The Visma Control Room | Lease a Bike: F1-style tech for Vingegaard and co, or a single-use gadget?

There has been a lot of talk lately about Visma | Lease A Bike’s advanced control room, which collects the most relevant data for race strategies from a sort of van. Or does it actually have another function?

The data-collecting vehicle is seen by the team as a new technological advance, although the UCI was not immediately satisfied. The International Cycling Union has launched an investigation into the validity of the new gadget, “based on current regulations.” The union has said it wants to ensure equal access to technological tools and maintain “the primacy of the human over the machine.” These principles are highly valued by the UCI, which ultimately led the UCI and ASO to decide not to accredit the vehicle just before the start of the Tour.

For Richard Plugge, CEO of Killer Bees, it might have been a little disappointing at first glance, although he said IDLProCycling.com and other Italian media outlets said it wasn’t that bad. “I think our control room is an interesting innovation. And in my opinion, cycling can certainly use innovation in some areas. The UCI didn’t give us a sticker to make it part of the “team” during the race, but we didn’t ask for it either. After all, it’s a control room and nothing else. So the vehicle can very well stay somewhere outside the race. On the finish line, for example, from where we can operate perfectly.”

Plugge and Visma | Lease a Bike question the motivations of the UCI and ASO

“As a team, we are of course obliged to respect the UCI regulations. They had several reasons to justify this decision,” the former journalist continues. “I then asked them to send me the precise rules on which these considerations were based. So I am very curious to know what they are going to propose and what is the real reason behind this decision.”

To be continued, it seems. “Ultimately, it remains an interesting concept,” Plugge concludes. “Many team leaders have already sent me messages, with compliments or questions. This could be a nice addition to the future of the sport. Ultimately, we are all working on it. As Visma | Lease a Bike, we want to be a driving force in innovation, so we will definitely continue to work on these kinds of things.”

“It seems like something new, but maybe it’s not quite the case,” concludes the 54-year-old Dutchman. “Every team is constantly on the phone during a race, in one way or another. It’s an interesting additional tool to provide information to the people involved. It’s mainly an idea that has to do with safety. The team leaders in the race convoy have a bit more space and only have to respond to one source of information, instead of several. We think you can’t be against such safety ideas.”