Performance cycling sits in a rather unique place among vehicular sports. Nobody can buy a Formula 1 race car, and neither can any Tom, Dick, or Harry rock up to a marina and put a down payment on an America’s Cup boat. With cycling though, thanks to the Union Cycliste International governing body insisting that every piece of equipment used in the professional peloton also be available for sale publicly, one can, with deep enough pockets, order the same bike as the pros use.
There are of course some loopholes and grey areas; no sport is without these and they make for an interesting narrative for gear nerds. It’s not unusual to see equipment, especially at the Olympic level, priced so outlandishly that nobody of sound mind would ever think of pressing the ‘buy now’ button, hidden at the centre of a maze of menus and sub-menus to make things even more tricky. Sometimes equipment is simply ‘price on request’, or in the case of custom gear lead times of many years are quoted as a deterrent to ensure only the national team in question retains access.
