Cycling or Motorsport?

 Is this CYCLING or a Motorsport?

Our friends at PEZ Cycling published this the other day.

UCI’s Tunnel Vision: Policing Aerodynamics While Riders Keep Crashing

I like the guys there, having worked with Richard and his crew to promote CycleItalia back in the day. But I have issues with this piece.

First is the defense of the guy who keeps cheating and getting caught. He's become such a pest to the UCI people in-charge of enforcing the rules it looks like they single him out at each race for special scrutiny. He's been DQ'd three times but he doesn't seem to learn a thing from it. 

The "aero" stuff is already out-of-control - one look at the "head fairing" below should explain it. Why is this obvious fairing allowed? Because they call it a safety helmet? What's next, a larger one, maybe supported by struts attached to the rider's back? UCI needs a rule limiting how far from the rider's head (you know, that thing they're trying to protect?) these gizmos can extend. 4-5 centimeters in ANY direction would be a good start.

Or they could just drop all pretense and have a race around France each July using these. How many fans would line the roads to watch a pack of brightly colored suppositories go by? The industry might like the idea - they could really advertise their "Slippery Sam" won the Tour de France. The guy inside pedaling it would be just like a F1 driver...the advertising isn't for him, it's the CAR!

The PEZ article touches on some of this as well when the author takes the UCI to task for failing to do anything about safety, claiming the  "peloton continues to suffer mass crashes at an alarming rate, events that genuinely endanger riders’ lives and careers," In my view that's rather hyperbolic but it's also untrue.

Recently the UCI attempted an experiment in slowing the peloton down with the idea that slower speeds might make racing safer. Their SAFER committee wanted to limit gearing to 54 X 11 to see if this would slow things down and make things safer. But SRAM, who has a 10 cog on the end of their stack, objected. Not only that, they sued! Forget that their own website points-out that 50 X 10 is the same ratio. Instead of telling their sponsored teams to use that, they sued in a Belgian court and so far have prevailed.

I guess they don't care about safety? But they DO care about money. The NYT/The Athletic published an article about this fiasco so Zio Lorenzo won't get into it here. But he WILL ask where does this end? I don't think too many MLB fans lobby about the sales opportunities for the companies that make the bats, nor do NBA fans care a lot about the balls. But why do so many cycling fans seem to support the bicycle industry? 

This same industry cares only about sales and profits, sport is just a vehicle. They fight against any equipment regulations on their "innovations" since those innovations are really designed to make whatever you are riding now seem obsolete and in immediate need of replacement with their newest-latest. Think of the 32" MTB wheel craze going on now. They're saying exactly the same things they said when you "needed" 29" wheels instead of those antique 26" hoops. 

Please don't let cycling turn into just another industry-controlled sport...like motorsports.