I used to be suspicious about Visma- Lease a Bike’s “Management Room” van from the beginning. The thought behind it’s, apparently, to create a command put up from which the crew can monitor a race and make tactical selections.
Michael Hutchinson is a author, journalist and former skilled bicycle owner. As a rider he received a number of nationwide titles in each Britain and Eire and competed on the World Championships and the Commonwealth Video games. He was a three-time Brompton folding-bike World Champion, and as soon as hit 73 mph using down a hill in Wales. His Dr Hutch columns seems in each concern of Biking Weekly journal.
My doubts have been aroused as a result of usually when a crew concocts a brand new marginal acquire, they’re a minimum of a tiny bit secretive about it. It appeared uncommon to put in writing “Management Room” on the facet of the van in letters as massive as would match, after which launch a number of moody images of it posing in a grassy meadow as if it was auditioning for a shampoo business.
The sceptic would possibly nearly think about that the principle function of this van was for the Tour de France to refuse it an accreditation and entice consideration to the crew sponsors. The one factor it didn’t have was a “Ban Me! Ban Me!” decal. The Tour duly refused it a automobile accreditation, which means that it could possibly’t entry official Tour areas. Now, like a German vacationer, it must watch the race from a random little bit of roadside in its flip-flops with its bib straps spherical its waist.
The contents of the van weren’t all that refined. Within the darkened, air-conditioned inside there have been half a dozen screens, with TV feeds from a number of cameras, the Professional Biking Stats overview of the race, the VeloViewer map, some social media feeds so they may sustain with anybody who is perhaps tweeting in regards to the climate or highway circumstances, and a crew WhatsApp group. There was additionally an app that used AI to establish jerseys in order that they knew instantly what number of riders from every crew have been within the TV shot, and climate radar for the route.
I’ll be sincere, it regarded like a superb place to look at a motorcycle race. All this data, organized to your viewing pleasure. It was bike-fan heaven. The one factor it didn’t have was a espresso machine.
The ASO banned it, pointing to Regulation 1.3.006 bis. It is a reg that permits for the transmission of knowledge from a motorcycle in a race, like its location, velocity and the rider’s energy. It additionally outlaws the transmission of a rider’s physiological information, like coronary heart price or physique temperature, to anybody apart from the rider.
Clearly, a minimum of on the face of it, the management centre isn’t contravening any of that. As it’s introduced, the management centre doesn’t include something you may’t recreate with a couple of screens in your lounge. The one substantive distinction is that you’ve in all probability by no means tried to have your lounge accredited so that you park it on the end of a Tour stage.
Even when the ASO suspects that the van is definitely receiving banned telemetry like coronary heart price, the difficulty isn’t actually the van, it’s the transmission, which presumably would now simply go to a crew automobile. Truthfully, I think that if the crew have been utilizing unlawful information they wouldn’t do it in a giant yellow van with “Management Room” written on the facet.
When it comes right down to it, it didn’t get banned for that. It obtained banned as a result of it’s not sufficiently subtle. Everybody desires the tactical calls in a race to a minimum of appear to be they’re being determined within the warmth of battle, and that the riders are doing extra than simply obeying orders.
Nobody desires to shift the ‘race radio’ debate up one other stage, in order that it’s not even a flustered DS attempting to drive the automobile, watch the TV and bark, “Guys, get to the entrance” right into a radio, it’s somebody in a crew onesie calmly consuming a flat white and making selections from miles away.
Which is a disgrace, as a result of it’s a job I badly need. I’ve even obtained a espresso machine prepared.
