'Wacky bikes aren't necessarily quicker' – so what should change in the UCI's review of the rules?

In the mid-1990s, the UCI created a framework that has restricted bike designers ever since. But in September this year, cycling’s governing body announced a review of the principles underpinning those rules.

The 1996 Lugano Charter was drawn up to clamp down on increasingly radical aerodynamic designs made possible by carbon fibre. A new document is due to be presented in 2027, with insiders remaining tight-lipped on what we can expect. In response to a request for further information, the UCI told us that “further details will be communicated in due course”.

So should we prepare for the return of pre-Charter, Lotus-style radicalism and the biggest shake-up of bike design in three decades? Or are we looking at some tube-shape tweaks and micro-amendments to dimension boxes?

OUTLAWED: THREE INNOVATIONS THE CHARTER DID AWAY WITH

The new rules created several casualties, namely…

MONOCOQUES: After Chris Boardman won the 1992 Olympic individual pursuit on the radical Lotus 108, the floodgates were opened and every major manufacturer started working on a new carbon-fibre ‘jellymould’ design. The historical double-diamond shape suddenly looked very outdated.

THE SUPERMAN POSITION: The Charter also banned non-traditional riding positions pioneered by Graeme Obree – first the ‘tuck’ and then, when that was banned, the ‘Superman’. Chris Boardman used the latter position in 1996 to set an Hour Record that stood for 26 years.

THE HOUR RECORD: In 2000 the format of the Hour Record was reset to 1972, Eddy Merckx’s distance set in Mexico. Every aerodynamically aided record, from Franceso Moser’s 1984 distance up to Chris Boardman’s in 1996, was recategorised ‘Best Human Effort’. The new rules stood until 2014, when modern pursuit bikes were permitted.

Designers have always toyed with the rules

The Charter restricted frame shapes and set a minimum weight of 6.8kg. The goal was to ensure that advances in bike design did not overshadow the “physical qualities of the rider”. Cycling was supposed to be frozen in time, specifically the pre-monocoque era… except it wasn’t.

Teams and manufacturers will always look for a loophole that might give them an advantage. Take the Hope x Lotus track bike developed for the GB team to use at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Speaking to Cycling Weekly, British Cycling’s head of technical development Tony Purnell said he specifically looked for parameters not outlined in the rulebook: “There was almost nothing we could do. We realised the only scope [for creativity] was that there were no real width restrictions,” he said, hence the wide fork and seatstays for which the “outlandish design” is renowned.

More recently, Colnago and Factor have released aero road bikes that are technically UCI legal – they bear the ‘UCI legal’ sticker which manufacturers are beholden too – but don’t much resemble the governing body’s ideal frame.

So the big question is whether a revised Lugano Charter will tighten up the original rules to outlaw future outlandish designs, or loosen them. And, more importantly, what would the current crop of engineers and designers like to see happen?

‘Wacky bikes aren’t necessarily quicker’

“Even if they loosen the restrictions to allow for wacky bikes, wacky bikes aren’t necessarily quicker,” says Xavier Disley, founder of AeroCoach, which manufactures equipment as well as carrying out aerodynamic testing.

Pushing beyond UCI maximum dimensions doesn’t always mean free speed, he says. “People often think that the best thing to do is to push all the way up to the limit of the UCI regulation. It isn’t. When we’ve done work on frame design, making every tube as deep as possible under the UCI regs is not the fastest thing to do.”

Disley has been involved in UCI regulation writing in the past. “Loosening the restrictions to allow for more aerodynamic designs to increase race speeds would be surprising,” he says. “At the moment, the UCI isn’t wanting to increase race speeds,” he adds, referencing the governing body’s focus on improving safety in the peloton.

What would he like to see in a revised Lugano Charter?

“It would be interesting to allow cycle sport to diverge in terms of its disciplines a bit more,” he says. “Let’s say road bikes stay roughly like road bikes, but for track bikes and for time trial bikes you allow much more innovation.”

He would also like to see greater allowance for different riders’ morphologies. Last year the UCI attempted to impose a minimum width, only to partially backtrack following intense criticism that the dimension discriminated against women and smaller riders.

“Maybe they’ll loosen some of the positional restrictions or have a separate women’s TT position guideline. I’d love to see them change the handlebar regulation to allow women to have narrower handlebars. The morphology of men and women is different. That doesn’t need to affect the aesthetics of cycling – if that’s a concern – but it would work for different demographics.”

Disley doubts that loosening the rules would make racing faster. “I don’t think making small adjustments to the aerodynamics of a tube is going to suddenly mean everyone is flying into walls or whatever. It’s not going to make a massive difference.”

He suggests that the UCI might instead look at ways to control speed through equipment such as tyres. “In F1 everyone has to use the same tyres, and they could try to make everyone slower by doing that.”

But from a bike brand’s perspective, there is potentially more to gain from a relaxation of the regulations than free speed: more freedom to rethink proportions, reimagine geometry and introduce ideas from other industries.

All about 32-inch wheels?

César Rojo, co-owner of Felt and an engineer specialising in industrial design, believes the new 32-inch wheel size will be part of the UCI’s conversation with manufacturers.

The larger wheel size – 32-inch diameter compared with the 29 inches of a 700C wheel – is said to improve stability, traction and comfort. The downside is that it potentially excludes smaller riders: shoehorning a big wheel into a small frame requires geometry alterations that some say cancel out the benefits. It is permitted in UCI mountain bike racing but not for the road – not yet, anyway.

“We know it’s the next big thing,” says Rojo. “It’s already in cross-country mountain biking, it’s coming to gravel and it could be coming to the road.”

Rojo has more experience than most with wheel standards, having raced downhill himself. But he questions whether the industry needs another change.

“Maybe we don’t need 32. It was fine with 29ers. My riding is not going to change with 32. Yes, I might be able to beat my personal records here and there, but do I really want to change everything again – new tyres, new wheels, new everything? Do I want to feel like my bike is outdated if I’m not riding 32?”

However, he also knows that for the sport and the industry to survive, there must be innovation.

“Customers are not specifically asking for 32-inch wheels, but they’re asking for new things. That’s why there’s a new iPhone every year. Apple could sell the same one for three years, but people want something new, something a bit better to get excited about. It’s the same with bikes. Is it really necessary? No, but it’s how the world works these days. That’s how companies survive and give people jobs.”

What would Rojo like to see in a new set of UCI regulations?

“More freedom in the proportions of the bike,” he says. “You have a maximum front-centre at the moment, but you might want to make bikes a little bit longer and more stable because they are going so fast with much better tyres. So the boxes and the compensation triangles that define the shape of the bike – this is number one for me. I want to be allowed to do a different design that just looks more exciting, regardless of whether it’s faster or not.”

He would like to experiment with lower seatstays, for example, although he is less concerned about restrictions on tube profiles. “You can reach a point where a tube is too thin and it’s a struggle to get it to pass testing, so I think the tube ratios are fine. I might keep the ratios but cancel the rest.”

Different rules

“I would prefer it if the racers at the top of the sport were racing race bikes,” says Ben Meir of Reap, which designs and manufactures carbon fibre bikes in the UK. “Everything that’s done for the WorldTour isn’t really done for the WorldTour, it’s to sell bikes. WorldTour bikes should be at the pinnacle of the sport and then whatever happens lower down is a consequence of trickle-down tech. Not the exact same product,” he says, referencing the way the peloton currently rides bikes wearing ‘UCI legal’ stickers, that are then made available to the public.

He believes track cycling is already showing how it could work. “Hope developed that amazing track bike for the Tokyo Olympics. It was commercially available at a very high price and a few people bought them but there weren’t many around. Vorteq and the Malaysian track bike. And the English Institute of Sport bikes back in the day.”

As for the rules themselves, he says: “There’s a hunger for tech, visual advancement. We got into the marginal gains idea, but now brands have said, ‘Well, we’re a little bit stuck because the regulations haven’t changed.’ A little bit lighter, different paint jobs… now every product cycle has just a marginal gain. We find half a percent and tick along like that.”

Like Disley, Meir believes that the UCI should separate the regulations for road, track and time trial bikes rather than trying to fit every discipline into literally the same box. In his view, “halo projects” for track and TT would allow manufacturers to push boundaries and introduce new technology without necessarily changing the standard road bikes ridden by the majority of cyclists. It might also attract engineering partners from outside the sport that would, he says, help cycling’s visibility.

“In the America’s Cup we’ve seen Mercedes F1 helping Ineos. We’ve seen Red Bull helping the Swiss, Pirelli involved with the Italians.” As in F1, the America’s Cup has a top racing-class boat – the AC75 – and the technology trickles down to other categories from that.

Cycling could benefit from a similarly tiered approach. Meir continues: “If everything is stuck within the same bubble, you get what we’ve seen with the Factor One – it’s essentially a TT bike with road handlebars. So where’s the difference? We’ve got to the point where the UCI allows us to make a radical road bike, but where can we go next?”

He says he would like the UCI to review its regulations more frequently, as in motorsport, but again, the way cycling and the market operate commercially is something that blocks this: unlike in F1, manufacturers have to sell racing equipment to consumers.

“If someone buys a bike in 2026 and then the regulations change four years later and it’s non-UCI legal, there are a lot of associated issues,” he says. “I understand that, because of the commercial implications, you can’t say, ‘We’re going to do this,’ and then flip-flop a few years later. The UCI sticker holds so much weight in the market for no good reason.”

What about weight?

The 6.8kg minimum weight limit is a key part of the original Charter that many are expecting to be reviewed. Meir is in favour of scrapping it altogether. “It’s a completely arbitrary number that was made up 30 years ago with no bearing on safety now. Composites are not in their infancy any more. We’ve got computer models that tell us how it’s going to work before we even make anything.”

Isn’t there a danger we’ll end up with ultra-light, fragile bikes? He says not, because ISO certification would still be mandatory. “Besides, no brand will make a bike so far under the current weight limit that it’s unsafe, and then go and send the best riders in the world out on it in front of a global audience.”

Meir doesn’t believe a single minimum weight is right for every frame size. A larger frame has longer span measurements and will inevitably consist of more material – and possibly more reinforcement – generally making it heavier than a smaller frame. Meanwhile, if the smaller frame has to be built with extra material so it meets the weight limit, it could end up too rigid.

“If you say you can have whatever you want, but just make sure it’s safe, rather than ‘6.8kg is the marker and we’ve got to get to that’, then manufacturers will have to think: what will be the best weight?”

Disley thinks the weight debate is a “red herring”. He explains: “Whatever the weight limit is, someone will make a bike that’s lighter, someone else will make one that’s not quite as light. At the moment the bikes aren’t exactly 6.8 kilos. If that was the best thing to do with the technology, every bike would be exactly 6.8 kilos. If they change the weight limit, you might have a lighter bike which will be faster in some scenarios, but if you’re hindering yourself because you’ve had to make compromises on aerodynamics to get that light, then you probably aren’t going to have the fastest bike overall.”

Rojo agrees with Disley. “I think the weight is fine. If they lower it, it will make certain brands go for really superlight bikes for specific stages. I imagine the UCI will not want to allow a brand to spend five million and make a 1.5-kilo bike out of a stupid material that only lasts one stage. I’m exaggerating, but I don’t think they want only the biggest brands to be able to afford racing. You don’t want it so that a brand analyses every single stage of the Tour de France and makes a specific bike for each one. It’s good that cycling is still about the athlete. If you put Tadej on any decent bike he would win anyway, and I imagine the UCI wants to keep that.”

What should cycling look like in the next 30 years?

Meir, like Disley, doesn’t think a return of the Lotus-style monocoque is likely – and it’s not something he wants to see, either. “Those bikes were fantastic, but for cycling I don’t like them,” he says. “I like the image of cycling roughly as it is. But it always comes back to this balance. Is it a pure, beautiful, human sport or a technological arms race? There’s a Venn diagram and for me the sweet spot in the middle is embracing both.”

Going forward, he questions whether the people making decisions about the future of cycling represent the generations that will be riding and working in the sport in the next decades. Meir himself, for example, wasn’t even born when the Lugano Charter was issued in 1996.

He says: “We’ve been stuck for 30 years. If it’s going to be set in stone for the next 30 years, involve the people who will be around in the sport in 30 years rather than dictating to them. I’m not saying me, although I would happily get on a plane to Switzerland. There’s young and very smart people like Dan Bigham.”

In summary, all three sources want more freedom, but definitely not a free-for-all scenario. As Meir points out, a game is not a game without rules: “Regulations are positive for all involved no matter what. If you didn’t have rules, it would be boring. Imagine if football didn’t have any rules. Rules are really nice because you try and beat them. They make the game better and more fun. How far can I push them? Where can I challenge them? Does that wording mean this or that?”

All three sources agree that a freshening up of the framework is long overdue, one that would benefit not just pro road racing but cycling in general – an opportunity to change not only the shape of road race bikes but also the shape of the wider cycling industry. Let’s not squander it, Meir concludes. “There’s been so much bad news and struggle in the industry and we need some good news, positivity, a shake-up. With some high-level development it could be different.”