Time trial bikes are dangerous, expensive and bad for the sport – the UCI should ban them.
While I’m usually all for innovation – I don't test new bikes and kit for a living for nothing – and against governing bodies arbitrarily banning things simply because they’re different (see the drama that surrounded the Giro Aerohead II last year, for example), TT bikes are a different kettle of fish.
As someone who has ridden and raced on them for a number of years, it pains me to say it.
But outlawing TT bikes would help make bike racing safer and more accessible, and could solve a large headache for bike manufacturers.
Time trial bikes create an uneven playing field
Following the impassioned plea of former pro racer, Michael Barry, Cycling Canada recently announced it would be restricting the use of TT-specific bikes and equipment by under-17 and junior riders.
According to Canadian Cycling Magazine, the national governing body justified its decision by saying the change would “ensure consistency, fairness, accessibility, increase participation and talent identification, and improve transport efficiency.”
This is a great move, but arguments for fairness, accessibility and efficiency apply to all age groups, not just juniors.
For amateur racers, a decent time trial bike can cost thousands.
Since buying speed is effectively quite easy (if you have the cash to spare), time trials are increasingly becoming a financial arms race, rather than one that primarily rewards talent, hard work, skill and tactics. Of course, that issue becomes further crystalised for juniors, who require the financial support of parents, sponsors or a generous benefactor to compete – it doesn’t disappear for those earning a wage.
I’ll acknowledge, it is possible to build a relatively competitive TT bike for far less than what a new bike costs, thanks to the availability of second-hand bikes and parts.
However, doing so requires a level of knowledge not generally available to beginners or casual racers, and can therefore be off-putting to new riders of any age. It’s not enough to be simply a strong rider anymore – given the wide range of watt-saving kit available, you also need all the right gear if you want to compete at a decent level nowadays.
It’s also an extra bike that’s useful in only very specific situations (i.e. time trials). A road bike might be pressed into double duty as a commuter, for example, but, while I used to commute in London on a fixed-gear bike with aero bars to ‘train in the position’ (what was I thinking?), I was very much the exception.
TT bikes also have an impact on fairness in professional racing.
Because triathlon bikes have diverged from so-called 'UCI-legal' TT bikes, bike brands have little incentive to develop good time trial bikes, except as marketing tools for their sponsored professional teams.
The triathlon market is simply so much larger than the one for UCI-legal TT bikes, after all.
Like Olympic track bikes, UCI-legal TT bikes can therefore be incredibly expensive to produce, yet have little potential to generate a return on investment because relatively few everyday riders want to buy one.
As a result, the richest teams can stack the deck in their favour by investing more heavily in the development of time trial bikes and related equipment, while teams with smaller budgets struggle to compete.
According to the UCI's Olympic equipment price list, for example, the custom 3D-printed handlebars used by the likes of Filippo Ganna and other riders at Ineos Grenadiers, cost €22,500 – just for the base bar and extensions.
If the pros simply used aero road bikes for time trials, smaller bike brands would be much better placed to compete, because the resources expended on research and development would have a greater prospect of producing a product they can sell.
Time trial bikes are a logistical hassle
Time trial bikes also represent a logistical headache for professional teams and increase the sport’s impact on the planet.
The cycling industry loves to tout its green credentials, but shipping fleets of TT bikes, TT-specific wheels and so on around the world, for only a few days of racing here and there, isn’t a sustainable, eco-friendly practice.
If professional cycling isn’t to simply keep adding to the climate crisiss facing the world, we ought to be thinking about ways to cut back on unnecessary sources of emissions such as this.
Time trials themselves wouldn’t be any worse off for a lack of dedicated TT bikes, either.
No one looks back at Merckx’s iconic 1972 Hour Record and thinks 'If only he’d used aerobars…' If anything, his record is more impressive and relatable for the fact he did it on what looks like a ‘normal’ bike.
What’s more, road bike time trials are helping to improve the accessibility and popularity of the sport in the UK.
We also got a glimpse at what running professional TTs on road bikes looks like at the 2023 Tour Down Under, after the organisers reasoned that asking WorldTour teams to ship TT bikes from Europe to Australia for one day of racing was a waste of time.
Why not simply take that argument to its logical conclusion and stop the shipping of TT bikes around Europe as well?
Time trial bikes are dangerous by design
Unfairness and logistics aside, TT bikes come with a substantially increased risk of crashing compared to road bikes, due to the extreme riding positions encouraged by their geometry.
Experience and skill can, as always, mitigate some of these risks, but the risks remain nevertheless.
The career-changing crashes of Chris Froome and Egan Bernal – two superstars of the sport at the peak of their powers – aboard TT bikes in 2019 and 2022 respectively should have been wake-up calls.
After Bernal’s crash, Tom Pidcock told the BBC he felt TT bikes were “dangerous” because of the “extreme” positions riders adopt on them (in order to maximise their aerodynamic efficiency, and therefore performance).
Pidcock called for change, saying, “I don't think we need to stop progressing, but think about how we can train in a safer way and try and mitigate these crashes”. Nothing happened.
The sport saw another horrific TT bike-related incident only a year later, when Stefan Küng – one of the best TT riders of his generation – crashed head-first into a metal barrier on the side of the course.
Speaking to the press in the days following the incident, Küng said he is “basically blind” and “can only see a few metres ahead” during time trials, due to the position he adopts on the bike.
When riding a modern TT bike, with a steep seat tube angle and your weight pitched over the front wheel, you have to actively hold your head up to see where you’re going – it’s not a default, as with a road bike.
As your head is a ‘bluff body’ (in aero speak, this means it’s not an optimal shape), there’s also often an aerodynamic advantage to dipping your head down between your shoulders, even if you’re wearing a time trial helmet.
Again, this presents a clear dilemma between safety and performance – getting your head down is usually faster, but it also means you can’t see where you’re going.
For professional riders, who generally race on closed roads, this can lead to crashes like we saw with Küng, but the consequences for amateur riders – who typically race on open roads among motor vehicles and other road users – can be terrible.
In 2013, for example, a rider taking part in an event organised by Cycling Time Trials (the national governing body for time trials in England, Scotland and Wales) died after hitting a stationary vehicle on the A63.
To its credit, Cycling Time Trials has – unlike the UCI – banned ‘heads down riding’, and competitors are regularly reminded of the risks of doing so at its events.
However, the fundamental issue remains that TT bikes actively encourage this riding position by design, and racers frequently take risks in order to achieve better results.
Responding to Küng’s crash on Twitter/X, former president of the UCI, Brian Cookson, said: “The crazy trend for head down riding in time trials strikes again - @UCI_cycling really must look at the technical rules to stop this.”
Once again, as far as the UCI is concerned, nothing happened.
Speed isn’t the problem
To be clear, speed isn’t the primary issue with TT bikes (and I can tell you from experience that they really are a lot faster than road bikes).
As Dan Bigham recently told BikeRadar, speed can impact the outcomes of a crash, but it typically doesn’t determine whether or not a crash happens in the first place.
Aero extensions / aerobars / triathlon bars (whatever you want to call them) present the rider with a hazardous dilemma when faced with any corner or obstacle.
On a road bike, the brakes are immediately accessible at all times.
If you want to brake on a TT bike, you need to exit the aero tuck and reach for the brake levers on the base bars. Riders who want to win (and what racer doesn’t want to win?), are presented with the dilemma of whether or not to reach for the brakes.
Doing so means losing time, and every second counts when you’re racing against the clock. If you could have made it through without braking, you would have been faster.
Chloe Dygert's terrible crash at the 2020 UCI Road World Championships, for example, appeared to be caused by exactly this issue.
Dygert – one of the most decorated time trial and pursuit riders of her generation – entered a sweeping downhill corner and opted to stay in the aero bars. By the time she realised she was going too fast, it was too late, she couldn't reach for the brakes and a crash was inevitable.
Of course, the dilemma of whether you need to brake or slow down is common to all forms of bike racing, and riders frequently crash while using road bikes too.
But the fact you need to actively enact a significant positional change to access the brakes on a TT bike means there’s practically no margin for error, especially since you’re often travelling at high speeds. If you make the wrong decision, it can have disastrous consequences.
In contrast, there’s no compromise between body position and your ability to use the brakes on a road bike. The UCI saw to that by outlawing the ‘puppy paws’ position. The slower overall speeds can also give riders more time to think and react.
Letting go of the things you love
If I’d considered this topic five years ago, I’d have likely held a completely different opinion, so perhaps it’s just age and increased responsibility clouding my judgement.
As someone whose best years in bike racing coincided with the rise of British Cycling, Team Sky and riders such as Bradley Wiggins, I was very enthusiastic about TT bikes until recently.
They are, it’s fair to say, incredibly fun to ride. The instantly increased speed you get compared to a road bike is addictive.
It feels fantastic to ride so much faster than you normally could on even an aero road bike, and the endless tinkering, upgrading and fettling you can do with a TT bike can be great fun.
Disc wheels, 80mm front rims, aero brakes that are a pain to set up, paper-thin skinsuits, pointy helmets, massive chainrings and so on. I love it – and when you’re on a good day, it feels like you’re flying.
But as a 36-year-old father and husband, I look back on the near misses with shame.
As cyclists, I increasingly think we too often accept high levels of risk as simply ‘part of the sport’.
We shrug off near misses and other people’s crashes, put our heads down and put it out of mind – because if you didn’t, you might never race a bike again.
If my son ever wants to get into bike racing, though, I hope there will have been some significant progress on making it safer, fairer and more accessible.
And one easy way to do that overnight would be to ban TT bikes.
