Sorry, Tom Pidcock, Leadville has just banned your new drop bar Pinarello

In a shock transfer, Life Time Grand Prix took the choice on Friday to ban drop bar setups from competitors at some mountain bike occasions throughout the collection, these being Leadville Path 100 MTB and Little Sugar MTB.

These new rule adjustments are, it’s reported, on account of “rider security and compatibility considerations”, in a transfer that mirrors to some extent the excessive profile banning of aero bars at Unbound and different gravel occasions lately. The wording of the brand new rule is unambiguous:

“For rider security and course compatibility, drop-style handlebars (street or gravel bars with drops) are now not permitted for the Life Time Leadville Path 100 MTB and Life Time Little Sugar MTB. All rivals should use flat or riser-style handlebars at these occasions. This rule might be enforced throughout pre-race inspections and on track; violations might end in disqualification.”

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Leadville is a 100 mile mountain bike race, and whereas for years the sector has turned as much as race on mountain bikes, a rising development lately has been for high athletes (and presumably some amateurs, too) to swap the flat bars for a drop bar cockpit in a bid to enhance the aerodynamics of their machines.

Dylan Johnson, a famously stressed setup fiddler, was one of many first to the drop bar get together, whereas the watershed second was maybe Keegan Swenson profitable whereas utilizing drop bars in 2024 on the occasion.

Since then we’ve got seen a gentle trickle of unofficial setups on this vein, in addition to some totally sanctioned manufacturing machines. The likes of the Ridley Ignite, the Lee Cougan Innova Tremendous Gravel, and maybe probably the most high-profile launch of all: the Pinarello Dogma MX. This bike was so oddly particular, and so unavailable in lots of territories together with the UK and US, that we speculated that it was a manufacturing run designed particularly for Tom Pidcock to make use of for taking a tilt at Leadville later this yr.

Sources near Pinarello, nevertheless, remained noncommittal on this entrance. There’s, in fact, nonetheless an opportunity we are going to see the Olympic MTB champion deal with the famously gruelling, excessive altitude occasion, but when he does it’ll be on an ordinary Pinarello Dogma XC hardtail.

This ban will undoubtedly have a chilling impact on drop bar builds, which have turn into the newest gravel development (or fad, for those who’re of a sceptical disposition). Whereas Lifetime’s different MTB occasion, the Chequamegon MTB Pageant, will nonetheless enable drop bars in competitors in a barely complicated transfer, it is honest to say that Leadville is the blue riband MTB occasion of the non-UCI world, and it’s from there that tech developments circulation to an amazing prolong.

Gravel bikes have been transferring in the direction of MTBs in some ways, utilising longer, slacker geometry and most clearly utilising a lot bigger (even MTB dimension) tyres with the intention to make them extra succesful over rougher terrain, however really becoming drop bars to a mountain bike is a process that requires not less than some extent of forethought concerning compatibility, regardless of SRAM making issues lots simpler lately on this entrance. With out a high-profile occasion showcasing this setup it is a lot more durable to see manufacturers growing machines for comparatively little media curiosity, and more durable nonetheless to see amateurs having the impetus to recreate these setups themselves.