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So the regulations around Olympic kit on the track in Tokyo (not road) are pretty stringent this year. In order to use a particular piece of kit under a rider, it has to form part of a registered list of products with the UCI.
Teams have to inform the UCI using an online system exactly what individual components each rider will be using at the Olympic track events, even down to the pedals/bottom bracket. That has to happen a month out so no changes after that either unless by special approval etc.
In order to get a piece of equipment on that list, it has to be submitted to the UCI by the federations, and everything has to have been used in international competition either prior to this current season, or by (the absolute latest) Track World Cup number 4 in Brisbane*.
For that list you have to submit the manufacturer, the product name and serial number, price and also where it can be purchased otherwise it doesn't go on the list - making it quite a departure from years past where no-one cared about the commerciality rules. For example you can now buy the German bikes from here:
https://fes-sport.de/shop_rad.htm
Don't buy their aerobars though as they're now UCI illegal and causing them all sorts of headaches.
The UCI technical commission are right now sat track centre in Minsk with a giant scanner on a crane, scanning bikes and components to make sure they match dimensions, they said they were going to do it but I didn't believe they actually would!
We have lots of stuff for a variety of different federations (I think 8 feds total) that need approval, not all of it will be left as late as TWC4 as we should be able to spread things out a bit. Some of our larger projects we've been in close communication with the UCI - in fact they invented a stem rule in their clarification document which was just for us. Joy.
*This was originally Track World Cup 1 in Minsk which is currently ongoing, but it was changed to TWC4 about 8 weeks ago. No-one from British Cycling told Hope though, so they were understandably miffed when I mentioned to a couple of their engineers this week that they had rushed to get the bike ready but still had 5 weeks to play with!
xavierdisley-
Sounds like a proper ball ache for you lot but at least they're actually enforcing their own rules for a change.
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For that list you have to submit the manufacturer, the product name and serial number, price and also where it can be purchased
Yeah, I get that the stuff now has to be offered for sale, what I don't get is how the really expensive bits (mainly frames, but also bars, stems and cranks where they are proprietary interfaces with the frame) are actually commercial, in the sense that total sales revenue exceeds total production cost. @leggy_blonde implies that Hope are in it to make a profit. It seems to me that the only way for them to be in the black is to act as a contractor to BC, who end up paying all the R&D cost and then let Hope charge just the flyaway cost of each extra frame for the half dozen they sell to obsessive and wealthy collectors who already have a 108 and a 110 hanging on the wall of their mansion 🙂
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For example you can now buy the German bikes from here:
For a certain value of 'buy'. POA, warning of very long lead times, no actual ability to buy things using the website. Hmmmmm...
hippy
gbj_tester
Brommers
To whom? All the teams with big enough budgets already have supply agreements with competitor companies.