Oscar Sevilla has been racing as a pro cyclist for 25 years, so you can be sure he haslearmed plenty of skills along the way. One of them is an old school method to avoid getting flats. On Sunday, during the final stage of the Vuelta a San Juan, Sevilla, 46, explained on his team’s Instagram. The Medellin-EPM account posted a video of how he wrapped some electrical tape around the fork legs and seat stays, just a hair above his tires, on his S-Works Tarmac SL7 race bike. Why? Because it sweeps away ant debris like flint or glass that might result in a puncture.
Sevilla explains he learned about the concept in Argentina.
“Here you can get a lot of bits and pieces, with people walking around carrying them on their shoes. And they cause a lot of punctures. So this gets rid of them, it cleans it,” he said.
The approach was common in the past. Cyclists would attach “tire scrapers” to their bikes to prevent debris from lodging in their tires.
Former WorldTour racer, Michael Barry, said it was common to see these in amateur races in France in the late ’90s. “I still saw a lot of guys using them,” Barry said. “Guys definitely even raced on them.” One of the most well-known types were the Charles Pélissier tire scrapers. Pélissier was a pro cyclist who won 16 stages of the Tour de France.
Sevilla didn’t win the race–but he did finish in the bunch, which is no small feat for a rider who is four years away from 50. So it sounds like his old school tech may have paid off.
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