UCI Blocks Sneaky Ice Socks from Tour de France Heatwave

The UCI isn’t cool with what teams are doing with ice socks during the rising temperatures of this Tour de France.

Eagle-eyed reporters from Cyclingnews noticed commissaires demanding riders remove these cooling hacks from underneath their jerseys ahead of Saturday’s stage 1 TTT.

Is this a crazy overstep?

A mission to make riders melt in a European heatwave?

According to officials, it is part of the UCI’s clampdown on the peloton’s eternal search for marginal aero gains.

“It changes the morphology of the riders’ shape,” a UCI commissaire told Cyclingnews on Saturday.

“I know it’s only a little thing, but you have to draw the line. If you allow sometimes but not others, it’s not fair. And if you allow a little, riders may take more.”

An “ice sock” – a pair of tights that’s been cut up, stuffed with ice cubes, and tied off – is a common tool for a peloton trying to stay cool.

Riders stuff them down the back or front of their jerseys and enjoy the freeze.

In the UCI’s eyes, these frozen bundles create an aerodynamic faring. And that’s on the naughty list.

The governing body’s rulebook specifically prohibits riders wearing miscellaneous items that “modify the morphology [i.e., shape] of the rider.”

The UCI recently tweaked its regulations to mandate that riders can only wear race radios in the front of their jersey for this very reason.

“Since last year, they’re quite sharp on items under your suit,” Visma-Lease a Bike head of equipment Jenco Drost told Cyclingnews. “It was shared in the Tour de France equipment meeting.

“But with this weather, riders try to keep it as long as possible.”

This isn’t the first time the UCI has moved to ban the use of “creative” aerodynamic gains from time trials.

In 2022, regulations were introduced around “follow cars” in TTs. Team vehicles were banned from driving too close behind their rider due to the impact on the athlete’s aerodynamic drag.

Peloton gets creative to stay cool in European heatwave

Velo contacted several teams for comment on their use of ice socks in Saturday’s stage and the extent of any warnings they received from the UCI.

Of course, they’re unlikely to admit that their “cooling measure” was being used as a specific aero hack.

Unlike with pee-gate at the Giro d’Italia, the stage 1 ice sock block was not mentioned in the jury’s post-stage report.

It’s unclear whether the ban will be applied to the 19 road stages of this Tour de France.

If ice socks are out, the peloton will have to find more innovative solutions to deal with a heatwave that could reach up to 40 degrees.

Netcompany Ineos leads the creativity category so far.