Briefly discussed on SpinCycle, Caley was quite in favor of the change to 6 man teams. Can someone explain to me how this would change the race? Pros/cons?
Pro: in theory it creates more exciting racing because the big teams have less domestiques to use.
Con: The physical toll it will take on the domestiques who are there. Also if you have say two crash out, then a leader is down to only three teammates.
I think it’s a terrible idea.
They cite safety as one of the reasons for the change, thinking that fewer riders in the peloton will lead to fewer crashes. TdF teams used to be 10 riders back in the 1980s. The number of crashes appear, to me at least, to have increased since then in the Tour.
At what point does it become less of a team sport? How low can they go?