Are road bikes replacing time trial bikes? You might think so, given the huge road bike fields that have been seen at early season time trials in the UK.
The Kingston Wheelers Sporting 14 time trial, held on Sunday, 18 February, is one such example. The popular early-season time trial – one of the first open events on the calendar each year – has an entry of 71 road bikes against just 16 time trial machines. Entries are also up by around 20% overall this year, boosted to a healthy 87 riders.
How do time trials work?
Cycling time trials are solo events that push riders to achieve the best result they can, racing only themselves and the ever ticking hands of the clock. Intrepid racers are set off at intervals – usually every minute – and drafting is off limits.
In recent years, time trialling has struggled to recruit the numbers it once did, with owning a dedicated time trial bike considered one of the possible barriers to entry.
The same day, a bit further south, VC St Raphael's sporting 16.5-mile time trial has an equally pronounced road bike emphasis, having received 31 road bike entries against seven time trial bikes – again, that's nearly 80% drop handlebar machines. There are also a number of entries for the two-up category, all road bikes.
Neither event is particularly unsuited to time trial bikes, as evidenced by what was a roughly 50/50 split between the two types of machines for the VC St Raphael race back in 2017.
They are nevertheless sporting courses (that's to say not always flat, not always fast) in wintry weather, and road bikes have generally proven more popular in races like these than they would on a fast, dry, dual carriageway course.
Neither event seen a dramatic increase of curly bar bikes year on year, but it looks like the 'road bike effect' is in play, says Kingston Wheelers organiser Adam Bidwell.
"I would say we have got more road bike entries, so that could be because of the rules," he says, referring to the new road bike category introduced last year by Cycling Time Trials which is now standard for every event.
"Certainly, the questions I've fielded about the event, people are making sure with me, 'are you going to have a road bike category?'" he adds.
Notably, Bidwell says that the fastest riders are riding a mix of time trial and road bikes, hinting that the road bike category is viewed as more than just a 'beginner' option, at least on a sporting course such as this.
Simon Berogna, who is part of the organising team for the VC St Raphael event, has seen the entry change from around half road bikes seven years ago to a hefty majority the past two years – although like many events, competitor numbers are down since Covid and the overall entry for this particular event remains around half of what it was.
He suggests that road bike entries have been boosted by the availability of super-aero road bikes that go a long way to making up for a lack of a lo-pro machine.
"I think nowadays looking at the road bikes they're just as aero as the time trial bikes – apart from the the aero bars, you're looking at an aero bike," he said.
"For newcomers and road bike [users], the sport is more inviting, because you only have to buy one bike. You can get yourself a decent bike and just change the wheels [to race]," he added.
Berogna did however say that there was a danger of committed lo-pro users feeling marginalised by the newfound popularity of road bikes.
"I think most people who have left the sport were using time trial bikes, I think that's where the numbers have gone down," he said. He added that it had been suggested that he run the upcoming 16.5-mile event as road bikes only, but Berogna baulked at the idea.
"I don't want to start ignoring the time trial bikes just because there's only seven entries," he said. "That's still seven entries that I would have lost if I put it down just as road bikes."
Aero performance expert Dr Xavier Disley is the owner of Aerocoach, which has previously run its own series of road bike time trials. He was cautious about reading too much into the high road bike entry and pointed out that the current grotty weather could be a factor.
He also said that overall entry was key when it came to checking the health of the sport.
"You have to really take the sport as an entire package, don't you?" he said. "It's all very well saying, Oh, look, there's loads of road bikes. But if the overall trend is still down, it's not really fixing the problem."
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