The Wuhan Weapon

[duff_duffy]

Interesting story on fake UCI stickers, Saint Piran in Hot Water Over Allegedly Fake UCI Stickers on Unapproved Frames

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/oth...5131722&ei=167

[jimcav]

but who doesn't hate "moaners".

In all seriousness, can that fine crash a continental team? What does the official UCI sticker cost a team. This kind of cheat makes me think running a team must be very tough without a deep pocket sponsor.

[benb]

How long has this been a thing? The only bike I've ever had that had it is my 2016 Domane.

I am almost certain the BH G5 I had before the Domane did not have the UCI approval badge on it and that bike was definitely used in Pro racing in Europe.

It's not about the team, I don't think they would have been able to get the bike approved. They would have had to work with the Chinese manufacturer + UCI to get the bike approved and then probably have to get new frames built with the logo applied at the factory. You'd think there would be a waiver program for this though where they do a quick inspection of the frame and decide if it is approved and don't make them get bikes with the logos factory applied.

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by benb

How long has this been a thing? The only bike I've ever had that had it is my 2016 Domane.

I am almost certain the BH G5 I had before the Domane did not have the UCI approval badge on it and that bike was definitely used in Pro racing in Europe.

It's not about the team, I don't think they would have been able to get the bike approved. They would have had to work with the Chinese manufacturer + UCI to get the bike approved and then probably have to get new frames built with the logo applied at the factory. You'd think there would be a waiver program for this though where they do a quick inspection of the frame and decide if it is approved and don't make them get bikes with the logos factory applied.

The UCI frameset approval program has been in place since 2011. Largely due to the UCI Equipment Commercialization rules, submission for UCI frameset approval is done by the manufacturer. Even if the the team wanted to submit the frames for approval on their own, they may not have had the information required (it requires submitting technical drawings of the frame), and may not have been able to afford it (it the fee is $5,000 CHF per model, plus submitting actual frames for testing). Or the team may simply not have had the time to go through the entire process of getting a frame approved.

Here's the UCI FAQ regarding the process:

https://assets.ctfassets.net/761l7gh..._FRAMESETS.pdf

[vertr]

Bait and switch thread title of the year!

[Dude]

It's the manufacturers responsibility to get it approved and the teams responsibility to verify frames they are racing on are uci approved. Many of the aliexpress bikes (or velobuilds or wherever this came from) claim that the frame is uci approved.

If i recall, the cynical part of it is the UCI trying to control everything but the optimistic part is to ensure frames maintain safety standards so frames aren't crashing the whole peloton or paralyzing riders.