The debate surrounding safety in road racing rumbled on over the sport’s winter break, with two high-profile pros calling on the UCI to restrict riders’ gearing.
Speaking to La Gazzetta dello Sport ahead of what appears to be his final season in the WorldTour, four-time Tour de France champion Chris Froome said: “We're seeing the sport going faster and faster…
“At some point, I think we're maybe going to have to even have the discussion about limiting the progression of technology in the sport to accommodate for the safety aspect. That could be something as simple as limiting the gears we're using.”
In a similar vein, 2022 green jersey winner, Wout van Aert, recently told Sporza: “…cycling is getting faster. Limiting the number of gears would make the sport a lot safer, in my opinion.”
On the face of it, gearing restrictions seem an obvious – and potentially easy-to-implement – solution to curbing speeds in pro cycling.
Is that actually the case, though? Let’s investigate.
Why are pro cyclists using such big gears?
Before we discuss restricting gears, it’s worth examining why professional road cyclists have gravitated towards bigger gears in recent years.
Anecdotally, the WorldTour peloton is riding faster than ever before, so it seems obvious that riders might be opting for larger gear ratios simply to keep pace with that.
The fuller explanation is more nuanced, though, and has a lot to do with drivetrain efficiency.
We’ve covered why pro cyclists are using such big chainrings in great detail previously, but the long and short of it is that larger chainrings (and cassette sprockets) are, all else being equal, more mechanically efficient than smaller ones.
Using a larger chainring can also allow for a straighter chainline when riding at high speeds.
Both of these things mean less of the power a rider puts through the pedals is lost to drivetrain friction.
When Tobias Foss of Ineos-Grenadiers lined up for the time trial at the 2024 UAE Tour with an enormous 68-tooth chainring, for example, it wasn’t simply because he was planning to ride that much faster than everyone else. Instead, he was almost certainly looking to optimise his drivetrain efficiency.
Indeed, despite ostensibly having the biggest chainring of the day, the former world time trial champion eventually finished fourth, 14 seconds behind Brandon McNulty (who also used a very big, although not-68t-big, chainring).
The issue is more complicated than it appears
While bigger gears are part of the picture, they’re not the main cause of the increased speeds.
After all, the fastest ever stage of the Tour de France remains (according to Wikipedia) 1999’s third stage, which covered 194.5 kilometres / 120.85 miles at a blistering average speed of 50.4kph / 31.32mph, long before oversized chainrings were on trend in the pro peloton.
It’s also worth remembering that chainrings aren’t the only thing that matters when it comes to determining gear ratios – the size of your cassette can have a much larger impact.
A 58x11t gear is, for example, slightly smaller than a 53x10t (5.27 versus 5.30).
Simply limiting chainring sizes to “56 or 54”, as Froome suggests, is unlikely to solve the issue if riders are allowed to keep using 10t sprockets.
Of course, it would be possible to regulate sprocket and chainring sizes simultaneously – perhaps by having an upper limit on gear ratios and checking rollout before races (as was previously done with junior riders, prior to a change in the UCI’s regulations in January 2023).
Even then, limiting the ratios riders have available doesn’t technically put an upper limit on speed.
Besides the fact it’s possible to achieve exceptionally high speeds when descending regardless of what gear ratios your bike has, might restricting gear ratios simply encourage riders to adopt higher cadences during high-speed sprint finishes, for example?
Is excessive speed the real issue?
Our recent interview with Dan Bigham, head of engineering at Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe, suggests speed isn’t the primary issue.
According to Bigham, the primary dangers facing pro cyclists are “unsafe roads, unsafe equipment and poor, inadequate or slow medical response when the worst does happen.”
He concedes speed can affect the consequences of crashes, but he contends speed alone isn’t the cause of most crashes.
If Bigham is right, simply limiting gear ratios might not have the desired effect.
Would restricting gear ratios make pro cycling safer?
The UCI’s regulations contain a number of rules designed to improve rider safety, such as article 1.3.031 of the technical regulations, which mandates the wearing of helmets during competitions and “official training sessions”.
There’s also article 2.2.025 of the UCI’s general racing regulations, which outlaws, among other things, the infamous ‘super tuck’ riding position used by Froome during his pomp.
It’s not out of the question, then, that regulations limiting rider gear ratios could be introduced.
In the absence of any evidence, though, it’s hard to say whether it would have the intended impact on rider safety (or not).
Perhaps, as Bigham suggested, the critical thing is to first identify the root causes of the dangers facing athletes competing in races or events.
After all, measures to prevent or mitigate those things from occurring can only be implemented once that is achieved.
