24" wheels being banned??

Are golfers allowed in billiards competitions

I don't see any reason why a guy shouldn't be allowed to walk into a pool hall and try to win money by using a golf club as a cue, though. A more apt analogy for competitive cycling, however, would be if they went out back to bash each other's brains in after the golfer won. Does a few inches of reach on the pool cue beat the golf club? Does a 2" wheel difference matter at all? Any restrictions on equipment make for a less interesting fight and prevent the adoption of new technology, in any discipline of cycling. Let competition dictate the appropriate equipment for the event.

Not only that, but any bans or limits on technology often price recreational competitors right out of the game, and that is never good for the specific event, or cycling as a whole. It's elitist to deny a poor kid who can barely afford one bike the opportunity to enter any competition in any discipline of this sport, and it would be downright discriminatory to keep guys in wheelchairs from hucking for dollars. Sorry, but that's not "keepin' it MTB," it's "hand-wringing because the poor widdle guys on the steel bikes with 24" k-rads and no front brakes can't do as many 720-degree no-handed reverse piledrivers as the guys on steel bikes with 20" k-rads and no front brakes can." The spirit of MTB has always been "run whatcha brung," because if you're truly competing against anyone other than yourself, you shouldn't even be there.

The only time I believe in the restriction of equipment is for the "real man's" hour record, simply because I believe that for anyone to lay claim to being superior to Eddy Mercx, they must best his feat using the same equipment that he did. But then again, I also believe that for anyone to really lay claim to the hour, they must also beat the aero bike record as well.

Anyway, I'm done with my rant, and I'm going to go practice some trials stuff now on a bike that couldn't be entered in a UCI competition. :P

If you look at sports like nascar (one of the most popular in north america) no race is decided by the machine so much as the person who controls the machine, and that is because everyone is basically driving the same car.

What about hillclimb races, though? Pike's Peak is a lot more like cycling than the Red State 500 is. Everyone gets a crack at the hill: multi-million-dollar factory teams, locals in their pickup trucks, and Professor Frink types flatbedding in high-test glayvinmobiles with titanium-spiked tires and grenade launchers.

harsh…all this time i thought i was a mt biker…get heckled by the bmxers for riding a mtb and get heckled by mtbers now for riding smaller wheels…guess i should just quit.

Who's heckling dude?

I think soneone's a little sensitive. ;)

if any non mt bikers are reading this , most of us don't care. grab a bike and ride it, if it is a circus bike and you wanna hit boogey in it go for it.

i am sure no one would complain if i broke my downhill bike to a road race. they'd laugh at me while i tried to push my bike up hill, thats all

if there is a bike that is better for a given task , hop on it and ride it.

I like my 24 inch rear becuase im more confertable riding one. I think how people set up there bikes is up to them, anything otherwise is being to much of a dictator.

old school noob , i agree with your post , particularly the racing motto and mindset , that you raised in the second paragraph . . . that was the credo i raced by , and i've got a whole shitload of bikes and components down in the basement to prove it .
one point i did want to bring up though , is the cost associated with unlimited racing . by removing any barriers to development , often the racer ( team , organization ) with the most money , develops the fastest racing machine . at the core it is all garage tinkering , but the one with the most resources ( money ) to waste on prototypes holds an advantage . the downside is the reliability of such equipment , and an athlete who could be turning in solid results on more " standard " equipment , could forfeit results due to equipment failure . that's the gamble .
but i think this discussion is more about the dirt jump scene , where i'm of the opinion " run whut ya brung , and the weirder , the better " . . . .

I could see 26 vs 24 being controversial, but where do you draw the line? What about those with 24" rear specific frames? I can't imagine anyone telling someone they can't compete until they get a "real" mountain bike. But on the other hand some would argue that 24" wheels should be in their own category, just like 20" bikes are.

And the idea that someone can't compete with one brake or a SS setup is just dumb. Having one less brake is hinderance more than an advantage, and people have been racing XC on singlespeeds for years. The Test of Metal has been finished in 3:05 on a singlespeed, about half an hour slower than the winning time.

Some people are just addicted to the drama. Isn't the whole point of biking to simplify life and have a good time?

who gives a dam, 24" wheels are the best for dirt jumping and i ahve spent so much time jumping at the trails that i run 24 all the time now and have no plans to rock bigger hoops any time soon, its no big deal what size you ride.. whats next ban barends off xc riders..

elbry
www.northshorefreeriders.com

Who cares what you ride as long as you ride. 24" are accepted as "proper" bikes in the UK and its common to have no front brake for dirt jumping. This arguement is centralising on bikings image, it's the same as should you wear lyrca for the downhill personally i think those guys look like jays but what ever floats your boat. The reason is trying to sell mountain biking as an extreme sport (which it kinda already is but meh) and get all the TV slots and advertising that skate, snowboarding and surfing get. With big burly bikes going huge it makes it look cool so thats what theyre tryin to tap into.

So it is really mountain biking selling its soul, its as sad and depressing as that. But keep doing what you are its all that we can to keep our sport the way we want it.

I want this thread banned!….:stupid:

There's a big difference between setting restrictions that level the playing field, and those that limit the benefits of technological innovation. F1 cars have all kinds of different technologies in suspension, chassis, and engines, and though there are restrictions to what they can do, the different manufacturers' technologies play a big role in a car's success.

NASCAR cars have way less distinction between them, but that series is less about technology, and more about pitting the drivers against each other in a slugfest on wheels.

24" wheels in a street/dj comp seem, to me, like an advantage, and I don't claim to be an expert, for sure, but anyone can tell that, as far as jumping and street goes, running one speed and no front brake sounds like a disadvantage (perhaps a small one), whereas running smaller wheels would be an advantage. If everyone on 26ers switches down, then theoretically everyone on 24s can go down to 20s, too. Theoretically. However if someone wants to go singlespeed and front brake-less in a comp, that won't help them win, I would think, but it will save some weight and reduce the chance of a mechanical. Probably no one will point the finger at them for that, though. But the wheel size issue is more fundamental in my mind.

So it seems to me like two separate arguments:

24 vs 26, and limitations on brakes and gears.

For sure it's silly to argue about this outside of the context of competition, but once you bring structure to something like this, clearer standards make for a more legitimized competition - despite the fact that dj comps are very casual, which is a cool thing in my view. Run what ya brung works until people start getting paid/sponsored based on how they place, and then I think you can expect to see more pressure towards some of these changes. Comparisons to skate and BMX are tough since in dj/vert/street the bikes and boards are all set up using the same size wheels (right?) so run what ya brung is different in those two sports in my mind.

Agree with pete completely! Although there should be an open division, for the 24" guys to compete too.

There's a big difference between setting restrictions that level the playing field, and those that limit the benefits of technological innovation. F1 cars have all kinds of different technologies in suspension, chassis, and engines, and though there are restrictions to what they can do, the different manufacturers' technologies play a big role in a car's success.

NASCAR cars have way less distinction between them, but that series is less about technology, and more about pitting the drivers against each other in a slugfest on wheels. . . .

Run what ya brung works until people start getting paid/sponsored based on how they place, and then I think you can expect to see more pressure towards some of these changes. Comparisons to skate and BMX are tough since in dj/vert/street the bikes and boards are all set up using the same size wheels (right?) so run what ya brung is different in those two sports in my mind.

The restrictions in Formula One and other forms of motorsport are not there to "level the playing field," though. They are there to slow down the cars, as technology has long surpassed the safety limits of the courses being run on. The Group B rally series of the 1980's featured some of the loosest rules and most badassed race cars ever, but was cancelled after a couple of deaths due to the cars simply progressing beyond the limits of human reflexes. Tech restrictions in racing are also there to cap development costs for teams without the half-billion-dollar budgets of Ferrari and Toyota - thereby ensuring the long-term viability of the sport.

But for the grassroots, participation-oriented sport of cycling, mandating a certain wheel diameter or other minutae, tech restrictions have the opposite effect - they raise the price of admission for the privateer who can't enter his one and only rig because some mountain bike apologist can't hang with the BMX'ers in the air. Look at grassroots motorsports: everyone gets a crack at going for the fastest time of the day, and everyone gets to try and impress sponsors: drag racing, hillclimbs, auto-x, open track days, etc.

So how about a more accurate comparing DJ'ing to freestyle ski jumping and snowboard huck comps? IANAH (I Am Not A Hucker), but I don't recall seeing anyone being told that their planks are a couple inches too long or too short and that it's an unfair advantage and could they please go home and wait with their hands folded in their laps until their parents can afford to buy them a new setup that Mr. Race Official says is okay.

As for sponsorships, I recall being scoped by shops back in my new_school_gr0m days simply because they were impressed by me getting decent DH results on the same bike I showed up for the weekly XC races on.

at the core it is all garage tinkering

Exactly. Without "run whatcha brung," mountain bike technology dies stillborn on a Marin County uphill with only a rusted-out singlespeed Schwinn Excelsior and a pair of bloody gardening gloves to mark its grave. Road derailleurs never get grafted to Klunkers. Breezers are never brought back to the North Shore. All that's left is a vaguely contented sigh from Ernie Crist echoing through an empty forest.