Race Cycling Braces for More Turmoil in Equipment Crackdown

The International Cycling Union abruptly alerted teams at the start of this season that it intends to clarify and reinterpret its often oblique rules governing bicycle design through increased equipment inspections.

Some prominent cyclists say that recent advances made possible by new materials and manufacturing techniques may be unfairly penalizing small teams that have limited access to the latest technologies.

In 2000, new rules included requiring bicycles be the traditional diamond shape and not weigh less than 6.8 kilograms. But another rule is more ambiguous, referring to a "a fuselage form" which the cycling union defines as an "extension or a streamlining of a section." Whatever that may be, it cannot have a ratio that exceeds 3:1. (For comparison, traditional bicycle tubing is round and thus has a 1:1 ratio.)

Until January, manufacturers assumed the rule covered only the individual sections of a bicycle frame and went to great lengths to increase that ratio without breaking the rule, or so they thought. Giant, Scott and Felt, an American bicycle company, all make time trial bicycles with elongated the front ends for better aerodynamics. But in a bid to stay within the ratio rule, those bikes connect the forks and handlebars to the rest of the frame in unusual and complex arrangements. On its Website, Felt boasts: "Our design created an effective airfoil shape with approximately a 6:1 aspect ratio, that is still U.C.I. legal because it does not rely on a fairing-instant speed."


Cycling Braces for More Turmoil in Equipment Crackdown