I have been bike racing for almost 10 years now and I have had a hard time figuring out what is a bicycle is.

My first real road bike - I had bought a 55cm Marinoni bike at a pawn shop, put the shortest stem I could find, replaced the campy seatpost so I could bring the seat as close as I could to the top tupe (I now ride a 50cm frame). I soon figured out the bike was way too big for me, so I got a 50cm Argon 18 aluminum frame, and transfered the vintage campy components, including the 7 speed downtube shifters.

I remember my first race near Ottawa in Gatineau park, a 105km road circuit. I had no idea what I was getting into. I had done some club rides but never ridden in a large pack.  I actually felt good and kept with the pace on the climbs, but in the second of five loops, I dropped my chain and had no idea what to do. I finally stopped, got the chain back on the small ring, and could no longer shift to big ring. | never got back in the pack, but I finished the race.

After the race, someone watching the race comes to talk to me, looks at my Campy Shamal wheels, and tells me nicely that my wheels are not legal or they will not be legal next year. I don't quite remember. I think in 2002, the UCI decided that wheels with a rim depth greater than 2.5cm where no longer legal, unless that had passed a UCI crash test. It kind of makes sense, as some wheels where simply dangerous like the Spinergy Rev-X with 8 huge bladed spokes.

Nonetheless, that meant that overnight, so many wheels became illegal for road racing. And that meant all the expensive wheels bought the year before where only good for triathlons.

Then came time trialing. The UCI keeps changing the rules. I remember seeing pictures with 650 front wheels and 700 rear wheels. The UCI decided front and rear wheels had to be the same diameter.

Then Graeme Obree, started to innovate by adopting radical aero positions and bike construction, obtaining the world one hour record. Twice the UCI banned his positions.

Then later the UCI kept making the definition of a bicycle more restrictive. The seat can't be advanced too far, aero bars have to flat and the highest point of the aerobars can't be above the seat.

Now this year, they started to enforce the 3:1 length to width ratio on aerobars themselves. Manufacturers are pushing the envelope to make bikes faster and the UCI keeps changing the rules. We might as well all ride steel frames with round tubing.

Most of us are not racing on pro teams and buy our bicycles. Many top end aerobars sold recently have shapes that don't respect the 3:1 ratio, and I heard the Quebec Cycling Federation will start applying the regulation next year.

All this is getting ridiculous. So if you want to keep your aerobars, you can add some foam and duck tape to make them thicker. Who knows, that may not be legal, because that may be considered adding aerodynamic fairing. Or, it may not be legal because it is not permanently installed on the bike, and could be removed during a race.

So this year, since my VisionTech bars are not legal and I would have had to spend some money to change them, I decided to rebel against the UCI and get a Kestrel Airfoil. And guess what, of course it's illegal, it doesn't have a downtube! Just like a Softride without a downtube and rear triangle.

So guess what, this year there are 3:1 odds that I'll be doing a lot more triathlons and duathlons than bike races under UCI regulations :)