At the risk of sounding like an old man yelling at a cloud, I don’t think pro road racers are cool anymore. Before you react, allow me to at least clarify my statement. Cast your mind back to March of this year. Do you remember Giro launching a gloriously over-the-top time-trial helmet at Tirreno-Adriatico? How could you forget? The thing basically broke the internet for a few days and had every style critic on social media up in arms about how cycling has lost its elegance.
The helmet appeared hot on the heels of a spate of very aero-looking and clearly time-trial-inspired helmets that were being used by pros in—gasp!—mass-start races. It also spurred some interesting conversations at Bicycling. A few brave folks on staff spoke up in defense of the helmets in the name of keeping time-trial tech weird. However, the general reaction was negative and, in my understanding, primarily focused on aesthetics. To be perfectly frank, I do generally think most aero helmets are pretty ugly. Time-trial helmets have been the punchline of many mainstream cycling jokes for years, because they look ridiculous. The good news is that they are also totally irrelevant to the majority of cyclists. It’s around this point in the conversation that it hit me. As a lifelong roadie, I put pro riders on a pedestal in my mind. They were the guardians of speed, style, and, yes, the cool factor that is so impossible to define. But why?
After all, there’s nothing particularly cool or stylish about paid athletes wearing the equipment designed and made for them by their sponsors with the explicit goal of winning sporting events. Because, let’s be honest, that’s not what style is. It’s certainly miles and miles off from Big Mig’s glorious luft or Greg LeMond’s boyish charm and ability to rock the biggest Oakley sunglasses anyone had ever seen. I’m sure at the time, there were people who cringed at both and longed for the effortless style of Roger De Vlaeminck or Jacques Anquetil. But I think we need to let go of that legacy and let the pros be what they are rather than what we want them to be.
I generally loathe using a car analogy, but it fits in this case. Racing at the World Tour level is entering its Formula 1 era. Yes, technically, you can still purchase all the equipment used by World Tour pros. Most people won’t because it’s just not that relevant to their riding. In the same way, Formula 1 cars are not relevant to anyone’s day-to-day driving. I think pro roadies have had a long enough reign as the arbiters of cycling cool. If they get just a bit more ridiculous-looking, perhaps cycling culture as a whole can benefit from having more kinds of riders at the helm of our collective style.
As for the World Tour pros, just like Formula 1, they should keep pushing the technological boundaries in the pursuit of speed—aesthetics be dammed. For them, the whole point is to win races, and in that fight, function will always win over form.
Test Editor Dan Chabanov got his start in cycling as a New York City bike messenger but quickly found his way into road and cyclocross racing, competing in professional cyclocross races from 2009 to 2019 and winning a Master’s National Championship title in 2018. Prior to joining Bicycling in 2021, Dan worked as part of the race organization for the Red Hook Crit, as a coach with EnduranceWERX, as well as a freelance writer and photographer.
