'It was a bit harmful' – Lorena Wiebes criticises UCI's new handlebar width rule highlighting security issues at Copenhagen Dash

After successful the inaugural Copenhagen Dash, Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) criticised the UCI in her post-race interview, contrasting the UCI’s announcement about minimal handlebar width with the shortage of signalisation throughout the race that induced a number of crashes.

“I’m a bit irritated that the UCI is doing issues otherwise with the handlebars and stuff and not likely enthusiastic about our security. It was a bit harmful generally, with no one signalling the central reservations,” stated Wiebes.

A central reservation induced one of many huge crashes within the race, the place a.o. Wiebes’ teammate Blanka Vas went down and needed to abandon the race.

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The second crash occurred at a narrowing within the highway designed to decelerate motor automobiles whereas cyclists can proceed unhindered across the bollards – except they’re in an enormous peloton, that’s. Each factors of hazard lacked any type of signalisation to warn the riders.

Lastly, a crash in a right-hand activate town centre circuit took down two riders and cut up the peloton on the ultimate lap.

“Fortunately, I used to be in entrance of it, I heard it behind me. These sorts of crashes largely occur in these metropolis centres, however on the larger lap we additionally had some crashes, and we misplaced one in all our necessary teammates, Blanka Vas, there. She was part of the lead-out, so we wanted to regulate a bit. Ultimately, it labored out all good. However I hope subsequent time the UCI takes a bit extra care of our security,” Wiebes stated.

Earlier this week, the UCI introduced that it could implement a minimal handlebar width of 40 centimetres in mass-start highway and cyclo-cross races from the 2026 season onwards, citing security implications as the rationale behind the choice, as some riders have opted for more and more slender handlebars lately.

Nevertheless, a rigidly fastened minimal handlebar width doesn’t have in mind riders’ distinction in dimension.

Many ladies’s professional cyclists stated that their handlebars are under the to-be-introduced 40-centimetre restrict just because they’ve slender shoulders, and Karl Lima, Coop-Repsol crew supervisor, posted on Social Media that every one 13 of his riders use handlebars narrower than 40 cm.