New Cycling League Starts Rolling : Pro Teams Try to Buck the Sport’s Amateur Tradition

In an obscure shop on Chicago’s deteriorating North Side, racing bicycles are put together that may sell for $6,500.

When Peter O’Neill of Pasadena heard about it, he was scouting for owners, riders and coaches to flesh out his new enterprise, the National Cycle League.

“Everyone serious about cycling passes that shop’s portals sooner or later,” he was told.

O’Neill already had a former Chicagoan aboard, John Vollbrecht of Eagle Rock. Both were scarred from politics and ready for something new. O’Neill had lost a bid to unseat Mike Antonovich in the supervisor race, and Vollbrecht had lost three challenges to Pat Nolan in the 41st Assembly District.

O’Neill was able to interest Vollbrecht in taking the Chicago Fire franchise in NCL’s professional racing circuit, and the new owner returned to his hometown to get acquainted with Ed Weissler, proprietor of the bike shop. A former competitor now partly paralyzed by a blow to the head while rescuing a woman from muggers, Weissler agreed to manage the Chicago team.

If those sound like unlikely ingredients for a new sports program, consider the Los Angeles franchise. Putting together Team Wings brought in two co-owners who also had no previous experience with cycling or a sports venture. Robert Frazier of Chatsworth is the head of Frazier Aviation, a supplier in North Hollywood, and David Caldwell of Pasadena is an aeronautical engineer.

Executive director of the Wings is Frazier’s wife, Susan, who is also a flight attendant; and the team’s prime sponsors are Deryl Lichtenfeld and Tim Robley, otherwise engaged in marketing their line of professional hair-care products.

The improbable list goes on, with interesting entrepreneurs coming aboard in 14 other cities, and the cycling Establishment has variously branded the program a pipe dream and its 26-year-old commissioner, O’Neill, a loose cannon.

But prophets of doom were somewhat chastened when, last weekend, the first race went off as scheduled in Boston. Four teams unleashed riders as a pouring rain slacked off, and New York blew the rest away with a 174-point finish. Pittsburgh was second with 50, Boston third with 32 and Atlanta last with 28.

Seven cities are expected for the second race this weekend, scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. Sunday at the Veterans’ Administration Center in West Los Angeles. Besides the host Wings, teams from Chicago, San Francisco, New Orleans, San Diego, Houston and Seattle will be racing.

Two races remain, Aug. 20 at Chicago and Aug. 27 at Dallas. Each of the 16 prospective owners was expected to field a team in two of the four races.

That’s a substantial cutback from the original plan to open with a 10-week season and 20 teams, with two divisions and a championship race. Now the debut is referred to as a demonstration and there will be no playoff.

O’Neill, however, remains optimistic that his idea will fly.

High on the list of hurdles is the United States Cycling Federation, which sanctions amateur racing. Since the fledgling NCL doesn’t yet have the financial base to attract top professional riders, it is getting started with a lot of good amateurs who suddenly see some hope of enjoying the dignity and perks afforded dedicated athletes in other sports.

O’Neill has been involved in a running battle with the USCF over sanctioning and penalties, which has cast a shadow over efforts to recruit riders. O’Neill threatened a lawsuit, then said a truce was struck in which he agreed to withdraw it, and Jerry Lace, USCF executive director, agreed not to threaten penalties.

But Stan Solin, a member of the USCF board and executive committee, said Lace has received no assurance in writing that the suit was dropped.

Talk of a network TV contract led to another of O’Neill’s problems, a mutiny by some of the new team owners. Described in one report as “the biggest television deal in the history of U.S. bike racing,” it linked the NCL and NBC’s Sportschannel America in a $6-million pact that promised live coverage of the races--a first in cycling, O’Neill said.

That news helped bring in some top riders fearful of USCF threats to ban NCL participants from future USCF events. It also seemed to promise a lot of financial support from sponsors, but that didn’t materialize.

Eventually a huge loan was arranged to get the first season under way, and the team owners were asked to back it. Many of them were reluctant, O’Neill said, but most signed. Two of them, however, contacted Sportschannel to request a delay of the opening weekend.

That apparently spooked the lender and made the cable firm leery, so the enraged O’Neill kicked the two owners out of the league and went after a new lender. That effort produced a loan at terms deemed exorbitant by the owners.

Because Sportschannel was insisting that the NCL use one of its producers, O’Neill said, at $30,000 a race, one of the owners finally suggested, “Why don’t we just put on a four-race season the first year? We can raise that kind of money ourselves.”

Concluded O’Neill: “It’s been a good thing. The reality is that the first season, the owners have to go out and raise support locally, and that’s what the program needs. It makes it truly a people’s sport, with the communities behind each team. We have a new cable agreement that’s better, with a family of three regional networks. It’s a three-year deal, instead of the one-year with Sportschannel.”