It wouldn’t be the eve of a Monument without the jobsworths at the UCI sticking their beaky fucking noses into something just to remind us that they have the full bureaucratic mandate of God.
Days before Roubaix, the sport’s governing busybodies have pulled the plug on Visma-Lease a Bike’s in-race tire pressure management system. The ban arrived via an unexpected sternly-worded letter. Sorry Wout, you’ll have to monitor your tyre pressure the old fashioned way: jumping off your bike every 200 metres to give them a squeeze.
You can probably tell that we don’t actually give a fuck, but our hatred is even greater for the usual mental hall monitor shit of intentionally doing it right before the event where the technology is the most useful.
A Bankrupt Supplier
Visma has been testing and racing the Gravaa system (which allows riders to inflate and deflate their tubeless tires on the fly via a wireless hub system) throughout the spring, most recently deploying it at the Grand Prix de Denain.
But according to Visma’s head of performance, Mathieu Heijboer, who vented his sheer frustration on the In de Waaier podcast, the UCI decided that this week was the perfect time to investigate Gravaa’s corporate financial structure.
The company behind the tech recently went through bankruptcy proceedings before resuming operations. Because of this financial restructuring, the UCI is suddenly arguing that the system no longer meets the strict requirement of being “commercially available” to the public, earning it a blanket ban for the rest of the season.
The Hypocrisy of “Commercially Available”
And that is, broadly fair. But this is also the governing body that routinely looks the other way when national federations show up to the World Championships with 3D-printed, aerodynamic track frames that technically meet the rule only because they are listed on a buried webpage for $50,000. Creating an absurd, fictitious price tag so nobody buys your proprietary Olympic superbike is perfectly legal. A supplier running out of cash is where the UCI really draws the line on competitive integrity.
Heijboer argues that the rules haven’t changed and the hubs are still very much on the market. But rather than dragging the governing body into an exhausting legal battle 48 hours before the Hell of the North, Visma has decided it simply isn’t worth the headache and abandoned the appeal process.
Visma’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good Spring Continues
You have to feel for Visma. They spent the entire winter engineering the perfect Roubaix setup, only for the UCI to effectively confiscate their wheels on a technicality.
Wout van Aert now has to line up in Compiègne on Sunday knowing he will suffer the Arenberg Forest the old-fashioned way: by locking in his tire pressure at the start line and praying he doesn’t crack a rim. And knowing Wout’s luck at the Monuments this year, he is probably going to puncture on sector 15 right as Tadej Pogačar launches a 900-watt attack.