Gear restrictions?

Serafino

Gear Restrictions are mandated by the UCI. Some national (or state/provincial) federations may not choose to enforce them or may enforce them selectively.

That's what we have in Canada. Quebec enforces UCI restrictions while Ontario enforces gear restrictions which aren't as severe. They are restrictions though ... and any officially sanctioned event would have them.

Velo Steve

Here's an online gear calculator you might want to try. It's a little more complicated than some, but it has these advantages:

• Gears which meet junior restrictions (in the USA only) are highlighted automatically. If you are somewhere else, you'll have to read the numbers
• You can set it up to use exactly the cogs you have, to get a custom chart for your bike.
• You can trim down the list of cogs and rings to just a few if you only want to look at your top gears for rollout purposes.
• You can choose the actual tire diameter, so if you want to know your actual development with 20mm tires you can do it.

By the way, track gear restrictions are different. If you are curious, try the gear chart in track mode.

Just one warning: never trust a gear chart or what someone tells you about ring/cog combinations for an important race. Tires vary, so check the actual rollout if you can't afford to be DQ'd.

beatupoldvet

Assuming US based query

For full details log on to http://www.usacycling.org/forms/USCF_Rulebook.pdf Rule IJ6 p.29

To see if your highest gear is too high:

1. Put bike in that gear

2. Place crank in vertical position over mark on floor

3. Wheel bike backwards until crank vertical again (i.e. one complete revolution of that crank)

4. Mark floor and measure. If the distance is greater than allowed in rules, change down to next gear and repeat until distance is same, or less, than allowed. Make very sure that your measurement is accurate.

5. Block off by screwing "high" derailleur adjustment screw down to point where it stops you changing up to the sporcket above the legal one

You are now riding race-legal bike as far as gear restrictions are concerned

Good luck.

By the way, ignore questions about whether or not you are stupid when you post on a forum. The question was not stupid - not asking questions is stupid.

Velo Steve

An update to the gear calculator mentioned above:
1) It now supports highlighting based on USA and Australian rules for both track and road.
2) It's much faster and even more customizable.

The new location is: http://www.juniorvelo.com/?p=409

By the way, beatupoldvet gives an excellent description of what you need to do, but there's one catch. At National Championships blocked gears are not allowed - I believe this is true at the international level as well.

beatupoldvet

Which just goes to show - always check for local rulings. In UK you can block off, but your bike is checked after the race if you finish in the points. And organisers get to know the, "But it was ok at last week's race!" excuse.