Tour de France organisers ASO have roundly rejected the idea that fans could be obliged to pay for roadside access to key segments of races.
Payment for access to road races, as already happens with many track events, is an idea which has been circulating for years, but it regained prominence last week when it was pitched by former team manager Jérôme Pineau on the Grand Plateau podcast.
VIP tents are already a regular feature both in cyclocross and in some one-day races like the Tour of Flanders, which in 2026 will charge over €700 for its most expensive ‘Grandstand experience’ in the race. Back in 2023, Visma-Lease a Bike team manager Richard Plugge suggested that fans could pay a much more modest €10 for access to fenced-off segments of mountains, although at the time he viewed it more as a deposit as a way to deter crashes rather than a source of income.
“Maybe you should ask for €10 to go on the mountain because yesterday on Col de Joux Plane was really hectic as well,” he told Cycling Weekly.
“Maybe you should ask for €10 and you get it back when you come down if nothing happens.”
There have also been calls in recent months for more races to be held on circuits as a way of discouraging disruption by protests, such as those which caused several parts of the Vuelta a España to be suspended or cancelled.
However, when asked by Dernière Heure, an ASO official gave the whole concept short shrift, arguing that paid entrances would affect cycling’s underlying principle of ‘access for all’.
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at CyclingNews RSS Feed…