In a video posted to the official Unbound Gravel Instagram feed, the organisers of the most important gravel race of the yr urge contributors to maintain their race quantity plates flat and clearly seen on the entrance of their bikes, stating that “If you wrap your plate, the timing chips on the again can’t be learn by our timing mats and will end in disqualification.”
Though the wording of the submit is comparatively imprecise, it seems that the specter of disqualification isn’t due to any guidelines being damaged, however extra on account of the truth that Unbound claims that modifying the quantity plate might end in harm to the timing chip on the again, or maybe not enable it to be learn correctly by the timing mats, and ensuing very quickly being learn, somewhat than a disqualification for a breach of guidelines.
The arbitrary nature of the wording of the Instagram can be mirrored within the barely ambiguous wording of Rule 11 of the Unbound rulebook, which states:
“Athlete ‘Race Plates’ MUST be affixed to the entrance of the handlebars. Athlete ‘Race Plates’ MUST NOT be bent, folded, wrapped across the head tube, or in every other place than flat in opposition to the deal with bars. Improper attachment of the race plate will trigger timing chips to not register and could also be trigger for disqualification.”
Again, the official guidelines appear to supply up a gray space the place it’s the malfunction of the timing chip, somewhat than the bending of the plate itself that’s trigger for a DQ.
Comments on the submit have been virtually universally detrimental, citing the numerous aero losses that operating a flat plate on the entrance ones will entail.
One of the boys’s pre-race favourites, Matt Beers (Specialized Off-Road), weighed in, commenting: “‘Could be disqualified’ I’ll take the danger.”
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The finest gravel race bikes are quick changing into as aero-optimised as highway bikes are, and whereas professionals on the highway have the benefit of race numbers pinned to a jersey and tucked behind the seatpost, the mass participation nature of occasions like unbound imply that the professionals vying for the win should pin on the identical quantity that members of the general public should.
The race quantity plates themselves seem to have modified in measurement and form fairly drastically over the previous few years. The 2021 version noticed massive rectangles, and the dash end on the line of the boys’s discipline was received by Ian Boswell with a folded quantity plate, tucked up and beneath his aero bars, beating Laurens Ten Dam, with a flat plate.
The 2022 version the numbers had been a lot smaller, to date much less of an aero drawback. Last yr’s plates are a lot the identical as this years; bigger, rectangles, with no cutouts on the corners or something of the type.
At the 2021 version the 2 main males had been separated by lower than a motorbike size, and the truth that one had a extra aero race quantity setup. (Image credit score: Wil Matthews)
Given one main function of those plates is for the occasion photographers to successfully tag the rider numbers, and for riders to seek out themselves within the post-event galleries placed on, it stands to cause that the professionals, who begin individually from everybody else, might simply be given a separate setup. RFID chips aren’t massive, and on the highway are simply mounted to fork legs. Race numbers might additionally very merely be mounted behind the saddle.
What’s extra, given the usually filthy nature of the occasion, in addition to its length, the race numbers are sometimes completely obscured by mud, rendering their function as an identification machine ineffective.
Cyclingnews has reached out to Unbound for remark and clarification on the foundations.
