Jim Ochowicz says that Velon has been created to change cycling for the better by having a grater influence in the sport and is not a new way of making money for its members.

“The most important thing that we need is a vote in the groups that are making decisions about the future of the sport. The teams seem somewhat isolated from those decisions at the moment,” Ochowicz told Cyclingnews at the end of last month. “I think what we need is the right people in a fair representation to make decisions about how this sport is going to be changed, if it needs to be changed. That’s still up for debate as well.”

The UCI want to introduce plans that will see some races shortened or cancelled and teams will be forced to ride with only 25 riders, rather than the current 30, putting lots of people out of jobs. Ochowicz says this isn’t acceptable and a happy balance must be found between the teams, organisers and the UCI.

“There’s a balance in there and we need to find it. Those things are debatable,” he said. “I agree with the reduction of the riders, the road just isn’t big enough anymore to manage the peloton. We need to reduce the size but I don’t know how you do that. Is it a reduction of the riders on the team? There’s also number of days we race.

“Now we’re operating as a group, we see the UCI, ASO, RCS, the Tour of Flanders and everybody else in this business as partners. It’s not us against them, we’re all in the same business, we’re doing the same thing and we’re trying to make it successful.”