Originally Posted by tennisman:
“Can you educate me, my cycling forum friends?
I notice that the Tour of Britain is not in the UCI World Tour but in the UCI Europe Tour, a circuit with a different set of particpating teams / riders, not including Sky.
However, here is the TOB with Sky in it (and riders who are in the World Tour ranking list not the Europe one).
Can anyone explain how this all works?”
Yes, basically the teams are arranged in Divisions
The top division are World Tour teams like Sky. They are obliged to put a team into every World Tour race, and generally each World Tour race will also invite 3 or 4 lower rank teams to take part, usually from their own country
For races which are below World Tour level the organisers wil invite world tour teams but they are not obliged to turn up. Generally half a dozen world tour teams might take part, then the organiers will invite teams from the nest level down and domestic teams which are even further down
The next level down from World Tour is 'Pro Continental' and i don't think the UK has any Pro-Continental teams, so the British terams taking part will be from lower down the pecking, in soccer terms, division 3 and below