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Comment by AnthonyMouse | Hacker News Reader

> Probably by article 1.3.010: "The bicycle shall be propelled solely, through a chainset, by the legs (inferior muscular chain) moving in a circular movement, without electric or other assistance."

Well that just says you need to build your regenerative braking system into the chainset. Use of stored energy is obviously allowed or else you couldn't make use of gravity when on a hill.

> Even if not, there's a rule along the lines of "any technical innovation must be pre-approved,"

What innovation? Mechanical energy storage is ancient technology.

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>Use of stored energy is obviously allowed or else you couldn't make use of gravity when on a hill.

You've walked past gold in search of silver. A biking competition that disallowed the use of gravity would be wild. What would that even look like? How could it be run? Compressed air jets to maneuver bikes onto friction platforms? Entire courses built into the non-rotating sections of space stations? Racers suspended on bungee cords to counteract natural forces?

A device could be affixed to each bike that measures wheel speed, as well as pressure cells for the pedals. Any energy that can't be accounted for from the pedals would result in the brakes being automatically applied.

Advantages from wind would also be negated, but I believe that's in spirit of the rule. At first just a single wheel speed sensor could be used, but once the meta evolved to doing stoppies/wheelies on downhill sections both wheels would need to be fitted with one.

New meta: Jump the downhills.

It's called Zwift

It would look like a perfectly flat track race. No hills. No use of gravity on hills. Solved.

so grass track racing? It was more popular worldwide but is still very popular in the Caribbean and Guyana.

The UCI banned some handlebars that were regarded as too far forward, they've banned elbows being too high, they've banned handlebars pointing slightly inwards. They'll ban anything that's even slightly out the ordinary and with no reasons given.

Most of those were banned for safety reasons, what are you talking about?

Not the person you responded to, but there are a number of changes they have banned, arguably for being too effective. Aerodynamic covers are not usable, recumbents are not usable (especially not ones with a cover, which are significantly faster).

I mean, I kinda get it, it's a traditional upright bicycle race where they want the human factor to dominate. But somewhere in there's a ~65% performance improvement they are leaving on the table (that is the difference in the "1 hour distance record" between traditional and fully faired recumbents).

> Well that just says you need to build your regenerative braking system into the chainset.

The chainset is a transmission device, it will store a minute amount of energy elastically, but anything beyond that will get you punished.

>> Even if not, there's a rule along the lines of "any technical innovation must be pre-approved,"

> What innovation? Mechanical energy storage is ancient technology.

The actual unwritten rule is not so much against inventions, as against having any fun.

Recumbent bikes are also forbidden.

> The actual unwritten rule is not so much against inventions, as against having any fun.

The rules, written or not, are about trying to adjudicate a competition of people, if you want a no holds bared technology based competition nothing precludes creating a different one (or participating in one, there’s no dearth of alleycat races and other odd events like the singlespeed world championship).

>The rules, written or not, are about trying to adjudicate a competition of people

Wouldn't this be best done by having one group make a bunch of identical bikes that are randomly assigned? Anything more than this and it is allowing some technology innovations and customization, regardless of if the reason is deemed justifiable or not.

This wouldn't work because people aren't all the same size.

Just like you couldn't make footraces fairer by making everyone wear the same shoes.

You can provide the official bike in a range of sizes.

You could, but you'd still have a similar problem. Imagine that footraces all had to be run in the same model shoes, in whatever size.

Human body variation far exceeds any kind of standard sizing. There's a reason that anything that fits a body often has hundreds of different competing designs and materials and size specs and different people are more comfortable with different ones.

It's bordering intractable to try to make a "standard" bike that fits the full variation of human bodies. Making that a requirement for a race would favor people who happen to have bodies more congruent with whatever your geometry and materials and sizing quantum are.

I'm not against rules.

What irks me a bit is that they are supposed to be about bikes, but in reality they are only about bikes that look exactly like the ones they have in mind.

Eg (if I remember right) they also specify a minimum wheel radius, because at some point people started doing well with those, and the people in charge didn't like that.

And they might as well be right: they have an entertainment business to run. They don't care about finding the best or anything like that.

I disagree that the sport is about bikes. I think the sport is about cyclists. The olympics is particular is built around human athletic competition not technical competition.

How do you find the best cyclist if the quality of the bikes is wildly different?

In any experiment, you have to control for the factors other than the ones you're looking to test. I don't think its fair to say that they don't care about finding the best, they're just trying to find the best of a different category than you're interested in.

As GP said. There is also space for different competitions about technology (in motorsport, formula 1 has both a driver championship and a constructor championship which is about the technology).

> How do you find the best cyclist if the quality of the bikes is wildly different?

In that case, you should probably give everyone the same 'official' bike.

If bike manufacturers can't use bike races to help them market and sell bikes, teams will lose a massive source of income.

Excellent point!

I agree, but sadly when officials start trusting, they stop looking, and this opens it up to more widespread cheating.

I'm not sure what you mean by that?

Just produce the same identical bikes, and assign them randomly at the start of the race?

Ever go to a go kart track and notice that some karts are faster than others? They're all identical as far as the eye can see, but in reality tons of subtle differences pop up.

You can have spec bikes, but there no way they'll all be tuned identically, all have the exact same lubrication in all the bearings, all have the exact chain tension, all have the axles torqued identically. All the derailers built exactly the same... One bike will get inevitably have an advantage over the others.

Assign the bikes randomly, and swap them around often enough between legs of the races. The Tour de France is pretty long.

This would need to accommodate many different sizes, geometries, subjective preferences.

Why? The whole point is to standardise, I thought? They are already _not_ accommodating preferences for eg recumbent bikes. So what measure are a few more preferences not accommodated?

In any case, you can make a bunch of different official sizes.

> The whole point is to standardise, I thought?

No, the main point (as already explained by someone above) is that this competition is about the cyclists, not equipment. The idea is quite simple, but leads to complex, sometimes somewhat arbitrary rules, but they in the end work quite well to regulate the competition.

No offense, but you're clearly someone who doesn't know much about cycling, but are insisting that the cyclists (competition organizers) are "doing it wrong". Arguing with that is tiring, so I won't continue here.

No, they aren't doing it wrong. They are just (effectively) optimising for something very weird.

It's about entertainment.

I genuinely see the point you're trying to make, but fitting a bicycle is like fitting an article of clothing. It's is laughable to suggest clothing be one-size-fits-all the same way it is for bicycle geometries. It doesn't compare.

In any case, you can make a bunch of different official sizes.

They already override plenty of individual preferences that people might have with their bikes.

> There is also space for different competitions about technology (in motorsport, formula 1 has both a driver championship and a constructor championship which is about the technology).

And even then the technology is severely curtailed, it has to compete within a fairly restrictive design envelope.

> I'm not against rules.

Of course you are. If you’re against any rule you personally dislike or misunderstand you’re not for rules.

> What irks me a bit is that they are supposed to be about bikes

See that’s your problem: you completely missed what the competition was about.

The competition is no more about bicycles than an archery competitions is about bows and arrows.

The competition is about the athletes, the gear is only the means through which it happens. That’s why the name on the podium is that of the cyclist, not of the bike manufacturer.

Just give everyone the same official bike then.

> Of course you are. If you’re against any rule you personally dislike or misunderstand you’re not for rules.

Haha.

Viewers are turned off if one of the competitors is seen to be winning simply due to having a better bike. The main characters in the show are the riders, not the bike builders.

Which viewers are those? Pro cycling fans are interested in bike manufacturers and technology, as well as in the riders. Gaining advantages through having better bikes (within reason) is a key part of the sport and part of what makes it fun to watch.

Even if recumbent bikes were not forbidden, no one would use them. Cycling is a sport of dignity. See also, underhanded free throws in basketball, which are strictly superior to the usual free throw style, but lack dignity and are embarrassing to perform so no one does them.

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