New Wheel Regs: Do they affect RAW.

[roxii]

Just hearing all the noise about UCI wheel regs.

Will this affect track riding and more importantly RAW?

[Artson]

The UCI website says all mass start events
The CA website says: Road

Cycling Australia wishes to advise all competitors in the U19, U23, Elite and all Masters divisions, that from 1 September 2009 only wheels that conform to the CA Technical Regulation Annexure 6, UCI Bike Regulations 1.3.018 will be permitted to be used in mass start road racing.

So at this stage it seems we are safe; however I will look into it further and get back to you.

[roxii]

Then we just have to figure out how many riders constitutes a "mass start"   

[Alex Simmons/RST]

Then we just have to figure out how many riders constitutes a "mass start"   

That's defined by the type of race, not the number of riders.

All the timed track events: Pursuit, team pursuit, TT (kilo/750/500), team sprint and 200m fly are not considered mass start.
Everything else is, irrespective of number of riders.

CA should get it sorted because what's the point in being able to qualify for worlds on one set of wheels and not being able to use them (or being DQ'd for using them) at a UCI event?

[Peter T]

Some UCI Wheel and bike rule clarification! (Hopefully)

Firstly the UCI Wheel rule 1.3.018 is for mass start races in Road and Cycle-cross! Doesn't apply to Track racing, so all those 5 spoke Mavics and discs are still fine for Track racing.

Both the UCI and wheel rules have been around sometime, and not a lot is changing now!

What has changed is the TT bars need to be parallel (hand part of bars can be turned up, but still allowing the arms to be in a parallel position) and 3:1 ratio on the TT bars is meant to be applied as of 1.7.09. The 3:1 ratio of tubing etc of frames is to be applied from 1.1.10 at UCI events (CA is working on a grandfather clause for domestic frames etc with a date 3-5 years into the future proposed).

[Alex Simmons/RST]

Some UCI Wheel and bike rule clarification! (Hopefully)

Firstly the UCI Wheel rule 1.3.018 is for mass start races in Road and Cycle-cross! Doesn't apply to Track racing, so all those 5 spoke Mavics and discs are still fine for Track racing.

Both the UCI and wheel rules have been around sometime, and not a lot is changing now!

What has changed is the TT bars need to be parallel (hand part of bars can be turned up, but still allowing the arms to be in a parallel position) and 3:1 ratio on the TT bars is meant to be applied as of 1.7.09. The 3:1 ratio of tubing etc of frames is to be applied from 1.1.10 at UCI events (CA is working on a grandfather clause for domestic frames etc with a date 3-5 years into the future proposed).

Thanks Peter.

Parallel to a horizontal plane passing through the wheel axles that is.  The extensions themselves don't have to be parallel to each other (e.g they may be narrower or wider at the hand grips than at the elbow supports.

What a commissaire will look for is the forearms being in a horizontal plane and not tilted up or down. 

Unfortunately (IMO), this is still leaves quite a bit of room for subjective judgement, depending on the commissaire's personal interpretation and that's not really fair on officials or competitors.

What hasn't been defined is what constitutes "horizontal" since the forearm is effectively shaped like a conical section, "horizontal" should really have been better defined by the UCI (i.e. they only way you can call something horizontal is in reference to something with zero vertical dimension, which clearly an arm does not have). e.g. do they mean a horizontal line to be entirely enclosed by the forearm?

Here's an example - Tom Danielson:



One can draw a line enclosed by the arm and which is both tilted up and tilted down, depending on where through the arm you draw such a line.  His arms look tilted up but what is really meant by horizontal?  Of course you need to take that into account the angle of the shot but it's just an example of the grey area of interpretation caused by an ambiguous UCI "clarification".

All part of the sport I suppose!