“It was supposed to be an amazing year. Now… well I think the next few weeks are going to be met with blind panic over the set-up of bikes.”
Tim Allen, founder of Avec Bikes and the bike-fit specialist consultancy Soigneur, looks and sounds utterly disconsolate. And little wonder. At Cycling Weekly we’ve been writing extensively about the furore over the UCI’s recent rule changes about handlebar width and wheel rim depth, and British Cycling’s rather muddled messaging about how the regulations would be enforced in domestic races, but meeting Allen really brings home the cost of these events.
The team at Avec have just spent over three years researching, designing and developing a narrow handlebar called the Aer, which – measuring 32cm between the hood clamps and 36cm centre-to-centre at the end of the drops – now falls foul of the UCI regulations.
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The actions of a commissaire at an event in London last weekend, and a statement issued by British Cycling yesterday (confirming that riders taking part in road, circuit and cyclo-cross sanctioned events will not have to use bars measuring 40cm end-to-end, but will need to adhere to the minimum distance between the brake lever hoods of 28cm) have quashed earlier hopes that the new rules would not be applied in the UK. This clarification of British Cycling’s stance removes the grey areas, but does Allen no favours whatsoever.
But really, there’s little to smile about. Allen has been left furiously trying to figure out where he goes from here, and what the wider implications are for the sport.
“We’ve invested everything into this,” he tells me. “Developing a carbon component isn’t an overnight task, it’s years of research. And we believe that we’ve done something truly great with these handlebars. The feedback is that people love them, but this has financially and mentally sunk us before we can even get going. At the moment it’s just a battle for survival. It’s heartbreaking. Where do I go with it? Do I make something else only for that to also be changed next year?”
Allen racing for the first time with the initial version of the Avec AerGrips, and winning in an Elite Crit at Hog Hill
(Image credit: Courtesy of Tim Allen)
I ask what drove the design of the Aer bar. “These handlebars were developed over three years, working and researching with real-world riders – not necessarily racers, also recreational weekend riders – to really understand the impact of narrower handlebars,” Allen explains.
“Our findings were very clear. A handlebar that’s wider than the frame of a rider handles significantly worse than a handlebar that is neutral to the frame of the rider, or within. And there isn’t much to differentiate a handlebar that’s neutral from a narrower handlebar other than at very slow speeds.
“That’s because, on a road bike, you don’t steer a bike with your handlebars. You steer with your body mass. And it’s only once you drop below a certain speed where active handlebar input force really becomes a dominant factor in how you handle a bike.”
With hoods mounted into their neutral proper position on the Aer bars, they’re 23cm apart, which is 5cm short of that UCI regulation. They can be turned out to 28cm, but Allen points out that would present the possible risk of damage, because it creates a high pressure point between the lever and the carbon of the bar, which would be far more dangerous if there was a failure.
And does having the levers out to 28cm make a difference to safety? “Absolutely not!” Allen is emphatic. “Your primary contact point between the handlebar hood and your hands is the outermost point of the palm, which pivots around the bar. So that actually makes no difference whatsoever. Where they want it to make the difference really is riders gripping onto the tops of the levers and kind of getting themselves into an arrow tucked position.”
Aero testing the concept with Streamlines Aero
(Image credit: Courtesy of Tim Allen)
Allen accepts the need for regulation, but says it should be data backed. “We have to, as riders and racers, understand why this is being done, with evidence properly presented,” he says. “The way these regulations are being pumped out is not helping the industry develop. They are implemented in such a rash way where everybody is kept guessing.”
And the rational behind the handlebar ruling appears especially oblique. “I can’t think of one race incident, not one race crash, that has been directly caused by narrow handlebars or deep wheels,” Allen says, echoing an opinion we’ve heard umpteen times from riders bewildered and annoyed by the new regulations.
By contrast, Allen believes the way the rules are currently being enforced is potentially putting riders at real risk. “I wasn’t there, but it looks from the video like [the commissaire] was carrying an allen key around with him to change levers. Okay… well, what torque are you putting those levers to on a carbon bar? Is what you’re doing, or forcing a rider to do, on the start line safe?
“It’s kind of mind mind-blowing, because it’s going to affect people’s interaction with the bike. It’s going to change how the bike handles in a crit race. The majority of people are spending most of their time in the drops anyway, but changing the biomechanics of a bike setup just before you hit the start line of a race is a very dangerous thing to do.”
The Aer handlebars were being launched on a pre-order basis, and the timing of the announcement was a ‘bombshell’ to Avec. “[The UCI rules] had already changed drastically in the previous season, to a 35cm outside-to-outside minimum, and we were quite conscious of that. That’s why we developed to a 38cm outside-to-outside measurement. But they went well outside what we could predict.”
“It fell at entirely the wrong moment for us,” Allen explains. “We had broadly finished the surface designs, but it’s an expensive process. Our timelines for production were for March/April last year. And then Trump got into power and changed global supply chains entirely. Ultimately that pushed [launch] back to July. We had massive pre-orders, riders at UCI continental level through to amateur racers, all freaking out that they’ve invested into this product that they don’t know whether they’re actually going to be able to use. It was a very, very stressful time.
“I reached out to British cycling to understand the implications on this, and I was kind of told that they weren’t going to implement them, or the wheel depth regulations.”
This is why the announcement this week has left him reeling. “It feels like a bit of a personal attack, you know, even though I’m far from the only first person impacted by this,” he says. “It’s also interesting for British cycling to follow these regulations. I don’t know what their overall thoughts on it are, or whether they’re just trying to appease the UCI, but their own track bike that’s taken years of development has also been banned. Where does that leave them for the LA Olympics?”
Above and below: Early concept testing of the handlebar with plasticine intervention on a 32cm handlebar vs existing 40cm handlebar
(Image credit: Courtesy of Tim Allen)
(Image credit: Courtesy of Tim Allen)
“It is kind of obscene,” he continues. “I’ve got so many clients, so many friends affected by this. These are real people with day jobs. You know this is a fun activity to do on a Wednesday night or a Saturday morning. For 99% of people racing, it’s a fun thing to do. Bikes are fun.
“Part of the fun of a bike is that you optimise it. That’s the appeal of cycling to a lot of people. How do I make my bike faster? what do I like to ride? When there’s baseless safety claims around regulation changes that are going to influence people’s setups both biomechanically and financially, that is very unfair. I personally don’t have like a race-legal bike anymore. My wheels, which I’ve been able to race for years, are too deep. My handlebar that I’ve developed, are too narrow. It just makes me want to stop racing.”
And Allen believes the ramifications of decisions like these will have a serious, and negative, impact on the whole culture of cycling.
“I don’t I don’t think the regulations suit recreational and amateur racing, which has been put in quite a dangerous place, in terms of survival. And I don’t think [the regulatory bodies) are helping themselves by implementing kind of these regulations in the way they are.
“Nobody’s making a living from doing these races anymore. I think it’s just going to see another reduction in the number of people racing. It’s going to turn more people away from the sport, and it’s already struggling. It’s gotten more expensive and is becoming more restrictive. Why are people going to be passionate about racing?
“If enough people are kind of turned off of racing, but still want that racing kind of feel… What’s stopping a group of 40 riders getting together saying: ‘We’re going to ride from this point to this point. Whoever gets there first to the cafe gets bragging points’?. Essentially unsanctioned racing. Then what happens? People start taking risks on open roads with no safety.”
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