BERGAMO — The peloton refused to move when the traditional "10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, PARTENZA!" countdown rang out on the start line of Il Lombardia in Bergamo on Saturday morning, staging a coordinated demonstration over rider safety following a spate of incidents this year, including the death of Finlay Tarling at the Volta a Portugal in August.
The protest was a slick and secretive operation organised without the riders' union, the CPA. A WhatsApp group was created in the middle of the week by either Tom Pidcock or Ben Healy — differing accounts name both as ring-leaders — and eventually included one rider from each of the 25 teams competing. "We kept it out of the Telegram groups, we didn't even tell our directors or team staff," New Zealand champion George Bennett told Cyclingnews. "No one knew this was going to happen." Mark Donovan, a close ally of Pidcock's at Pinarello-Q36.5, said: "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. We kept it pretty tight. We could have involved the CPA, but it was slightly more kept within the riders. It's nothing against the CPA, they do great job, but sometimes also we can, as riders, make decisions ourselves."
Pidcock had seen two Pinarello-Q36.5 teammates, Thomas Gloag and Marcel Camprubi, struck head-on by a police motorbike at the recent Tre Valli Varesine — the third incident involving vehicles on the course in the past week alone. Despite the historic reluctance of smaller second-division Italian teams to disrupt an RCS Sport event, unity held. "We were all in line. All the 25 teams today were in line," said MBH Bank CSB Telecom Fort's Fausto Masnada. Race director Luca Guercilena said he was informed "25 to 30 minutes before the start" after Pidcock, Remco Evenepoel and Lidl-Trek representative Giulio Ciccone approached him. Evenepoel then delivered an impromptu address from the front row after organisers asked for a statement. "We asked them 'do you have a statement?' And they said, 'we are going online now' [with social media posts]. So we said 'OK, it's better you explain because otherwise the people on site don't understand'," Guercilena said.
"It wasn't planned that he would speak," Bennett said of Evenepoel. "They were basically like 'what the fuck are you guys you doing?' I looked at Remco and he was like 'argh'... I think he did well there." Masnada described him as "A leader, a champion." Bennett added: "I think was in good spirit, we did it in a way that didn't take away from the racing but still showed our position." He stressed the action was not aimed at RCS Sport, who he said "runs a great show", but was intended to use their platform to send a message to the UCI and organisers.
Donovan said the Tre Valli Varesine crash had hit the team hard. "It's 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," he said. "Something needed to be said. We didn't want to ruin anything. We understand how hard it is for the organisers here, so we didn't want to do anything stupid and mess up a year of planning, but just make a statement to make sure everyone knows we can't keep going like this, and make a point to the UCI and race organisers that the riders won't stand for racing in unsafe conditions."