Patrick O’Brien notes in comments that Team Sho-Air-Cannondale plans to race Arizona’s Whisky Off-Road despite the threat of fines or suspensions for any UCI-licensed riders who dare take part in events that lack the blessing of that august body and its enforcers at USA Cycling.

Good on Sho-Air president Scott Tedro and his team for having a go here. The issue has been simmering for quite a while now, even getting the attention of the mainstream media, and I’m curious to see whether more licensees will join Sho-Air in taking a stand.

UCI and USAC are spreading the usual fertilizer about growing the sport and professional standards, hinting none too suavely that anyone racing an unsanctioned event is practically begging to get flogged by dopers or hung out to dry by substandard insurance.

But it smells like the same old monopolistic, might-makes-right, fuck-you-we’re-in-charge-here bullshit that led to the American Cycling Association, the Oregon Bicycle Racing Association and other groups going their own way back in the day.

I don’t personally have a dog in this fight. My last race was 10 years ago, when the ACA was still the Rebellion to USA Cycling’s Empire. Today it’s once again a client state of the Empire, reclaiming its old name of the Bicycle Racing Association of Colorado, and I have no interest in repatriating in order to spend my weekends getting shelled at parking-lot crits in Denver while USAC and the UCI pass the time hunting new ways to piss off everyone in the sport.

That said, I’m happy to see someone with skin in the game taking a stand against this ridiculous rule. If unsanctioned events pose any threat at all it’s to the governing bodies’ bottom lines. They claim to be offering a superior product. Fine. Let them prove it in the marketplace instead with the rulebook.