The UCI Road World Championships present several unique challenges for teams in that the use of race radios is prohibited, making communication between the team cars and the riders especially difficult in the chaos of a road race. Most teams will send riders back to the cars for advice, but there is limited time to chat when the race is on.
Belgium - with favourites for the elite races in Lotte Kopecky for the women and Remco Evenepoel and Wout van Aert in the men's field - have a special method: taping messages to riders' bottles.
During the country's pre-race press conference on Friday, their secret 'message in a bottle' strategy was uncovered by Sporza's Renaat Schotte.
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"We tested that on Friday with the under-23," coach Serge Pauwels admitted. "We work with [message boards] like every year, but we also have a different system with the drink bottles figured out.
"It's not rocket science, is it? But almost every lap, almost every rider takes on a bottle. And in the under-23s it worked well."
The strategy won't make a massive difference for Belgium, Pauwels says, "But it's a good way to get changing situations across to the riders."
The atmosphere was so light that Cyclingnews thought it must be a joke, with Van Aert laughing, saying, "It's been around for a long time, huh, although I've never raced like this before. For me, it will be new. I will be happy if I will be a little more aware of the race conditions. I'm not a fan of racing without earpieces. I have said that many times."
Sporza happened to get wind of the team's methods after a labelled bidon was picked up by one of the television cameramen.
Now that their secret has been exposed, Van Aert joked, "Maybe we should agree on a coded language.
"Or maybe we should write true messages on the even laps and false instructions on the odd ones," Pauwels joked.
"It's just a shame we still have to think about this. I think it was decided at the time to race without earpieces because the races were boring at the time, but that has changed."
Evenepoel agreed, saying there are risks to the team's strategy. "If you miss a bottle and there is an important message on it, you have not seen it. It still needs fine-tuning ... But it's a pretty good idea. There are 12 laps and therefore 12 chances to take such a bottle. The chance that we won't know the message is fairly small."
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