Speed Limits
 

I read an article recently where a French cycling official criticized the pro governing body for not doing more to ensure rider safety. He said Formula 1 reduced the speed for safety why couldn't cycling reduce speed? It made me wonder, what exactly would they do?

So, forget about whether you agree or not, if they were to reduce speed how would they do it? Pretend you are the official in charge of the issue. Would you change the weight limits, change the tires, reduce the aero features, something else?

"After consultation with NASCAR, we're putting restrictor plates on the riders' faces."

Require 32 spoke aluminum box section tubular rims. Kills decades of aero and rolling resistance improvements in one fell swoop, while pleasing the retro grouches and probably being safer from tires flying off. Downside being that wheel and tire manufacturers will have a lot less opportunity to market to amateurs (and I absolutely love my deep section rims with GP5K S TRs, so this is a bit conflicting).

Might also put a limit on stem length to discourage the extreme positions riders are now using that messes up their weight distribution. I don't know how much slower this would make riders, but it would make little to no difference to manufacturers selling to regular cyclists, so sponsors wouldn't have an issue with it.

Really! :foo:. A Frenchman?
F1 engines are more powerful, by a large margin, :p, than pro cycling engines. :thumb:
Not many pro cyclists get killed in races every year.

Silly French analogy. Maybe a bad translation.

It's not like we want everything to be slower. Just in select spots. Technical downhills, choke points, etc. Rather than some gross spec change that hinders everything, what can be done at those spots? Options are: a) oh well; b) avoid those spots; c) intervention at those spots -- like sleeping policemen / speed bumps, radar guns or other penalties.

Parcours design is already sensitive to b to some degree. And insensitive to it, because it's cycling, and you go.

The Arenberg chicane is a c.

Will we ever see Lidar on a descent? Should we? IDK.

The bikes are already limited with safety in mind. There are faster and lighter possibilities out there, but the UCI has frame shape and min weight requirements in place.

The riders are not riding the ultimate machines - they are riding machines that meet the regulations. The bikes are only fast or the fastest within the current ruleset.

The races - if all riders were using the exact same machine, be it a retro grouch 1980's steelies or todays superbikes - the races would essentially come out the same.

So, since they are not riding the fastest possible version of a bike - slowing them down a bit more for safety wouldn't change the sport at all.

It would change marketing and sales... $$$$'s rule. The bike industry would protest.

Course safety management is the only effective solution. That was relatively easy in F1 as the circuits are short and mostly purpose designed. Slower corners, massive run off areas and better designed barriers were the main improvements. The cars themselves became massively safer in crashes, but none of that would apply to a bike.

They could start with improving roadside barriers on sprint finishes. They have a bad reputation historically.

In the aftermath of the disastrous Basque Country crash, some ex-pro commentator, maybe Adam Blythe, was saying that the latest bike tech is part of the problem, especially disc brakes. By his telling, they are so good and so quick to engage that they encourage more and more speed into situations where a rider with a rim-brake bike would go a bit slower, due to the relative imprecision of rim brakes. Obviously I’m not directly quoting here, but I think I’m relaying the gist accurately.
I wouldn't know, I'm never going to reach a speed where I need better brakes.

Gear restrictions. Nothing bigger than a 52x14, maybe even a 52x15. I don't see any other realistic way of slowing the riders down, and even that probably would not do very much. Might even save a few knees of riders trying to make the jump from amateur to pro.

Maybe go back to rim brakes - maybe.

I'm surprised folks are missing the obvious. Streamers on the handlebars and playing cards clipped to the stays to make those really cool sounds when they hit the spokes. :innocent:

Carbon. Fiber. Streamers.

Carbon. Fiber. Playing. Cards. With titanium clothespins.

If adopted by UCI, soon to be seen on bikes on the local training rides. :)