I’m looking to buy a set of aero wheels, and looking at the USAC rules, any “non-standard” (>25mm deep) wheels need to be UCI-approved in order to be race-legal. This would apply to the ECCC, and I’m assuming this also applies in the FQSC and other leagues.
There are loads of non-UCI-approved wheels out there, and I am quite interested in a few sets. What is the likelihood of getting called out for non-approved wheels? I’m sure many of you have raced on some in the past, and I’m wondering if it is even a concern for amateur/collegiate races. Please let me know your thoughts!
Actually, you’re right, Mike; this rule only applies to collegiate races, not general USAC races. From the USAC rulebook, Chapter 6: Collegiate Racing:
6F. Equipment
6F1. Bicycles and Wheels used in competition in all collegiate road events (criteriums, time trials, road races, etc) must conform to the current UCI regulations for mass-start legal bicycles and wheels. The UCI maintains a website with the information of approved wheels (found here).
From Chapter 1: General Regulations, 1.I.1.c stipulates only that “Wheels may be made with spokes or solid construction. No wheel may contain special mechanisms to store and release energy.” The UCI regulations only come in to play at national championships and NRC races.
So what happens if I race in Cat 3/4 at an ECCC race? I guess I should be fine, right? Sounds like this has never really been an issue, but I do recall the ECCC making some hubbub about this a few years ago…
So Mike, what about these wheels, have you invented one where the hub and rim are attached by some sort of electromagnetic force? I was wondering what you’ve been up to these days…
If you read the fine print it says that basically ANY wheel with a profiler deeper than 2.5 cm requires special, UCI sanctioned testing.
However traditional box rims are getting rarer and rarer, even for alloy rims, which means you’ve got a huge number of non-standard wheels out there that are actually traditional by real metric of wheel design/layup.
Also, by their very nature, the UCI rules automatically ban any medium profile rim that is custom laced to a hub of your choice, regardless of the quality of the build since you cannot “certify” individual wheels, merely wheelsets assuming a certain QC on the part of the manufacturer.
The point of the rules is to prevent people from riding sketchy prototype wheels, wheels of unknown pedigree/poor QC (ie unbranded chinese carbon), or wheels known to be a hazard in a crash, from finding their way into races.
Famously this hasn’t prevented wheels like the Mavic R-sys from being raced and failing spectacularly even after a round of rule revisions and wheel recall/design upgrade. So yeah useless.
Anyway, unless you’re riding on some seriously funky wheels I doubt you’ll have any issue with a medium profile rim with traditional spokes.