More on the Specialized Eff You See Eye (fUCI)

An earlier version of Specialized Creative Director Robert Egger’s “Eff You See Eye” concept bike was mentioned on Bicycle Design a couple months ago (in a post that was also featured on Core77). At that time, the personal project bike was just a teaser, a partially assembled primer grey prototype, but now Specialized has released photos of the completed concept bike, along with more information about the design, on their Very Special Things site.

In the updated post, Egger talks about his reasons behind the fUCI project:

“It’s kind of everything anti-UCI. Basically a ‘hey, here’s a totally different way of doing things. It doesn’t fit into your box, but the people who would appreciate this bike aren’t concerned with that box.’ The whole thing was really just an exercise in working outside of the UCI box.”

He goes on to say:

“The UCI really caters to a very small population, but there’s so many other people out there who couldn’t care less about the UCI. They don’t follow the racing and they don’t even know all the limitations that are put on bikes for the UCI riders. So, my feeling was let’s design a bike for someone who really just wants to go fast on a road bike.”

I won’t elaborate on the design. If you are interesting in learning more and seeing additional images, you can click through to the updated post at Very Special Things. The design itself is secondary to me. What I really love about this is the fact that someone from major bike company is talking about ignoring the UCI technical regulations when it comes to product development. Regardless of your feelings about the UCI (and I have shared my opinions here more than a few times), rules that govern pro racing should not completely dictate the types of bikes that are available to the public. I completely agree with Egger that there is a huge market of people who would like to ride fast, but could care less about the UCI. Actually, I would consider myself to be part of that market, so I would love to see more speed oriented bike designs that are faster and better then the bikes in the pro peloton. As Egger says in the article, the job of a designer is “to create products people feel they can’t live without.” Great…and for the record I can definitely live without another 6.8kg double triangle carbon frame. There are a few innovative non-diamond frame designs out there already (mostly geared toward triathletes), but I hope to see many more non-UCI compliant road bike designs on the market soon. Even if the fUCI will never be a production model, kudos to Egger and Specialized for stirring the pot.

Photo credits: Carson Blume

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Posted

August 24, 2015

Electric bike, Road Bike

James

Tags:

concept bike, Electric bike, Robert Egger, Specialized

Comments

10 responses to “More on the Specialized Eff You See Eye (fUCI)”

matteo

August 24, 2015

it’s hilarious what’s needed for an upright bike to be “aerodynamic” when there’s already the recumbents 😀

Reply
Adam Rice

August 24, 2015

I seem to recall John Howard built a racing bike with a small fairing like this back in the 80s or 90s.

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1. James Thomas
  
  August 25, 2015
  
  I don’t remember John Howard on an upright bike with a fairing, but I certainly don’t doubt it. Let me know if you find a picture of it.
  
  There are some interesting statistics about the use of a partial fairing on an upright road bike in this NoTech Mag article. I often see a local guy riding a carbon Felt road bike with a fairing similar to the one pictured, but I have never asked him about it. Like the guy in the picture, I think he mainly has it to keep the wind from messing up his beard.
  
  Reply
William H.

August 27, 2015

It seems arrogance must be the normal operating procedure at Specialized.

Building a bike like this is one thing to prove what can be done with modern design and construction methods. To flaunt this obviously intended name in the media and basically “Give the Bird” to the UCI is totally another. Is this what modern bike companies do now? Have to vent their anger in public?

Seems degrading to me. Both the bike and the name.

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Flashlab

August 31, 2015

I agree. While the bike is cool and all, I could live without the middle fingers and the attitude.

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Bob

August 31, 2015

Don’t care about the political correctness (or lack thereof)
I WANT ONE NOW!!

Reply
Nick Foley

September 2, 2015

The design & the attitude are fantastic. Bicycles have more to offer to the world than mere incremental improvements to an outdated and over-regulated frame geometry. Non-traditional designs offer better speed, better comfort, better utility, more features. Commuter and consumer bicycles benefit greatly from trickle-down technology, but that only works if there is innovation at the top. The UCI should be shamed for using its position as an industry leader to stagnate the progress of human development with their feeble attempt at freezing time and preserving the idea of ‘bicycle racing’ as it was in the 70’s.

Specialized should sponsor a team of riders to race in UCI events with unsanctioned bikes, paying their fines for the riders. Or, they should sponsor a race series that doesn’t require UCI-compliant bicycles.

A proposal:
The only defensible regulations are ones that keep the overall design of the bike safe & practical on open roads. For good visibility, the rider’s head position should be some minimum distance (4′?) above the road surface, and for safe stopping/starting, any fairing design should be open enough that the rider can mount/dismount the bicycle within some low minimum time limit (2 seconds?). There should be no allowed energy storage, although a separate class for e-Bikes (with a reasonable watt/hour limit) would be exciting. This would free up the design space for performance racing, while making sure that those efforts benefited society as a whole by keeping the direction of development aligned with the idea of bicycles as transportation.

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Flashlab

September 3, 2015

Then why doesn’t Specialized commercialize this model regardsless of the UCI and competition? If this what people want it should sell like crazy! Most customers don’t ride competition anyway.

The truth is that Specialized uses ID to flip the bird to the UCI. They make big bucks selling UCI-legal bikes and only use this to appear cool. Which in my book makes them appear juvenile and lame; even though I find the bike cool.

Reply
fUCI concept bike flips the bird at racing rules

October 2, 2015

[…] Source: Very Special Things (Specialized) around Bicycle Design […]

Reply
zovier

July 21, 2016

The design & the attitude are fantastic.

Reply