Originally Posted by tcs

You know, not that many of the world's 1,000,000,000+ cyclists are affected by the UCI.

The 'everybody would be on a recumbent today if the UCI hadn't restricted them in the 1930s' factoid was part of a marketing pitch dreamed up by a couple of American recumbent manufacturers in the late 1970s. It played pretty well to the largely ignorant, enthusiastic U.S. ten-speed riders of the day. If one knows anything about bicycle history, technology, usage and the large percent of 'racing' that takes place throughout the world entirely outside of UCI control, the myth just doesn't hold up.