I disagree. Sure, most 38cm center to center bars are going to (barely) meet that requirement. But who says 38cm is narrow enough for most people, especially shorter riders (like the majority of females)? It’s not. It will cause fit problems.
The rule should, at a bare minimum, allow 36cm center to center. But even then, comfort will be compromised for many people. I’m 6’ (183cm) tall and have 40cm shoulders and I’m most comfortable on 35cm bars on my road bike (I’m never on the tops, hoods or drops only). If I was instead 5’ (152 cm), I would probably be most comfortable on ~32cm bars.
Yes, the hoods distance is also a significant issue, but the bar width is as well.
So apparently (if you trust the source), only 1 rider in the women’s pro peloton had bars that didn’t meet the 40cm minimum width. Not sure what the sample size was either. So take that for whatever it’s worth but it seems like the majority of racers would be fine if that was the only stipulation. I feel like amateurs push the boundary way more so likely more of us would break that rule.
Either way, I feel like we’re going to see way more flared bars that are narrow up top and measure exactly 40cm in the drops.
Dunno about that - saw a post from Visma, who said 14 out of 18 of their female riders had bikes that violated the new rules. Another team (can’t remember who) said “all but one” of their riders wouldn’t meet the rules.
At the very least, the UCI should have “small rider” special rules to allow for narrower bars, similar to how TT rules allow taller riders extra space. But really they weirdly messed up with the what is the current norm - I’d guess the vast majority of riders, male and female, currently run their shifters narrower. It seems quite odd to disallow something that is just standard practice.
Personally, seems easy for me: 42 cm bars and all hoods over 35 cm apart. (It’s actually wild how different my hoods are, despite feeling and looking very similar).
I think the fact that it is standard practice is why they are banning it. If they want to reduce speeds in the name of safety then it makes no sense to make a change that doesn’t have wide reaching impact. That said, I think these are not very effective changes to reduce speed and I don’t think the speed is the main cause of crashes in the peloton.
It’s a somewhat recent trend that looks a bit odd through the lens of a cycling traditionalist. So yeah, not UCI compliant regardless of common sense. If they allow the narrow bar trend to evolve, the peloton will be looking like a bunch of hipsters at a critical mass ride within the next decade. Best to shut this kind of crazy stuff down before it gets out of hand.
I don’t understand why you would be mad? Frustrated sure, but all you have to do is work within the rules that are the same for everyone. There has to be a limit somewhere and we have all seen some crazy bar setups that definitely don’t give you as much control as a standard setup. If the UCI really wanted to begin limiting speed then they could consider setting maximum and minimum gear sizes.
It is similar to the TT limitations in that it puts more severe penalties on riders who are not near the center of the bell curve
So just saying it’s the same rules for everyone is missing the point. Just compare the shoulder width of Gaia Realini and Filipo Ganna and try to make an argument that the same bar width limitation should apply to both of them
I don’t think that would work. At 90 rpm in a 46:10 ≈ 50:11, you’d do above 53 km/h. Bigger gearing is mostly for efficiency, not speed. That’s my issue with junior gearing (limiting to 50:14 as the tallest gear), you still do 46 km/h at 100 rpm.
On the downhill, I reckon most are limited by the aero drag, not by how fast they pedal.
Imagine that you like to ride a certain size bike because it’s comfortable. And now they make that size illegal to race and if you want to race, you have to ride a size up. Yes, you CAN ride it, but you’ve ridden the smaller size frame for years because it’s more comfortable for you. That’s why.
It’s kind of like saying the minimum shoe size for all racers is now a 44. Yea, lots of people are fine. But lots of people aren’t. Making a rule that doesn’t take body shapes and sizes into account is just silly.
Jumbo Visma reported that 14 of 18 riders from the women’s team don’t comply with the rule. We sent out a question to our local racing team, about 14 guys. 1 person had bars in compliance. This isn’t people running stupid narrow bars like the picture above. It’s running their bars like they’ve been running for years before the narrow is aero thing even popped up. This is just using the correct size for your body type.
Here’s the funny part. So apparently the story goes the UCI went around measuring bars and said only 1 rider was non compliant. They were only measuring the 40cm part. Many teams then came back saying that many of there riders were non compliant with the 32cm part. So the UCI keeps putting out the statement that less than 1% of riders are affected because they only measured the 40cm part, but are enforcing the 32cm part as well. So teams are mad because they’re saying the UCI is lying about the number of riders affected.
Oh, and I emailed USAC specifically asking about these rules and they said they don’t plan to add them at this time.
There was a response on Reddit that was less than favorable for British riders though. I guess there’s a rule in the British Racing rulebook that says any UCI rule will automatically be enforced unless otherwise stated. So it sounds like these will be enforced unless they specifically address it/
