Ban TT Bikes and Radios..

[Bryins]

Pro cycling is in a state. The racers whine and complain all the time. They ride machines that cost tens of thousands of dollars with every aerodynamic and weight advantage possible. They complain about having to think for themselves in a race when the UCI acts to ban radios. To refrom cycling we need to ban radios, ban TT bikes and limit the amount of replacement bikes and wheels available to a team during the season.
Watch this video and try and say that the racers of today are something special...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJllJcLU6b0 Ole Ritter goes 29.5mph in a Giro TT for 23miles. On a steel bike with drop bars and 36h box section rims.
I would love to see Contador or Schleck on old school bike racing the dirt roads of Alps.

 

[Richeypen]

Pro cycling is in a state. The racers whine and complain all the time. They ride machines that cost tens of thousands of dollars with every aerodynamic and weight advantage possible. They complain about having to think for themselves in a race when the UCI acts to ban radios. To refrom cycling we need to ban radios, ban TT bikes and limit the amount of replacement bikes and wheels available to a team during the season.
Watch this video and try and say that the racers of today are something special...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJllJcLU6b0 Ole Ritter goes 29.5mph in a Giro TT for 23miles. On a steel bike with drop bars and 36h box section rims.
I would love to see Contador or Schleck on old school bike racing the dirt roads of Alps.

Surely we dont want the top races decided by someone getting a mechanical and not being allowed to do anything about it.

As for the TT bikes I dont see the problem as every top team has access to them and the innovation behind constant improval of them drives the industry forward.


Race radios is a completely different topic and one which has been done to death on here if you use the search function.

 

[Maxiton]

Welcome to the forum. I don't think it's practical, nor advisable, to legislate such drastic changes from on high. And besides, bike manufacturers - and riders, and fans, and sponsors - will never go along with it. You thought taking away radios caused a stink? Just try taking away TT bikes, carbon fiber, and pavement!

What could work, though, is a race. Similar to the popular Strade Bianche, but a stage race. Imagine a week of truly old school racing: steel racing bikes, almost no pavement (think also Crostis), no aero helmets, no skin suits, no tt bikes, no radios. They should get Zomegan to design it. It would be awesome!

If it was a success - if the fans and the riders liked it - really liked it - then who knows? It might catch on.

 

[taiwan]

TBH the UCI seems to lean towards this way of thinking as it is. See: rules on frame shape, weight, "speed suits" (which I read in a thread here recently), partial radio ban, etc. A lot of the time it seems like absurd luddism. I reckon technology should be controlled on the basis of affordability to all teams and to amatuer cyclists, to maintain a level playing field and keep the sport accessible to Joe Bloggs. If they're legislating on the back of romantic notions of past eras of cycling, then that's just bullsh!t IMHO.

[edit] deep video though.

 

[Fester]

I fully agree with the opening post. TT bikes are daft, they don't prove anything, other than the legislation ruling equipment in cycling has been wanting. Either go the whole hog and allow engineers to create the fastest bikes they can, something along the lines of a HPV or get rid of them completely and teams can save money.

 

[BroDeal]

I fully agree with the opening post. TT bikes are daft, they don't prove anything, other than the legislation ruling equipment in cycling has been wanting. Either go the whole hog and allow engineers to create the fastest bikes they can, something along the lines of a HPV or get rid of them completely and teams can save money.

+1

Bike racing should be a competition between riders not engineers. Technology destroyed Formula 1.

I say raise the weight limit by a kilo, require round tubes, time trials are done on the same bike used for the rest of the race, no radios, no GPSes, and no power meters.

 

[ElChingon]

Why not up the ante further? Baggy air catching shorts a must, jersey's that catch air, the mounting of square objects on the head tube and down tube to increase drag, a small parachute attached to each riders seat post to slow him down, a 5kg lead weight dropped down in the seat tube, square helmets. Then the riders must work on their own bikes, even having to fix flats out on the road, the Mavic neutral support only to carry tools and a welder or stove to cure carbon fiber (carbon fiber and epoxy as well), riders to braid their own cables, police the road on their own, race on open roads and must obey all traffic regulations, ...

Get real, either move on with the 21st century or move to a planet where you can still live in the 19th century as you're describing.

 

[will10]

Are some of the posters on this thread from the 1930s?

 

[BroDeal]

Get real, either move on with the 21st century or move to a planet where you can still live in the 19th century as you're describing.

Every form of motorsport has rules to maintain the sporting value of the competition. Some forms like F1 have gotten it horribly wrong, and that has become a "sport" where the winner is determined by technologists. All sporting rules are arbitrary. Their purpose is to foster fair competition. New tech does not necessarily improve sport. It is often detrimental since one of the goals of technology is to compensate for human deficiencies. Those differences between people are usually the very thing that competition is meant to test. Huge carbon rackets did not improve tennis; they totally changed that sport, and not for the better.

Do you have a better argument than, "It's there, we have to use it."

 

[Parrulo]

Why not up the ante further? Baggy air catching shorts a must, jersey's that catch air, the mounting of square objects on the head tube and down tube to increase drag, a small parachute attached to each riders seat post to slow him down, a 5kg lead weight dropped down in the seat tube, square helmets. Then the riders must work on their own bikes, even having to fix flats out on the road, the Mavic neutral support only to carry tools and a welder or stove to cure carbon fiber (carbon fiber and epoxy as well), riders to braid their own cables, police the road on their own, race on open roads and must obey all traffic regulations, ...

Get real, either move on with the 21st century or move to a planet where you can still live in the 19th century as you're describing.

i second this

 

[craig1985]

Lol why not expect the riders to change their tubes when they get a flat and fix their own bike if there is a problem, and give out a time penalty for second of assistance that they receive.

 

[woodie]

If everyone has the same access to the technology then I don't see a problem. Sure teams with bigger budgets can afford more but maybe a budget cap can be brought in but that's another topic.

Either people can reminisce about the past and how great it was or they can accept that this is the direction cycling is heading and enjoy it and look to the future.

 

[cyclingPRpro]

no TT bikes? because of technology advancements? that's like mandating steel bikes and downtube shifters.

/:|

 

[BroDeal]

no TT bikes? because of technology advancements? that's like mandating steel bikes and downtube shifters.

/:|

How about no time trial bikes, no climbing bikes, no specialty bikes period? You choose one bike that best matches the race parcourse and use that for the entire race.

 

[ElChingon]

Do you have a better argument than, "It's there, we have to use it."

Well I know for sure cycling isn't using all the tech out there that would come in handy:

* Drones to track the race like the breakaway or chase (so teams know exactly what's going on in the break or who's getting close)
* GPS to track the OTHER team (aka breakaway riders or GC contenders)
* Communication jammers to prevent teams from well communicating.
* Full on cell phones so riders could talk to each other for race tactics/or to collude with other teams (as in call anyone not just the DS of their team).

But, not all tech aids like you say or should be used as it does take away from the sport. TT bikes though are still bikes and these days are regulated much better than when we saw Big Mig on that funky one with the 650 front wheel and 700 rear wheel. Outlawing certain positions though is a bit much as long as its a bike within regulations a rider should be able to adjust the stem/seat to their desires or comfort level can allow (Obree's superman position and Landis praying mantis position).

Race radio's fall in the questionable category, sure if the DS is the one shouting out commands it does make it more robotic as we've all seen, but from a safety standpoint they are good, but the Race Director not the team DS should be the one heard, if they do implement such a rule.

Bike frame material, component tech (electronic, fancy materials) are not taking away from the sport, the frame is still dependent on the rider and as long as components are just shifting and braking its fine. Of course if the component or frame does something miraculous to aid the rider I could see not allowing it (electric motor to power the cranks ).

As for the physiological well that's stuff for the clinic and why they test.

 

[ElChingon]

How about no time trial bikes, no climbing bikes, no specialty bikes period? You choose one bike that best matches the race parcourse and use that for the entire race.

Great, now we'll have some rider doing the whole race with TT bars and a rear disk
You don't think there's enough crashes as it is?

 

[taiwan]

Ban Bikes

Back in the day cyclists just had to walk. Those were real men.

 

[Granville57]

Why not up the ante further?

Of course you're the only one actually suggesting that.


I'll just repost my thoughts on the TT bike issue from the "Why are some pros so appalling at time trialling" thread.

I am always amazed that with all the power-meters, hrm's and technology to hand nowadays how some Pro riders are so poor at time trialling and their technique so bad.

This is one thing that has troubled me for awhile when watching either the TT or TTT. Personally, I think it's detrimental to the sport when you have the best road cyclists in the world falling off or crashing their bikes when going around a corner, under conditions that would otherwise not present a problem. It looks absurd to me, and I can only imagine how it looks to someone new to the sport.

I mean, I get it. TT bikes are hard to control, and deep carbon wheels can be unwieldy in the wind. But it makes the sport look ridiculous.

It could be argued all day long that some teams should probably train more for the TTT, but it appears that they simply don't, for whatever reason. Personally, I would love to see the TTT done on standard road bikes. Let's see what these riders can do on the machines they are most comfortable with. I love the pageantry and choreography of a well executed TTT, but unfortunately one of it's greatest appeals is lost on the viewing audience: the sheer speed with which some of these teams can ride!

TV coverage very rarely captures a sense of that. This is even more true with the Individual TT. Often, the riders look as if they're just slogging along at 25kph. It isn't until the on-screen speeds are revealed that one can tell any different. I would love to see more fixed-position camera work to give the viewer a better sense of how fast these riders pass by.

My point?
Well, if cycling is a spectator sport, and heavily reliant on a TV audience, then why does it matter how fast they go on their TT bikes if you can't even tell by watching them?

It would make for an interesting comparison if, in a Grand Tour, there were two TTTs. One with road bikes, one with TT bikes.
Just a thought.

Follow the embedded links for further evidence.

 

[Ripper]

TBH, the few stage races I've seen or been in that the racers need to use their RR bike in the TT have been pretty cool. At the domestic and amateur level, it evens out the financial aspects of the playing field a bit. Then they also would not need to get out the measuring tape to measure TT bikes like typically happens in laughable fashion.

 

[ustabe]

Regarding banning radios, I gather that the main resistance is from team managers. I considerable contingent of riders wouldn't be unhappy to see them go, either

Regarding time trial bikes, it would look pretty stupid if elite triathletes could ride consistently faster than pro cyclists. They're not going away, deal with it.

I miss the days before helmets and zoomy sunglasses, too, but I'm also realistic enough to understand we're never going back there.

 

[Granville57]

Regarding time trial bikes, it would look pretty stupid if elite triathletes could ride consistently faster than pro cyclists. They're not going away, deal with it.

Even if that were the case, who would really care? Serious question.

 

[dougvdh]

The only thing I'd be inclined to pitch out of racing is electronic shifting. My problem with it is that a rider starts a race with stored power that they then proceed to use for something that traditional would have been done with by muscle (as small an action as shifting is . . .) Over the span of the Tour, a rider would shift ten of thousands of times, each time expending a small but cumulative amount of energy. Bring in electronic shifting and a rider just saved all that effort. As a rule, no one should be able to start a race with a device that will use a battery to save effort.

 

[pedaling squares]

I understand the idea behind limiting bike tech, but we'd be shooting ourselves in the feet as fans. Imagine how hard it would be for Bob, Bjarne, JV, et al to find sponsorship in today's market if the bike companies could not flog their latest, greatest, widgets in front of their clients. Would we lose teams, races, even TV and online race feeds? I agree with the impact of tech of tennis, now among the most boring sports to watch on TV, but I just don't see cycling getting to that point. That's not to say I wouldn't love to see a TT like the one the OP linked, that was a beautiful video. I just don't like the likely outcome of restricting bike tech to that degree.

I do like the idea of limiting certain tactics, as discussed in a few race radio threads already.

 

[pedaling squares]

The only thing I'd be inclined to pitch out of racing is electronic shifting. My problem with it is that a rider starts a race with stored power that they then proceed to use for something that traditional would have been done with by muscle (as small an action as shifting is . . .) Over the span of the Tour, a rider would shift ten of thousands of times, each time expending a small but cumulative amount of energy. Bring in electronic shifting and a rider just saved all that effort. As a rule, no one should be able to start a race with a device that will use a battery to save effort.

But the extra effort spent to carry that battery would probably make up for the energy saved by not pushing a cable. Not that anyone is crazy enough to do the math. Too bad it doesn't involve crank length, I might know a guy...

 

[craig1985]

Every form of motorsport has rules to maintain the sporting value of the competition. Some forms like F1 have gotten it horribly wrong, and that has become a "sport" where the winner is determined by technologists. All sporting rules are arbitrary. Their purpose is to foster fair competition. New tech does not necessarily improve sport. It is often detrimental since one of the goals of technology is to compensate for human deficiencies. Those differences between people are usually the very thing that competition is meant to test. Huge carbon rackets did not improve tennis; they totally changed that sport, and not for the better.

Do you have a better argument than, "It's there, we have to use it."

As compared to nostalgia when everything was apparently better in the '80's? In the end with TT bikes riders abilities still play a factor for mine, you can give Purito the exact same bike Cancellara uses but he will never TT as quick as he does, or you can give Guardini Contador's bike that he uses for the mountains and he will still get dropped in the mountains.