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Just spotted this little article on Flipboard:
https://uk.motor1.com/news/378061/lotus-hope-technology-partnership/
It’ll be interesting to see where this goes over time.
Keep up at the back 😛
https://singletrackworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/hope-tech-lotus-110-2020-olympics/
Bloke in the pub said it's definitely the Olympic track bike - been working on it for a while now
Will anyone notice Hope’s contribution 😉
When you play with icons...
Bloke in the pub said it’s definitely the Olympic track bike – been working on it for a while now
Bloke on the forum said Cervelo are still in for 2020
Maybe its battery and motor tech for a Hope E-bike hub? I may have missed something but I'm not sure why everyone assumes and Olympics bike just because Lotus is involved. At the time it was unique and required Lotuses expertise - and they were only down the road from Mike Burrows - now I'd say many more companies are better placed than Lotus to help develop a bike frame.
108, shirley?
Bloke in the pub does actually work there btw
Bloke in the pub does actually work there btw
Barman or glass collector?
Might place a bet on that getting banned (not for breaking the current rules, but because the UCI will change them)
Holy seat stays, Batman!
That looks mental. I like it.
Chris Boardman talks about his experience with Lotus in his book Chris Boardman the Complete Book of Cycling.
"Lotus wanted to get their bike to the Olympics, and the only way they were going to do that was to get a rider on it. They claimed that it could make as much as a twenty- to thirty- second difference against another bike, which was ridiculous, but they wanted me to test the claim. I thought, Why not? Even if it made only a second or two's difference it would be worth the effort. A couple of seconds in a 4,000-metre pursuit is a comfortable lead. We went into the wind tunnel at the Motor Institute Research Association (MIRA) just outside Birmingham and, though it was the equivalent of measuring peas on a bathroom scale, ilearned a lot about aerodynamics...….
It was really pioneering stuff, and I knew it was the best bike available, which was important psychologically. When I reached the startline for the Olympic final, I knew I wasn't going to lose because of lack of preparation, and that was a very comforting thought. My bike wa at least as good, if not better , than Jens's. We tried to keep it hidden as much as possible in Barcelona, but word soon got out that I was going quick on this strange machine.
……
I became quite attached to the Lotus, emotionally and psychologically, because my best rides were done on it. They produced a road-going version that was very aerodynamic but a little impractical.
……..but the problem was that by the end of the season we had broken about twelve frames. They were neither robust nor reliable.
…
In my opinion , they should have made the superbike an advertisement for their engineering skills and produced a proper road-going bike. They estimated that the publicity from the Olympics was worth about £100 million and, in a sense , for all sorts of different reasons they wasted the chance to cash in."
UCI technical regulations
1.3.017 The distance between the internal extremities of the front forks shall not exceed 10.5 cm; the distance between the internal extremities of the rear triangle shall not exceed 13.5 cm.
It doesn't say they have to taper...
They also have to sell them to you and I - hmmm. Still not as iconic as the original lotus.
Looks like the perfect bike for highland game grass track with the tyre clearance!
It's got the UCI sticker on it so presumably already been approved
Bloke on the forum said Cervelo are still in for 2020
That was probably me, and was AFAIK correct, they were developing new bikes for 2020 after they apparently broke every single Cervelo they took to Rio. So maybe they never did iron out the problems and decided to split?
Looks very cool/different.
Just ordered one from my LBS.
Definitely gonna win the chain gang rides next year.
"just rocking round at 40 or 50 km/hr"
Bending the rules on those stays I think. I presume it now has UCI approval. Till the next rule change on widest point of the fork and seat stays.
All about bending the rules. I an see sticking the fork blades and stays out there, keeps clean air around the bike, and leaves the blades and stays in the 'dirty air area around the legs.
I can see UCI banning it before it gets used in anger.
I can see UCI banning it before it gets used in anger.
It's sporting a UCI approved sticker (at 2:26) on the seat tube. So whilst a ban may be coming with a swift...
1.3.017 The distance between the internal extremities of the front forks shall not exceed 10.5 cm; the distance between the internal extremities of the rear triangle shall not exceed 13.5 cm, and the widest point of forks and rear stays shall be at the front and rear hubs.
Not just yet.
“just rocking round at 40 or 50 km/hr”
That did make me laugh. Nice easy pace there.
Twitter says released now to distract from dr freeman story.
I like the look of the bike though, makes sense to me
hang on, we just went to dropped seat stays for aero sakes, now its gone the other way and were above the top tube?
Imagine the heel rub issue on wide span and dropped stays.
It’s got the UCI sticker on it so presumably already been approved
As others have said, and an article I was reading earlier also pointed out, the UCI are nothing if not capricious, what they approve today, they’re perfectly capable of banning tomorrow, just because they can.
More detail and photos here.
https://bikerumor.com/2019/10/31/hope-hb-t-x-lotus-3d-printed-ti-carbon-track-bike-is-british-cyclings-wild-olympic-secret-weapon/
Like some above, Surprised they released it to the public to see so far ahead of the olympics, it give the UCI a chance to change the rules on bike design and for others to copy.
Link (thanks CFH) to Bikeroumer answered what I was thinking, why now. (
"After getting UCI approval it has to be raced in the 2019/2020 UCI Track World Cup to qualify to for use in the Tokyo Olympics. Out of roughly 100 new bikes approved by the UCI in 2019 up to this week, 10 new track bikes have been added, but we’ve yet to spot the HB.T."
So in theory UCI will not be able to change the rules before the next Olympics.
Also if anyone to copy it they have to chuck a lot of money and man hours to get it done to be used in track wold cups.
They're about to race it, so it was coming out one way or another
Its racing this weekend, hence only just released.
Been worked on here for months (not by me)
Don't really approve of all this high-tech stuff in the olympics (would much prefer it if it just came down to athlete vs athlete) but I guess that's just the way it is. Can't deny that it's extremely cool! I wonder why, since it's all completely bespoke, they didn't go with the "left hander" that the US were so convinced gave them an advantage last time?
I think it genuinely looks really cool.
Any aero experts on here able to give an idiot's guide to the reason behind moving the stays and fork away from the wheel?
Also that flat bit just above the front wheel? Guessing it's not for mudguard mounts.
idiot’s guide to the reason behind moving the stays and fork away from the wheel?
Reduction in turbulence, AFAIK.
You can't move, or get rid of the riders legs, so you may as well put everything (forks, legs, stays) in line.
Don’t really approve of all this high-tech stuff in the olympics (would much prefer it if it just came down to athlete vs athlete)
I suspect that unless you look at an extreme of design (this Vs round tubed CAAD or Cinelli frames) and controlled events (hour records, or at least longer pursuits) there probably isn't much in it. The sprints are over too quick for aero to make an impact, the bunch events are in a bunch, etc. It's probably "the best", but compared to any other £3k+ track frame (the current top of the available range Cervelo T4 is £3200, and the GB squad was on the T5 since <Rio) I wonder how many 1/1000's of a second those stays are actually worth in the wind tunnel.
Psychologically though......
You know this stuff has to be made available to the general public. Where's the online catalogue?
available to order direct from Hope in Jan. Get your chequebook out 😂You know this stuff has to be made available to the general public. Where’s the online catalogue?
Reduction in turbulence, AFAIK.
How does it do that though?
How does it do that though?
It's complicated.
It’s complicated.
Haha!
You know this stuff has to be made available to the general public. Where’s the online catalogue?
See also Atherton Bikes...