this has come up on the photo gallery (on the slowtwitch home page) of ricky ledesma's bike.
we've got a lot of smarty pantses here, and i thought we could have a fruitful discussion. we call it bike porn and where there is a real life intersection between bike and actual porn is how we've treated it in terms of legality. fairings in triathlon have been adjudicated like obscenity, officials often employing the i know it when i see it doctrine.
i have always felt that triathlon is different from cycling and we ought to have a different standard for what is allowable. i've always argued for a more liberal interpretation for what is a fairing. i do have a doctrine that i think ought to bring more rigor to the question. the slowman doctrine is:
if its overwhelming effect is to fair itself, or fairs another part of the bike, it's okay. it's only an illegal fairing if it a significant effect of the object is to fair the rider. accordingly, scrutiny has been paid in the past to front mount hydration systems. such scrutiny would be in keeping with the slowman doctrine.
but nothing on ricky's bike meets that standard, that i can see. i therefore would find nothing illegal about that bike.
my "doctrine" has to be explained/massaged when applied to clothing and helmets. my view on aero helmets and apparel is that they each are necessary, and so each has a "right" to be aerodynamic. what would not have been legal under my doctrine is a "helmet" (back in the pre-helmet days of bike racing) that really wasn't really a helmet in the structural sense, but rather a head fairing.
the one thing that is legal today in both tri and bike racing that my doctrine would bring into question is the shoe cover. i think there's a legitimate case that can be made that this is an illegal fairing.
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
we've got a lot of smarty pantses here, and i thought we could have a fruitful discussion. we call it bike porn and where there is a real life intersection between bike and actual porn is how we've treated it in terms of legality. fairings in triathlon have been adjudicated like obscenity, officials often employing the i know it when i see it doctrine.
i have always felt that triathlon is different from cycling and we ought to have a different standard for what is allowable. i've always argued for a more liberal interpretation for what is a fairing. i do have a doctrine that i think ought to bring more rigor to the question. the slowman doctrine is:
if its overwhelming effect is to fair itself, or fairs another part of the bike, it's okay. it's only an illegal fairing if it a significant effect of the object is to fair the rider. accordingly, scrutiny has been paid in the past to front mount hydration systems. such scrutiny would be in keeping with the slowman doctrine.
but nothing on ricky's bike meets that standard, that i can see. i therefore would find nothing illegal about that bike.
my "doctrine" has to be explained/massaged when applied to clothing and helmets. my view on aero helmets and apparel is that they each are necessary, and so each has a "right" to be aerodynamic. what would not have been legal under my doctrine is a "helmet" (back in the pre-helmet days of bike racing) that really wasn't really a helmet in the structural sense, but rather a head fairing.
the one thing that is legal today in both tri and bike racing that my doctrine would bring into question is the shoe cover. i think there's a legitimate case that can be made that this is an illegal fairing.
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman