If the UCI ran other sports….
If you hadn’t seen it yet, the latest news in cycling is that the UCI has decided to ban the Specialized Shiv time trial bike two days before the final time trial of a race that started three days ago.
Apparently, the bike, which debuted in the spring of 2009, is not within the legal parameters of bike design because of some boxy part that is built into the headtube. And apparently it took the UCI nearly an entire year to decide that the bike is illegal – after allowing it into competition. Instead of ruling on said bike before the most recent race actually started, or maybe waiting until after the race finished, the rocket scientists over at the UCI decided to declare the bike illegal in the middle of a stage race, forcing team Astana to have to find eight replacement time trial bikes in under 48 hours time…when their entire staff is stuck in Portugal in the middle of a stage race – because apparently they have nothing better to do.
I won’t delve into the UCI’s moratorium on innovation and technology – that’s a whole other rant. What I will go into is the asinine manner in which the UCI makes decisions on the legality of equipment. For example, making a decision that a piece of equipment as integral to the sport as a bicycle is illegal in the middle of a competition is not a great way to handle things. It causes one to wonder what would happen if the UCI were in charge of other sports?
I’ve been watching the Olympics pretty much nonstop since they started 11 days ago because when you are an athlete in a fringe sport, that’s what you do – support other fringe sport athletes. I do not watch football, basball, or basketball on TV but I will watch virtually any Olympic Sport (except Ice Dancing…I have to draw the line at Ice Dancing). I’ve learned a lot about rules and regulations regarding judging and equipment choices and what’s considered a disqualification in a variety of sports. It seems that for the most part, the federations of these sports has their act together (although I am sure any athlete or coach within those sports could probably argue otherwise).
Imagine if the UCI were in charge of the Winter Olympics – the possibilities are endless.
If the UCI were in charge…
A ruling would be made after the short program but before the free skate that certain combinations of jumps were illegal and skaters would have 24 hours to rechoreograph their routines
A ruling would be made after the downhill but before the slalom in combined ski events that the parabolic skis used in slalom are not allowed and skiers would have to use whatever skis were used in the 1980s..and they’d have approximately 2 hours to find replacement skis.
Skeleton riders would be informed that their forward facing position is not legal, and they would have to ride in a modified cobra yoga position to ensure that they are not getting too much of an aerodynamic advantage.
Upon arriving at the Olympic Games from all over the world, Bobsled teams would be informed that their aerodynamic sled was not legal and they would then be forced to bolt pieces of plywood onto the sides of the sled to make it less aero…
I realize these examples are extreme, but they are analogous to what’s going in the Volta ou Argave at the moment. I’m not in charge of anything in cycling, but if I were I would make a decision that all new equipment that teams were proposing to use had to be put before a committee for review prior to the start of the season. How hard would it be to submit your time trial bike or aero helmet or whatever to a review board in November or December and rule on it then? If teams were given new equipment after the official review period ends, they can either request a special review process (which would be completed before the start of a major event), or perhaps the review board could meet quarterly to assess any new pieces of equipment that are introduced to racing after the initial season opening review date. It doesn’t seem that difficult to me, and all the UCI has to do is state that equipment that was legal in prior seasons continues to be legal unless there is a change made to the equipment. All changes must be submitted for review. This would eliminate the rubbish of running around in the middle of a race trying to get 8 replacement team bikes from an off shore manufacturer because some old guy with a stick firmly lodged in his ass doesn’t like the position of your aerobars.
I’m thinking the UCI mostly just had a problem with the bike’s name. Shiv, really, that’s the best the marketing people at Specialized could come up with? In general, avoid words that evoke images of sharpened toothbrush handles.
I don’t read cyclingnews anymore, since I was banned from their forum after calling the moderators misogynists. I picked this story up on velosnooze. It seems there is enough culpability to go around. Is the UCI mostly to blame? IMO sure, but Specialized knew there were problems with the bike last year. From the velonews article:
“Instead of racing The Shiv for the first time, Contador instead will compete on a 2009 Transition TT frame that was modified to meet UCI requirements. Mechanics literally sawed off 2cm of two reinforcements off the bike to fall within the 8cm rule. The pieces could be trimmed off the Transition frame because they were not an integral part of the frame material. It would be impossible to cut them off the Shiv, however, without damaging the integrity of the carbon-fiber frame”
Yes, the UCI could have and should have responded to the request for approval in a more timely manner, and then there is the salient point of the rule itself. However, Specialized was told last year that a similar design was not acceptable. The loophole specialized was trying for was the ‘structural integrity’ caveat. Generally speaking, aerodynamic design elements are considered legal if they are critical to the structural integrity of the frame, as is clearly the case with the Shiv. On the Transition, the portion was purely for aerodynamics. Still, the ruling about the 8 cm section is pretty clear as well.
This is where specialized and the teams are culpable. Instead of holding off development on the design pending approval from the UCI, they went ahead with development, handed the frames over to the teams to train on. The equipment directors and the DSs on the teams need to be more diligent about whether or not new products have been approved. They shouldn’t be spending time and energy on setting up and training with equipment that has not been approved. I understand the marketing aspect of having a new frame design every year, but specialized should have held off and given the teams last years frames if the UCI had not responded yet.
That said, I think the UCI should be held more accountable to bike manufacturers. I think a rule something like a) new equipment designs must be submitted to the uci six months prior to being used in competition and b) if the uci has not made a decision within six months of the application, the design shall be considered legal for competition’.
Of course that would need alot more tweaking, but you get the general idea. It wouldn’t be hard to set it up so that the UCI could _not_ come in at the last minute and force a change, while at the same time not impeding the development of the new product to any great extent. I suppose an argument could be made that forcing manufacturers to present designs 6 months ahead of time would dampen the time-to-marketing concept, but I don’t really see that as a big deal in this case. One of my current job aspects is regulatory agency approvals. there have been a few times where we have developed a product that has made it pretty much through the production pilot run, only to find out the agency claims it doesn’t meet some esoteric specification, that we interpreted it did when we read the spec. We build that lead time into our development cycle, and there’s no reason a bike manufacturer can’t do the same.
I just read a few of your articles on the blog – and now I’m a fan!! Geez you make a lot of sense! Cheers,
Vaughn