adlai

Has anyone tried to hold a race that would allow people to hold different bike technologies against each other. For instance, a hundred mile race section and electric bikes are allowed but they have to only use the charge that they have at start. On a long enough ride the power will be discharged and the battery will be dead weight for a portion of it. See how that would compare with a regular bicycle.

Koyote

Why?

And what does this have to do with "varied terrain"?

Broctoon

You would have to regulate factors like battery capacity, to somewhat level the field in terms of equipment. Also would probably need to set a minimum weight (considerably heavier than any regular bike). The competition would largely come down to who can make the most efficient system.

So what would be the point? Might as well make a race where motorcycles are allowed, and limit fuel capacity. Then, the rider who doesn’t manage his fuel would have to walk his machine the rest of the way.

wheelreason

Security!

wolfchild

What you're describing here isn't varied terrain, it's basically E-bikes vs regular bikes....Varied terrain would be putting various types of bikes against each other on different types of terrain such as gravel, pavement, dirt, sand, rocks, singletrack, hills, flat etc..

Maelochs

Basically the rules would determine the outcome and no actual comparison would be done.

"Let's have a baking contest between an oven and a dishwasher!"

Different tool shave different uses.

I guess I am unsure of what the OP wants to learn here ... unclear about the point of such a contest. Further clarification needed.

dedhed

Someone would cheat and figure out how to dope a battery

adlai

Well varied terrain as in part of it would be mountain bike terrain and part of it would be road bike terrain. Mountain bikes could blast through the mountain bike portion while road bikers would have to do a lot of walking, but road bikers would make up for that in the faster speeds that they could achieve on smooth roads.

tFUnK

Underbiking can be fun up to a point, but riding a road bike on straight up mountain biking trails, or riding a heavy e-bike after its juice has run out is just silly.

rsbob 

It might be fun to have a full e-bike race with similar capacity batteries that have been QC’d by race officials before the start with a finish 10 miles beyond their standard range. It would be interesting to see the evolving strategies. Go as fast as they will go, and run out of juice before 10 miles and peddling the remainder or noodling along and preserving battery live and maybe passing the fast folks now just peddling….. Or maybe not.

Eric F 

Unless the “mountain bike terrain” is significantly technical, a gravel race bike is probably the best choice. However, it’s all shades of grey between road and techy dirt depending on quantity and conditions. The rider’s skills also play a factor. A good bike-handler is going to do better being under-biked than someone who isn’t as comfortable in challenging conditions.

Maelochs

The question remains .... what would be the point of this contest?

We already know that a bike ridden on the terrain for which it is optimized will outperform a bike designed for different terrain. Then the question would be, what is the ratio of road to off-road? How difficult is the off-road portion.

A downhill bike is better at pro-level downhill than a XC bike. A road bike will vastly outperform either on a road. An e-bike will perform however, comparatively, depending on the power output. We already know this.

Further, riders who specialize in a specific discipline will outperform riders who do not. We know this, too.

What is the point of this proposed contest?

squirtdad

too much apples oranges to be called a race, especially with e-bike in the loop

Gravel races are about as close as you are going to get, with the variety of terrraing and bikes, so look at those and see how the winning bike vary depending on the course

adlai

bicycle diversity in competition

Eric F 

Significant diversity in bikes within the same race is not realistic. Even on a course with a wide variety of terrain, the top competitors quickly figure out what the best type of machine is for that particular mix, and you end up with all of the top competitors on very similar bikes.

Maelochs

That would be like having gymnasts and swimmers, sprinters, and marathon runners, weightlifters, and ice skaters, all competing in some random sport .... again, what is the point?

This sounds like a comedy variety show, not a race.

The winner would be the one lucky enough to have the bike suited to the course. One would know who would win before even beginning.

Obviously the road bike wouldn't work at all on the steep single-track, the downhill bike would lose on every paved climb, and the e-bike would win unless its battery ran out, in which case it would always finish last.

If a person really thinks this sort of spectacle would be highly entertaining, he or she has only to collect a few people who own a few different bikes, and can arrange the event for him- or herself. Try it out, let us know how it goes. Maybe it will be the Next Big Thing.

wheelreason

My XC bike with canties and road wheels identifies as an aero bike...

DonkeyShow

Sounds like a top gear challenge.

Pro tip - the car wins.

Broctoon

You like motorsports? What if we had race where F1 cars, midget cars, top fuel or funny car dragsters, trophy trucks, and rock crawlers all competed on a course that was partly paved and partly sand or mud? And no refueling, so you can only use the fuel that you have at the start.

Eric F 

My money is on a WRC car. It's the gravel bike of race cars.

Eric F 

Or, you could go with a bike like Dylan Johnson's Factor Ostro aero gravel bike

Eric F 

Assuming you had a competition where a group of competitors had to compete in a variety of different events that have a fairly dynamic range of demands, pretty quickly it would be clear that the best competitor in that event is someone who had an all-around athleticism, and was very good at some things, but not bad at any of them. Let's say there are 10 different events within this one competition. Let's call it "decathlon"...oh...wait... How about making competitors swim, ride a bike, and run?...oh, yeah...

Unless you intentionally pull competitors from different cycling specialties, without any preparation for a multi-discipline event, and REQUIRE them to ride the bike for their specialty, you will find that everyone comes to very similar conclusions about the type of fitness and type of machine will work best for the event, and the spectacle of diversity disappears.

wheelreason

So Caitlin Jener?...

Steel Charlie

I'm at a loss for words to describe how uncomfortable that aero gravel bike looks

locolobo13 

https://battistrada.com/en/cycling-c...es/?biketype=7