British Cycling Performance Director David Brailsford, and all round good guy and ex-pro Shane Sutton on the excellent Dragon Ride in South Wales.

Then Sean, Richard Hallett and I took to the roads on the 4th edition of the London-Paris Cycle Tour along with Johan Museeuw and a couple of hundred other fearsomely competitive riders.

No rest for the wicked.