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news
Sir Bradley Wiggins at Stage 2 of 2015 Tour de Yorkshire - picture Alex WhiteheadSWpix.comNo beards! The Belgian pro cycling team that bans facial fuzz
Walter Planckaert, sports director at Belgian UCI Professional Continental team Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise, has revealed it has a rather unusual recruitment policy – it won’t sign riders with beards.
He told Het Nieuwsblad at the weekend that the decision was based on preserving “the elegance of the sport.”
The 1976 Tour of Flanders winner continued: “We’re cyclists, not motocross riders or rugby players.
“I’ve nothing against motocross, but a rider with a beard doesn’t fit.”
To emphasise his point, he added: “Snot and food stay in a rider’s beard. That’s filthy.”
He told the newspaper that a bit of stubble, such as is sported by Philippe Gilbert or Greg van Avermaet, is fine in his book, but a full beard is not, and that if a rider refused to shave “he has to find another team.”
Besides elegance, however, there is a sound cycling reason for keeping clean shaven if wind tunnel research conducted by Specialized at its headquarters in Morgan Hill, California, is to be believed.
> Video: To beard or not to beard?
So, who needn’t apply for a place on the team – or at least, should make sure they’ve got rid of the facial fluff when they meet Planckaert?
Well, Sir Bradley Wiggins, should he ever decide to come out of retirement, would have to get rid of his beard and – going by this footage of him at the unveiling of a memorial to Tom Simpson earlier this month – also get a short back and sides for good measure.
There’d be no place either for German pro cyclist and Tour de France stage winner Simon Geschke, nor for three-time world champion Peter Sagan or indeed the Namibian rider, Dan Craven, among others.
Third @UCI_cycling world championship title in a row! #Slovakia https://t.co/B1hFLpWmS9
— Peter Sagan (@petosagan) September 24, 2017
And should Zimbabwe-born long-distance cyclist Sean Conway ever fancy turning pro, well, that’s one team he needn’t send his CV to …
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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The small frame, the aggressive posture, lots of standover height.
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You're defending bombing hospitals and refugee camps and starving children.
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22 comments
Saw a beardy rider at the cafe stop the other day with shaved legs!
Erm, why?
Fine if for provable performance reasons but openly banning recruitment of people based personal opinions of their appearance...? I wonder what Belgian employment and equalities law has to say about that.
Finally someone prepared to speak out on the big issues facing our sport.
And I bet he makes the whole team wear the same shirt as well! Oh, hang on...
What a funny sport. Men shave their legs. This bloke bans beards. Lady riders are told to grow their pubes. The male world champion has a beard (of sorts).
I think it's a good thing in this world of watching your p's and q's for someone to actually have an opinion and go so far as to enforce it. Wouldn't it be a boring world if we all 'had to just accept everything' all the time.. don't like beards, ban em. Not keen on sideburns, banned. Quite dislike minty showergel, it's gone and whoever buys it by accident on the next trip gets docked a weeks wages.
Will the title of Directeur Sportif now be amended to Dictator Sportif?
What an odd stance to take.
Beardy discrimination fascist
Teams need to enforce rules on socks. No long socks please.
Good for him. Plus it will work wonders in team time trials.
Sign contract, grow beard.
Brad's beard on Ventoux wasn't too unkempt, the hair was certainly on its way though
Planckaert seems not to understand that (1) beards can be washed ("full of snot and food"? Only if you're a character in a Jethro Tull song!) and (2) if a man has a beard then he can (as a last resort) shave it off...
TBH my beard gets more tlc that my hair does, and both are long..'cept the former turns into wirey pubes without a bit of leave-in conditioner..screw this beard oil poncy rubbish
Well, I'm sure there are plenty of lady cyclists who would agree with this.
But aesthetics aside, isn't it true that hirsute cyclists are less streamlined and therefore slower? Isn't that why the pros shave their legs? Now that the gel market has completely captured all those gullible sportive riders, there must be a market opening for for pre-ride razors. Maybe one for en route too, on the longer rides. After all, they fell for the helmet nonsense, so they'll buy anything.
Wow, even in a fucking beard debate!!!
Does your helmet not have a beard?
Good decision.
My new favorite cycling team.
What a totally ocean-going, copper-bottomed, 24-carat tool.
I wouldn't be surprised if he thinks all bikes should have downtube shifters as in the anti-disc brake club.
Sounds less progressive than the UCI, if that's possible.
Hell, why not go back to single speeds and cotton jerseys.
Penny farthing racing ...
Elegant as fuck.