Aerodynamics / Aerodynamic Cost / Aero parts

Up at the Advanced Engineering show at the NEC and tried to take an incognito snap of a Cervelo under a stand with Aerocoach stickers. Plan was to tag @xavierdisley but then the chap who greeted me was Xav himself! Good to meet you and chat aero and carbon!

Hope had the mould for that front wishbone on display there with the cured part still inside it. Bike related carbon parts are often a bit backward in terms of moulding, but both me and my colleague from RBR were quite impressed with the internal finish of their parts.

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Hope need to make them commercially viable to recoup their costs

Assuming they actually plan to sell any. BC seem to get a complete pass on the commercialisation clause.

If UCI finally decide to grow a pair and enforce 1.3.006, we have to consider "the retail price of the equipment shall be publicly advertised, shall not render the equipment de facto unavailable to the general public and shall not unreasonably exceed the market value for equipment of a similar standard"
What does that mean in the context of a podium where the winner is on an unobtainium Team GB bike, but the other medallists are on the commercial (€7k) Look R96? Hope are not going to want to be forced to fulfil orders at only twice the price of a Look.

Someone else can repost to anti

They do seem to have picked up on ideas foreshadowed by the Avanti Team NZ bikes and given them a pretty harsh beating with the ugly stick

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IOC rules mean BC aren't allowed to contribute too much to the development, the equipment has to be commercial, whatever that means.

FES, Corima/Look and UKSI have been using 65mm front hub width for a while, I wonder if this Hope one is the same which would make the forks looks even wider?

Trust me, they need to sell some and have a price in mind. Hope are a retail manufacturer, not some secret squirrel QUANGO. A good friend is quite high up at Hope and was giving me the goss at my sister's wedding last weekend.

How does that work with custom designed / personally-fitted 3D printed parts? Another thing on display at the AE show were some highly polished very thin wall 3D printed titanium sprinter bars used by Chris Hoy. And a set of tri bars and extensions in the same material, used by another top Team GB athlete in competition. Do they just have to make them available, technically, for anyone to buy?

There are always plenty of grey areas when it comes to BC!

However custom parts are allowed, as long as a consumer could buy the same. I know a few nations will be using these:
https://www.shopforwatts.co.uk/products/custom-carbon-aero-extensions

I know that doesn't answer the 3d printed titanium question, perhaps the 2016 bars would not be allowed any more if they can't be bought?

That's another one that the UCI willfully ignore. Pretty much everyone that's set an Hour Record since the rule change has used bespoke kit. Wiggo had custom printed ti bars. Yet, the UCI rules specifically prevent this.

I really want to test this position out but I also really hope I'm not faster using it.

God damn ugly mess. Can you even steer around RABs? Ha

They do seem to have picked up on ideas foreshadowed by the Avanti Team NZ bikes and given them a pretty harsh beating with the ugly stick

To be fair they did do the wide forks thing a while back themselves...

https://twitter.com/DanBiggles22/status/1190198209085366272?s=20

Ethan Vernon using it in the scratch and Kian Emadi in the IP.

Is Minsk WC streaming on any UK Channel?

Try combining it with morf bars :)

Antony Costes

Dafuq am I even looking at?

Are they those fold-up bars that go from being start bars/bullhorns to aerobars? I'm not sure they're race legal for CTT as there's a minimum bar width rule.

yes

sorry triathlon...

"14. Competitor's Machine
(a) Brake levers must be secured to the handlebars in such a position as to enable the competitor to readily apply both brakes whilst holding the handlebars at their widest point. The width of handlebars shall be no less than 35 cms."

I think that rules out Morph bars.

You should wait and see what we’re currently building for Antony (he’s one of our sponsored athletes)!

Nice to see @Jonny69 at the show and always happy to chat aero carbon 😀

Can you even steer around RABs?

You should be off the tribars for most roundabouts, so the problem isn't steering, it's braking 😁

Only the ones that have a rule about it ;)

they need to sell some

To whom? All the teams with big enough budgets already have supply agreements with competitor companies.

I'm looking to get some aero bars fitted and have been told to get ones that have a lot of adjustability. Found these,https://www.sigmasports.com/item/Pro/Missile-Alloy-Ski-Bend-Clip-On-Bars/J2RW. Does anyone have these or can they recommend something similar for an aero noob? Cheers.

Those clip ons are good as they have maximum adjustability as arm pad bracket can be moved independently to bracket that connects extension to base bar.

Save £50 and buy this Profile Design T3+ “clip-on” kit (basically same design as the ones you linked above): http://www.timetriallingforum.co.uk/index.php?/topic/131314-fs-base-bar-extensions-pads-etc/

So the regulations around Olympic kit on the track in Tokyo (not road) are pretty stringent this year. In order to use a particular piece of kit under a rider, it has to form part of a registered list of products with the UCI.

Teams have to inform the UCI using an online system exactly what individual components each rider will be using at the Olympic track events, even down to the pedals/bottom bracket. That has to happen a month out so no changes after that either unless by special approval etc.

In order to get a piece of equipment on that list, it has to be submitted to the UCI by the federations, and everything has to have been used in international competition either prior to this current season, or by (the absolute latest) Track World Cup number 4 in Brisbane*.

For that list you have to submit the manufacturer, the product name and serial number, price and also where it can be purchased otherwise it doesn't go on the list - making it quite a departure from years past where no-one cared about the commerciality rules. For example you can now buy the German bikes from here:

https://fes-sport.de/shop_rad.htm

Don't buy their aerobars though as they're now UCI illegal and causing them all sorts of headaches.

The UCI technical commission are right now sat track centre in Minsk with a giant scanner on a crane, scanning bikes and components to make sure they match dimensions, they said they were going to do it but I didn't believe they actually would!

We have lots of stuff for a variety of different federations (I think 8 feds total) that need approval, not all of it will be left as late as TWC4 as we should be able to spread things out a bit. Some of our larger projects we've been in close communication with the UCI - in fact they invented a stem rule in their clarification document which was just for us. Joy.

*This was originally Track World Cup 1 in Minsk which is currently ongoing, but it was changed to TWC4 about 8 weeks ago. No-one from British Cycling told Hope though, so they were understandably miffed when I mentioned to a couple of their engineers this week that they had rushed to get the bike ready but still had 5 weeks to play with!

Sounds like a proper ball ache for you lot but at least they're actually enforcing their own rules for a change.