<\/p>\n It was an extraordinary moment, and not just for the way it played out but the way it all came together behind the scenes.<\/p>\n Latest Videos FromCyclingnews<\/p>\n Rider unity has been a consistent headache over the years but this protest was a slick, strong, and even secretive operation.<\/p>\n Beyond the riders, \u201cno one knew this was going to happen,\u201d the New Zealand champion George Bennett told Cyclingnews. “We kept it out of the Telegram groups, we didn\u2019t even tell our directors or team staff.”<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n What\u2019s most striking of all is that they didn\u2019t even involve the CPA, which is the riders\u2019 union that is supposed to act as a representative body in situations like this.<\/p>\n Instead, a WhatsApp group was created in the middle of the week, either by Tom Pidcock or Ben Healy, depending on differing accounts. Either way, it’s clear they were the two ring-leaders.<\/p>\n Pidcock had seen two of his Pinarello-Q36.5 teammates struck head-on<\/a> by a police motorbike at the recent Tre Valli Varesine, and had said he\u2019d wanted to stop racing then and there.<\/p>\n It was the third incident involving vehicles on the course in the past week alone, and comes in the context of the tragic death of Finlay Tarling<\/a> at the Volta a Portugal in August.<\/p>\n Invites were sent out and after a while, one rider from each of the 25 teams competing in Il Lombardia was in the WhatsApp group.<\/p>\n What to read next<\/p>\n “We all wanted to get every team involved and the best way was to have the leader of every team in a chat, and they could be spokesperson for their team,” Mark Donovan, a close ally of Tom Pidcock\u2019s at Pinarello-Q36.5, told Cyclingnews.<\/p>\n “We kept it pretty tight. We could have involved the CPA, but it was slightly more kept within the riders. It\u2019s nothing against the CPA, they do great job, but sometimes also we can, as riders, make decisions ourselves.”<\/p>\n ‘All in line’<\/p>\n \n George Bennett (right) on the start line with world champion Brandon McNulty and Swiss champion Jan Christen (Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n In the group, the idea of a demonstration was introduced, the proposal of a five-minute standstill on the start line was put forward, and rider representatives were encouraged to express their support or opposition.<\/p>\n “It was good, it was great. When we actually come together, I think no matter what, we should support it,” said Bennett.<\/p>\n One rider we spoke to suggested the advantage of the setup was that even if 5% of teams were in opposition, then the majority would prevail. But there were no concrete mentions of dissent that we heard.<\/p>\n In the past, situations like this have put the smaller teams in a tricky position, especially the second-division Italian teams who rely on invitations to these big occasions. They can be reluctant to be part of something that causes disruption to a major race organizer such as RCS Sport, which also runs the Giro d\u2019Italia. But that doesn\u2019t seem to be the case here.<\/p>\n “We were all in line. All the 25 teams today were in line,\u201d the WhatsApp representative from one such team, MBH Bank CSB Telecom Fort\u2019s Fausto Masnada told Cyclingnews.<\/p>\n “I had a request from some of the big riders of the bunch, and it makes sense what we did. Sometimes we just need to show that the riders have the power to decide these kind of things.”<\/p>\n The start line, and the speech<\/p>\n And so to the start line of Il Lombardia in Bergamo on Saturday morning. The first indication that something was happening came when Pidcock, Evenepoel, and Giulio Ciccone were seen holding talks with the race director Luca Guercilena a few minutes before the start.<\/p>\n Ciccone was Lidl-Trek\u2019s rider representative and a key link between the riders and RCS Sport given not only his Italian nationality but also his ties to Guercilena, his long-time team boss at Lidl-Trek until just a few months ago.<\/p>\n Guercilena later told Cyclingnews he was informed by the riders “25 to 30 minutes before the start”. Either way, there wasn\u2019t enough time to do much at that point \u2013 not even to give the master of ceremonies a heads-up \u2013 but there was just enough time to get a microphone heading in the direction of Remco Evenepoel, who delivered a public statement on behalf of the peloton from the front row of the start line.<\/p>\n “We asked them \u2018do you have a statement?\u2019 And they said, \u2018we are going online now\u2019 [with social media posts]. So we said \u2018OK, it\u2019s better you explain because otherwise the people on site don\u2019t understand\u2019,” Guercilena said.<\/p>\n “Then it was very fair what he did, taking the microphone and explaining to the public what was happening. We and the public at the end were quite supportive of that.”<\/p>\n The riders we spoke to heaped praise on Evenepoel for his impromptu speech.<\/p>\n “A leader, a champion,” Masnada said.<\/p>\n “It wasn\u2019t planned that he would speak,\u201d Bennett said. \u201cThey were basically like \u2018what the fuck are you guys you doing?\u2019 I looked at Remco and he was like \u2018argh\u2019\u2026 I think he did well there.”<\/p>\n A sense of pride and satisfaction among the riders<\/p>\n \n The peloton finally got underway after the protest (Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n All in all, there was a sense of pride among the riders that they\u2019d pulled off a demonstration in that way.<\/p>\n “I think was in good spirit, we did it in a way that didn\u2019t take away from the racing but still showed our position,” said Bennett.<\/p>\n “Considering what we\u2019ve been through as a team [Finlay Tarling rode for the development arm of Bennett\u2019s NSN Cycling], I think it\u2019s insane that something like that can happen, that we think about every day, and then there\u2019s still cars on the roads.<\/p>\n “It\u2019s nothing against RCS. In the three races we did [where there were incidents with vehicles], none of them were RCS races. RCS runs a great show, it was nothing against RCS, but we did use their platform to get the message across. I just really hope it does something.”<\/p>\n Donovan, who witnessed his teammates Thomas Gloag and Marcel Camprubi being hit by the motorbike at Tre Valli Varesine, added: “It\u2019s hit us quite hard. It\u2019s terrible really, it could have been a lot worse, and if people saw the images, if there was a camera there, they would be really shocked about how bad it was.<\/p>\n “Something needed to be said. We didn\u2019t want to ruin anything. We understand how hard it is for the organisers here, so we didn\u2019t want to do anything stupid and mess up a year of planning, but just make a statement to make sure everyone knows we can\u2019t keep going like this, and make a point to the UCI and race organisers that the riders won\u2019t stand for racing in unsafe conditions.”<\/p>\n Subscribe to Cyclingnews for comprehensive race coverage of the UCI Gravel World Championships, alongside the final Monument of the season, Il Lombardia. Subscribers get unlimited access to exclusive analysis from our expert columnists, in-depth features and industry-leading tech insight. Plus, the Cyclingnews app lets you follow the action wherever you go! Join today.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, PARTENZA!” The master of ceremonies yelled out the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":798570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-798569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=798569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/798570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"McNulty,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1791674893_255_ppR8g5USdcQBBdrTQjDySc.jpg\")
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