After the problems that beset final 12 months’s UK highway bike championship time trial, it’s no shock to see that proposals on the upcoming Biking Time Trials annual Nationwide Council assembly concern themselves largely with the rising drop-bar class.
It took seven weeks for George Fox to be topped champion after his experience again in April, following complaints made by a fellow rider about his bike and his place. The CTT finally upheld Fox’s experience, which noticed him beat runner-up Alex Dowsett by 41 seconds over the 22.4-mile course close to Peterborough.
After that episode it appeared nearly inevitable that CTT would transfer in a roundabout way to make clear the foundations at its annual AGM – set to be held on January 26 – to forestall the identical factor occurring once more. And that seems to be precisely what’s about to occur.
There are quite a few proposed rule adjustments, put ahead by numerous Districts and likewise the CTT’s personal Guidelines Advisory Group (RAG), which is supported by the CTT board itself.
The RAG proposals are essentially the most in depth, and whereas they do not alter any of the essential highway bike specs required to compete, they do go away far much less room for interpretation, which was the difficulty beforehand.
Notably, it means that the one factors of assist needs to be the saddle, the pedals and the fingers on the bars – this is able to have outlawed the place used final 12 months by Fox and others, who used the bars as forearm in addition to hand helps. Equally, the RAG proposals would outlaw using bidons mounted behind the saddle to assist with aerodynamics.
There are additional proposals to ban such use of bidons on all different machines, not simply highway bikes, and limit using hydration bladders in occasions underneath 30 miles, to preclude them getting used as frontal fairings, and a proposed ban on any padding getting used inside skinsuits for a similar cause.
On one other tack, there are additionally proposals from the Scottish and North-East Districts to permit late entries to open occasions, that are at the moment restricted to 10-13 days previous to the race day. This may be a historic change if voted in “would increase participation in time trialling”, the 2 Districts say.
It’s theoretically potential that none of those proposals will probably be voted by way of, however the CTT is keen to construct on what’s turning into one thing of a renaissance following a sharp stoop post-Covid. Certainly, the Nationwide Report for 2024 sees highway bike entries proceed to draw new racers throughout almost all age teams. It could be a shock if numerous the highway bike proposals didn’t succeed.
