The peloton on the Excursion Down Below are adjusting to a slew of recent UCI laws for 2025, maximum particularly a provision that restricts meals and water hand-ups to designated feed zones and from workforce vehicles within the convoy.
“It’s been an ongoing discussion for quite a while now within SafeR, where I’m representing as the AIGCP president on the SafeR commission, as well as being involved in case management on the SafeR supervisory board,” Copeland mentioned.
Whilst water hand-ups outdoor of feed zones have been allowed beneath UCI laws earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic, the follow exploded over the past 4 seasons as groups got extra leeway beneath loosened laws designed to permit for social distancing.
One results of the scattered water issues has been workforce personnel scrambling to get from one level to the following, developing an accidental danger.
“If the group comes past and they’re really going fast, you have to wait for the dropped group to get bottles, [then] jump in the car and race to the next one before the group goes past. We’ve heard of and seen a lot of speeding, a lot of reckless driving, and we dread the day that a terrible accident happens outside of it.
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“We are seeking to keep away from all of those elements in all fairness and clearly, the concern is the protection and wellbeing of the riders, with no need them going into dehydration, and the use of not unusual sense when there are scorching days.”
While the new rule caused the Tour Down Under organisers some stress trying to find resources to add additional feed zones, teams have found the UCI to be flexible in allowing more water points so far.
Copeland says the stricter rules will have the benefit of leveling the playing field in addition to enhancing safety on and off course.
“There are very prime funds groups that use the water issues for explicit causes [and] there are the decrease funds groups that sadly should not have the assets to do as many water issues, so [we are] seeking to simply stability that out with out going to extremes.”
He added that riders who turned professional after the pandemic will now have to learn a skill that used to be second nature for pros – going back to the team car to get bottles and then riding back through the group.
That flow of riders going back and forth to the convoy, Copeland says, changes the dynamic in the peloton. It might be counterintuitive to suggest that more riders in the convoy could be safer, but Copeland explains, “In the event you get the riders going again to the cars, you get a just right waft of the peloton, while, with the water issues, it is in reality stagnant. The riders in finding themselves within the most sensible 20 place … and so they by no means return to the automobile. So they do not acquire that have as a extra skilled rider would have of going throughout the peloton.”
Riders still might have a chance to get hand-ups from the roadside outside of the feed zone, but the new rules also require anyone doing hand-ups to be UCI licensed, which is another safety consideration.
“It sort of feels simple to present a bottle, but if a rider comes previous at 60 kilometres an hour … you have to know what to do.
“So we’re trying to make it as safe as possible, and understand that there are … a lot of riders that have turned (pro) fresh in the last few years who have never known a different way.”
