Michael Ball is a relative newcomer to the sport of professional cycling, in his second season as the owner of Rock Racing.

Ed Beamon is a respected veteran of the sport, with 25 years of experience — first as a racer then as a coach and manager. After years as the head of the Navigators Insurance team, he currently is the Sports Director of Team Type 1, a new entrant in the U.S. Domestic peloton.

They are the candidates for the at-large position on the four-member USPro Board of Trustees of USA Cycling. The online voting is ongoing and concludes Friday. Riders in the pro peloton are casting votes in the USPro board election. Two athlete representatives and a trade team trustee also are being selected at the USPro level.

Beamon and Ball each have statements on the USA Cycling website. It’s an interesting race to be one-fourth of the voice in the USPro Board.  I spoke with each about his candidacy in the past week.

The challenger 

Ball wants to see athletes have more rights, more stability and ultimately more say in the future of the sport, which he envisions developing into a mainstream sport in the U.S. Ball says that “without a doubt the riders need protection and more organization to move the sport forward and not just have a paycheck from season to season.”

He readily admits that being a team owner and advocating for riders’ rights is “absolutely a conflict of interest … for a business owner to give workers a say and higher pay moving forward,” but that the “riders need to take control of the sport. Now the teams and the race organizers control the power.”

Too often in the past, he says, riders have been just “happy to get a ride” and didn’t want to “rock the boat,” attitudes that permeated the peloton, not only maintaining the status quo but also “the wall of silence” that grew up around the drug culture. These attitudes have to change if cycling is to develop a national following in the U.S. and most importantly new sponsorship dollars.

Rock has been active in race sponsorship at the Tour of California, the Commerce Bank Triple Crown of Cycling (better known as Philly), and the upcoming U.S. Pro championships. Ball also recently established a non-profit catastrophic injury fund for riders.

“The sport is healthier today than it was five years ago,” Ball said. “As a business model, it’s pretty inexpensive. There’s a nice bang for your buck for companies and businesses.”

The incumbent  

While Ball is a newcomer in cycling, Beamon has worked in the industry for years, and has served three terms as the USPro board.

In a nutshell, Beamon is stressing professionalism within the sport. Membership in USA Cycling is predominantly amateur racers, with the professional level comprising a distinct minority. The USPro board is the pro level’s voice at USA Cycling.

“One of the things that’s important to myself and others on the board is to create an environment that is more professional and a more respectful attitutde,” Beamon said. “Part of the issue is the sport itself is more grass roots and the large proportion of the membership are recreational cyclists, and sometimes its easy to forget the profound differentiation with the pro peloton.

“Part of the reponsibility (of the USPro board) is to continue to remind USA Cycling about the distinct difference.”

The at-large rep is responsible for representing the interests of “athletes, teams, organizers, and the greater community at large.”

In his trustee statement, Beamon touts his work in “advocating for athlete’s rights and dignity in anti-doping,” and says the USPro Board “helped encourage USADA to change the attitude and mechanism of their in-competition testing procedures. Anyone who has been around the sport a few years will remember the inconsiderate tactics of the testing body.”

While Ball’s mantra as cycling’s new kid on the block is that he and Rock are “here to stay,” Beamon counters that his “experience” is what matters.

Sort of like McCain and Obama, ain’t it?

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