The hobbies that Lefevere prohibited for his cyclists

Despite having left cycling at the end of last year, after decades as one of the most successful reference directors on the international scene, Patrick Lefevere continues to make headlines. This time about the bans he imposed on his cyclists.

Lefevere explains in a podcast the sports that were banned for his riders

That Patrick Lefevere was an old-school director, one who wanted to control every aspect of his team is something that is clear not only in his presence until the last minute of his long career as director of Soudal-QuickStep in every facet of the team but also in the statements he has regularly made that never went unnoticed.

His latest appearance was on a podcast where the veteran Belgian director talked about the limits he imposed on his cyclists. Above all, something very clear: motorcycles were strictly prohibited for anyone racing on his team.

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"It's dangerous, especially in winter. They are young, eager to try things, but I have never seen anything good on motorcycles," explained Patrick Lefevere.

However, not only motorcycles were banned in the contracts that cyclists signed with Patrick Lefevere's Soudal-QuickStep. In general, any dangerous sport was on the blacklist, such as skiing. Something that, however, contrasts with the permissiveness with other activities such as, for example, when he allowed Niki Terpstra, one of the authors of the Speed on Wheels podcast in which he made these statements, to continue with his hobby of car racing, in his opinion "is not as dangerous as motorcycles."

A policy that, however, clashes with the greater permissiveness existing today in the teams. Obviously, extreme sports are not well seen, but activities such as mountain biking, cyclocross, skiing, etc. that in the past were on the blacklist of team directors, are now tolerated and it is not uncommon to see cyclists sharing images on their social networks during their vacations doing all kinds of alternative activities.