[Closed] Salsa terminate Jay Petervary Contract

Good.

Christ - when did riding bikes become so complicated!!

Seems like the right choice in this case, but I do wonder if cycling has disappeared up its own arse a bit sometimes.

Guns don’t spoil cycling. Americans do.

That's the problem with competition, someone starts it for a bit of fun and the people start asking for regulations so they can prosper. This in turn ruins the fun.

Should have just called it a bike ride.

He sounds like a bitter angry man. Given he provided actual support to some people, and has been filmed on races, I suspect his real beef was the gender and sexual preference of Lael

@BoardinBob suspect you’re not far off the mark. Could Lael be the new face of Salsa?

Lael rides a specialized so I guess they've got reasonably deep pockets.

More to the point, what's JP going to be riding now? Silk Road coming up soon...

Was wondering that myself his Instagram post yesterday shows him on his Salsa Cutthroat sporting the new shimano gravel drivetrain

Can't say i'm surprised or disappointed, Salsa made the right call.

It's going to be a tad awkward on the start line as Lael is due to ride the Silk Road too i thought...

@tails - the Tour Divide was always a race, hence TDR (Tour Divide Race), of the GDMBR (Great Divide Mountain Bike Route) and has always(?) had associated rules: http://tourdivide.org/the_rules . Like all such rule sets the aim is for things to be fair for all entrants.

The rule that is the cause of all this rancour is #4 which deals with outside assistance, specifically "visitation". http://tourdivide.org/td_rule_2_faqs for an arcane discussion.

I think it's fair to say Jay Petervary has been somewhat controversial/divisive for a while. There seems to be no love lost between him and certain other high profile racers but as my dad would say: "It takes two to argue".

*I'm not sure when the rules were formulated. The comments in the visitation section are from 2010 but I've a friend who completed it as an ITT in 2007 as one of the first Brits to do it. The first Grand Départ was in 2008, maybe they came in around then.

That’s the problem with competition, someone starts it for a bit of fun and the people start asking for regulations so they can prosper. This in turn ruins the fun.

Doesn't ruin anything, you can still ride the route however you please. It's there and open all the time.

I'd say it's less to do with Lael's sexuality and more that a bitter old man now isn't the darling of adventure racing like he used to be. You can't move for seeing something about Lael which is a)brilliant and b) clearly upsetting for some old guy with a face like a bucket of fire-damaged lego. Would be different if he followed the rules to the letter but he clearly doesn't, so the hypocrisy is off the charts.

I do think for racing (and winning) the long distance stuff you need to have a bit of a 'focus at all costs' type mentality. I read an interview with JP where he was talking about adventure racing - apparently he and his team got so cold one night after a rafting stage that they took their clothes off and cuddled to retain warmth. And I went to see a talk given by the great Mike Hall talking about the Trans Am where he spent many nights sleeping in public toilets on the floor or on benches - they're cut from a different cloth. Maybe it's this extreme approach to things that makes them less tolerant of others, but I truly think that this isn't because Lael is gay, or even that she's female but that someone is racing, winning and earning exposure and a living out of it better than he has. Suck it up buttercup...

I think that JP's attitude isn't synonymous with his ultra-distance mentality and fortitude. Plenty of others like him are humble, respectful people (like Lael and Mike Hall to name but two) who, while they can suffer hardship with the best of them, express themselves well and act in accordance with their values. If JP was any kind of ambassador for his sport, he'd have acted better and been respectful of those that are better than him. To me, it just seems like he's exposed his true self to the world and been found out, whilst other's have retained dignity and let their riding do the talking.

IMO no-one involved in this looks good at the end of it. The TDR has been documented well for a long time w/o any impact on the racers or race ethics. Ride The Divide is old.

I do think for racing (and winning) the long distance stuff you need to have a bit of a ‘focus at all costs’ type mentality.

Mentality is key for most yes, but not in an at-all-costs way.
Jay P has been there but hardly at the forefront of racing for a few years now but there's plenty of other riders giving him a good race every year, though he's remarkably consistent and seems to manage it naturally. I can't see this as being about sore-loser syndrome. Who knows. I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt, that a justified then maybe over-zealous defence of race ethics (that was open to hypocrisy claims) developed into something personal somehow. Silly, not cool, but it happens. Salsa ducked saying if anything crossed a line beyond that so without knowing more it all just seems a bit odd.