Exotic, but worth the money?

[peetee]

Here we have a feature about the TT version of the Hope/Lotus track bike used by the GB this year.
Now, even if I had the money, based on what I see here there is nothing in the world that would persuade me to buy one.
Can you spot the issue?

[igauk]

No mudgaurd or rack eyelets?

[rjb]

It's made of plastic.

[Wilhelmus]

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[colin54]

Is the wheel out of track a bit, or is it just turned slightly ?

[cyclop]

The, front dropouts are,nt parallel?The whole bike looks skewed,damaged even.?My back couldn,t tolerate it ,

[peetee]

The, front dropouts are,nt parallel?The whole bike looks skewed,damaged even.?My back couldn,t tolerate it ,

Spot on. The front wheel and seatpost are offset to the right relative to the head tube (riders view, not the photo). My conclusion being the frame is bent. For a creation that is supposed to be the zenith of engineering design and production, that is beyond a joke.

[Boring_Username]

It's a stock photo of the track bike, which is deliberately designed to steer to the left on anti-clockwise velodromes.

[Wilhelmus]

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[Boring_Username]

One would have assumed the rider was capable of doing that, especially if such people get knighthoods for their achievements.

Marginal gains, innit?

[peetee]

It's a stock photo of the track bike, which is deliberately designed to steer to the left on anti-clockwise velodromes.

No, it has gears and brakes. It’s the time trial derivative.

[Boring_Username]

No, it has gears and brakes. It’s the time trial derivative.

It's possible I wasn't being entirely serious.

[peetee]

No, it has gears and brakes. It’s the time trial derivative.

It's possible I wasn't being entirely serious.

With your audience not being able to discern the subtle tone in your voice might I suggest you use an emoji for that?

[slowster]

It looks to me like an asymmetric rear triangle, an obvious reason for which would be to allow a reduced/zero dish rear wheel. I imagine the benefit of that in the context of a time trial bike would be that it would allow a lower number of spokes in the rear wheel (all other things being equal). If that is the reason, presumably they have done the research/wind tunnel testing to confirm that there is a sufficient gain in performance to justify the design.

That said, there might also be a degree of deliberately trying to confuse and mislead competitors with the various different novel design aspects of these bikes. I can easily imagine that the developers might include novel features which they know from testing provide no performance benefit, but by doing so they will potentially cause other teams to waste time and money trying the same things. If the developers only include those novel features which work, then it is much easier and cheaper for competitors to copy and test just those features.

[Wilhelmus]

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