After Chris Froome recently suggested that TT bikes should be banned in the pro peloton following some high profile crashes and injuries in recent years during training rides, it got us thinking about what impact, if any, it would have on the UK time trialling scene, and the use of time trial bikes on open roads. How do you safely train when your vision of the road ahead may be restricted in an aggressive time trial position?

We thought that for this discussion, we'd like to involve someone who has plenty of experience riding a TT bike; and there are few who have as much as Michael Broadwith, the recording-breaking maths teacher who clocked the fastest time to ride between Land's End and John o' Groats in 2018. His time of 43 hours, 25 minutes and 13 seconds surpassed Gethin Butler's 2001 effort by more than half an hour, the strain of spending so many hours in the TT position forcing him to spend the final stages of the attempt with his head propped up with one arm due to neck pain.
Michael Broadwith on Edinburgh to London ride (picture via Family By Cycle on Twitter)

Broadwith said that the position on TT bikes - where the most aerodynamic position for most riders will often see the hands in front of the face and the head angled at a downward tilt - "compromises the safety issues you have on a road bike" such as access to the brakes and road visibility, things that are crucial if you're riding on open roads.

"It's one thing to be looking at the road when you know there's nothing in front of you, it's another thing completely to not be looking at the road when you've got zebra crossings, you've got other traffic.

"You've got all the things that if you were sitting a Highway Code test, you would be clicking one the screen left, right and centre to point out where the dangers are."
He added: "As a time triallist you're going to want to train on a time trial bike.

"I think the onus would be you need to do that but still make sensible decisions about the road environment that you're facing.

"Yes we all want to prioritise aerodynamics... but we need to understand that we cannot responsibly prioritise that solely ahead personal safety. A because we don't want to hurt ourselves, and B, it's really important for the reputation of the sport that we're not going around ploughing into things and crashing, we need to be safe.

"You would never ride a bike with a blindfold on, even if someone told you it was going to make you go quicker.

"Just dipping your head down and looking at the floor is bad decision making, and you've got to train yourself out of it."

Also discussed was the link between the UK time trial scene, routed in history but often at the forefront of TT innovation, and time trials in professional cycling. What impact, if any, would it have if Froome got his wishes and TT-specific bikes were outlawed in the pro ranks?

"If they did decide that they wanted to be more restrictive on time trial bikes for the UCI, it wouldn't really impact on the UK scene because they wouldn't feel the need to make the same decisions in terms of equipment and position.

"The only impact might be that the value of used TT bikes might go up, because they would become scarcer."

The 2021 Paris-Roubaix was filthy (Alex Broadway/SWpix.com

Flanders? Milan–San Remo? Paris–Roubaix? After Tadej Pogačar's dominant performance at Strade Bianche on Saturday, it got us thinking about our favourite Spring classics. In our second podcast segment, our in-house racing nuts Simon, Liam and Ryan joining George to make cases for their favourites. What’s yours?

The road.cc Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts (link is external), Spotify (link is external) and Amazon Music (link is external), and if you have an Alexa you can just tell it to play the road.cc Podcast. It's also embedded further up the page, so you can just press play.

https://road.cc/content/news/are-time-trial-bikes-safe-ride-open-roads-290979

On 11/03/2022 09:19 pm, swldx...@gmail.com wrote:

> After Chris Froome recently suggested that TT bikes should be banned in the pro peloton following some high profile crashes and injuries in recent years during training rides, it got us thinking about what impact, if any, it would have on the UK time trialling scene, and the use of time trial bikes on open roads. How do you safely train when your vision of the road ahead may be restricted in an aggressive time trial position?
> We thought that for this discussion, we'd like to involve someone who has plenty of experience riding a TT bike; and there are few who have as much as Michael Broadwith, the recording-breaking maths teacher who clocked the fastest time to ride between Land's End and John o' Groats in 2018. His time of 43 hours, 25 minutes and 13 seconds surpassed Gethin Butler's 2001 effort by more than half an hour, the strain of spending so many hours in the TT position forcing him to spend the final stages of the attempt with his head propped up with one arm due to neck pain.
> Michael Broadwith on Edinburgh to London ride (picture via Family By Cycle on Twitter)
> Broadwith said that the position on TT bikes - where the most aerodynamic position for most riders will often see the hands in front of the face and the head angled at a downward tilt - "compromises the safety issues you have on a road bike" such as access to the brakes and road visibility, things that are crucial if you're riding on open roads.

As the kids today might have it: "Fairy-cyclists be "We don't need no
steenkin' brakes or forward visibility"...".

> "It's one thing to be looking at the road when you know there's nothing in front of you, it's another thing completely to not be looking at the road when you've got zebra crossings, you've got other traffic.

Er... quite so.
>
> "You've got all the things that if you were sitting a Highway Code test, you would be clicking one the screen left, right and centre to point out where the dangers are."
> He added: "As a time triallist you're going to want to train on a time trial bike.
>
> "I think the onus would be you need to do that but still make sensible decisions about the road environment that you're facing.
>
> "Yes we all want to prioritise aerodynamics... but we need to understand that we cannot responsibly prioritise that solely ahead personal safety. A because we don't want to hurt ourselves, and B, it's really important for the reputation of the sport that we're not going around ploughing into things and crashing, we need to be safe.
>
> "You would never ride a bike with a blindfold on, even if someone told you it was going to make you go quicker.

That's a very bold statement to make. There's probably a Charlie or two
out there right now preparing to try to prove him wrong.
>
> "Just dipping your head down and looking at the floor is bad decision making, and you've got to train yourself out of it."

Fair point.

I mean, he might have been thinking of this very well-known ********:

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OrKLGEOVRA>

[Safe for work.]

By the way: Are there any fairy-cyclists here prepared to assert that
the helmet didn't save that guy from serious injury when his head hit
the roof/rear-screen area of that stationary car?
>
> Also discussed was the link between the UK time trial scene, routed in history but often at the forefront of TT innovation, and time trials in professional cycling. What impact, if any, would it have if Froome got his wishes and TT-specific bikes were outlawed in the pro ranks?
>
> "If they did decide that they wanted to be more restrictive on time trial bikes for the UCI, it wouldn't really impact on the UK scene because they wouldn't feel the need to make the same decisions in terms of equipment and position.
>
> "The only impact might be that the value of used TT bikes might go up, because they would become scarcer."
>
> The 2021 Paris-Roubaix was filthy (Alex Broadway/SWpix.com
>
> Flanders? Milan–San Remo? Paris–Roubaix? After Tadej Pogačar's dominant performance at Strade Bianche on Saturday, it got us thinking about our favourite Spring classics. In our second podcast segment, our in-house racing nuts Simon, Liam and Ryan joining George to make cases for their favourites. What’s yours?
>
> The road.cc Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts (link is external), Spotify (link is external) and Amazon Music (link is external), and if you have an Alexa you can just tell it to play the road.cc Podcast. It's also embedded further up the page, so you can just press play.
>
> https://road.cc/content/news/are-time-trial-bikes-safe-ride-open-roads-290979