Victor Campenaerts has called the UCI’s decision to make a rule banning inward-facing brake levers in 2024 “bullshit” and he believes riders will simply use loopholes to achieve a similar position with flared bars.
The Belgian breakaway specialist was one of the obvious riders going to be affected by the rule alongside Jan-Willem van Schip as they pushed regulation limits to make any aero gains possible.
For now, no exact degree of maximum angle has been set by the UCI, but the wording in the statement they announced the ban in last month uses the phrase "extreme inward inclination," as the only line, also without information whether it will be at the relevant race commissaire's discretion. Campenaerts was also against the ambiguity of the new rule.
“It's quite difficult. Because the rules are very unclear,” said Campenaerts to Cyclingnews ahead of Lotto-Dstny’s 2024 team presentation.
“It seems like if you want to, you can ride with beach race handlebars and still ride with your brake levers like this [gestures to angled hand placement]. It makes no sense at all.”
The beach race handlebars Campenaerts refers to are flared bars similar to that seen on many gravel bikes and would allow the brake levers to be angled inwards while remaining in parallel with the drops. These bars are less commonly available at narrow widths, but custom narrow and flared options could become a trend in 2024 for riders who request them.
“I do understand that people think, or see the danger of riders riding with brake levers like this, but it was not banned for a long time. Now they ban it but they also don't ban it,” said Campenaerts.
“I think the result will be that we will see a lot of beach racing handlebars in the peloton to just get around the rule. To me, it's simply a bullshit rule.”
Ambitions for the 2024 Classics with Arnaud De Lie
The highlight of Campenaerts’ 2023 season was taking home the super combativity prize at the Tour de France after brutally attacking the final few stages in the break and almost single-handedly ensuring the four-man group on stage 18 had the best chance of beating a charging peloton into Bourg-en-Bresse.
His teammate Pascal Eeenkhoorn was unable to best Kasper Asgreen (Soudal-QuickStep) that day, but without Campenaerts riding himself into the ground in the final few kilometres, their efforts would have been futile.
Campenaerts is aiming at returning to the Tour in 2024 by being in such fine shape that Lotto-Dstny simply cannot leave him off the roster.
“I want to go back to the Tour de France. I made it quite clear to the team and I do think they also believe that's a good option,” Campenaerts said. “I promised them I will be in good shape and that they will have to select me.”
The more pressing start to his season will arrive at the Ruta Del Sol in February, close to where he has been renting a house in Spain for most of the off-season and avoiding the wet weather in Belgium.
After that, he’ll return to his typical Classics calendar which he mostly missed out on in 2023 due to sustaining a fractured vertebrae at the Bredene Koksijde Classic in March which kept him out until the Dauphiné in June.
He will be part of a strong Lotto-Dstny side now led by young superstar Arnaud De Lie after the 21-year-old showed true potential to deliver a massive result with second at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in 2023 and by taking his first WorldTour win at the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec.
“The classics are the big goal. But also I would like to show myself one or two days in Ruta Del Sol in a breakaway and there's also normally a time trial,” he said.
“The main goals are the classics though, and with Arnaud [De Lie}, we have a very good rider for the classics.
“Last year was a bit nasty with the crash but I would say with Arnaud now, we have more clear goals we know what he's capable of - and he's capable of a lot. So we have it quite clearly in our heads how we will approach races and I'm quite sure we will come up with a result.”
That tactic for Campenaerts will be one of anticipation by the likes of himself, Florian Vermeersch and Brent Van Moer, with De Lie waiting to unleash his explosive talents behind. The Belgian has even been working to be ‘less explosive’ so to speak, as he hopes to tap back into his time trial abilities and ride with greater endurance.
“I have already a lot of training on the time trial bike and it also suits quite well with the approach that I will have for the Classics with Arnaud De Lie,” said Campenaerts.
“We will attack early, very early, before the real final. Or if we don't attack early, we will ride and make sure the bunch stays together. I want to be a bit less explosive than last year with more FTP, like a time trial rider I used to be.”
Campenaerts is aiming to return to his previous focus as a time-trial specialist to some degree, excited at the speed of his new Orbea bike and valuable experience of winning the Tour of Luxembourg ITT at the back end of 2023 ahead of Brandon McNulty, who was fourth at the World Championships just the month prior.
The vertebrae fracture thankfully won’t be much of an ongoing issue for Campenaerts and his extreme aero positions, be that on his road bike or TT bike, but the Belgian does believe it is now something he will simply have to live with after his cycling career.
“In the three weeks I was off the bike after the season, I didn't do anything like core stability sessions or things like that and I had quite some back pain,” said Campenaerts.
“But by restarting training and doing a lot of core stability every day, it was solved. So that's a good sign that for my cycling career - it won't be a danger. The bad news is that probably for the rest of my life, I will have to do core stability if I don't want to suffer back pain.”
