Visma-Lease a Bike have angrily lashed out at the UCI, after the governing body suddenly banned the use of a game-changing gadget produced by GRAVAA and developed in conjunction with the Dutch team, which allowed riders to adjust the pressure in their tyres on the move.
The system provides a significant – potentially title-deciding – marginal gain during races with cobble sections… like the Paris-Roubaix, happening this Sunday. Visma's head of performance, Mathieu Heijboer, was incandescent about the communication of the ban, as much as the “vague story” used to justify it, let alone the impact it will have on his top riders’ performance in this weekend’s cobbled Monument.
“Does this reduce Wout van Aert's chances? Yes!” Heijboer fumed during a Flemish podcast, In de Waaier, with his comments later reported in the newspaper Nieuwsblad. “This is no coincidence,” he said. “We received no announcement that this was coming; there was simply that letter. In fact, we even rode the GP Denain with it.”
“The surprise is going to be that we won’t be applying an innovation [in this year’s Paris-Roubaix],” Heijboer said during the podcast. “As you know, we have worked with the GRAVAA system for the past two years,” he continued. “We further developed it and tested it extensively during the winter. However, two weeks ago we received a letter stating that it is banned by the UCI. Then it stops all at once.”
The ingenious system makes it possible for riders to soften their tyres just before contending with cobbled sections, and then repressurise them afterwards for maximum performance. However, the price of the tech (around €4,000 for a complete system) seemed to make it commercially unviable and GRAVAA, the company behind it, was declared bankrupt earlier this year, leading the UCI to ban it for the rest of the season.
Heijboer, however, questions this, arguing that the system is commercially available. “You can order one if you want,” he said. “Moreover, there is no rule stating that a tape must be available two weeks or two months in advance. The moment of recording is the competition, and if a tape is commercially available at that time, then you comply with the rules.”
Tour de France Femmes winner and Visma-Lease a Bike rider Pauline Ferrand-Prévot took victory in last year's Paris-Roubaix Femmes, and the Frenchwoman later said the innovative GRAVAA gadget “Made a huge difference and it is fantastic to have this system ahead of the competition.” Last year Wout van Aert finished fourth in the Hell of the North, but he won the final stage of the Tour de France in Paris in spectacular fashion, attacking solo on the wet cobbles during on the final climb of Montmartre to emerge victorious on the Champs-Élysées.
The timing of the ban, almost on the eve of this year's Paris-Roubaix, has really drawn Heijboer’s ire. “I can’t read the minds of the UCI, but it is just a little too coincidental. Especially since the GP Denain is the biggest cobblestone race after Roubaix. It is also our final competitive test, and at that time there was nothing going on. But now, suddenly, right before Roubaix... That is no coincidence. Is there nothing we can do about it? Yes, the penalty ranges from a warning to disqualification. You’re not going to take that risk.
“Moreover, it does take quite a bit of preparation time. Over the past two weeks, our mechanics have been preparing hundreds of sets of wheels. So you can’t postpone that until the Saturday before Roubaix. Quite soon after that letter, we decided to cut our losses; we are not going to ride with them. We are going to challenge this, but for now, it is too late.
“Does this reduce Wout van Aert's chances? Yes. We have a lot of faith in the system and have tested it extensively. It is a real shame that it is now suddenly no longer allowed for very unclear reasons...”
