Did you notice the rider protest and eloquent speech calling for improved rider safety and expressing the fear of the risks involved? You might have heard Remco Evenepoel’s version but Dorian Gordon also made an appeal at the start of Paris-Tours on Sunday. It didn’t resonate as much in the media. Both speeches and rider actions were poignant but they were too modest.
“Through these words I’m speaking for all cyclists, male and female. For those still here, but also those who have deceased. As riders we’re unified to denounce the irresponsible behaviour and unnecessary risks we’re exposed to.”
– Dorian Godon (translated) .
A five minute delay with a short speech is at the mild end of the scale. In 1978 a rider strike saw the Tour de France peloton protest half-stages by riding a go-slow and then dismounting to cross the finish line. However that did have an obvious policy outcome that was in the organiser’s power to stop. Things are more complicated now, you can’t write a rule that stops errant vehicles getting onto a race course… but you can write standards, set duties and even impose liability. The peloton might have the power to make this happen but more collective action will be needed, probably stronger measures.
CPA sidelined
Less important but the rider protests happened without the CPA rider union. It’s not crisis time for the union but is telling that this time the riders didn’t bother using it when normally a union ought to offer help for support, planning and so on.
Picnic-PostNL’s “culture of fear”
One thing where a union could act is workplace relations but the CPA seems missing in the news today from Dutch broadcaster NOS and podcast De Waaier that spoke to many inside the Picnic-PostNL team and its various incarnations over the last decade with talk of a “culture of fear” and where managerial hierarchy and strict protocols reach the point where the individuals and humanity seem to be sidelined. The team has responded, promising an independent investigation into this. As if their season could not be worse so far…
Picnic cheer
…but Frits Biesterbos has got Picnic-PostNL their first World Tour win of the season, beating Paul Magnier and Olav Kooij in a bunch sprint. They’d been the only World Tour team without a win at this level and close to ending the season without a win at the top level. Astana did this in 2022 when it only had five wins, two at .Pro level, one at .1 and of course two Kazakh national champs titles. Biesterbos has been making a name for himself – a great name, any more Dutch and he’d be riding in clogs drilled for cleats – with some sprint results and now his first win. He hasn’t popped up for the win by coming off someone’s wheel when racing into a headwind, instead he’s been able to have a lot of power on tap which suggests he can not only win more but also have range for the classics.
Down to the wire
There’s a battle for teams to get in the top-30 on the UCI rankings because only those in this group are eligible for a wildcard invite to the grand tours, so Euskaltel-Euskadi moving up to 29th place is some cheer for them and their marquee signing of Mikel Landa when it comes to starting the Vuelta. There’s a week left and so far Fritz Biesterbos’s win in the Tour of Guangxi and Alessandro Fancellu’s 6th place in the Giro del Veneto yesterday with 80 points imperils them. Meanwhile Bardiani are outside the top-30 and so, as things stand, ineligible even for the Giro next season. The UCI rule in question says teams have to be in the top-30 for this season but this includes teams that may not exist next year so you can make a case for it being re-written; equally the top-30 is a clear metric rather than second-guessing the viability of each team for next year. Final 2026 rankings will be published next Tuesday.
Deadline day
Talking of UCI deadlines, today is the soft deadline for teams registering for next year. Every pro team has to submit details to the UCI by 15 October with details such as their name for the following season, copies of signed sponsorship contracts, the rider roster and more. Teams can miss this deadline if the paperwork really is just days away from being completed but there’s a daily fine for the delay. It’s with this we ought to know whether Visma-LAB have managed to find a title sponsor for 2027, likewise EF’s sponsor search; probably not as neither has held a press release to unveil anything. Similarly we’ll see if the Total Energies team has found a backer for 2027 and beyond because it also appears not – no press release either – and so the team looks destined to vanish, or more likely drop down and continue as a third tier Continental team where it already has the Vendée U-Primeo Energie team. The UCI normally names all the teams involved in the review in a press release a week later with the approval or not due for November but it can stretch to December.
Staying the UCI, it’s announced reform proposals and in a separate announcement has mandated business consultancy Deloitte to help. Just as it did in 2013 when a similar set of reforms were suggested (calendar reform, no overlapping races, shrinking stage race length etc etc) right down to hiring Deloitte to gather feedback and put this into something that could be implemented. You can be forgiven for forgetting that episode as not much came out of it although the three year promotion-relegation system we have today and started in 2020 can be traced back to this. So will more happen this time? Possibly but ideas like shrinking the grand tours down to two weeks have already been shot down by race organisers to the point of why were they even evoked? It’s a challenge explored here before – On Calendar Reform, February 2024 – in that everyone will say yes please to “reform” but start to spell out the changes and you create winners and losers and it gets harder to advance.
Nairoman, no es un ciclista
Nairo Quintana has retired as a rider. An impressive palmarès and a massive personal legacy in Colombia where it’s been hard to overstate his popularity. In part because he represented his roots, once a boy who would rise early to run a vegetable stall, he spoke up on behalf of farm workers and small shopkeepers and also led campaigns for women’s rights and improved road safety. Only there’s a proverbial asterisk here, the trial of Arkéa team doctor Fredy Gonzalez concluded with a conviction but Gonzalez appealed this and there’s no timeline for the conclusion of this case. Which means the UCI, WADA and other anti-doping agencies are sitting on the sidelines waiting for the criminal and civil court cases to conclude before deciding whether to invite Nairo Quintana to a potential anti-doping hearing.
Lavresen’s wardrobe
Normally this blog’s Christmas quiz sticks to road cycling so no point saving this for December: track sprinter Harry Lavresen has just won his 22nd UCI world championship title in the keirin, that’s a lot of rainbow jerseys. Winning team sprint yesterday meant he was on 21 titles which makes him the most-decorated UCI world champion, surpassing the Pospíšil brothers who ruled cycle ball with 20 titles between 1965 and 1998.
To finish, some culture. While reading yet more about the 1989 Tour de France and runner-up Laurent Fignon, a mention that Studio Ghibli founder Hayao Miyazaki made drawings of runner-up Laurent Fignon, the Oscar-winning film maker and artist is interested in cycling. Going down an internet rabbit hole and then emerging, that’s the image above from 5 July 2009. One of the recurring themes in Miyazaki’s works is technology and how humans can find a balance between it enabling us but without dependency. The handwritten title seems to be “fusion” but is Fignon escaping from his helmet, sunglasses and race radio or merging with them?
Of late the rider safety issues seems concentrated on the risks of non-race vehicles getting on the course. The risk is real but blocking every farm and field gate, every private drive, and clearing every private car parked – at least ensuring the driver won’t arrive and start driving – on the course takes massive ressource. I recently watched the amateur Tour de Moselle passing through my village and counted at least thirteen police motorcycles and twenty-odd support vehicles, yet numerous points of possible access to the route were not supervised resulting in substantial risk. I’m not sure what the answer is but ending the less well-funded races or reducing them to closed circuit races would be sad.
I understand your point, but what happened with Fin Tarling was simply unacceptable. It’s a little murkier with smaller/amateur races, but there has to be a stronger standard for the bigger races. The Cycling Podcast boys were discussing the issue and brought up harsh penalties for race organizers, which I believe is the only solution that will really work. If it means the loss of a race that’s better than the loss of a life. Of course it gets complicated at the margins (e.g., how do you decide when a course is “too dangerous”), but things like vehicles on courses are black-and-white. If you can’t get that figured out, don’t have a race.
It is difficult, at the Tour de France every junction and even side track is policed. But no other race gets coverage like this. You could have volunteers but what if a driver barges past, is the organiser still liable? As you say the Cycling Podcast had a good discussion on this – they discuss stripping organisers of their races/demoting the event as a suggestion, NB this already happens but it’s rare, trying to recall a race that was sanctioned and think the Eneco Tour (Benelux version) was cited before? – and the peloton clearly want to see some visible improvement on this.