If cyclist Lance Armstrong holds on to win an unprecedented seventh straight Tour de France on Sunday, he can give some of the credit to Hewlett-Packard in Fort Collins.
The Trek TTx time trial bike, used by Armstrong and his Discovery Channel cycling team, was redesigned in April using H-P’s xw9300 computer workstation, which was developed in Fort Collins.
The redesign is part of a partnership between H-P, Advanced Micro Devices and Trek Bicycle Corp.
H-P workers in Fort Collins were watching closely July 5, when the Discovery team broke a 10-year-old Tour de France record for average speed on a team time trial.
In the 21 stages of the Tour, there are two individual time trials and a team time trial.
Discovery averaged 35.54 mph in the team time trial, breaking the record of 34.06 mph.
“We have been watching Lance quite a bit,” said Jeff Wood, director of H-P’s global workstations in Fort Collins. “There are a lot of bike riders in Fort Collins, and the race has increased interest locally.”
It took Trek designers and engineers only four weeks in April to redesign the Trek TTx at Trek headquarters in Waterloo, Wis. Before April, the quickest redesign of any Trek bicycle was four months.
The Trek team’s speed was a result of using the xw9300, which is the only workstation to use two graphics cards. That helps designers and engineers to create high-resolution images and do 3-D analysis.
“That was the key thing for Trek,” Wood said. “Our workstation is the only product manufactured that can do that.”
Ten specialized workstations were sent to Trek headquarters. Each workstation has a price range of between $4,000 and $5,000, according to Wood.
“One to two years ago, similar boxes would run $15,000 to $16,000,” Wood said.
A standard version of the xw9300 workstation is available online for $1,799, according to H-P’s website.
Another reason for the speed of the bike redesign was that the xw9300 workstation uses four AMD Opteron processors. A variety of software programs were used on the workstation, integrating mechanical design and simulation modeling. Some changes on the new Trek TTx bike include a longer wheelbase and a new one-piece aero handlebar made from Optimum Compaction Low Void carbon, designed to eliminate drag.
Armstrong and the Discovery team use the TTx bike only for time trials, or races against the clock. Its light weight allows for increased speed, but it lacks the durability and handling necessary for longer daily race stages.
For those, the team uses another Trek bike that is heavier.
Though 18 stages of the Tour de France, Armstrong leads his closest pursuer by 2 minutes and 46 seconds. The final individual time trial is Saturday.
Staff writer Marcus W. Vanderberg can be reached at 303-820-1209 or mvanderberg@denverpost.com.
