Riders with beards banned from racing for Belgian team

We hate to break it to you, Simon Geschke, but your dream of riding for Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise has been scuppered after a sports director banned riders from sporting beards.

Walter Planckaert, a former winner of the Tour of Flanders himself, wrote in Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad that he was banning riders from growing beards as he looked to support "the elegance of cycling" and improve the hygiene of the riders.

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"We are a cycling team, with riders, not motocross riders or rugby players," Planckaert wrote. "The snot and the leftover food in the beard of a rider in the middle of the race is dirty."

Planckaert insists that any rider planning to grow a beard and maintain it in the long term will have no place on the Professional Continental squad, although he will let it slide if riders can't bring themselves to stand in front of the mirror for five minutes to shave in the midst of a hard Classics season.