The pro peloton is simply a hotbed of futuristic technological advancement; the cutting borderline of our athletics with the fastest bikes, the lightest components and the astir costly accessories, each created by immoderate of the brightest engineering minds successful our sport. 

Rare, then, is it that you spot a rider dive into the past books and follow a generations-old hack for puncture protection, but that's precisely what Óscar Sevilla (Medellín-EPM) did astatine the Vuelta a San Juan.

In a video posted to the team's Instagram up of the last stage, 46-year-old Sevilla proudly shows disconnected his "trick", successful which he's wrapped a fewer inches of electrical portion - astatine a outgo of conscionable a fewer cents - astir the spot stays and fork legs of his $14,000 S-Works Tarmac SL7 contention bike. The portion is positioned truthful precisely that it precise astir touches each tyre with the volition of 'sweeping' distant immoderate pieces of debris that are picked up from the road. 

"This is simply a instrumentality I learned present successful Argentina," Sevilla explains. "Nowadays you get a batch of thistles, small bits and pieces, and radical walking astir transportation them connected their shoes. And they origin a batch of punctures. So this nicks them off, cleans it."

Sevilla's hack is simply a makeshift replica of a tiny add-on accessory recovered connected bikes from arsenic acold backmost arsenic the 1940s, perchance further. Known arsenic flint catchers, tyre sweepers, tyre wipers, and possibly optimistically, adjacent tyre savers, they were mounted to the brake mounting bolt and featured a tiny D-shaped ligament that would wrapper astir the aboveground of the tyre.

Like Sevilla's portion of tape, their intent was to dislodge immoderate larger pieces of debris that had attached themselves to the tyre earlier they could marque their mode astir again and beryllium pushed further into the tyre, wherever they would apt origin a puncture. While they went retired of manner agelong ago, it is inactive imaginable to bargain them, with retro-connoisseurs Reneherse offering a pair for $18.00 (opens successful caller tab).

Interestingly, Sevilla's motorcycle is equipped with Roval Rapide CLX II aero wheels – arsenic confirmed by this separate Instagram post – which are tubeless compatible. Despite this, and his evident concerns surrounding punctures, Sevilla's wheels are wrapped successful the not-tubeless Specialized Turbo Cotton clincher tyres, which are good revered for their debased rolling resistance, but not truthful good known for durability oregon puncture protection. 

Specialized does marque a fig of tubeless-ready tyres, including the new Turbo range, truthful it's unclear wherefore Sevilla hasn't simply taken vantage of the tech disposable to him. Perhaps the squad didn't person thing different than the Turbo Cotton tyres available, oregon possibly Sevilla trusts his sweeper hack much than helium trusts tubeless technology. 

Whatever his reasoning, it seems to person worked. His teammate Miguel Angel Lopez went connected to triumph the overall, and Sevilla himself finished safely successful the clump connected the aforesaid clip arsenic the stage victor Sam Welsford.