No way this has a safety justification. Road bikes are often much closer together at higher speeds and no one talks about safety of drop bars there. No safety issues for cross bikes or gravel bikes. Bar ends are a different issue I think. Much easier to hook those around those around things.
ATMO, this is 100% about PURITY but they don’t feel like they can say that. They should just take the stance that cyclocross has and be clear that the bike is part of the race. They should be open and say “An MTB race should be done on a MTB same as a cross race should be done on a cross bike.”
Seems like if everyone wants to race your cx course on a downhill bike you made a shit cx course. Similarly Leadville could add a 5 mile side loop that no one would want to ride on drops and solve the problem
I think it’d need to be more than 5 miles. The big issue seems to be that they made a “mountain bike race” that has like 50 miles of nice dirt roads. That used to work, but bikes have evolved since then.
Shenandoah 100 (for example) has lots of chill dirt roads, but plenty of fairly tricky single track so the fastest bike that can complete the course is a mountain bike.
I’ve drop bar ridden some of the hardest single track on that route and it wasn’t fun or fast. Maybe I need the new pinarello tho to try again
Seems like the easy fix here. Leadville is weird because its so much plush grav
Nice of them to include the second reason, because obviously the first isn’t an issue when people are going to be holding on to their fork crown or riding puppy paws.
Life Time, being a large corporation, has a history of duplicity in how they run their events. It’s not good for the sport but I don’t think there’s much to do about it right now other than complain online and not participate.
I am watching this very closely. I was burned pretty bad when our local XCM race enforced an MTB-only rule for their wet weather course. I do NUE-style races on drops and if this becomes common down to the local level it would hurt my participation greatly.
Could also be that they don’t want a bunch of n00bs on the amateur level jacking up their perfectly good bikes with drop bars and crashing out because they created a monstrosity.
UCI makes a pretty clear distinction that CX is drop bars only and MTB is flat bars only.
My theory is still that a flat bar and drop bar got tangled somewhere in the race and there was a lawsuit. That’s usually how these types of rules are created.
They aren’t UCI races, they aren’t even generally USAC races. Although USAC doesn’t regulate CX in that manner outside of nationals. The regulations for CX are probably the genesis of this idea, was it US National or UCI Worlds that was won at least once on a MTB and then the regulations came first for width and then traditional road handlebars?
I don’t think there was a lawsuit, it seems clear this is specifically to keep the races MTB and Gravel for their series identity. I wasn’t paying close attention last year but I don’t think anyone considered dropbars at Little Sugar, and they’re banned there too.
Story time: years and years ago(just looked -2008!) I did a stage race with friends, one of those hiking/skiing/road running/MTB/kayak/canoe/road bike kind of things. Rules for the MTB section were specifically no drop bars and any 700c tires specifically had to say “29er” somewhere on the sidewall to be legal.
This is my bike, I searched and searched to find these Bontrager XR-Dry tires labeled 29x1.75. The brahma bars were awesome for getting at least kinda aero on the flat doubletrack sections.
Edit I did great in terms of speed but forget my exact placing. Note padded toobs for a section of shoulder-carry up a steep hill -there’s a housing stop on the TT that would really dig in.
I’m sure it’s some “we know it when we see it” but there are some interesting potential workarounds for folks that really want a drops-like hand position.
They’re gonna have to be specific*. Hand grip area must at no greater than 25° angle. All sections of the handlebar must be equal to or higher than where the stem clamps to the bar. All handlebars must be one continuous tube.
*They don’t have to be specific. It’s their series their rules, and if “we know it when we see it” is what they want nothing stopping them.
In a way as a participant it might be nice to feel like your regular bike can be used and you don’t need some special weird drop-bar thing just for a couple races a year. The flipside is some manufacturer making a letter-of-the-rule workaround bar and showing up with a high profile rider and essentially daring the organizers to take the bad press for DQing them.
