The same interpretations of the rules that were applied in 2009 will be applied for Masters National Championships in 2010, excluding the strict application of UCI rule 1.3.020, 8 cm height rule, which determines the maximum tube height, and UCI rule 1.3.024, regarding a bike’s 3:1 aspect ratio.

Are these rules really necessary and good for the sport? Or are they just rules for the sake of rules?Couldnt they keep the bicycles looking like bicycles with just a few simple rules. Something like:
1. safety bicycles not recumbants
2. wheels must be 700c
3. no engines

It's like F1, company comes up with a new innovative product, UCI bans it, repeat ad infinitum!

They don't seem to be very good at doing it 'nicely' though, they often seem to be 11th hour changes.

See Chris Boardman and Graeme Obree in the 1990's for many reasons why the UCI chose not to keep the rules nice and simple.

Those two rules are the ones that force it to look like a 'bike'

3:1 rules out recumbants

8cm was to get rid of the monocoques that were appearing in the 90's

Still plenty of scope for development, have you seen some of the hour record bikes (retro rules, not the ride whatever you like rules), from a distance they look like normal bikes, almost like any retro fixie, look closer and the bars have realy long stems/drops to mimic a wide TT bar position, the headtube is taller than you'd imagine for the same reason.

If we had the UCI in 1885 we would still be riding Penny Farthings and wearing tweed breeches.

Read 'The hour' by Michael Hutchinson if you want to laugh/cry at the UCI and it's application of their extensive rulebook.

epicyclo, funnily enough the early incarnation of the UCI has meant that we're riding bikes that look like they do today. When recumbents began to appear and beating bikes built by companies owned by members of the UCI, they promptly banned them (early 20th C). It'd be interesting to imagine what a modern bike would be like if development of the recumbent form of bike hadn't been supressed to such an extent so early on in their development.

If recumbents had become the norm I wonder whether offroad cycling would have become popular still…

What njee20 said. UCI is stuck in the last millenium imho when innovation and efficiency of tranferring human effort into kinetic energy is concerned.

It depends on what you think the purpose of a governing body is, is it to promote technical innovation?

It provides an even playing field,

And arguably, would Armstrong/Wiggins/Cav doing what they do on recumbents have the same motivational effect on getting lardies out on their push bikes if their bikes looked nothing like ours.

And you can't sprint on a recumbent, would make for some very boring races as everyone would just be spread out over hundreds of miles of roads, less aero advantage form drafting = more breakaways untill you have no more peleton and it just looks like a F1 race.

spoon,
I was more posing the question as a what if…
I.e. if they hadn't been banned they might have become more mainstream, the best aspects may have been taken from either version and every bike that everyone used might be very different.
The recumbent design has largely been developed by beards in garages due to their unofficial status. If they were accepted for official competition (and had always been) I believe that bikes would not look like they do today.

I agree though, if a bike version made a sport more boring and turned people away from the sport, the UCI should step in to legislate in order to maintain interest and the competitive nature of the sport. I don't think the original recumbent ruling was banned on this basis. They could have created a separate racing class and let it compete for favour, but they chose to ban completely.

I agree with most of the UCI's tech rules, I think the weight rule should be dropped 10% given technology advances but the aero rules make sense to me, I don't want to see wings and fairings etc. popping up everywhere. How the Shiv was ever accepted last year is beyond me, a little carbon clip to the stem to get around the structural requirement for the nose cone was a joke.

The way the UCI actually apply the rules is laughable though.

I'm not so sure about reducing the weight limit, I like how it's forced innovation in other areas, like the adoption of deep section wheels and power meters and what not.

We are putting on a Class 1 UCI event this year, and one of the services offered by the series organiser was "interpretation of the regulations of the UCI" or the euro-english that effect.

I laughed, why would you need that ? Until I got this years bumper pack of rules from the UCI. Although all the UCI people I have had need to interact with have been uniformly polite and helpful. In 3 languages.

If you actually sit down and carefully define what rules are needed to keep bikes looking "normal" then you inevitably end up with some very technical-sounding rules.

It's pretty hard to define what distuighes a traditional racing bike from a freak bike that the UCI (and a lot fo fans, teams and riders) don't want.

You just have rules that say "come on chaps, nothing silly please".

Almost all equipment-based sports have similarly detailed and technical rules about what is and is not allowed. Not just the obviously high-tech like motorsport, but cricket, hockey, golf, skiing…

I actually think the 3:1 rule is pretty concise and clever.

Not sure what's clever about the 3:1 rule.

If I wrote the rules, "bike" would have 2 wheels, saddle mounted XX cm higher than the highest hub centre. "recumbent" would have saddle mounted below that level.

Let the riders find the best positions for sprint, climbing, distance, etc. efficiency.
Let the manufacturers find the best frame, wheel etc. profiles for aerodynamic efficiency, stiffness:weight. Nothing wrong with bolt on wings etc. in my book.

Only "limiting" rules should be some basic ones regarding safety and longevity of bikes (eg no paper thin throw away bikes for TdF etc. – 1 bike should be able to last the distance), and some limiting for junior classes to make things fairer.

i think its bull too.

if they want a "tradition safety bike race" then fine.
but surely "bike racing" should be just that.

the fastest most efficient human you can be!

i think they should do the same for F1 too, if it wasnt for the fact that the richest company would win, i think F1 should be delimited, to be the fastest a road car can possibly be.

So you'd favour a sport with achievement weighted towards the capability of the engineers and designers rather than the efficacy of the athletes?

the fastest most efficient human you can be!

But that's what they do, they level the playing field. You seem to be contradicting yourself there…

So you'd favour a sport with achievement weighted towards the capability of the engineers and designers rather than the efficacy of the athletes?

does it have to be so either/or? Bit of both would be interesting.

Because fundamentaly road racing is about the riders, not the bikes, you could give them all identical bikes and the resutls would still be nigh on the same whatever the maufacturers would have you believe.

Recumbants are dangerous in traffic.

Manufacturers want to sell bikes. They wouldn't be able to sell recumbants (if they were more popular they'd be banned for being effin' dangerous IMO).

Would F1 be popular with manufactueres if they allowed gas turbine engines? With IC engines, 4 wheels, etc the FIA are efectively specifying that the car must still be a car and vaguely relavent to what you can drive every day. Thus technology form F1 actualy has some uses (carbon fiber, 5 valve cylinder heads, aerodynamics etc)

The weight limit and the various geometry restrictions take little notice ofthe riders physique. They hardly level the playing field.

The most ridiculous thing is the retrospective way the rules are enforced. How can the shiv be illegal now since it has already won the worlds right under the nose of the UCI?

Chris Boardman fancy bike, track hour record distance: 56.375 km
Distance greater than Eddie Mercx in 1972 : 6,944 m

Chris Boardman old school bike, technology tamed track hour record distance: 49.441 km
Distance greater than Eddie Mercx in 1972: 10 m

Technology can have a huge difference. The UCI want to maintain a tradition in a sport with what they feel is an admirable heritage, without making the vast achievements of the greats in the sport seem insignificant.

Manufacturers want to sell bikes. They wouldn't be able to sell recumbants (if they were more popular they'd be banned for being effin' dangerous IMO).

You miss my original point.

As far as I can tell, all UCI rules are in place to stop Brits winning things by applying their brains to it.

The weight limit and the various geometry restrictions take little notice of the riders physique. They hardly level the playing field.

That is a very fair point, particularly in the women's field.

Equipment based sports do need regulating, the purpose of any regulation should be not to entirely level the playing field but to strike a balance between the performance gains delivered through the application of technology and the input of the athlete… too far in either direction and the sport and associated industries stagnate…

Overly complex language and seemingly pointless regulations are bound to creep in over time, it’s simply due to the nature of the sports and equipment that thy are trying to regulate, when the bicycle was first invented it was bashed out of Iron by blacksmiths, these days riders compete on hugely expensive high tech machines constructed from composites and exotic metals, imagine trying to regulate a sport where the kit involved has gone from having more in common with a garden gate, to borrowing technology from Aerospace and high end motor sports, the reg’s will definitely get complicated…

The UCI are responsible for the regulation of an awful lot of varied cycling disciplines, it’s not surprising they take the odd poor or unpopular decision, I for one still think the skin suit ban for DH should be overturned, but I’d still prefer cycle sports were regulated by the UCI or someone than it was a barely controlled free for all…

there are rules that take into acount different size riders,,

I used to work in F1 the first thing that happens every year is to look for loopholes and grey areas in the rules,, hence last years floor saga..

and it's the same with the bike rules,, everyone is looking for a way around,,

The human powered vehicle hour record is the same in miles as the standard bike one is in kms – way way faster.

You can't really open F1 because it would just be dangerously fast. Already up to 5G in cornering. Any more and blacking-out will be a reality.

there are rules that take into acount different size riders

Really? The weight one doesn't. 6.8kg whether you're a 100kg sprinter or a 40kg whippet.

Any more and blacking-out will be a reality.

That I'd watch!

The weight limit and the various geometry restrictions take little notice of the riders physique. They hardly level the playing field.

How so?

The geometry is free withing the rules (you'd need to be a freak to require a bike outside the 3:1 rule)

The weight limit is just to stop bikes form falling appart, you'd be daft to try and legislate that either everyone should ride with an all up weight, you'd end up with a similar situation to rowing with two classes. And the opposite isnt fair on the sprinters who would end up with an even heavier bike to drag up the climbs.

13.something pounds or whatever the rule is, is pretty light.

Comparing F1 and cycling you have to accept they are actually very different sports (and not just in terms of wheel count and power source) and have different regulatory needs, professional cycling is not awash with money in the same way as F1 and realistically the UCI don’t have to try and make their sport work for teams with such wildly varied budgets, bringing in technical developments throughout the season, the bike that a rider starts a race season on will not be a million miles away from the one he/she finishes on as the money, time and will required to develop and test new equipment mid season simply isn’t there in the sport and the competing team is often a separate entity from the sponsors and equipment suppliers…

The FIA have to try and control the activities of teams that can hurl money and man hours at total redevelopment of components on their cars mid season, while maintaining a set of rules that allow smaller less well funded teams to still develop and innovate;
Regulate too tightly and you create a technical straight jacket for all the teams and the grid looks the same at the end of the season as it does at the start, regulate too little and richer teams will be untouchable by the middle of the season… I don't think this applies to cycling in the same way…

The 6.8 rule should be lowered, to 5.8 or even less.
One of the main factors in the justification was to make the bikes simpler and affordable for smaller teams or cycling nations.
Yet, now, you can assemble a robust, relatively cheap 6.5kg bike that'll be illegal, but legally use a 6.9kg one with power assist gears that even the top teams find pushing their budgets.
Hein Verbruggen is, as far as I'm concerned, in an elite group of fudds (that includes Thatcher of course!)

>Recumbants are dangerous in traffic.

TINAS – that is utter b*llocks – ever tried riding one?
(Correction – riding one for any duration ?)

They're *different* in traffic, not dangerous. In fact I get given a *far* wider berth on either of mine than yer average DF rider.
Some are better that others for filtering on – and I certainly wouldn't filter on a trike 'cos you're below driver window level – but this guy's on a Hurricane (seat height's about 13" or 14") and doesn't seem to have much trouble:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWp4SQYaEsU

IMO you just have to ride them with a bigger set of balls, take a bit more road space when necessary, and be better about gear selection 'cos you can't stand up.

There are very, very few sports where an amateur rider can turn up to an "open" event and compete on the same level field as the worlds top pro's, within cycling there are still numerous events that do exactly that.

Thats gotta be something worth protecting!

Zulu, as far as the mickey-mouse level most of us on here take part in, its a sport where the amateur can turn up on something way BETTER! than the stuff the pro's use. Thats the ludicrous thing (but i aint cryin' about it none!)

Chris Boardman fancy bike, track hour record distance: 56.375 km
Distance greater than Eddie Mercx in 1972 : 6,944 m

Chris Boardman old school bike, technology tamed track hour record distance: 49.441 km
Distance greater than Eddie Mercx in 1972: 10 m
To be fair, he was right at the top of his game in '96 and not so in 2000 – the difference was probably worth at least a km.

How about a convertible geometry that allows an on the fly switch between recumbent and safety?

Flick into safety for sprinting or climbing and back into recumbent for descents and long distance wind cheating.

How would you do it? No idea.