Chris Froome has questioned whether time trial bikes and gravel tracks have a place in professional road cycling, highlighting a number of safety and fairness concerns.
In the latest instalment of his YouTube vlog, the four-time Tour de France winner addressed two recent events: the controversy surrounding the off-road summit finish at the Volta Valenciana and Egan Bernal's life-threatening crash on his time trial bike in Colombia last week.
With Bernal spending two weeks in intensive care after hitting the back of a stationary bus, Tom Pidcock has already questioned the safety of training on time trial bikes. However, Froome has gone one further, even suggesting they should be banned from racing.
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Froome acknowledged that many of his victories had been built against the clock but he has also suffered a similar experience to Bernal, breaking his leg and arm and throwing his career off-track while doing a recon of a time trial course during the 2019 Critérium du Dauphiné.
"I love time trialling - it's an art, it's a skill, it's really nuanced, something you really need to know a lot about as a pro cyclist. One of the magical things about Grand Tour racing is the balance of pure climbers versus the guys who can time trial as well," Froome said.
"But being out on my TT bike this morning, and in light of recent events, TT bikes are not really meant to be ridden on the roads the way we need to ride them to be ready for time trials. If there's an hour-long TT in the Tour de France, you have to get out there on your TT bike and you have to simulate that. Now how many roads do you know where you can literally ride for an hour in closed-road conditions, with no traffic, no stop signs, no traffic lights? Those kind of conditions just don't exist in the real world.
"When you're on the skis, you've got no brakes there, so you have to sit up, and it's not really that safe. It's one thing when racing on closed roads and even then you can have horrendous accidents, but it's completely another thing when you're out on open roads, with traffic and people crossing the roads."
Froome went on to discuss whether time trial bikes should be banned from racing as well as training. On top of the safety aspect, he pointed out the impact of equipment on results, highlighting the potential injustice between the big-budget and low-budget teams.
"Would it not be more uniform to have time trials done on road bikes? Without doubt, I think it would make it more of level playing field and more about the skill of individual riders, and not necessarily so much about the R&D, the aerodynamics, time in the wind tunnel, and the funding that goes into a project like being ready for a TT.
"Personally, I find it quite ironic that the UCI have introduced things to make the sport safer, like limiting the positions we can use on the bike, but in my opinion something like this, which would be pretty easy to implement, would have a far greater impact on the safety of professional cyclists."
Gravel
Froome also addressed the hot topic of gravel sectors in road races, responding to Matteo Trentin's recent comments to Cyclingnews that "we are going too far, to a spectacle we don’t need".
Trentin was speaking in reference to the steep climb at the end of the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, the latest in a string of races to introduce off-road sectors.
The Tour de France has done the same in recent years, taking riders onto gravel at the top of La Planche des Belles Filles and Plateau de Glières, while cobblestone sectors will be included in 2022 for the fourth time in nine years.
"It's s a tricky one, because it does give excitement to the race but it's just such a big risk as well," Froome said.
"You think of what it takes to be ready to go into a race for the general classification - it's months of dedication, not just from the leader but the team around him, the whole support crew, the investment, the resources, everything into that which literally can be all for nothing.
"You get into a cobbled sector or gravel section, a touch of wheels, fighting for position, and bang, the whole race is over. I see the excitement side, but it really is rolling the dice in terms of risk vs reward for the GC guys."
Froome insisted he was "all for" cobbles and gravel in one-day Classics such as Paris-Roubaix and Strade Bianche, but drew the line at stage races.
"I think it's a big shame if you lose some of the big GC contenders - it leaves the rest of the race less exciting."
