David Lappartient bangs his fist on the table. The president of the UCI, the sport’s governing body, wants to hammer home his message. “We have a green tool: the bicycle,” he says. “We have to be green ourselves.”
As the world grapples with the climate crisis, cycle racing – like every other aspect of life – is caught in its crosshairs. Racing in summer is becoming so hot that this August a stage of the Tour de l’Avenir was forced to start in the morning for riders’ safety. Other races have been affected by flooding, landslides and high winds that seem certain to be a direct consequence of a changing climate.
Yet with this as the backdrop, cycling continues to regularly fly its riders around the world, let teams double their vehicle fleets, and do very little to address a carbon footprint that is
