Nathan Haas blog: 'Who is responsible if sh*t hits the fan' in gravel teams?

I spent a decade on WorldTour teams and two years before that on a Continental level. When I began my career as a gravel professional, I was excited but also scared and overwhelmed at times with how to manage all of the relationships, partnerships, and business elements that are taken care of by a team.

I had stumbling blocks, and I'm sure I've crossed a few people from certain companies the wrong way, without any intention, but generally, I've loved learning how to essentially manage my own business and forge ahead as a privateer. Two and half years ago when I began this journey, this was really the only option but in a matter of years, now the norm is as much to be on a gravel team as it is to be a privateer.

I had an offer last year to join a team, and I declined it. For me, although there are certainly racing advantages to being part of a team, I'm just too darn happy making my own program. After the road career, I'd be hard-pressed to be convinced by any number to go to a 10-day training camp, be beholden to supplier contracts or forced to work with brands that were not to my liking.

Still, for many others, the team choice is the way to go. Some because, at this point, most of us privateers have locked away top-tier contracts with the biggest bike companies (making it more financially viable to be on a team) and others because it simply creates some benefits such as mechanical assistance, travel scheduling and, of course, in-race support.

Now, on the start lines of almost all the races I do, I can see a pretty even split at the front of the elite field between the individually registered athletes and the team riders. We will leave the discussion on racing tactics and the effects of the team for another time as I've become curious to explore more what the business of a gravel team looks like and how they exist in a sport that is based on mass participation and without full governing body oversight.

When I signed road team contracts, these teams were governed by the UCI, meaning that certain protections existed for riders and staff on the teams. From the bank guarantee to the code of conduct, there were standards that were set in place, and there was a riders' union to help us when things went wrong. There were other elements – riders cannot work for the teams in any other capacity, for instance – which ensured that no rider was put in a position above any of their teammates. When I rode for Cofidis, due to French labour laws, I contributed to the French pensions scheme even though I don't live in France.

In gravel, we have none of the above-mentioned protections. I'd love to say it didn't matter, and all was well and good, and everyone was just loving it up in the spirit of gravel, but sadly, I've heard of multiple incidents with staff and riders on teams where I just wish they could call up Adam Hansen (CPA) or Iris Slappendel (TCA).

Mixing individuals and teams, amateur and elite

I spoke with Alexis Schoeb, who, besides being my old boss at Katusha, is one of the leading sports lawyers in the world (Peter and Kim Associates), about what could and will happen here with the lack of regulations. He said:

"You don't necessarily need specific regulations from the sports federation for protection. This is because labour laws in EU countries provide protection for employees. Contracts signed between a rider and a professional team are likely to be considered as employment contracts in EU countries. As a result, riders will benefit from the protection of labour laws from the country where the team is based, or under certain circumstances, from the country in which the rider is domiciled.

"For many years now, the UCI has implemented specific rules, particularly in professional road cycling, imposing additional obligations on teams in terms of structure, contracts, or financial guarantees (such as the well-known bank guarantee).

"UCI regulations for professional road cycling teams have become complicated. Do we want that for gravel? The answer is probably yes. But one of the first elements to look at is whether it is an individual or team sport, and how do we handle it. As of now, it seems to be a mix of both."

Alexis brings up a good point about how we would form any regulations where we have a mix of teams and individuals competing. In road cycling, the regulations apply to all athletes in the race – but it would be a tricky and complicated process to create a system where rules apply only to some.

I spoke to Erwin Vervecken of Golazo – the director of the UCI Gravel World Series, and he gave me personal opinions as manager of the series. It's important to note that UCI has outsourced the management of the series, just like they do with MTB and cyclocross. Erwin's organisation handles the UCI Gran Fondo and UCI Gravel World Series. The reason these series' are outsourced is because the statutes of the UCI mean they have to focus on regulations and facilitating, and they work with local organisers to present events such as World Championships. Vervecken generally feels that the steps are gradual, and it was never his intention to rock the boat too much.

"From the beginning, we expected reactions from the existing gravel scene, the people that have been racing gravel for 10 years, the people with the freedom, those who don't want regulations, who want to do what they want in terms of bikes, tyres, length of races, it was all very free, just under the gravel name. When we started this, we didn't want to add too many regulations to start and only slowly bring in some regulations, mainly for safety. Maybe in 5-10 years, it will be different, but for now, our regulations are more for safety. At the moment, we don't expect to regulate teams," he said.

"We added an elite category this year to pull the best out of the age groups. For future years, options to further develop gravel are a general classification and prize money, but at this moment, the business model of most organisers is still challenging – the organisations do it because they love the sport, but with more and more professional organisers, the prestige and quality of events will increase."

Vervecken was as close as I got to speaking to the actual UCI on their opinion in the matter, but the feeling was from multiple sources that it would be a long time before they got involved with oversight. It is important to also note that the elite category requires an Elite racing license – a small minutiae of regulation. But that's more of a tick-the-box formality when buying your license for the year. When it comes down to it, there's nothing that really defines a pro, maybe is more a feeling, a spirit… But the professional category has helped a lot with safety.

Who is responsible if shit hits the fan?

Circling back to Schoeb, we discussed how things might look as they build and what parallels we might be able to draw from:

"A unique aspect of gravel competition is the participation of professional riders alongside a mass of amateur participants. However, this is not very different from what happens in other sports, such as triathlon and Ironman.

"In any case, it's really important that athletes also protect themselves. For many years, some professional road cyclists would agree to unacceptable conditions for a spot on a professional team. This is why the work of the CPA, in collaboration with the UCI, is so important. The CPA imposed obligations of minimum salary and other rider protection mechanisms. This is also the case for women professional riders, and I am sure the CPA might start representing professional gravel riders soon."

So, what makes a team in gravel? They come by many names, team, collective, club, you name it. But are there any parameters, or is it only defined as what we register on in our sign-up forms? I race under "Colnago Castelli" as those are my two founding partners – but legally there is no entity defined as such. The Pas Normal Team is a collective of riders who are all sponsored by Pas Normal Studios, but outside of that sponsorship, they handle all their other endorsements individually. "It's a nice hybrid model, where we can be privateers of sorts but also benefit from team support at big races," said Chad Haga, who is on the team. 

The Ribble collective works in a similar manner, sharing only the bike brand as a sponsor but offering race support and media support for the team riders.

“Personally, I prefer handling partners myself because it gives me complete flexibility and control over what I am doing," said Maddy Nutt, a rider on the Ribble Collective.  "The main thing for me is my calendar: I have full flexibility to select races that are most appealing to me and suit me most. I love to travel, so I can go to races like RADL GRVL in Adelaide, Australia, or Migration race in Kenya, and use the opportunity to race the races that excite me most. Within a team environment you often don’t have control over the races you are doing. 

"I also like building relations with brands; it’s helping me build a skillset outside of riding a bike, and I think the business skills you gain from handling the relationships, negotiating contracts is really beneficially, especially if you don’t have an agent.  It means you can make more of an impact when you are speaking directly with the marketing team, as opposed to it going through a team channel," added Nutt. "I feel like I have more ownership to actually really do the good work for the brands that support me.

"The benefits of having the collective for me to start with is to have people to bounce ideas off of, people to share support at races, and help with media coverage at races. It’s really expensive to do that as an individual so it does bring costs down.”

Other teams run in a full-fledged fashion, locking in all partner categories for a completely uniform team and where the riders are contracted to the team entity. I'll note these teams do tend to be majority European teams, maybe riders in the USA are just happy with where they are at. The question starts to be though, do these teams fully exist? What companies are running them and who are the various paying agents once we are creating "teams" that exist outside of all governance? To put it frankly, who is responsible if shit hits the fan?

Above and beyond

I spoke to Federico Damiani who manages and runs the Enough Cycling team, one of the longest existing teams in the gravel space. Keep in mind, Damiani is no outsider to cycling, coming from a strong pedigree (he is the son of Roberto Damiani, DS at team Cofidis). He said:

"The idea of starting the team was before it was big in Europe, the idea to pull some people together is because we were riding together anyway. It was the fun side.

"I've always thought there has been a bit of a lack of understanding on what creates ROI in cycling. I was dreaming, when I was on the other side of the fence, of creating an identity together that people can relate to and inspire more people to ride gravel. We had different kinds of riders and different profiles to relate to many people. The structure was built to be appealing to sponsors, especially at the beginning, and to have a platform for working with companies that have a good reputation to spread the message – in essence, to share our message in a more effective way.

"Our team is in the fourth year. In the beginning, it was really our group of friends, but now it is more of a mix. Most are not professional riders. We have different people, some that focus on adventures, bikepacking and then others racing. The idea is to have different people. We do everything ourselves – we are really like a collective.

"The team is registered in Italy with two entities: one is a commercial entity, and the other is a sports team, a different kind of legal entity, and we are recognised by the Italian federation. It's useless for many races, but it's important to have the UCI licenses for the UCI races. The affiliation with the Italian federation means that from the beginning of the year, we open the membership, and anyone can join our team. They are insured with us, and they are protected through the protections of the federation."

It was interesting to hear from Damiani that he has voluntarily registered his team, perhaps trailblazing an example of even if it isn't necessary, perhaps it is what is right. The one thing I would say about this crew is that they're a lot of fun, they seem like a family and in this case, you feel that in light of that, they choose to look after each other above and beyond. Why wouldn't you want a team to feel like that?

"With the federation, we have to stick to some rules which is good for the riders," Damiani said. "For me, it was important to do something that was 100% legal, so I went on the safe side to do like road team. We are not registered as a professional team, it doesn't exist. We are registered as an amateur or club team. This protects us as an organisation and our riders."

Time for a gravel riders' association?

As for the UCI series, Vervecken sees it continuing to grow and feels they are learning year by year but are not keen to make any big changes.

"We are still learning every year, let's take it step by step and not make too big changes. We have to evaluate year after year. It will be discussed at the end of the season.

"The success of gravel and spirit which we need to keep defending is that the everyday amateur CAN race with the top-level pros. It's very important to defend. The first years have been finding the events and growing the series. Now we are happy with the number of events, so we will now focus on the quality of the events."

My personal feeling on where the UCI gravel sits is that it's in a good place seeing as it is still so new. For the most part, these races are super well run, super safe and have not tried to impose themselves on the sport. I'm just glad there are more races around the world and not just in the USA.

Schoeb reiterated to me to feel confident in my own ability to navigate the business side of things whilst knowing that movements in the sport and business model, as Vervecken said, will come in slowly and surely.

"As the discipline of gravel is growing fast and evolving more and more into a team sport, just like road cycling, the UCI will have to regulate it," said Schoeb. "As is often the case for international sports governing bodies, regulations will probably appear when issues arise. At the moment, it's starting to become clear just how important gravel is, so I think we will start to see increased intervention from the UCI.

"Riders should use the experience of the TCA and CPA to help with contracts. In gravel, most of the athletes are ex-road riders – they know them, and if nothing else, they should reach out and see if they can help.

"I have personally experienced a significant evolution in professional road cycling in the past 20 years. I remember representing a pro rider who sued a team for an unjustified immediate termination of his contract about 20 years ago," Schoeb recounted. "At that time, a rider would refrain from acting against a team for fear of repercussions on his career. Now, that is not the case at all. Gravel will evolve, as road cycling did, but the efficiency and speed of the evolution will depend on the growth of the sport."

I also spoke with Iris Slappendel, co-founder of The Cyclists' Alliance, who said that all female gravel riders were welcome to join the TCA as members.

"We are not a road-only association and have supported several MTB riders and Gravel privateers over the past few years. So we would advise any female rider to join us and feel free to reach out and enjoy our legal services at any time. Secondly, we always advise seeking legal support before signing any agreement, as in our experience, this prevents disputes in most cases," she said.

"Besides that, as soon as they are participating in a UCI sanction event they have access to UCI legal remedy: UCI arbitration. The arbitration, even if not perfect, offers a way for riders to protect their interests. On the other hand, if there is a contract (employment contract or commercial contract with a sponsor), they can use the legal system of their country of origin where the contract has jurisdiction to file a complaint parallel to the arbitration procedure. Both ways will come at a certain cost and they need to be prepared to put some money forward to have their case processed. 

"There is a long way to go before the governing body really wants to engage with you in a positive manner and takes into account your vision and objective. It's not a straightforward process. It requires a lot of energy just to have a foot in the door, and even when you're there, it's not a guarantee of success. Collective bargaining is not something international federations have in their DNA, particularly with the involvement of relevant stakeholders. But if you have the knowledge and unity, you also have power. We have also learned by being well-prepared and educated and having a team of professional experts in different fields, we have been able to create a change in the sport."  

Over my course of discussions with many people, as I thought about this blog and sat down to write it, I think I had as many new questions come up as I found answers. 

Two key points seemed to stick out to me: Teams are coming, and it's not likely there will be any oversight or governance of them for a long time. Still, all the advice led me to the same thing: that the most important governance is self-governance, and for any rider who is signing contracts where they aren't sure: 1. Consult a lawyer or the department of employment in the country the team is registered (as is on the contract.) 2. Read up on employment laws and employment disputes if you are unsure. 

Lastly, maybe it's time that we get together and form the "GCPA" – as our sports professionalises maybe all of us, privateers or not, need to as well.

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