Thanks for you prompt answers and comments to my previous questions.
Aerobar proposal ……. Olé …. No bull ……
I was picturing both my eyes being gouged out (or yours) by nicely spaced aerobars like mine during an errant crash in a USAT sanctioned race, or an athlete getting aero bar gored in the heart or guts when down after a multiple bike crash.
For the Roth Challenge in years gone by there was a requirement to bridge the aero bars for safety. It was an annoyance, but turned out to be easily done with the addition of a couple of pieces of tubing making a bridge securely taped to the regular aerobars leaving the shifters working normally.
For Time Trials with individual rider spacing goring is not much of a possibility. However with 2000 experienced and excellent bike handling triathletes on a narrow road goring may be a safety and liability consideration.
Possible solutions are many: The simplest might be bridging the bars forward of the shifters, (the new rule could allow for a light bridge, aerodynamically shielded, just forward of your hands, (especially nice when it is very cold)), or more extreme ideas like making the aero bars of soft rubber with electric shifting buttons and the stiff part of the aerobar attached to the forearm like a cast, and so on.
The main purpose of this fix being to eliminate the ‘bull horn’ or ‘butcher knife’ aspect of the aerobars for collisions, and perhaps the possibility of making the forward part of the bike more aero.
A USAT rule could allow for a 2 year forward deadline to allow the bike industry to tool up and capitalize on the sales of the new gear.
I’m just curious, with this idea and the USAT requirement for covered bar ends: Are these things major problems in a bicycle accident? I’ve never heard specifically of anybody being gored by an uncapped bar end or an aerobar extension, but maybe I just don’t hear these kinds of details. I know that USAT takes bar ends very seriously and much time and energy is spent on enforcing this rule. Just a question, not trying to be argumentative at all.
What is next? no three spoke wheels lest an arms gets caught in it? We also shouldn’t allow water bottles on the bike portion because someone might drop one and you could run over it.
Seriously though, have you ever even heard of an aerobar piercing someone’s body or harming them seriously? I think you have much bigger things to worry about than this in a race.
Of course it is not a big problem compared to population growth outrunning food production, global warming, incomming asteroids, and toenail fungus, but perhaps it is something to consider on a lazy afternoon.
Uh oh! My wife says to ‘step away from the computer’, ‘keep you hands in sight’, …
Someone with way too much time trying to fix a problem that does not exist. I have never seen someone injured this way so I am not sure what you are trying to achieve other than creating a rule for a non existent problem. Maybe get out there and volunteer your time to educate people on how to ride their bikes better.
In a single or multi-bike crash or collision someone is more likely to get sliced up by the big chainring than gored by aerobar extensions. How about you write up a proposal requiring a fairing around it?
You know, there’s a lot of other pointy parts on a bike like forks, skewers, brake levers, cranks, pedals… How about you write up a proposal requiring that these too be faired?
While we’re at it, the aero postion is inherently unstable. How about you write up a proposal banning a forward position and requiring a very very relaxed position - kind of like a seated-in-a-chair position?
The best news about all this is the bike industry wouldn’t even need a 2 year build period. They already make fully faired recumbants.
There actually used to be a rule like this in the US – aero bars had to be joined. Not sure when this rule got changed. This seems like an attempt to reinstate it.
i appreciate the effort you’re taking to improve the safety of our sport but personally I don’t really see a good reason for this.
-with bar end shifters sticking out you can’t really bridge the aero bar ends safely and even if you did it would probably be behind the shift levers so you’d still have pointy levers sticking out.
-one of the greatest innovations of todays aerobars is their amazing adjustability which means the extension seperation car vary a LOT so bridges would be tough to design
-honestly I can think of a lot of other more dangerous aspects of riding a bike than getting skewered by a set of aerobars so if this is a major problem I’d suggest we just all hang up our bikes at this point. I’d say spokes chopping up squirrels and fingers is a more dire problem and the other major improvement we might want to look at is a bike seat belt as flying off my bike sucks;)
Perhaps the carefully enforced USAT drafting zone, the front wheel, and the skill of the rider offer sufficient protection from the aerobars.
From the initial reply posts I can see there is little interest in bridging the aero bars.
** For elites:The term “drafting zone” shall refer to a rectangular area ten (10) meters long and two (2) meters wide surrounding each bicycle.
*and for non-elites: * The term “drafting zone” shall refer to a rectangular area ten (7) meters long and two (2) meters wide surrounding each bicycle.