There’s simply no slowing down the Tour de France, nor any other modern bike race. In the past decade the average speeds in professional races have steadily increased, driven by technological advancements in computer modeling, power measurement and aerodynamic testing.
When I raced the Tour de France 20 years ago as a member of the first American team to enter the competition, we rode on steel. In the 1990s, aluminum alloys, titanium and carbon fiber made bikes lighter and more responsive. The largest leaps forward, however, occurred when manufacturers teamed up with engineers and started using advanced computer modeling technology to design bicycle frames, wheels, and helmets.
Computing powerhouses such as AMD, which had experience helping NASCAR and Formula 1 teams design faster cars, helped change the shape of bicycles. By using innovative shapes and materials, bike makers can now build machines that are far lighter, stronger and more comfortable than the old two-wheeler in your garage.
Bicycles have gotten so light that cycling’s governing body, the International Cycling Union, established a minimum weight limit of 6.8 kilograms, or a hair under 15 pounds. Ironically, many riders at the Tour de France have to add weight to their bikes to make sure they are heavy enough to comply with the regulations.
There are two ways to make a cyclist go faster. You can increase the amount of power he can produce with his legs and lungs, and you can reduce the air resistance or aerodynamic drag. We accomplish the first with training and nutrition, and the second with wind-tunnel technology.
Last winter, several members of my coaching staff and I joined the Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team for a few days of wind tunnel and velodrome testing in San Diego. We put team members George Hincapie, Paolo Savoldelli and others in the wind tunnel to optimize their body positions on the bike. The basic idea was to minimize aerodynamic drag without compromising the rider’s ability to produce maximum power.
To confirm that the changes made in the wind tunnel would lead to faster speeds in the real world, we put power-measuring SRM cranks on the bikes and tested the riders on the velodrome at the ADT Event Center. Sure enough, the data showed that with the new positions, the rider could slip through the air more easily and go faster without working harder.
What difference does all this technology make in the Tour de France? Look no further than Hincapie. Using the latest aerodynamic equipment and his optimized cycling position, he finished just 0.73 seconds behind the winner of Saturday’s 7-kilometer prologue time trial at the Tour de France. The race was so close that the top six finishers were separated by fewer than four seconds.
The following day, Hincapie finished third in an intermediate sprint and earned two bonus seconds, enough time to overtake the leader and fulfill every racer’s dream of wearing the yellow jersey in the Tour de France.
To read Chris Carmichael’s insights into the 2006 Tour de France, go to www.trainright.com and sign up for his free daily Tour de France newsletter.
