On 25 November, three of professional cycling’s biggest race organisers announced their intention to reduce the numbers of riders allowed to compete in their events. Some WorldTour teams are not delighted about that, to put it mildly.
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Between them, Amaury Sports Organisation (ASO), RCS Sport and Flanders Classics own almost all of the sport’s biggest races: the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España, and all five one-day monuments (Milan-Sanremo, Paris-Roubaix, Tour of Flanders, Liege-Bastogne-Liege and the Giro di Lombardia), along with a host of other important dates on the race calendar. The three organisations have decided to reduce the size of a team from nine riders to eight in the three grand tours, and eight riders to seven in all the others.
It’s a proposition that’s been under consideration for the last few seasons as a possible solution to a couple of problems the sport’s encountered in recent years: rider safety and boring racing.
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So what’s led to these problems? How will having fewer riders solve them? And what can everyday, non-pro riders take away from the whole predicament?
Why do race organisers want to reduce team sizes?
One issue that reducing rider numbers is intended to address is crashing. Pile-ups are an unavoidable part of racing, but they appear to be happening more frequently.With tightly packed bunches of almost 200 riders tearing through turns at 60km/h on the run-in to the finish, the margin for error is tiny and, in situations like this, any mistakes have big consequences. It’s thought that having a smaller bunch will make it easier for the riders to negotiate the race route and reduce the chances of them bringing each other down.
Why do teams want the extra riders?
Why might reducing team sizes not solve these problems?
What can those of us not riding WorldTour events learn from all this?
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