Rapha has reissued The Rapha Roadmap, its 2019 blueprint for reforming professional cycling, as the UCI's formal consultation on the future of men's and women's road racing reaches its April 30 deadline. Rapha CEO Fran Millar, who previously served as CEO of INEOS, wrote a foreword arguing that the sport's reform conversation has stalled.
"What struck me most coming back to cycling after four years is not how much has changed, but how much hasn't," Millar said. "When I left my role as CEO of the INEOS Grenadiers, the sport was debating reform. I returned to find the debate had gone backwards, and that is deeply depressing."
The UCI launched its consultation in January 2026, inviting teams, riders, organisers and national federations to submit views on the economic model, calendar, fan engagement, safety and the credibility of sporting results. UCI President David Lappartient said road cycling "still has considerable potential for development," acknowledging that media coverage and revenues "do not yet fully reflect its potential."
The revised introduction, written by original Roadmap authors Steve Maxwell and Joe Harris of The Outer Line alongside rider and writer Joe Laverick, says professional cycling has "regressed further" since 2019, with viewership down, financial inequality between teams up, and consolidation where the sport needed expansion.
Millar was appointed Rapha CEO in September 2024 after leaving Belstaff Clothing, where she had been CEO since 2020. Before that she helped build Team Sky and led Team INEOS (and subsequently INEOS Grenadiers). That background spans sponsorship, team economics, media and fan growth, and it is the lens through which she frames the reissue.
"The problems identified in the Rapha Roadmap seven years ago are the same problems the UCI's own consultation letter acknowledged in February 2026," Millar said. "Revenues that don't reflect the sport's popularity and commercial model so dependent on external sponsorship that teams operate on the edge of financial viability."
Broadcast access, women's racing and governance
The reissued Roadmap covers familiar ground but sharpens several arguments. On broadcast rights, the document says "the accessibility and ease of watching pro cycling has gone backwards," with fans facing a confusing patchwork of subscription services to follow a full season. The original 2019 report had already called for a consolidated broadcast portfolio with minimal geographic restrictions.
Women's cycling receives the most detailed new proposal. The authors suggest moving the Women's WorldTour to a franchise or closed-league model, noting there are currently 15 available licences and only 14 teams. A closed league, they argue, would give teams economic predictability and create a foundation for eventual revenue sharing. The document also calls for spending controls, saying teams currently do not know whether costs will rise by five percent or twenty-five percent from one season to the next.
On the men's side, the Roadmap argues that the emergence of "super-teams" backed by government-funded sponsors or ultra-high net worth patrons has made racing more predictable, and proposes spending caps to restore competitive balance. Most teams, it says, still operate on break-even or loss models rather than building long-term value.
Regarding governance, the document identifies the UCI and Amaury Sports Organisation as the two entities that effectively control modern cycling, and says both have "a questionable record" on modernisation. The UCI itself rejected the One Cycling restructuring project in 2025 as "incompatible" and "lacking sporting coherence," illustrating the pattern the Roadmap authors say they are confronting: proposals that generate debate but no implementation.
Millar's foreword draws on examples from outside cycling. She points to Formula 1, the Premier League, the NWSL and the Women's Super League as sports that grew by adapting their content and commercial models without abandoning tradition. "Growth and tradition are not enemies," she said.
The consultation deadline falls today. The UCI's process will determine if the sport sees structural change or further diagnosis, a question the reissued Roadmap aims to highlight.
Cover image credit: Rapha/ Tom Griffiths
