USAT ruling on aerobars?

Triathlon Forum
1

Decided to go a little farther back than Empfield on my C2’s. The result is an aerobar without the bar being bent at the ~45º angle before the bar-end shifters are mounted. It is a lot like Jan Ullrich’s but I don’t have mine at such an aggressive angle, oh yeah and mine won’t see me going 60KPH on flats.

My question regarded the USAT rules on this. I plan on doing an IM soon and wasn’t sure if this would be illegal or something. I looked at the rules last night and figured there could be some interpretation regarding 5.11 (i) Handlebars and stem must be fashioned to prevent any danger. All handlebar ends must be solidly plugged to lessen the possibility of injury.]

Anyone know about this one?

2

do you have a picture?

as far as being solidly plugged that means: no open tubing without something solid filling it, taping over the hole is not adequate

3

The brakes cover the holes for the pursuits and the barend shifters have been re-mounted on the modified barends of the aerobars (i.e. Syntace C2).

4

I really can’t say how I would rule on them as a head ref without seeing them, but from what you describe they sound like they may pass muster
.

5

i have a pair which are just as you describe and have ridden them in many USAT sanctioned races (including IM) without incident.

6

Yeah, I imagine that they should be fine. I will make sure not to draw any attention to them. So far, the only time I have seen a USAT get shifty with a bike is when my wife’s bike was missing a bar-end plug on her drops.

Thanks for the input. . .hope I don’t get the DQ at my first IM - and that doesn’t stand for Dairy Queen either.