High-profile crashes and rider deaths have intensified scrutiny on rider safety in cycling, but the head of engineering at team Red Bull – Bora – hansgrohe, Dan Bigham, says the UCI’s moves to restrict gearing will have no impact on the speed of the peloton.
The UCI has confirmed that its test on gearing restrictions will take place at the Tour of Guangxi in China in October this year. After undertaking his own analysis into the repercussions of the mooted changes, Bigham is far from convinced of their efficacy.
“If Wout van Aert, Tadej Pogačar or Mathieu van der Poel have a life-changing injury, or worse, we will have blood on our hands,” said Bigham during his presentation at the Science and Cycling Conference in Lille.
“We have the power to make changes. But restricting gear ratios simply distracts from making meaningful changes to rider safety,” he added.
Unrealistic expectations
“From my analysis [and for reducing ratios to have an impact], we need to presume professionals would adhere to unrealistic cadence limits that aren’t supported by the literature,” said Bigham.
“It’ll impact on as little as 0.01 per cent of a race and will arguably reduce speeds by no more than 0.5km/hr. All of this to change entire groupset design? It really doesn’t seem effective to me.”
Bigham’s withering assessment of the proposals came off the back of the UCI’s recent announcement that the maximum ratio allowed in the test event will be 54x11 or 10.46 metres per crank revolution.
“The maximum gear ratio limitation aims to limit the speed reached in competition,” the UCI press release read. “It has been proven that the very high speeds reached by riders today are a risk factor for their safety.”
This would have repercussions for SRAM and its sponsored teams, of which there are four at men’s WorldTour level, including Red Bull.
While Bigham applauded the UCI for focusing on safety – especially after the tragic deaths of Gino Mader and Muriel Furrer – he encouraged greater openness and interaction with the teams and their staff: “I’m in a privileged position and should be in a good position to liaise with the UCI, but it’s been very hard to get any time with them."
“Limit the pros to 30-tooth chainring?!”
Bigham’s analysis included many strands, such as the range of cadence reached at WorldTour level, and what impact reducing gear ratios would have.
He referenced research by Kurt Bergin-Taylor in 2022, which showed the maximum cadence at the elite level can reach upwards of 200rpm.
“Whether you’re a GC rider or sprinter, if you want to limit a rider to 75km/hr and they can pedal at 200rpm, that means a gear ratio of three or less,” said Bigham.
“So, will riders have to ride with – solely – a 30-tooth chainring? Even dropping cadence to 130rpm with a UCI ratio of five, you’d still ride at 80km/hr. But we know riders can do much higher than that for shorter periods.”
Bigham then analysed race files from GC leaders at last year’s Giro d’Italia, Tour de France, Vuelta a Espana, Tour of Guangxi – the proposed test event – and the Tour Down Under.
Bigham asked: “What do we see? That riders don’t spend much time at high speed!”
The Brit’s analysis showed that, at a gear ratio of 5.0 (eg 50x10 or 55x11), a rider would be gear limited for the following durations at different cadences, compared to a rider using a 5.6 gear ratio:
- 120rpm: limited for 1.1% of the race
- 130rpm: limited for 0.34% of the race
- 140rpm: limited for 0.1% of the race
In a four-hour race, that equates to 159 seconds at 120rpm down to 15 seconds at 140rpm. With a gear ratio of 5.6, that would be 29 seconds down to two seconds at the same cadences.
Descents matter more
"The huge speeds happen on descents where you have huge input from gravity,” explains Bigham.
“If you’re on a 15 per cent descent and you weigh 80kg, that’s around 4,000 watts from gravity alone.”
Bigham proceeded to reveal that when riders are descending at 75 to 90kph, they’re putting in a maximum of 100 watts, which clearly isn’t impacted by gear ratios.
In essence, restricting gear ratios when a rider is generating high power and not reliant on gravity could limit speed for as little as 0.01 per cent of a race.
“Cycling is close to its Ayrton Senna moment”
Bigham suggested that reducing gear ratios is akin to ‘crowding’ in politics, where a party focuses on one topic that crowds out any meaningful ideas or change. “We must use data to improve the situation,” he said.
“Cycling is close to its Ayrton Senna moment. Ayrton died, and it changed things because he was a superstar.
“The FIA [Formula One’s governing body] took it upon themselves to use science and data… Formula One has a lot to teach road cycling about going faster, but also about teaching us about safety.”
To that end, Bigham proposed four pillars to focus on: course, bike design, rider protection and medical response.
“Take rider safety,” he said. “We should have race-relevant helmet standards. But road-race helmets are tested at 20km/hr impact speeds. That’s not relevant or good enough.”
Materials to reduce skin damage, identifying risky sections of a parcours and faster medical response were mooted ideas that Bigham said would have a greater impact on rider safety than restricting gear ratios.
BikeRadar contacted the UCI for its response but, at the time of writing, had yet to receive a reply.
