Olympics tech - the old and new

[mcjonesy]

Sure - for track riding it makes sense (some brands don't even have track bikes!). And for the team kit idem dito; it's a requirement to ride in team kit, so their own teams can't legally enforce riders to use their own branded kit.

I have yet to see a road ride where a rider of a top team was allowed to use a different brand bike. Specialized, Cervelo etc pay millions to their world tour teams to have them use their equipment. Having a rider of their team riding something different during a world championshiop or OS would reflect extremely bad on them. In fact, some riders have been even sued for using a different bike during training rides (especially in the case where a rider was moving teams and already wanted to try out his new bike in December).

Alex Dowsett ran a Shiv at Euro's (& worlds?)[1] in 2020 while he was on Israel. Not a top top team but still world tour. In his book he says it's cos the Slick was garbage.
Rohan Denis ran a BMC instead of a Time Warp [2] (which is entirely justified) When he was on Bahrain Merida

[1] https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/uci-ro ... v-tt-bike/
[2] https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/rohan- ... pionships/

[norman99]

I'm really interested in how team mechanics are picked, as well as how they manage the multiple bike builds within their team. For instance, would Remco get any input, maybe requesting one of his Soudal–Quick-Step mechanics for the Belgian squad?

[MichaelK]

Depends really. My mate is a WT mechanic and also works for a national team at Worlds/Olympics (different riders to his trade team). I could imagine Remco getting first choice of who he actually wants working on his bikes.

[MichaelK]

That reminds me, I think it was the Australian women's team pursuit team, they had 3 different frames between the 4 riders. 2 Factors, a Dolan, and an Argon 18, just seemed much different than what the other teams were doing.

I do find that odd. If you've read about the bar failures that they suffered you'd see that they have absolutely meticulous handbooks for every single part on their bikes. Adding other brands and models must be a headache for them.

[smartyiak]

It's not always the case, eg Dowsett was going to ride a Shiv in Tokyo if he was there.

He covered that in his book - his trade team contract covered that he could choose any equipment he wanted when riding for the national team.

Not Olympics, but related (and a cool tech story):
https://www.pinkbike.com/news/bike-chec ... e-100.html

"For the 2024 event, Dylan is racing on an Allied BC40; while Dylan rides for Felt, since they don't make an MTB he could choose any bike he wanted."