The UCI, MyWhoosh, and Elite, in cooperation with Purdue University, are going to great lengths to legitimize the esports playing field.
On November 15, 20 male and 20 female esports riders will converge on Abu Dhabi to compete for top honors at the 2025 UCI Cycling Esports World Championships. When they climb up on stage for the live final and swing their legs over the top tube of their bikes, those bikes will be sitting on smart trainers marked with a sticker reading “Approved by the UCI.”
That label isn’t just for show. To earn that distinction, the devices will have undergone hours of testing on both sides of the Atlantic and traveled over 12,000 miles (almost 20,000 km) to meet the federation’s standards – another step closer to the industry-wide implementation of the UCI’s smart trainer standardization program.
“The hardware standardization process has been a part of the UCI Cycling Esports World Championships since day one and has continued to evolve,” the UCI’s cycling esports coordinator, Jacob Fraser, told Escape. “For the last two years, the UCI has partnered with Elite, the smart trainer manufacturer, to validate every individual unit against a specific testing regime.”
This program could go a long way toward legitimizing performances at the elite level. Fraser told Escape in a previous interview that “hardware standardization is one of the three main pillars critical to the establishment and legitimization of the future of cycling esports.”
In another interview, MyWhoosh’s director of esports and game operations, Matt Smithson, said to Escape, “If cycling esports is going to have a long-term future, we need standardized, verified hardware.”
Stakeholders agree that credibility and trust are crucial to the sustainability of the emerging discipline. With the renewed investment of human and financial resources, MyWhoosh has shown continued support for the UCI’s initiative and development of the sport.
This post is for paying subscribers only
Subscribe now
Already have an account? Sign in
Did we do a good job with this story?
👍Yep
👎Nope