The UCI doesn't govern triathlon and their rules don't apply to tri bikes. They only apply to road cycling and time trial bikes.

Ric

I’ll be interested to follow this as well, but you do realize that “UCI-legal tri bike” is a misnomer; there is no such thing. If it has to stay UCI legal then it is a road bike adapted for triathlon. Why do the 60 odd thousand USAT members and the others who race a few races a year care one bit about what the UCI does? Just following the silliness that they imposed on the riders recently and add that to their already stupid rules and it adds up to one thing—the next breakthrough in triathlon bikes will come when somebody decides they DON’T care about the UCI and then we might see something that is really fast.
Chad

“UCI-legal tri bike” is a misnomer; there is no such thing. If it has to stay UCI legal then it is a road bike adapted for triathlon.

EVEN if you're road racing, the number of UCI events in the US is very small, IF you plan on racing on the protour or in europe, it would become a concern, but something tells me you won't be having to buy your own bikes anymore. UCI rules don't apply to most USAC races. There are only ten events in the US road racing schedule that are UCI sanctioned. And if you are good enough to ride in any one of them, you will be MORE than aware of their rules. It's the same argument I hear from some of the dedicated crossers about not having discs on cross bikes, "Because they are not UCI legal".....Unless you are racing at the national or international level, you don't have to be very concerned about it.

---

SIC VIS PACEM PARA BELLUM

http://physasst.blogspot.com/

Not concerned... just pointing out that there are UCI legal TT/Tri bikes...

---

___________________________________



http://irondad06.blogspot.com/

http://irondad.blogspot.com/

The P3C is a UCI compliant bike that has very little room to “grow” because of the limitations in geometry, tube depth, “must be double diamond frame” that come with trying to straddle both triathlon and cycling unique uses. A better term would have been “UCI compliant road bike” which I noted above. The UCI does not differentiate between time trial and mass-start applications, so a rider is limited to a certain position if they want to use a UCI-compliant bike. Depending on your definition of steep (for me that is 80+ degrees) then a lot of “tri-bikes” are made far to shallow to go really low in front and still maintain a good hip angle.
The Cheetah is a good example of a bike that is made without thought of non-applicable rules, but they are pretty expensive and hard to find.
Chad

Semantics...

---

___________________________________



http://irondad06.blogspot.com/

http://irondad.blogspot.com/

Of course it is semantics. The entire point was that “UCI-legal tri bike” is a semantically ridiculous phrase. Reading Dan’s articles about how to get around the UCI rulings shows how ridiculous the whole thing is for riders. Call a P3C a tri bike if you want, but it was made to comply with UCI rules and will not improve much in the future if they stick with that criteria. Using Cervelo as an example, their P3 model, aluminum to carbon, is an incremental improvement over the past seven or eight years. Sure, it is better in carbon, but not that much better. Cervelo can certainly build other types of bikes (the first bike they built together, for example), but they choose, along with most other companies, to stagnate thanks to the UCI rules.
Which I find curious when you consider the number of folks who do triathlon compared to road cycling, at least in the US. The market is there for a “no-holds barred” tri bike, but no one is really making it.
Chad

No... your argument is based on semantics.

It's not curious at all... the exposure it's gotten from supplying bikes to CSC... UCI-legal bikes... has been very good for Cervelo globally.

If there is a market for the no-holds-barred tri bike, then why isn't anyone making it?

---

___________________________________



http://irondad06.blogspot.com/

http://irondad.blogspot.com/

The market is there for a “no-holds barred” tri bike, but no one is really making it.

No one is making it or no one is buying it?

Kestrel
Softride
Titanflex
Cheetah

I was going to say the same thing... but then I figured by "no-holds-barred" he's thinking of something spaceship-like that hasn't been built yet.

---

___________________________________



http://irondad06.blogspot.com/

http://irondad.blogspot.com/

   I'm with you on this one, and don't even know if something with less than 78 sta should be called a "tri" bike. Mind you I kave both a Cervelo (P2 Classic), and a Kestral KM40 Airfoil. The Kestral I have set up as a roadie with shorty clip-ons, and I found that with Cervelo, I had to "size up" in order to have enough TT with a seat in the most forward position of the seatpost. I've just started to ride an 05 Litespeed Blade that is a 78 degree bike, so I feel I'm riding something that is made for a triathlete instead of something I'm having to adapt. I wonder what a cervelo might look like that was designed without the business decision that includes UCI legality...

I'm with you on this one, and don't even know if something with less than 78 sta should be called a "tri" bike.

That is where I would start as well, plus a very low head tube. Otherwise, just ride a road bike with shorties. Best be careful though; making such an suggestion will undoubtedly stir up the “you’re an elitist snob” mob or the Cervelo swarm who worship north of the border and think the ultimate bike has already been made.

Chad

It would be nice to see someone buy Softride and see what they could do with their beam bikes.

---

---------------------------
http://www.nunnsontherun.com

Well,

Softride really shouldn't be on your list.

While they still have a website, they haven't made a bicycle in several years.

The rest of your list points out how much the uci rules seem to matter to triathletes even though it doesn't have to. Titanflex and cheetah are definitely boutique operations. Kestrel less so, but the airfoil is still a very small number of frames per year.

I'll go with "no one is buying it".

A lot of you folks are on the right track here. A bike that adheres to a certain set of rules, such as UCI TT bikes must, cannot in theory become as aero and fast as a comparably well-designed one that does not. So should triathletes insist or even care if their bikes are "UCI-legal"? I think not. (Ironically, we would not have the "legal" carbon aero bikes and equipment that we now do if triathletes hadn't shirked the rules and conventions from the beginning.)

But the fact is, the fastest time-trialists in the world have to ride aero bikes that are UCI-legal and the companies that make these bikes have to adhere to these rules. That sells bikes. And most companies are not going to develop and tool up for a non-legal bike - especially with capital-intensive carbon designs.

When we designed the original KM40 Airfoil and subsequently the Airfoil Pro, we made a conscious decision to make a tri bike that does not limit itself to UCI rules. We did however limit it in terms of looking, functioning and behaving like a reasonably "normal" bike so that it would be accepted in the marketplace. It's as fast or faster than any legal bike out there, we believe. But with the increase in carbon TT bikes and admittedly a significant delay in getting the Airfoil Pro to market around that same time frame, the demand for non-legal tri bikes has gone down in recent years, maybe not in unit volume but cetainly in market share percentage.

I think rickn is right on in a lot of his points of where tri-bike/aero-bike design will go in the future. Honestly, I think we have discussed every one of those areas and more over the last 15-20 years, and I bet the other bike companies have, too. And of course some of those ideas have been tried on prototypes or race bike over the years, just waiting for the time to be right, the technology refined, acceptance in the market and rules to allow it. The other area I think will be big is using carbon/composite materials to form a frameset and components that create a superior aero rider-bike package, doable within UCI rules but even more so without them. Will the tri market accept it?

Preston
Kestrel Bicycles

You should check out Macca's new specialized on a previous post, it has the first two points and part of the third.
here is the link

http://www.insidetri.com/...news.asp?item=109219