Extra Tour de France wildcard invitations, test of gear restrictions approved by Pro Cycling Council

The UCI announced on Wednesday that the majority of members of the Professional Cycling Council (PCC) approved the addition of one more team to the Grand Tours, allowing for 23 teams to be invited to the Tour de France, Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a España.

The UCI Management Committee must now pass the measure and will vote on March 31 on whether to approve the request.

Tucked away in the press release was a note that the PCC also supported a proposal to test gear ratio restrictions "during a race later in the season", pending UCI Management Committee approval.

The Giro d'Italia organisers are expected to announce their wildcard invitations in January but have not done so as they await the latest decision by the UCI on the addition of one more wildcard slot.

Grand Tours have had 22 teams most years except for 2021, when the UCI approved an additional wildcard to help ProTeams recover from the COVID-19 pandemic that severely cut the 2020 road calendar.

If approved, since Lotto have opted to forgo the race, the Giro organisers could invite four wildcard teams. Tudor Pro Cycling, Q36.5 and Uno-X Mobility are the top contenders along with Polti-VisitMalta and VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè.

For the Tour de France, there would be only three available invitations, putting Team TotalEnergies up against Tudor, Q36.5 and Uno-X Mobility as Israel-Premier Tech and Lotto earned automatic invites as the top two ProTeams of 2024.

The Vuelta a España organisers will have to decide between these teams and Spanish ProTeams Kern Pharma, Euskaltel-Euskadi, Burgos BH-Burpellet and Caja Rural-Seguros RGC for their wildcard positions.

Gear restriction test moves forward

The UCI press release on the gear restriction test followed a discussion earlier this month by the SafeR Supervisory Board. 

Wout van Aert called for gear restrictions in January as a way to reduce the ever-increasing speeds in pro cycling, and the idea gained support from other riders like Chris Froome.

Others doubted it would make a difference, with aerodynamics expert Dan Bigham stating on Instagram, "Speed isn't determined by gear ratios. It's determined by input power divided by drag. Limiting gear ratios won't help if you want to slow races down."

Taco van der Hoorn (Intermarché-Wanty) expressed his opposition to gear restrictions to Cyclingnews, saying he prefers a lower cadence and bigger gears and the rules would penalise riders like him.

One Cycling

The UCI also stated they are working on renewing the registration of WorldTour and Women's WorldTour races for 2026-2028, revealing at the same time that the One Cycling project submitted new events.

One Cycling is the subject of "ongoing discussions", the press release noted in a difficult-to-decipher sentence: "As part of the registration applications received, the PCC took note of bids for new events within the One Cycling project in respect of which the families expressed their wish for the continuation of the ongoing discussions but with their formal participation and under the authority of the UCI to establish the UCI International Calendar, define its different tiers and allocate events."

UCI President David Lappartient told Cyclingnews at the Tour Down Under that any discussions regarding the One Cycling project should be "under the umbrella of the UCI".

"The red line is that we don’t want to have a breakaway league, we don't want to have a private league, and we want to make sure that we respect races like the Tour Down Under that are here for years," Lappartient said.

The UCI said that the PCC agreed.

"The members of the PCC underlined that the official representative organisations (AIGCP, AIOCC and CPA) must be involved in the decision-making process related to the UCI WorldTour and UCI Women's WorldTour and that they must be adequately consulted in relation to the One Cycling project, given its implications for all stakeholders and for the calendar as a whole," the press release stated.

Other announcements include an increase in start fees and housing for women's teams for the 2026-2028 WorldTour cycle.