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Cycling teams spend tens of millions each year, with Ineos going over € 50m some time ago. Are they conservative? They benchmark their material in wind tunnels.

Cycling teams spend tens of millions each year, with Ineos going over € 50m some time ago. Are they conservative? They benchmark their material in wind tunnels. Sometimes they bend the rules with high-tech material[^1]. There's no way a team competing in Tour de France would choose fashion over performance. [^1]: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2017/jul/03/vortex-suits-team-sky-tour-de-france-marginal-gain https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2017/jul/03/vortex-su...

usrusr 5y ago
And quite a bit of the money they spend comes from companies trying to sell gear to hobbyists. It's a rather wild mix between ride what makes you fast and ride to pretend that it makes you fast.
- pverghese 5y ago
  Not sure what gear Inoes grenadiers is selling to hobbyists.
  - JNRowe 5y ago
    Pinarello bikes, Shimano groupsets, Fizik saddles, Kask helmets, Castelli kit, Oakley glasses, and all the other things you see surrounding the fat guy at the coffee shop on a Sunday morning ;)
    - pverghese 5y ago
      None of them are the products of Ineos.
      - JNRowe 5y ago
        All of them, and many more than I managed to think of, are also sponsors of the team¹. ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ineos_Grenadiers#Sponsorship_and_budgets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ineos_Grenadiers#Sponsorship_a...
      - AtlasBarfed 5y ago
        "Man, you sure like Tide". -Mitch Hedberg riding in a racecar
lmm 5y ago
The whole thing is a fashion show with very narrow limits of what the UCI wants people to do. The rules that ban e.g. the famous Lotus bike were explicitly stated as being meant to discourage wind tunnel testing. Fairings and recumbents have been banned for nearly 100 years because they're too much faster than UCI-style bikes.
- oriolid 5y ago
  If you want fairings and recumbents, look up IHPVA. They have been arranging competitions where these are allowed for a long time, with very little popularity. I think the main reason is that time trials where the team with most money wins are boring, and UCI has more or less figured out what limitations make the race interesting. Now compare the situation with mountain biking. UCI didn't adopt it at first either (IIRC the claimed reason was they already have cyclocross that is almost the same thing), but after it was popular enough they didn't really have a choice.
- globular-toast 5y ago
  It's not about fashion, it's about maintaining an enjoyable and popular sport. 4D chess is probably more "interesting" than regular chess, but people play regular chess because it's a good game that people know and understand. They could start allowing funny looking bikes, maybe off-road sections and, heck, why not an army style assault course? But at that point it's just not the Tour de France any more.
  - lmm 5y ago
    > 4D chess is probably more "interesting" than regular chess, but people play regular chess because it's a good game that people know and understand. They could start allowing funny looking bikes, maybe off-road sections and, heck, why not an army style assault course? That's an absurd comparison - it's not like we're talking about changing the course or the rules, and it's not like the UCI rules have people consistently using historical-style bikes (they rapidly adopted electric shifting, or novel frame materials, for example). In the world of fencing we have both sport fencing (try to win by whatever means within the rules) and historical fencing (trying to match historical materials, styles etc.) and both those are distinct and interesting disciplines. But adding ad-hoc rules to exclude some innovations but not others, as the UCI does, is the worst of both worlds.

usrusr 5y ago

And quite a bit of the money they spend comes from companies trying to sell gear to hobbyists. It's a rather wild mix between ride what makes you fast and ride to pretend that it makes you fast.

pverghese 5y ago
Not sure what gear Inoes grenadiers is selling to hobbyists.
- JNRowe 5y ago
  Pinarello bikes, Shimano groupsets, Fizik saddles, Kask helmets, Castelli kit, Oakley glasses, and all the other things you see surrounding the fat guy at the coffee shop on a Sunday morning ;)
  - pverghese 5y ago
    None of them are the products of Ineos.
    - JNRowe 5y ago
      All of them, and many more than I managed to think of, are also sponsors of the team¹. ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ineos_Grenadiers#Sponsorship_and_budgets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ineos_Grenadiers#Sponsorship_a...
    - AtlasBarfed 5y ago
      "Man, you sure like Tide". -Mitch Hedberg riding in a racecar

lmm 5y ago

The whole thing is a fashion show with very narrow limits of what the UCI wants people to do. The rules that ban e.g. the famous Lotus bike were explicitly stated as being meant to discourage wind tunnel testing. Fairings and recumbents have been banned for nearly 100 years because they're too much faster than UCI-style bikes.

oriolid 5y ago
If you want fairings and recumbents, look up IHPVA. They have been arranging competitions where these are allowed for a long time, with very little popularity. I think the main reason is that time trials where the team with most money wins are boring, and UCI has more or less figured out what limitations make the race interesting. Now compare the situation with mountain biking. UCI didn't adopt it at first either (IIRC the claimed reason was they already have cyclocross that is almost the same thing), but after it was popular enough they didn't really have a choice.
globular-toast 5y ago
It's not about fashion, it's about maintaining an enjoyable and popular sport. 4D chess is probably more "interesting" than regular chess, but people play regular chess because it's a good game that people know and understand. They could start allowing funny looking bikes, maybe off-road sections and, heck, why not an army style assault course? But at that point it's just not the Tour de France any more.
- lmm 5y ago
  > 4D chess is probably more "interesting" than regular chess, but people play regular chess because it's a good game that people know and understand. They could start allowing funny looking bikes, maybe off-road sections and, heck, why not an army style assault course? That's an absurd comparison - it's not like we're talking about changing the course or the rules, and it's not like the UCI rules have people consistently using historical-style bikes (they rapidly adopted electric shifting, or novel frame materials, for example). In the world of fencing we have both sport fencing (try to win by whatever means within the rules) and historical fencing (trying to match historical materials, styles etc.) and both those are distinct and interesting disciplines. But adding ad-hoc rules to exclude some innovations but not others, as the UCI does, is the worst of both worlds.