WC and the case for individual helmets

Hi everyone. Long-time reader, first-time poster. With worlds finally here, I thought it was worth bringing up what I consider to be the single biggest and simplest improvement that could be made to the sport as a viewing experience.

One of the things I love most about worlds is how easy it is to identify the riders because they wear their trade team helmet with their national jersey. Likewise, in WT races, excluding jerseys, the easiest riders to identify in the bunch by far are those who wear special helmets - WvA or Pidcock with their Red Bull ones or Carapaz/Remco in gold.

We’ve all watched races where even the most experienced commentators have sat there for minutes on end debating who a particular rider might be from distant helicopter/moto footage. Or the times when they confidently declare that someone is definitely in a move only for a graphic to reveal it’s a completely different rider. Or vice versa. It’s embarrassing that even hardcore fans (me included) often have no idea who/what we’re watching.

My humble question is, why in the name of all that is holy don’t riders not just wear different helmets? I know that your number is meant to identify you, but this doesn’t do the job when most of the tv footage is from a head-on camera. I also know sponsors need visibility for their logos and brand consistency is important blah blah blah, but would it really be such an imposition for each helmet to have a different identifying element? Even just a thin, coloured stripe that runs up the middle would be a total game-changer.

Beyond this basic request, I think more personalised helmets would have broader benefits. In F1, drivers have jazzy individually designed helmets that show off their personalities. Ice hockey goalies do the same with their face masks and they look great. The most practical comparison is probably horse racing, where jockeys wearing the same trainer’s colours in a race will wear different coloured caps so people can tell them apart. Like cycling, each horse has its own number. But unlike cycling, someone quickly realised that this wasn’t enough to avoid confusion. I imagine the fact that gambling was so heavily involved probably acted as a major catalyst in this case.

I think I speak for most fans when I say that I watch cycling to cheer for individual riders, not teams. I would never buy a trade team jersey or helmet as it would feel weird being a walking advertisement for a bunch of random companies/oppressive nation-states without getting paid for it. I’d be more tempted to buy a helmet if I liked the design and it was being modelled by my favourite pro. Sponsors would also benefit from all the camera time they’d get as tv directors zoomed in on these newfound objects of interest. Think how much mileage Carlton Kirby could squeeze out of a boring sprint stage pondering the hidden meaning of Juan Ayuso’s new helmet design.

Am I crazy? Is it just UCI fuddy-duddy conformism that is holding back my vision or am I missing something? For better or worse, we are living in the age of the individual. In sport, as in wider society, self-expression, self-promotion, and social media are king. Cycling has a golden opportunity to align itself with this trend and give its stars a better chance to promote both themselves and the sport.

Interested to hear other perspectives on this as I’m confused why no one smarter or more powerful than me has thought of this.