Some of the greatest moments in cycling are directly related to technical progress, most obviously the Obree/Boardman battle for the hour record. On one side a professional champion with a million pound superbike, on the other an unknown amateur with a bike he built himself. Many fans complain that the current regulations are too conservative and provide too little opportunity for technical innovation.

Cycle racing exists in a symbiotic relationship with cycle manufacturing. Race wins sell bikes, bike sales fund race wins. Cut the manufacturers out of the sport and they take a huge chunk of sponsorship with them.

F1 racing cars would be faster if they replaced the driver with a computer. The fans want to see the skills of the driver tested, so the sport bans common driver aids like traction control and anti-lock brakes.

Cycling with motors isn't cycling, it's motorcycling. Allowing motors would change the sport in an undesirable and irrevocable manner.

In cycling, technological progress is governed by the Lugano Charter. Technology is an intrinsic part of the sport, but it is not allowed to play a dominant role.

http://oldsite.uci.ch/imgarchive/Road/Equipment/The%20Lugano...

Racing in all it's forms is nearly always conducted under some entirely arbitrary artificial constraints (even when the rules don't enforce it, money ends up taking the same place). Sometimes those constraints are "we'll sell more cars if they all look a little bit like Fords or Chevys", sometimes they're more like "we've got home-team advantage, so we'll make the rules say you've got to sail your America's Cup contender to Newport to compete, even if you come from Europe/New Zealand instead of Rhode Island...". Sometimes the constrains are "these new 4WD supercharged Group B Rally Cars are killing too many people, lets stop racing anything that fast thru the trees - lets race showroom floor shopping trolly hatchbacks instead..."

Keep in mind that "Cycling with motors" isn't motorcycle racing either - in motorcycle racing there's engine capacity limits, number of cylinders, number of gear ratio limits, minimum weights, restrictions on brake materials, even things like limits on the number of motors used for a season and work allowed to be done on motors between races, and MotoGP are now "standardising" the engine management electronics/software as well... WorldSBK have homologation rules, where you need to sell a certain number of your racing motorcycle to the general public as road bikes to be allowed to race (modified) version in the race series. (I'm currently riding round a two stroke 125 Cagiva Mito that's a roadgoing version of the now banned/superseded 125GP bikes... These day's you've got no choice but to compete on a 250cc four stroke in that race series/class. In the past there were 8 cylinder bikes, and bikes with 16 speed gearboxes - all just history/legends now...)

A lot of "the balance" seems to end up being about money - either to stop the guy with the deepest pockets from wining everything (who'd want to go sail boat racing against Larry Ellison without some rules about how much he can spend?), or to make sure the sponsors keep pouring money into "the sport" (how many F1 rules do you suppose there are relating to drivers meeting corporate and sponsor hospitality and media requirements, rather than technical regulations about what you're allowed to race on the track?)

http://www.roborace.com

I can't make any sense of this. Any bicycle is 100% a product of technology. I can't think of anything that plays a more dominant role in bicycle racing than... bicycles.

You can have a bicycle race without cyclists; you can't have one without technology. Technology is playing a dominating role.

I tend to suspect that jdietrich didn't mean to include things like metallurgy, rubber, and gears under the umbrella of "technology", but there is no actual line between the use of gears and the use of motors.

There's a very clear line in this case. Cycling is a human powered sport. Battery, gasoline, nuclear, and other power sources are not allowed. This is why mopeds are not allowed. Also prohibited is temporary power storage like a capacitor or spring, which might be used for regenerative braking.

You can put all the motors you want on your bike (IMHO) so long as you don't energize them.

Only a specific set of technology is allowed in a bike race. Under UCI rules, cyclist aren't allowed to use aeroshells, and recumbent bicycles are also prohibited, even though both are much more "similar" to a bicycle than your proposed monkey with a walking stick.

The rules attempt to describe the ineffable concept of what it means to be a "bicycle race". They are meant to encapsulate a mass consensus based on tradition and expectations, including the idea of how to balance "human" and "technology". The rules must also face the challenge of changes in technology, and ever-present rules lawyering. The Lugano charter, mentioned earlier, tries to capture and influence that mass consensus.

There are different interpretations of what a "bicycle race" means, which is why there are different rules organizations. If you want to run a race which allows a monkey with a walking stick to compete, feel free!

That attitude partly explains the historical prevalence of doping. There was no honour in using drugs to win a race, but there was no dishonour in using drugs just to get through a tour. Nobody minded very much if a domestique took a few pep pills. Doping only really became a major issue after the Festina affair, when it transpired that leading riders from a successful team were systematically doping to win races.

Doesn't a derailleur have to have a spring in it? And any chain will have a certain amount of tension that allows it to store a (small) amount of energy. Heck, even standing up on the pedals is a way of storing energy to use later.

> Only a specific set of technology is allowed in a bike race. Under UCI rules, cyclist aren't allowed to use aeroshells, and recumbent bicycles are also prohibited, even though both are much more "similar" to a bicycle than your proposed monkey with a walking stick.

This makes me sad. Is there a formula/series that allows any kind of purely human-powered vehicle, whether it looks like a traditional bicycle or not? I'd love to watch that.

Indeed, a lot of them now have batteries and electric motors. I was surprised how easily electronic shifting was allowed into the sport.

So yes, many pro-racing bikes already have battery power, even though it's not directly driving the bike. It could be argued that some kind of KERS would be a natural evolution of this.

http://www.ihpva.org/ http://www.bhpc.org.uk/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR9Nykvp_-I

Even "purely human-powered vehicle" is suspect to rules lawyering. Rompelberg cycled at 268.8 km, in the wake of a dragster pace-car. Would your hypothetical race allow that, given that the vehicle is still human powered?

The dragster wouldn't be allowed on the course - that seems easy enough to rule out.

> Under UCI rules, cyclist aren't allowed to use aeroshells, and recumbent bicycles are also prohibited, even though both are much more "similar" to a bicycle than your proposed monkey with a walking stick.

> If you want to run a race which allows a monkey with a walking stick to compete, feel free!

Consider reading my comment before you respond to it. If you want to argue that bicycles are more similar to bicycles than they are to walking sticks... that was most of the point of my comment, too.

More, it just illustrates my point that it is nonsensical to claim that "technology is not allowed to play a dominant role" in cycling. All of those rules are concerned with which technologies are required in a race (say, wheels), which are allowed, and which are forbidden. If you eliminated technology from cycling, cycling wouldn't exist. If you took an anything-goes approach, cycling again wouldn't exist -- you'd have racing, but nothing anyone would recognize as a bicycle.

And so immense amounts of attention and effort are devoted to the question of which technologies to use. Using the wrong one will get you disqualified. Abstaining from the wrong one will get you disqualified. The technological decisions made by rules committees govern the performance of the racers, and everyone knows and acknowledges that. This is a dominant role for technology. If you divide cycling as a sport into several parts, and one of those parts includes "technology", that part is much more important than every other part combined can be.

I believe you do not understand what "dominate" means in this thread. It's clear that technology is an essential component, not only for the bike, as you mentioned, but also the paved roads. It's clear that humans are an essential component, not only as a power source but also the efforts of many to develop better training methods.

It's also clear that the legal system is an important component, since the force of law helps keep people off the otherwise public roads during the races.

All of these are essential. Do you consider them all to be dominate?

I don't. Most people don't watch a bike race to see how well the road is maintained, or look at the barricades set up, or marvel at the supply chain to support a cyclist from stop to stop.

No, most of them are there to watch the riders, and to a lesser extent the gear. The Lugano charter makes it explicit that a UCI goal is to reflect a certain historical and sociological understanding of what cycling should be. It even says that the technology used should be subordinate to the physical qualities of the rider.

You can use a different interpretation of what "dominate" means, but note that your objection was an interpretation of a summary by jdietrich, who also provided a reference to the source document. Your interpretation since then is not compatible to the source document.

In my opinion, you misunderstood jdietrich's comment from the start and continue to argue against a viewpoint and interpretation that no one actually asserts.

But there's a catch: even on a track, lighter wheels will _feel_ faster, because you get stronger feedback from oscillations I'm your pedal stroke.

It's either about the athletic competition or it's not. If it's about the athletic condition, then the impact of technological factors should be minimized.

Then there's the matter of paying the most for the best coaches, best data analytics to optimize the bio performance of the human individual, etc.

I'd argue that you can't really say that money is the reason for not include or limiting technology. If it's about a level playing field, then money should be the first thing to remove.

How about a random sampling of a country/city's population? Have them compete against each-other. Otherwise, it'll always be about money as it's integral to sport.

Bicycle racing, whose equipment is required to have only one source of power, a certain minimum weight, and no disc brakes (and maybe a couple others) is probably one of the less-constrained pro sports.

All of this make bike riding sport more entertaining. I guess I can put it next to Formula 1 - low and high velocities, fast and slow turns, attacks, defense, etc.

The recumbent riding would be mostly technological and would have less action. I guess I can put it next to NASCAR - high velocities, slow turns, slow attacks.

I think that recumbent would be good for US, I also guess rest of world would prefer diamond bikes.

Also there's the pesky little problem of poor or up and coming athletes literally killing themselves to try to win big money, all for the benefit of some FIFA-alike and its sponsors.

Not when the opponent pulls out a surface to air missile.

You're assuming all those things are bad for the athletes.

It may be that many professional and elite amateur sports will not survive genetic modification, for example, because anyone can access elite athletic potential if they wanted to. Or, more disturbingly, only if their parents had chosen a genetic combination for one outcome over another. What would be the point of "being a fan" of an athlete with characteristics chosen from a menu?

That allows innovation, while making it much harder for a rider and team to cheat.

For instance a commercial aluminum frame is overbuilt so that it doesn't vibrate itself to pieces, but if you are going to get a new one in a week why bother?

How many racing teams are named after bicycle manufacturers?

  * BMC RACING TEAM
  * CANNONDALE PRO CYCLING TEAM
  * LAMPRE - MERIDA
  * TEAM GIANT - ALPECIN
  * TREK - SEGAFREDO

But note that many if not all teams are sponsored by manufacturers (frames, wheels, geartrain, etc).

Edit: five. Forgot Merida.

[1] http://www.uci.ch/road/teams/

Cheating is an integral part of cycling

NASCAR would like a word with you.

Edit to add: I know that NASCAR allows more than a single design, but it's in the same spirit. The options are extremely limited.

Long gone are the days of a pro rider turning up on a relabelled bike of their choice (their bike, their sponsors' logos).

The bikes tend to be distinct enough that they are definitely riding the frame of their team sponsor, and the wheels have become similarly distinctive too (no more Lightweights disguised as Mavic).

Given the choice of 5 high-end bikes and the ability to select a proper size I don't really see a problem.

"Why are there even more than one? It is absurd!"

Or let riders register their preferred bike components at the start of every season, and then UCI could check the weight of bikes during races.

The rules should change to mandate 1 bike, no swaps to keep riders from changing from a "doped" bike to a non-doped one before finishing - or provide better chain of evidence reporting on existing bikes.

There's a huge difference in weight/tech from pro/non-pro bikes. Take a look at what's available for triathlons vs. UCI time trial bikes.

All the bikes are identical in spec (single speed, coaster brake, flat pedals).

This is the race that features in the movie Breaking Away. I wish more were like it, but I guess part of its charm is its uniqueness.