I was in France last week, at the Tour, and so was Jim Riccitello. He called me on Steve Hed’s cell phone, and after talking with Steve the phone got handed to me. The conversation turned to disc wheels and he told me that the AAC––the USAT sub-group that makes the rules for U.S. pros––was considering a move to ban the wheels from the ITU draft-legal peloton.

Jimmy didn’t understand the logic of this, and I agree with him. This has caused me to ponder the two striking differences between our sport and the sport of pro cycling.

Having just returned from the Tour, I am struck by how utterly professional they are over there. The teams just look like pros. The equipment, the uniforms, the way they carry themselves—it all just reeks of professionalism. I contrast that with an ITU race held in Shreveport, my hometown, earlier in the year. I’m supposed to know about triathlons so I had lots of interested people asking questions during the race, like, "Which of these athletes racing are the pros?" "Who was that who just rode past?" "What team is he on?" And even, "Was that a guy or a girl?" These questions were asked by the very sorts of people a sponsor wants to impress.

The best answer I could come up with was that the pros are "…those people who swam the fastest, had bikes that generally weren’t as good as the age groupers’ bikes, but seemed to start the run earliest anyway." Funny thing, in Europe the average rider tries to look like a pro. In the U. S. the pros look like the average rider.

Back to the disc wheel thing. I asked Jimmy if he thought riding a disc wheel (on the back) in a group was dangerous. "No," he said, he didn’t. Neither do I. So why outlaw them? Discs are faster, which brings to mind another irony. Fifteen or 20 years ago new products were presented to the road racing community––things like clipless pedals, click-shifting, hard-shell helmets, aero bars, and yes, disc wheels. Road racers scorned them and triathletes, realizing the utility in these products, picked them up. Nowadays, the best road racers all time-trial with disc wheels, and we even talked to the Postal boys about the possibility of their use in certain mass-start races. Yet triathletes seem to have forgotten what we’ve all learned over the last 20 years, and fewer and fewer use disc wheels.

Disc wheels shouldn’t be banned from ITU-style racing. They ought to be mandatory. In the Tour you’ve got nine riders all dressed alike, with all their bikes painted the same, team cars painted the same—and this rolling billboard is so obviously, stylistically, thematically presented that sponsors, journalists, and consumers have no problem getting the message. Not only are disc wheels (on the back) not dangerous, they represent the one place that actually affords some square inches on the bike so that (at least when the bike’s stationary) you can read a little about what this pro’s theme is. Personally, I think they’re not only safe in the bunch, but safer. I’d much rather have my hand go into a disc in a crash than through a Spinergy RevX.

So here we are in a sport in which our pros seem to have forgotten two big lessons: disc wheels are faster, and pro athletes need to spread a coherent, professional message for the sake of sponsors, spectators, and the press. Disc wheels elegantly serve both purposes.