Alex Dowsett calls for changes in time-trial regulation to improve safety

The Israel - Premier Tech is one of the veteran time-trialists in the peloton and unlike his teammate Chris Froome, Alex Dowsett does not support a ban on time-trial bikes but does believe changes can be done to improve their safery.

"Personally, I don’t think we need to ban time trial bikes. What then happens to the team time trial, which is regarded by a lot of people as one of the most impressive things they watch within cycling? If we were to race time trials on road bikes, not much would change. Ultimately, it would just be slower speeds," Dowsett said.

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After Egan Bernal's accident in Colombia a debate sparked in the peloton once again as several pros, like Chris Froome and Michael Woods, have called for the end of time-trial bikes in competitions. Understandably though, this stance is not widely shared in the peloton, specially when it comes to time-trial experts like Dowsett.

However, the Briton does ask for changes when it comes to the regulation of time-trial bike position, which Doswett claims is making the practice of the traditional position more dangerous:

"A major part of aerodynamics is closing the gap between your hands and your head. At the moment, because of this UCI rule, we are having to bring our head to our hands, and then to try and look up becomes massively difficult.

He concluded: "If that rule were to be relaxed and we were allowed to bring our hands actually up to our heads, I think that could help with so much of the head-down riding we’re commonly seeing, and improve safety."