vane171

I still see bike difference as negligible when it comes to performance, even winning. I mean, you can ride a bike that is certified to be better in wind tunnels (or whatever) and if you don't have good day physically, even mentally, it all means nothing. I bet you that most times, if the race winner rode the same bike as the guy who came in last, very likely he would still win.
In other sports, like cross country skiing, the equipment can make huge difference if your support staff needs to wax your skis as in a classic style race.


Only way to make the bike hardware to count would be to make the rules like forbidding whole bike swap (unless maybe after a crash but not because it somehow mechanically failed in some way) and basically very strictly regulate the help you could receive even from the fellow riders, like it was in the very old days. Then and only then would bike material choice matter and you as amateur could be justly proud of riding the same bike make as the winners. But as it is, bike racing is not about bikes anymore, it is all about the physical performance of the riders themselves (contributing to the rise of doping). By contrast, in 1950s the bike reliability counted easily as much as the rider fitness.

Don't take the suggestion as too literally, you couldn't make it as in those old days but maybe team cars carrying whole bikes for bike swap could be eliminated, you could only swap from a team mate and after a crash that broke the bike, only from neutral support. That would shorten the support tail that follows those big ticket races, make the teams think twice about feathery light machines that get damaged by a wind blow and riders would think twice before descending dangerously, etc.