Why Is The UCI Banning MORE Bike Tech? | GCN Tech Show Ep. 313

Will the UCI be banning even more bike technology? This time they’ve turned to rotated bike levers, with fears over their safety within the pro peloton. Alex is joined by Mark from @gtn, to discuss the cycling tech that could now face the wrath of cycling’s rule makers. We also feature this week’s hot and spicy tech and find out why Tom Pidcock only wears white cycling socks.

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00:00 Intro
00:49 Banned bike tech
07:51 Hot and spicy tech
13:01 Zwift games 👉 (In association with @Zwift )
16:02 Comments of the week
19:10 Bike vault

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Welcome to the gtn tech show this week we’ve got a guest a triathlete a real life one mark from gtn Mark what we got coming up this week we’ve got new team kits a custom Pro bik for the British champ and we find out why Tom Pitcock

Wears white socks also we have an absolutely wild looking carbon chain ring zift games fested 500 and an ebike helmet if such a thing even exists which it does I’ll tell you about it in a minute also for our main talking point this week we have a selection of things

Selection of things right exciting things actually UCI is Banning more stuff they’re talking about potentially Banning tubless and um I’ve been watching some CX and I’ve made some observations let’s do this so this week’s main talking point mark I know I said we’ve got a selection

Of things but it is more exciting than that first thing we’re discussing interned lever hoods so the UCI clamping down on this are they this seems really weird like obviously the reason behind intern levers is all kind of aerodynamics but also I mean we used to

Do this years ago only mildly turn them in and you can kind of rest your forearms on the handlebars can’t you and sort of just grab hold on the inside so obviously you’re kind of lowering your frontal area and also kind of get yourself into a nice tucked and I don’t

Think there’s a problem with that you see some people may have a problem with it but the problem I think is those few out there the pesky few that are taking it to the extreme and ruin it for everyone else maybe you can you can name

And shame on here if you want it’s a safe space um but I think as soon as you start turning the levers in at like crazy extreme angles there’s arguments that you’re compromis in the safety the handling also I think some of the concerns around why the UCR potentially starting to look

Into limiting how much you can turn the leaves in is to do with the safety of handlebars so over the last couple of years we have seen a number of handlebar breakages in races and I’m not trying to say it’s in any way down to purely how

The levers have been positioned but if you’re clamping on the carbon handlebar in a way and applying a force to it that is not designed for you can kind of see where the safy thought of that yeah I guess so yeah such some of them are going so extreme I can imagine the

Stress yeah if it’s not yeah I can understand that I don’t think there’s actually a hard and fast rule on this that the UCI are going to apply I think it’s going to be a little bit lenient there’s going to be some guidelines around it as to how far somebody deems

It to be from like the original intended position that’s a hard thing to enforce they got you’ve kind of got to go one I’m you know whilst I hate going too far with the rules but you sort of need a a you know a black line really where do

You where do you sit on things like flared handlebars because if you have a flared handlebar the lever has to be I don’t like I don’t like fled hand Wass why not I I don’t I’m sorry I just don’t like him I think they look

Stupid so you out for not not great on gravel riding then for you no and handlebar bags like taking a real turn get it all off your chest come on this is what I thought this is what it is but the therapy wasn’t it yeah that’s it um

Yeah well I again if you’re going on a big adventure and you need lots of you know your snacks and yeah lots of coats and things like fine if you go out for 3 or 4 hours on your bike have you you know how many three or 4 Hour rides have

You been on over the years quite a lot yeah and just you pop your stuff in your back pocket you’re get a shock in a minute you’re going to get a shock when you’re I’m really struggling to get oh my my pump into my back pocket no you didn’t no you haven’t got

An answer do you know what’s happened recently you know what’s happened recently and I’ve even seen people with them on their TT bikes what you that no I don’t want that but I have started using a handlebar bag recently yeah I know which is why I’m bringing it up whatever

Um there back to intern lever so there’s been a bit of um like not necessarily factual information floating around and lying about this because I think people are stating that there’s certain facts about it that aren’t necessarily true the UCI are waiting to decide and finalize on how this is going to be

Regulated and controlled which actually leads me on nicely to another topic I want to discuss so last week olle was at German away in Germany at the wind tunnel um filing a really cool video so subscribe to gcn Tech if you want to see that yeah biging up the subscribers but

One of the people that he was speaking to the winto sits on the uci’s technical Advisory Board yeah so I’m inter conversation well some some people would say it was an interesting conversation also what came up was that earlier in the year when P Bay was on you know we

Had like punctures broken Wheels it was absolute war zone out there yeah the UCI technical Advisory Board apparently had a conversation to discuss whether they think they should ban tubless tires what I mean but it it’s always a war zone at Cy Bay I mean tires been for years yeah

I don’t know why why would you try to band tub’s tires yeah sorry I mean I it’s it’s One race I mean the the and also a lot of the teams are using inserts now which seem to be quite a good solution apparently um from ‘s this is secondhand

Information maybe third hand now I don’t even know how you keep track of this stuff um apparently the use of inserts is something that the technical Advisory Board didn’t really seem to think would make much of a difference but I mean if you if you ever tried getting a tire off

That’s got a tubless in blooming hard work isn’t it so in my eyes it is a good thing and from the conversation that we had with um Josh pner a few weeks back He suggests that loads of teams are using inserts on the lowdown final thing I want to actually

Mention in our main talking point which is selection of things was I’ve been watching some solid cross at the weekend and I’m really sad to say it wasn’t on the gcn app yeah I’m sadly no more but um have you seen the use of fpv drones that are using to get

The racing footage inside across I have seen a little bit on social media I will admit I didn’t watch this weekend’s racing but uh yeah sorry um but uh is something they using triath on is it yeah probably not quite as you know artistically but for the swim if you

Think obviously to get kind of the aerial shots it normally be of helicopters they’ve started in some races bringing in the drones so that okay that is actually really cool I didn’t know that um but the like fpv style drone so the where the Drone is like super close and following r gives

You an absolutely incredible shot the UCI initially set out to ban this in Sil races then they said it was okay again so what I would actually really like to see is this technology used more widely CU you imagine seeing like fpv drone shot following Riders down epic descent

France please somebody make this who doesn’t want to almost feel like they’re living the ride with Matthew Vanderpool through a cyc cross race I mean that’ be wild I mean think of well okay I can see a downside to this think of a drone hitting you a hitting you or think of it

In the middle of like a descent with like loads of riders everywhere okay I can I can see that well just the stress as a rider okay there is an element of safety that needs to be included here actually and also then having just been talking about tubless tires briefly it still does

Amaze me that in 2023 nearly 24 cycl across Riders are still using tubula so tub glued onto their wheels and tub hasn’t taken over it seems it’s taken over in like nearly every single sector of that the case I assumed they would be tubless no um you can let me know in the

Comments section down below if you ever think tubless tires are going to take over in the world of cyclocross I’m skeptical but um share your thoughts in comments section down below right Mark main talking point over um let’s move on to the next show it’s now time for H

Spicy Tech and we’re going to kick things off with Fred wri’s custom marid oh boy does it look good oh it does um Talk us about about it Mark tell us more it’s got a Union Jack on it and it looks great yeah that’s pretty much summ out

No it’s it’s very cool it’s the marida reacto yeah um it pretty much is just a standard issue bike with this custom paint job on it I think it is really cool here’s a picture of it it’s got like the Union Jack Flag over it it’s

Got some details of the location I think it was saltburn where he won the British Road Race Champs it’s got the date on it but yeah other than that it’s like a standard issue team bike talking to team stuff actually um we’re starting to see some of the new 202 team kits revealed

Inos have gone a bit more orangey fade and a new kit supplier um Israel have got a new kit Bora and also sadal quickstep have got a new kit out I heard also inos um with this slight change in the orange fade have uh shaved a bit of

Weight off their bike yeah I mean this is this is unbelievable they’ve reduced the proportion of color that’s on the bike so now it’s a bit more orangey instead of red and the fade starts further out the bike do you know how much weight this has saved on the bike I

Mean everyone knows that red is heavier than Orange right so it’s got to be a good couple hundred grams kilo 16 G okay I mean you’d be better off just having like a slightly shorter valve um the toilet before you go to the toilet I going save you tons more weight that

Would have a link Less in your chain if you could use a 28 cassette instead of a 30 there’s lots of other ways you could or just have a fancy 3D printed computer head unit Mount 16 G yeah it’s not much it’s a bit of a non-event for me um

Talking of new kit have you seen the sedal quickstep video yeah it’s absolutely wild I think it’s great you said you’re not a huge fan of it on it’s a little cringe but hey it’s fun isn’t it you can see them having a laugh so

Yeah great go for it also um the Israel kit apparently the colors and design of it are better for Co cooling so oie made a video that went out last weekend all about how to keep your body temperature cool through different kit and techniques is going to improve your

Performance do you know what brand it is that they’re using uh no I don’t know what brand but it’s more to do with like the Colors oh really yeah so there you go um if you want to find out more about cooling head over and check all’s video

Out also while we’re on the subject of biging up videos tell everybody on tell the gcn tech viewers what you did the other week in seven days I ran quite a lot in seven days I did a marathon every day for seven days right for people that

Maybe are into cycl not running how far is a marathon 42.2 km and in Miles as well uh that’s 26.6 I believe yeah yeah we did it at for we actually so we were tracking all sorts of metrics and it was very interesting um to see just how the body

Responded actually let me guess the whoop told you you were tired at the end no well that was the interesting thing it plummeted initially and then it was almost the interesting thing is they likened it a bit to uh doing a stage race cycling and that the body kind of

Goes through a slight adaptation and sort of kind of goes hell hang on you’re doing this day in day out and the recovery started to climb back up so you were good to keep going kind of why did you stop cuz I wasn’t good to keep going

Yeah all right fair play and more kit at kit news next because at the start of the show we said the secret behind white Tom pitock wears white socks here’s the answer to that last question you always ra with white socks can you tell us why

Yeah cuz blue or black socks are crap um right on the some actual non-clothing related Tech now have you seen this absolutely wild looking carbon fiber chain ring I have um I think it looks Wicked yeah so it’s from a company called Ry Gemini okay first thing I want

To point out is it’s technically a mountain bike chain ring so don’t hate on me just yet cuz I think the technology is kind of cool it’s essentially a sort of aluminium core with like to give it some of the strength and structure and then it’s got

Forged carbon fiber like to make the whole rest of the Aero chain ring it’s kind of like a similar technology to the forge and bond stuff that Olli made a video about not long ago I love the I mean I don’t know why more Brands

Don’t do this or we um kind of have a a standard for the direct Mount chain Rings oh yeah that’s a really good point said I I love the idea and used rotor in the past just works so well maybe that’s the future of chain Rings be the future

So at the moment it’s a mounted by only product but I don’t see any reason why that couldn’t transfer onto like Road or Triathlon oh yeah what’s the wear like on carbon for chain ring I don’t know but I’m going to say it’s probably not that great yeah um the smallest lightest

Option they have is 32 teeth and it’s only 39 G I think scale this up to road bike sizes maybe even gravel could be really cool €125 though which I don’t think is actually that bad I was I was expecting worse so yeah um up next in

Hot Tech we’ve got the zift games to discuss Mark do you want me to explain what’s going on here yes please okay so there’s three different categories for you to choose to compete in for the zift games you have the Sprint Championship The Climb championships and the Epic

Championships and um Elite male and female Racers can compete for $110,000 prize pot that’s going to be divided between all the different athletes a chunk here prize part isn’t it yeah so if you want to get involved and register for the elite championships the deadlines is 26th of January the

Races are spread out across sort of back end of February beginning of March and if you’re not an elite level competitor like I guess you and I and probably lots of people at home um there’s lots of stages for Community competitors to get involved with and we have to try and

Encourage everyone to just get involved and do more cycling which I think is a good thing we’re talking of doing more cycling it’s festive 500 season no I’m going to throw out it right now I’ve never done it and you know what I don’t plan doing it this

Year are you going to ride over Christmas I think I’m running it actually yeah why does that not surprise me in fact talking of which where is olle well olle so olle says he’s unwell right yeah we have just been speculating I feel like olle might be resting up for

The festive 500 you can smash it and beat priming those legs so yeah if you haven’t done it before 500 km 8 days between the 24th to 31st of December you can just run a marathon every day can you I’m I think I’m done for running

This side also if you sign up for the festive 500 straa group Club activity thing there’s a chance to win a bike so that’s kind of cool wow that’s very cool and then finally in hot Tech this week Mets have created an ebike helmet and it

Is called the EOB here’s what it looks like and then we’ll tell some more stats so it’s called the EOB which short for Electric Mobility and apparently it’s one of the lightest e bike helmets on the market it’s actually tested to the NTA 8776 certification levels and way to

The helmet 365 grams on a side medium and for sort of like a reference and to give you s base that off uh Mets Top Flight helmet the trenter 3K carbon is 225 g so it’s a little bit heavier but that’s like a lightweight rting helmet this is designed for ebikes which yeah

Uh begs a question what is an ebike helmet well Mark I’m glad you ask me that essentially it is taken the styling of like an urban commuter helmet and increasing the levels of protection and safety that you’ve got so it goes over the back of your head a little bit more

And is test to that greater safety standard which is the NTA 8776 um on the assumption that if you’re riding an ebike you’re likely to be traveling at higher speed than if you were on not on an ebike and ebikes are heavier so you know if one like crashed

And one fell on you um although here in the UK the ebike speed limit is lower than most places around the world so I feel like it’s probably more suited to territories that have higher ebike speed limits there you go uh more hot Tech next week it’s now time for comments of

The week okay then first up comments from last week so the first one comes from SWS SWS yes they said uh I’d love an extra long bike for Extravaganza video before the gcn app goes into an early and undeserved Grave well that is exactly what you’re going to get cuz

Next week Mark and I are going to do that aren’t we are we yeah you’re in next week over a Christmas we get to wear Christmas jumpers yay yes okay Don Winston also says all the bikes in the world tour Riders are very good switch all of them

Around and the results would pretty much be the same I’m not sure they would um yeah I I disagree as well all right Fair D underneath the worst upgrades video that we’ve out the weekend worst upgrades that you probably actually still want to do um Ed is

Saying as a non- rcer I want my bike to look nice it’s not about weight it’s about coordinating the Aesthetics yeah I can get on B out um totally agree what’s next 100% uh next one from Neutron PCX T 372 uh expensive chains are actually

Worth it long term if you want to use a somewhat decent lubricant the durability of chains like the Shram xx1 uh x01 and the ybn SLA not sure I know what that is with wax make them very attractive options uh or propositions I I don’t

Know if I agree I mean perhaps I don’t have the information um for this answer but I I often think that the more expensive chains often they’re lighter and potentially less durable as a result yeah I can’t say I’ve got factual stat to deliver here but my gut is telling me

And from my own experience super expensive chains don’t necessarily last longer than like mid- tier or cheap ones I mean cheapest to most expensive there’s going to be a difference but I think the middle ground you getting pretty much the same performance agreed yeah um underneath ‘s keep cool video at

The weekend seven Gibbons says brilliant one of the you most useful and well anwered gcn videos that’s ever been produced many thanks from Australia where it gets damn hot um Dave Dave a e slick 8686 says glad to officially hear it the black kit is bad figured this out

Myself and only wear black only wear black Jo’s in cool days I’ve learned the value of light colored kit on sunny days won’t buy gcn kit because it’s always black or very dark well that’s not very kind is it have you ever worn um white kit no white shorts uh no white shorts

But I have had some white jerseys once you know when I was British champ back in the day we have um well actually he is Jan is laughing why is it that funny crazy just assumes I’m really crap it has been a long time hasn’t it

It’s been a while we actually do have a notable triathlete uh Christian bloomfeld the Norwegian Olympic champion uh he gets a lot of stick for his kit CU it is just solid white and you can see through it and don’t want to see it does have a panel don’t worry around the

Don’t want to see the gentleman area yeah all right um more comments next week actually no we won’t we’ll save them for the new year okay moving on to the bike fault right first submission it’s from Rachel Rachel has got a bike it’s it’s a TR do you need a bit help

It’s 2016 trond uh this is from Fresno in California uh that’s a nice location isn’t it love that bike handlebars very high levers very high they are not turned in though and a very comfortable looking sad clearly someone that values Comfort matching red pedals matching red bottles matching red head unit GCM

Bottles as well give some you know what super nice that yeah great stuff next one is again from Rachel bloody hell Rachel no mess around this week um it’s a lemon Zurich brackets with campanola record from 2001 same picture same location what do we make of this

Bike also GC I like to take my 2001 lemond out for a spin I recently built this B 10speed campag uh record components from 2 Circa 2006 bike weighs £18 looks BL beautiful and is a joy to ride I I do love a Lamont I don’t know

What it is about in there sorry I just had to Google £18 to kilograms 8.16 kg wow yeah pretty good bad is it um I like the bike gcn bottles this time black super nice hell next one is um null or 21566 96 uh I I really like this one um

It is a 1987 kestel um it’s a first monoco frame and still looks quite like today’s so cool I wasn’t even born when this bike came out no that’s 4000 um yeah I remember seeing a few some photos of triathletes riding this bike are super nice uh you’ve said

That already have you I I’m also going to say super nice on this one go super nice right next one uh from Josh this say Pinella Dogma on the streets where my Steed roams love this but one how is the bike in color the background in

Black and white two you got to be somewhere to you got somewhere to put your inue better than that surely but then the bottle cages look at those are amazing and the ceramic speed ospw um Jo I think they’re ceramic speed yeah jockey Wheels um gold chain 105

Crank is it got a 105 group set oh yeah those group set of people have to fist BMP that gold chain as well um yeah I can’t say I’ve seen a Dogma F built up with 105 as the first for me to see that I mean

They do a Dogma with a 105 SP not dog maybe it was during the old co uh shortage of Parts maybe I love it but I’ve got a lot of time for that group set of people yeah just just just just next time take the inbe off the top CH

Yeah um F9 spider next with a an Oro Gold I think this is our last bike for this week’s bike Vault single speed though oh wow yeah oh wow is it fixed no it’s not fixed I don’t think it’s fixed uh and it’s got a chain tensioner as

Well at the back it’s an interesting setup isn’t it it is and well I like it they are nice the AO bikes um seeing a lot of them I’m going to give this a nice please explain because I think it’s nice it looks good it’s good colors uh tan sidew

Wars tan sidew Wars are you thinking it should be a super nice well you’re just telling me reasons why it should be a super nice because it’s just not jumping out to me all right no if you want to be a super no I don’t to I don’t want to have a

Fallout between us um it’s just a nice unfortunately um I don’t like the fact that’s leaning on the wall you could scratch the levers um right that’s it for this week’s B Vault it’s actually been really good having you on for the show Mark well if you are free next week by any

Chance we’ll get you back in and don’t forget please do get involved in the comments section down below um to let us know your thoughts on the stuff we spoke about the S and all the different team kits um right here we’re going to go for

A a swim a bike and a run yeah see you see you