>>2044162You're wording this as if recumbents implied fairings. Both are independent things that just so happen to be often implemented together.
The answer lies in the last sentence: Divergence from tradition is a slippery slope, which is why many recumbents have fairings or bikes with fairings are recumbents.
Cycling just so happens to be one of the most traditionalist activities / markets out there. Before the UCI brought out the banhammer plenty of people demonstrated how much about the traditional bicycle is suboptimal and can easily be improved on.
In the end normies don't know and care, they just get what is conventional. And convention turns out to be what is traditional and also what the UCI allows. Even some people who dont race insist on riding UCI legal bikes and basically 'what the pros got' since they want ro look the part and also be able to compare their experience and perhaps even performance to others.
So. Here we are. Diamond frames, 700c wheels, no fairings.
