Guten Morgen!
We here at the UCI know there there is concern around our decision not to ban 32-inch wheels for the 2026 season:
Mind you, this concern is not on the part of equipment suppliers, who will get to foist an exciting new standard on consumers who simply must have the next new thing they don’t need:
Product managers and stock holders at major brands will welcome the acceptance of 32″ wheels in competition. Undeniably, it brings fresh justification for developing and selling new bikes at a time when innovation feels to have stalled. It seems consumers too are 32″ curious, with many of you Pinkbike readers demonstrating interest in the new wheel size – though it seems only if you were buying with someone else’s cash.
However, we do understand it’s a concern for athletes and fans who think cycling is now teetering on the brink of a new era of height-based discrimination:
What is less easy to gauge is the appetite among the athletes themselves. I don’t think it’s outlandish to suggest that there may be a split in opinion that correlates closely to rider height, which again raises the question of fairness.
Rest assured that your fears are completely unfounded. In fact, cycling under the UCI is the fairest of all sports. Consider: you’ve got to be short to be a jockey, you’ve got to be tall to be a basketball player. You’ve got to be fat to be a sumo wrestler, you’ve got to be skinny to be a marathon runner. And sure, on the face of it, to be a cross country mountain biker you’ll soon need to be Gumby:
Well, you’ll pardon the use of the humor for which we Swiss are famous, but…that’s a stretch:
In fact, the UCI is proud to offer plenty of exciting cycling disciplines for you to choose from, regardless of your body type. You can do anything from track sprinting:
To artistic cycling:
Not only is artistic cycling the most elegant of all sports:
But it’s also inspirational, and proof positive that anything’s possible if you put your mind to it and you’ve got a willing partner:
Look, don’t pretend you haven’t wondered if you and a special friend could pull this off:
So sit back, enjoy, and leave the fairness to us. And remember: whether you’re interested in 32s or 69s, the UCI has a discipline for you.
Sincerely,
Your Friends in Aigle
Speaking of the future of professional cycling…HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA:
One thing Van Aert can’t get his head around?
Why there’s not a bigger WorldTour footprint in the USA.
“I hope at some point that we have a bigger American circuit,” Van Aert told The Athletic.
“It’s a big market, and basically all the material sponsors that we have, they have their headquarters or offices here. Cycling is ‘something’ here. It’s a shame that we don’t use this platform to show off on the highest level,” Van Aert said last week.
HAHAHAHAHAHA.
HAHAHAHA.
HAHAHA…
[Sighs…]
Oh, Wout…
Seriously, Wout the hell are you thinking!?!
First of all, competitive cycling is flourishing here in the United States, and as much as the team here at BSNYC Enterprises Inc. (that’s the taxidermy sculpture of my deceased helper monkey Vito, the half-assed AI image generator offered by this blogging platform, and me) likes to make fun of “gravel” (or “broccoli” as we call it around here) it’s clearly very much the future of domestic bike racing…or at least the present. I mean I’m not about to buy stock in it, but still:
[Piddling returns, you might as well go long on low-normal derailleurs.]
Secondly, I love that he thinks “more American-based brands” is the answer:
“It would be really good to have more American-based brands. They have more money to put into our sport. I hope we won’t read any more stories of this struggling like we’ve had over the past couple of months,” he said.
OK, fine you want to do it the American way? Let’s go for it! Why don’t we get a quintessentially American sponsor to back a team led by an American rider with a backstory so compelling that even mainstream Americans with no interest in the sport take an interest? He’ll do whatever it takes to win and become a folk hero in the process, and soon TV networks will start broadcasting the races, bike sales will explode, and the Tour de France will be right up there with the Superbowl, the World Series, and the NBA Finals.
Oh wait, that happened already, and Europeans hated it:
Be careful what you wish for.
That’s not to say Wout’s idea is all bad. For example, consider this model:
WVA envisions a system similar to the NBA, a powerhouse label defined by salary caps, revenue-sharing, and a “franchise” method of team ownership.
“You can always learn from other sports,” Van Aert said. “In general, how the NBA is as a federation, it’s completely different to what we have in cycling.
“The financial system they have, that is something we should try and learn from, even though it will be really hard to change that.”
Great idea! We could call it the “National Cycling League!”
Oh, wait:
Let it go already. Just let it go.