On Time Trial Rules

Tomorrow I will do my first Ontario Cycling Association (OCA) sanctioned Time Trial. (I have done many Individual Time Trials (ITT) before but as this will be a fully offical, conforms to the rules of the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) - sort of, I thought it best if I put up some links to the rules of TT bikes and ITT in general.

An aside, I just said this race will conform to the UCI regulations - sort of, the reason for the sort of, the UCI changed the rules for the shape of the 'box' that makes up the area behind the steerer tube, and encases the down tube and top tube. In particular whereas before I think the rule was that bikes were supposed to have boxes no bigger than 8cm on a side, the UCI previously did not bother to enforce the rule if the steerer tube was integrated into the box. The UCI decided (just before an ITT in fact) that now they would enforce the rule. Ultimately it turns out my 2009 Specialized S-Works Transition is not legal unless I cut off the wings on the downtube. (Given that we are talking about ruining a $3000 frame, that is not exactly likely to happen, sorry guys.) So I am hoping that the OCA will recognize the fact that those wings will make such a modest difference - hey it's not like I'm going to make a podium finish here - versus the financial hardship removing said wings would impose on me that the OCA will, like USA Cycling waive the above rule for weaker cyclists like myself.

Anyway here are some useful guides:

1. This page on Slowtwitch (a Tri website) discusses rules and contrasts Tri vs. TT configurations (basically the rules for Tri are pretty trivial, for TT, they are insane.)

2. This PDF is straight from the horse's mouth (in the spirit of I don't trust anything on The Internet) this comes from the UCI and is a sort of users guide on how to build a legal road or TT bike. (I suspect the link will break pretty fast, the UCI seems to like moving things around, sorry.)

3. This PDF is the UCI regulations for road races, it does not explicitly state, the bike geometry or anything like that but it does govern the rules for the race itself. (Chapter 4 is on Time Trials and like 2., above, the UCI seems to like moving things around so I suspect this link will not last very long.)

4. This page is where the UCI rules are, I suspect this link will break soon enough too. But for the time being this is where I found links 2. and 3.