26/11/2025
Before buying bigger track gears for your U15 rider, here are a few stories of those who selected to spin.
This post could be quite long. If you are the parent, carer, etc of a cycling young person born in 2012 or 2013 you may have seen that from 1st January they can ride up to a 7 m roll-out. 2010 and 2011 born riders already have this maximum and so there is no change for them. Get yourself a coffee and consider a few thoughts. If you currently like two shots in there then maybe from Jan 1st you can put in four? Will you work faster, feel better, or know quite how to make said coffee work for you? Maybe not. Maybe your current brew is actually the perfect brew for you.
So, the technical regulations have been updated for 2026 allowing U15 riders (the 2012 and 2013 born people) to ride a bike with an up to 7.0 m roll-out in road and track races. If they do mountain biking, or the path to enlightenment which is cyclocross, we don’t have roll-outs in these races so just ride any geared bike in these events. Cyclocross starts again on April 11th.
Before you go out and buy a 63 tooth chainring and a 19 tooth sprocket from Matt at the Gear Shop, specially widened cranks so the chainring can fit on your bike, or any other thing to accommodate the permitted gears, consider whether doing so is a good idea.
Taller people, if nicely tailored, have longer length trousers. This is true. But if you want to be taller and want longer legs don’t go and buy longer trousers. I just don’t think that’ll work.
A few references of some people you may have heard of are useful here. When Australian representative Ryan Elliott was U17 he did not ride on the full roll-out for his 500 m time trial, as the shortest amount of time for the distance – how this race is measured – was achievable, for him, on a lower roll-out. It doesn’t matter what the others choose to do, it is what gets you the fastest time that matters. You can look at the U17 500 m times of the first years and see what they did on the 6.1 m roll-out at States or Nationals as a second year U15. It is common that they have become slower, despite those additional months of growth and maturation. Too big a gear and we are timing first laps on a sun dial, and however splendid your next lap you can never get all this time back. The sun has set on that race before you even reach your peak speed.
Ella Liang won the U17 State 500 m title on a gear well under the maximum permitted as it was key that she started quickly and spinning the smaller gear once up to speed was never going to be an issue. Silver that year went to Amelie Sanders, who has continued to do very nicely indeed!
As a first year U19, when you can choose any gear you like on the track, Ella’s 500 m gear was barely above that allowed at U17 and she shared the National podium with Lilya Tatarinoff who, like Ryan, is now a World Elite medallist. Ella’s scratch race gear selection at Oceania Championships that year was something she could accelerate quickly for the times mid-race that may be needed, and at the end when it definitely was, and her Oceania Champion jersey shows that it went well. Her 1 km TT gear, as a second year with a further 12 months of development, was much bigger than that of the previous year (admittedly 1 km as opposed to 500 m), but, along with silver medallist Emily Robinson, well below that of others, and it yielded a World Record. It suited both the first 500 m and the last 500 m for Ella. The others may well have chosen the perfect gear for their own riding. We’ll never know.
So having a small enough gear to be accelerateable is essential in any track event where increasing speed is needed. So, erm, all of them then. And then you have to keep pushing the one fixed gear because you can’t click to an easier one, or get off and walk with your lunch order sent ahead. An over-geared pursuit is a painful and lonely world.
Chris Hoy and Craig McLean were amazed that Ryan Bayley had beaten them in a 91.8” gear (7.16 m roll-out) and, no, those times wouldn’t beat Harrie Lavreyson today, and you may be surprised quite how quick they were, but neither is your School Year 6 – 8, whatever they may be, getting anywhere near the times Ryan rode either. Not for a good few years at least.
So yes, as my driving instructor said, it is a limit, not a target. I have an issue with the wording in the announcement. The website says that ‘7 metres is the maximum permitted gearing and does not need to be adopted immediately’. In all reality, for an U15, for speed, acceleration, ability to maintain the generated speed, the physical enjoyment of riding, or for many other reasons, it might not need to be adopted on the track bike at all.
