I actually know the guy who designed it but he was full of “no comment” when I asked him some specifics yesterday, which is fair enough. Apparently it’ll be used by one endurance bunch rider at the Minsk World Cup (happening now), and then further rollout likely in Glasgow next week. Some other federations have voiced concerns about what would happen in the event of a crash and those seat stays, I’m sure they’re plenty stiff though.

And also maybe the seat stay (quite large) stabilize the air flow behind the legs, creating a virtual aero shape "leg + seat stay"

Ethan Hayter is using it as it was too big for Ed Clancy to race on. I spoke to three of the Hope engineers today who’ve been working on it and had a look at the inside of the seat stays - which are absolutely paper thin!

Lotus are doing the front end (forks and bars). About 6 months from them getting the CAD design to this point of a rideable bike - they have 7 sizes which require some modular tooling, but three different sizes of seat stay which just appear further up/down the bike depending on the size. They’ve just done the XL one so far. Hope are also making the wheels (trispoke and disc).

I'll bet it's a fake.
They've done this before.

Great Britain....for a tiny island on the edge of the Atlantic we sure make some neat stuff.

Yes, in order to be used during the Olympics, and also to be used in any UCI event such as World Cups (bike events during the Olympics are held under UCI rules), they need to be UCI approved.

You know, this little colored logo mentioning the brand, the name of the frame, the sport (RD, TT, TR, ...), frame or fork or..., and UCI approval number. Such as CERV P3 TT Frame ...

This is the last list published list (2019 october 30) :
https://www.uci.org/...?sfvrsn=ff041a35_128

no HOPE model, neither LOTUS model approved in this list. Maybe in the next one published ?

The approval procedure is guaranteed by UCI to be less than 3 months (a maximum of 1 month for plan/design analysis, 2 month for prototype analysis).

So, we will know soon if this way of deviating the seat stays to stabilize leg airflow turbulence is appreciated by UCI :-)

Funny things from the list :

3T Strada is approved, not Exploro
Cervelo P5 disk is not known as P5 but F136
Cervelo P3 disk not yet approved
Felt last TT approved bike is the DA in 2011
Felt TA-FRD is only approved in size 55cm !
Look T20 just approved.... and I can't find a single picture of this one.... surprise for Tokyo ???
No Scott Plasma 5, neither Trek TT disk...

Not a fake. Felt's new bike should also be seen this weekend under Jen Valente, but it won't be nearly the attention grabber as this one.

There is no Felt track bike recently validated by UCI, from 31st october list. The last was TA FRD in 2016 (only size 55).

Either it is not really a new model frame / fork, just some minor adaptations, either it is the same case as Hope, just validated but not yet published ?

From Chris Boardman's book the original wide fork was the result of CAD. This looks like they've taken that idea further.
For the track guys stiffness is a top priority. The cervelo bikes has some issues with the torque some people can produce.
The original Katsanis designed frames lasted 10 years!! Who here has a carbon bike that lasted 10 years? Under those loads those frame were special

A source from inside Minsk basically said it was the TA with mass start bars.

Looks like it has picked up at least a Gold and Bronze thus far.

New list of UCI approved frames / forks, from 18 november 2019 :
https://www.uci.org/...?sfvrsn=ff041a35_132

Hope / Lotus : not yet included

Felt : no new track back referenced, latest being the TA-FRD from 2016, in only one size

Look T20 : finally found a picture in Keirin Magazine : https://z-m-www.facebook.com/...493223889069/?type=3

Interesting. Looks like the T5GB's are still in there despite not being able to actually buy one.