With all the talk of a now-cancelled protest at tomorrow’s Omloop Het Nieuwsblad over the International Cycling Union (UCI) banning the use of two-way radios, there is at least one dissenting voice. FDJ manager Marc Madiot is one of the few team bosses willing to speak out in support of the radio ban; like many he feels that the direct link between the riders and their managers takes the initiative away from the one on the bike to the one in the car.
"I would not like to have someone yelling what to do in my ear all day,” he said, according to Het Laatste Nieuws. “‘Now to the left’, ‘now to the right’, ‘watch out here’, ‘watch out there’. Riders are not sheep?
“With the abolition of the earpieces they get more responsibility in the race. [Surely] that can never be bad..?”
For the two-time Paris-Roubaix winner the new rule change is just that: a rule; and it is not for the teams and riders to choose which rules to obey or disobey.
"I do not understand all the hoopla,” he said. “The UCI said that riders may not race with earpieces, so we must keep to the rules. Historically, there was no speed limit on French motorways; now it is 130 [kph], so now we drive up to 130."