"Maybe he forgot to get off his bike": Tom Pidcock challenged over 13:25 5km run claim; UCI bans forearms-out aero position; Chris Froome unconvinced by disc brakes; DIY bike lane video; Chris Gritty; Cummings back at Ineos + more on the live blog

PRSboy wrote:

New UCI Rules ban using forearms as support... whilst I take the point on the ' mock time trial' position, surely this does not include using the tops of the hoods/bars as support with forearms (per the bloke in the pic)?

 

No that picture's a mistake, that rider's using the new Speeco aerobars, effectively a standard handlebar but with massive dropout sections to enable a TT position (yours for £1400!). Not banned by the UCI yet but doubtless soon will be.

The hands have to be contact with the bars, so strictly speaking the position pictured could be illegal - depends whether the hoods are considered to be part of the bars.

Also, they're not 'new UCI rules' - this, and the top tube position, have been banned for a long while - what's new is the UCI have said they're going to enforce the rules they're a part of more robustly, with increased possible penalties.

mdavidford wrote:

The hands have to be contact with the bars, so strictly speaking the position pictured could be illegal - depends whether the hoods are considered to be part of the bars.

I think it will be banned on the safety grounds that anyone riding on the tops will be too far from the hoods to get to them quickly in an emergency. I guess the manufacturers could experiment with secondary brakes on the tops...

mdavidford wrote:

The hands have to be contact with the bars, so strictly speaking the position pictured could be illegal - depends whether the hoods are considered to be part of the bars.

Also, they're not 'new UCI rules' - this, and the top tube position, have been banned for a long while - what's new is the UCI have said they're going to enforce the rules they're a part of more robustly, with increased possible penalties.

of course the hoods are part of the bars, I don't think they are going to ban holding the bars by the hoods. Holding the hoods gives perfect control of the bike, and easy access to the brakes, a good as beng on the drops, just slightly less aero.

wycombewheeler wrote:

mdavidford wrote:

The hands have to be contact with the bars, so strictly speaking the position pictured could be illegal - depends whether the hoods are considered to be part of the bars.

Also, they're not 'new UCI rules' - this, and the top tube position, have been banned for a long while - what's new is the UCI have said they're going to enforce the rules they're a part of more robustly, with increased possible penalties.

of course the hoods are part of the bars, I don't think they are going to ban holding the bars by the hoods. Holding the hoods gives perfect control of the bike, and easy access to the brakes, a good as beng on the drops, just slightly less aero.

I don't think they're actually going to stop anyone doing this either - I'm just saying that strictly, by the rules, it may be illegal. As I said, they're not 'going to ban' anything - all these positions are already illegal, and have been for a long time - it's just a question of what they actually enforce.

Leaning on hoods with forearms probably should be banned. Hands in contact with bars for proper control. This is all the rule needs to say hands must grip the bars, whether that be tops, drops or hoods (or even aero extensions where they are allowed) is irrelevant. But leaning on tops or or hoods with forearms to adopt a time trial position in events where time trial bars are not allowed would be prevented, which is surely the intent.

If time trial bars are not allowed for safety in group races, then adopting the same postion with less secure control of the handlebars should definitely not be alllowed. 

However the image shown against the story shows a rider with his hands on the hoods, this should be completely fine. This is no different in position to riding on the hoods ona  standard road bike, it just has a little more support for the forearm.

wycombewheeler wrote:

However the image shown against the story shows a rider with his hands on the hoods, this should be completely fine. This is no different in position to riding on the hoods ona  standard road bike, it just has a little more support for the forearm.

But as I said above, those are Specco bars with massively extended length putting a rider with hands on the tops much further away from the brakes than with standard bars. Be amazed if the UCI allow them, nobody's tried them in a race yet (AFAIK).

Unless he was being chased by an angry dog, that GPS trace does look a bit random.  As you say though, an elite cyclocrosser could no doubt put in a good 5k time.

But good lord the vitriol in some of the strava comments.  What is the matter with people.  I hope he can do a properly timed 5k and prove the trolls wrong!

He does 5 laps around that triangle from 1.0 to 4.6 miles on his Strava record, so 3.6 miles or 5.8 km, including his fastest miles.

Using the measure feature on Google maps, each lap of the inside pavement/path is nearly exactly 1 km. I think the inside path is a safe bet unless he particularly enjoys crossing roads for no reason. Distance is therefore high by about 16%. Correcting 13:25 upwards by the same amount yields right at 16:00.

I admired his honesty

Wait, Froome has honesty? There's a first time for everything.

One thing that bugs me most is the shift from Post/ISO mounts (which satisfied the MTB crowd for years with their undeniably higher demands of brake systems) to flat mount. The reason seems to be mainly because Shimano managed to patent the flatmount systems and thus also the frame-standards that go with them.

Upshot - every frame manufacturer is forced to build frames that match Shimano's new standard, rather than the industry wide (i.e. non-profitable) Post/ISO standards and thus...sort out licensing of Shimano's patents. See also: four-arm cranks, the shift from HG to microspline/XD-driver and centre-lock discs - they're all based in new patents that mean new licensing agreements for any aftermarket manufacturer and functionally serve to provide no real benefit to the rider. (I'll acknowledge that microspline serves some small purpose for the hulk sprinters but really, how many of us have routinely gouged out a freehub?) 

Each new round of 'updates' is a new round of patents which means that the aftermarket crowd are screwed and we all end up paying top dollar because the big players have made something 'new'.

Professional riders that have to "put up" with the 10k superbikes their teams and sponsors supply is very much a different use case to the average Joe shmoe Road.cc / 3 times a week rider.   Its refreshing that the consumer market is dictating what the Pro's ride for once.

You might be right about the markup though

Ah, but how can you tell if the consumer market is being driven by what people want, or just what is being made available to them?

I WANT a nice, light, endurance geometry road bike, but the industry has decreed that I must therefore also want discs, which couldn't be further from the truth. So sales of disc brake bikes are in part simply due to a lack of any other option, which means we're all being forced into paying the generous mark-up that manufacturers appear to be awarding themselve for shoe-horning decades old MTB tech onto road bikes, without even bothering to try and improve it to address the issues Froome points out above (I too have ended up with warped and rubbing rotors after hot descents, in fact I've ended up with warped rotors just from completing '20 hard stops' as per bedding in instructions).

As always, YMMV. My brother blew his tyres off coming down a long mountain pass (rim brakes, obviously). My own experience in the Lakes was of gripping the levers for all I's worth to control my speed on a long descent.

Whereas the discs on my new bike have been 99.9% trouble free over the last 18 months. I did just once have to align the rear caliper - loosen bolts, grip lever whilst retightening bolts, done.

I don't follow cycle sports, haven't a clue what the pros are up to, neither could I care. But I do like my disc brakes.

There are still quite a lot of rim brake bikes available at a wide range of price points and riding styles e.g. https://road.cc/content/buyers-guide/57-rim-brake-bikes-you-can-still-bu...

It seems to me that if rim brakes are becoming less widely available, it is because they don't sell as well. There's enough competition in the bike market that if enough customers preferred rim brakes over disc brakes, someone would sell that to them and make a healthy profit, while manufacturers trying to 'force' people to buy disc brake models would be left with a lot of unsold stock.

It's another question entirely whether average Joe Customer is actually making a sensible choice by wanting disc over rim brakes, but I don't doubt that is what is happening.

I know what he means. Personally I'm not convinced that umbrellas are quite where they need to be yet.

IanEdward wrote:

I mean why does it cost soo much more to manufacture a disc brake calliper when arguably they are mechanically much simpler than a rim brake calliper?

I don't see how they're mechanically simpler. Tolerances are also much tighter.

You could make a passable rim brake in a weekend with sheet metal, spring wire, and hand tools (saw, files, vise, drills) which would be a lot harder with a disc caliper.

Wow, seriously? By that argument then all I need to make a disc brake calliper is a lump of magnesium and a big drill! 

I suspect he will be asked to see the sponsorship manager after school!

I'll bet team management probably dislike being forced to use discs as well, makes wheel changes etc. a lot more fraught!

Either my sarcasm detector is failing or you are serious?  If serious pray tell how it makes it harder?

Haven't watched any grand tours recently? Even commentators pointing out how much longer (yes ok, in the context of racing anyway) a disc brake wheel change takes, and who was the pro last year left riding a punctured wheel for several kilometres in a desperate attempt to keep up because the neutral support didn't have a suitable disc wheel and his team car was miles behind?

IanEdward wrote:

Haven't watched any grand tours recently? Even commentators pointing out how much longer (yes ok, in the context of racing anyway) a disc brake wheel change takes, and who was the pro last year left riding a punctured wheel for several kilometres in a desperate attempt to keep up because the neutral support didn't have a suitable disc wheel and his team car was miles behind?

Nah, not really buying this for a straight wheel change. When the UCI mandated retention tabs on front forks, that basically screwed fast wheel changes even for QR wheels. That neutral service now has to carry multiple different wheel types, that does cause issues. Without checking, I think the incident you're thinking of was last year's Tour stage over the Plateau des Glieres and the rider was Richie Porte. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong.