A cold front moved through overnight and it was cool and windy this morning. I had spent the night dogsitting at The Mom's place, and was kind of wishing I had thought to bring my tights this morning. Robin showed up on his track bike and towed us most of the way out and back today as I lounged in his draft looking at the scenery. We spotted a nice red-shouldered (or maybe red-tailed) hawk this morning; probably the same one I saw a couple of days ago in about the same spot. It was a nice easy and uneventful ride along the levee with only the blustery North wind to contend with. The Daughter heads off to University of Minnesota today for a meet Saturday night. For some reason their "inside stuff" website that I handle has been inaccessible for the last day or two, so I sent an e-mail out to my only contact there to see if I can get some info on that.
One of the tri guys e-mailed me yesterday night asking if it was legal to ride a Softride in the upcoming 2-person time trial. There is always a little bit of confusion about what bikes are legal since the UCI's rules and the USCF's rules don't currently match and riders often don't really understand the distiction between the two organizations. Although the UCI has extremely strict technical guidelines as to what constitutes a legal bike for road racing purposes, the USCF's requirements are much more flexible. The USCF is gradually moving toward bring their rules into agreement with the UCI rules by 2007, though. One sign of that is the recent rule change that requires bikes used for olympic or other international qualifying races to meet the UCI guidelines. Of course, any USPro or Pro,1,2 race that is sanctioned by UCI rather than the USCF would require UCI-legal bikes. For now, though, bikes like the Softride that don't have the traditional "double diamond" design (but are still within the USCF dimensions) are perfectly legal in regular USCF races, and it may be that they will always be legal in those kinds of races. Softride is definitely not happy about the UCI rules and has a page on its website explaining the rules and soliciting its customers to complain to the UCI.
What the USCF says now is pretty simple:
"Dimensions. Bicycles may be no more than 2 meters long and 75 cm wide . . ." and "Bicycles commonly known as recumbent may not be raced in USCF races unless there is a separate race for this category of bicycle, and then may be used only in that category. "
The UCI, on the other hand, has a long technical section on bicycle specifications that includes:
"the frame of the bicycle shall be of a traditional pattern, i.e. built around a main triangle. It shall be constructed of straight or tapered tubular elements (which may be round, oval, flattened, teardrop shaped or otherwise in cross-section) such that the form of each element encloses a straight line. The elements of the frame shall be laid out such that the joining points shall follow the following pattern: the top tube (1) connects the top of the head tube (2) to the top of the seat tube (4); the seat tube (from which the seat post shall extend) shall connect to the bottom bracket shell; the down tube (3) shall connect the bottom bracket shell to the bottom of the head tube. The rear triangles shall be formed by the chain stays (6), the seat stays (5) and the seat tube (4) with the seat stays anchored to the seat tube at points falling within the limits laid down for the slope of the top tube."
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