“Limiting number of gears would make cycling a lot safer,” says Wout van Aert, as Belgian star shares photo of knee scars suffered in horrific Vuelta crash

Two years after the Belgian cycling federation opted out of the UCI’s decision to remove gearing restrictions in junior races, one of the country’s biggest stars, Wout van Aert, has now spoken out in favour of introducing a junior gear-style system in the WorldTour, arguing that limiting the peloton’s gearing choices would slow speeds on descents and “make the sport a lot safer”.

Van Aert’s call for restricted gearing – the latest intervention in cycling’s ongoing safety debate this winter – comes after the Visma-Lease a Bike all-rounder’s spring classics campaign was derailed by a heavy crash at Dwars door Vlaanderen in March, on the high-speed run-in to the Kanarieberg climb.

That crash, which also brought down Mads Pedersen, Biniam Girmay, and Jasper Stuyven, left Van Aert with a fractured collarbone and ribs, ruling him out of action for almost two months, and prompted the organisers to remove the Kanarieberg, and its dangerous run-in, from this year’s route.

“A good choice,” Van Aert told Sporza this week when asked about the decision to scrap the Kanarieberg’s high-speed approach. “It is a crucial point, a small mistake there is never a ‘crash’.”

However, along with eradicating fast, dangerous sections from race routes, the 30-year-old also argued that restricting the gears used by riders in the modern peloton – and therefore, in theory, the top speeds achieved on descents – would make the sport safer.

> All the gear? Check out the gearing choices of the pros at the Tour de France

While 53-tooth front chainrings were long viewed as the standard within the peloton, in recent years faster speeds and the rise of increasingly aerodynamic tech have seen more and more riders opt for larger set-ups.

As we noted ahead of the 2023 Tour de France, the most common chainset size in the pro peloton on normal, flatter stages is 54/40t. However, with larger chainrings viewed as more efficient, with less ‘cross-chaining’, some riders have opted for a 55-tooth front set-up, while at the 2023 edition of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Victor Campenaerts unveiled a monster 62-tooth chainring, taking advantage of Classified’s PowerShift rear hub.

And it’s this tendency towards bigger and faster gearing which has prompted Van Aert to call for the kind of restrictions imposed on youth riders in a bid to keep speeds down and increase safety.

“It makes for an interesting debate among the riders, just like cycling is getting faster. Limiting the number of gears would make the sport a lot safer, in my opinion,” the Visma-Lease a Bike rider said.

“Other riders don’t think so. Yet I am convinced: if you are on that descent with a gear limit, no one can move up. Now the gears are so big that you still think about overtaking.”

(Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

Van Aert’s crash at Dwars door Vlaanderen, however, wasn’t the only time in 2024 that a spill on a descent scuppered his goals for the season.

After recovering in time to race the Tour de France and secure the second Olympic medal of his career in the time trial in Paris, the Belgian star then headed to the Vuelta a España, where he lit up the Spanish grand tour with aggressive, attacking racing, winning three stages and looking set to win both the points and mountains classifications.

However, on stage 16 to Lagos de Covadonga, while riding near the front of the breakaway on the descent of the Collada Llomena, Van Aert crashed hard into the rocky banking at the side of the road after Filippo Zana lost control on a fast bend, badly injuring his knee and ultimately bringing an untimely end to a tumultuous season.

Earlier this week, the 30-year-old posted a series of images of his winter training and cyclocross racing on Instagram, including one gym photo which revealed the extent of the scarring to his knee following that heavy crash at the Vuelta.

(Wout van Aert, Instagram)

“Actually, the fall wasn’t serious at all,” Van Aert told Sporza. “The rider in front of me misjudged the bend. He didn’t take any risks during the entire descent. I just couldn’t avoid him, which caused me to fall over his bike. The bad luck was that there was a rock face. It literally cut into it.

“At first I thought about the sporting loss in the Vuelta. But that changed when I really didn’t feel well in the ambulance. And then because of the serious knee damage that was diagnosed in Belgium. If there had been grass, I would have just happily continued.”

(Visma-Lease a Bike)

Van Aert also revealed that his season-ending crash at the Vuelta left him with “no desire” to undergo another period of recovery and rehabilitation.

“I had no energy left to start from scratch again. That was a difficult period. How did I get started anyway? I had little choice,” he said.

When asked about his goals for 2025, the Belgian classics star replied with a grin: “That I can just stay on my bike. So that I can ride the races that I want to participate in. Because having to watch all the big classics and appointments from the sidelines: I’m fed up with that.

“I dream of being able to look back on a victory in the Tour of Flanders or Paris-Roubaix in a year’s time. That is definitely at the top of my list. And I also learned from last year that I can be successful if I can ride a grand tour in a free way.”

> “Tech always gets faster – it’s on riders to not do stupid things,” says Tadej Pogačar, after rival team boss called for “slower bikes to save lives” and pro claimed “modern bikes break every time you crash”

As noted above, Van Aert isn’t the only high-profile rider to weigh in on cycling’s safety debate this winter.

In recent months, the issue of rider safety has dominated discussions among cycling’s decision makers, in the wake of a 2024 road season marred by horrendous high-speed crashes, not just at Dwars door Vlaanderen but also at the Itzulia Basque Country a week later, and the tragic deaths of Swiss junior rider Muriel Furrer and Norwegian pro André Drege during races.

In November, Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme argued that devastating mass crashes like the one in the Basque Country in April – which brought down Remco Evenepoel and Primož Roglič, and left UAE Team Emirates climber Jay Vine and two-time Tour winner Jonas Vingegaard with serious injuries – are caused by riders “going too fast”.

(A.S.O./Etienne Coudret)

Speaking at the annual general assembly of the association of race organisers (AIOCC) in Italy, Prudhomme said: “Beyond the behaviour of the athletes and the work of the organisers, it is absolutely necessary to reduce speed by appropriate measures: the riders are going too fast.

“The faster they go, the greater the risk and the more they endanger themselves and others.

“We already said it here last year: our car and motorbike drivers no longer have a safety margin. Imagine the consequences if one of our drivers, subjected to too much pressure, lost control on a mountain descent or when racing through a built-up area.”

> “Slow down the bikes to save lives, it’s the only solution”: Cycling team boss calls for bike tech safety restrictions and asks, “Is a race at an average of 48kph less exciting than one at 55kph?”

The Tour director’s stance drew criticism from the likes of EF Education-EasyPost manager Jonathan Vaughters, who branded the comments “absolutely infuriating” and dismissed Prudhomme as one of the sport’s “fat cats who have never raced so much as a child’s tricycle”.

“It is absolutely infuriating to me how these fat cats, who have never raced so much as a child’s tricycle, turning tens of millions in profit off the backs of others, squarely throw the blame of safety issues in cycling on the riders,” Vaughters said on social media.

“They are highly competitive people. They are hard wired to the bone to take life threatening risks. Similar to F1 drivers.

“And like in F1, the answer is to create a safer environment around them. Because they will always push the envelope as far as it goes.”

(Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

Vaughters’ fellow team boss, Groupama-FDJ’s Marc Madiot, also pointed to Formula 1 as an example to follow in response to Prudhomme’s remarks, arguing that slowing down the increasingly aero and fast bike tech used at the highest level is key to creating a safer environment for pros who “don’t want to understand” the inherent risks they face during races.

“The equation is impossible,” the two-time Paris-Roubaix winner, who’s managed the French squad since 1997, said in an interview with Le Parisien.

“The guys are riding faster and faster on terrain where everything is designed to slow down the vehicles. And downhill, it’s worse than anything.

“And since a lot of guys don’t want to understand anything, there’s only one solution: slow down the bikes.

“Formula 1 has never stopped restricting cars. Not only has it saved lives, but its spectacle has lost nothing. Honestly, is a race at an average of 48kph less exciting than one at 55kph?”

(ASO/Charly Lopez)

Meanwhile, French pro Guillaume Martin, who’s set to move to Madiot’s Groupama-FDJ team in 2025 after five years at Cofidis, has also claimed that modern tech, and its apparent fragility, could be making the sport more dangerous.

However, unlike Van Aert and Martin, three-time Tour de France winner Tadej Pogačar, speaking at his UAE Team Emirates training camp last month, refused to be drawn on whether rules should be introduced to slow down bikes on safety grounds, noting that, just as teams wish to keep improving, the cycling industry is reliant on selling seemingly faster and better products.

“Everybody wants to go faster all the time,” the 2024 Triple Crown winner said. “The whole cycling world is developing like any other sport, breaking records every year and going faster and faster.

“Technology moves ahead, and in one way I totally understand that we cannot be stuck on a steel bike that goes 10kph slower. Marketing doesn’t go so well selling the bikes, the jersey, the helmets. Everything needs to improve.”

 (Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

However, despite increasing speeds, Pogačar pointed out that crashes have always been a part of cycling – and that, instead of focusing on reducing speeds, other measures can be emphasised to create a safer racing environment.

“When you go faster there is more risk, but I don’t think there were no crashes a hundred years ago, or no risk even if they were going 20kph average speed in a race and now we go almost 45,” the Slovenian superstar continued.

“Organisers are trying with new barriers on the roads. In some ways they really good. Choosing the right roads, for me, is crucial. Not to go over speed bumps when it’s 70kph per hour. Sensible finishes.

“There’s also the weather protocol. It’s getting used more and more, especially when there’s snow or rain, or super cold, they’re starting to apply it sometimes in the bigger races.

“It’s on the riders most to be safe. Don’t do stupid things in the bunch. You need to respect all the riders. It doesn’t matter who it is.

“Respect the road and you also need to think about your abilities on the bike. Everybody is trying their best, I think.”