Most of us will be aware that the Tour de France for men was going on the last couple of weeks. In the timetrial Tadey and his team presented the newest Colnago TT bike. Looks sweet and fast, happy to see Colnago finally dare to make choices that stand out with that chainstay. There is one thing however I am wondering: The bottle of this bike reminds me of the original Cervelo P4 bottle which was banned by the UCI. The bottle is exactly shaped with the frame to let the air flow over the rear stays.
I know some rules have changed last year, but as far as I’m aware that’s mostly regarding the dimensions of the tubes. The explanation in the P4 days was that it was a fairing improving aerodynamics, which is still not allowed according to the rulebook. Am I missing, or misinterpreting something?
Looking at the bottles of Cervelo, this is mostly a bottle that nicely fits in the airflow of the frame, but not created to decrease drag in the following part.
Okay so Article 1.3.024 BIS, says like you did the bottle cannot be fully integrated into the frame. However with UCIs stupidity the rule also says, it can’t be attached to both downtube and seat tube. (P4 was) you also need to be able to pass a credit card through a space on the attachment to the frame(p4 you couldn’t)
If you look at the link below you can see the bike actually passes both those rules Around the bottle.
But it’s moronic. I’m sure they tested the airflow and it’s close enough and formed that the airflow still skips the credit card gap. I fully expect a UCI rule within the next year to address that it doesn’t look pretty and it’s not in the spirit of the rule.
Nice analysis. I still think so much of the decisions come down to politics and who the UCI favors. The Pinarello Bolide of the Wiggins era had non structural brake fairings and the UCI gave that bike a pass, but the nose cone Shiv was banned and had to be redesigned, even though the nose cone had to have the structural integrity to handle all the braking forces.
Since the UCI does have so much influence over what bike are legal, it would be nice if they would certify older bike that would now be legal-ish, like the P5-6
UCI is to bikes as NASCAR is to cars. Both are terrible. At least NASCAR is a privately-owned entertainment business; so their game, their rules. But UCI arbitrarily screws the world.
Thanks for the link. Hadn’t seen his bike up close as I was only able to watch the youtube highlights. It is a slick design. Pretty cool in my opinion.
UCI is to bikes as NASCAR is to cars. Both are terrible. At least NASCAR is a privately-owned entertainment business; so their game, their rules. But UCI arbitrarily screws the world.
I don’t know much about Nascar, but the UCI is pure trash in so many ways.
nice bike but what’s more interesting to me is the groupset. Being a devoted Campy user very glad to see them coming out with a 12sp EPS groupset with disc brakes.
The more I look at that Colnago the more I like it. It’s probably been 2 decades since I thought a colnago was a cool bike. That bike has me drooling for so many reasons.
Colnago send me one to independently test in the tunnel please
Thanks for clarifying that. I was unaware that this rule existed and the P4 bottle was connected to both tubes. In the scope of these rules the Italians were smart in creating this setup.