BEIJING — It’s tricked out to become bicycle’s equivalent of a Maserati. Its handlebars curve away from the bike, allowing the rider to lean over for a more aerodynamic posture. Its fork is incorporated into the frame. It has only one gear and no brakes, not that going 44 mph on a bike isn’t dangerous. It’s just that brakes weigh a couple of ounces and that’s too much in this event.
But more than anything else, Boulder’s Taylor Phinney loves the bike he will use in Friday’s 4,000-meter individual pursuit race in the Olympics for another reason.
“It looks really cool,” he said.
Yeah, he’s a teenager. He just turned 18. But when you’re the son of Davis Phinney and Connie Carpenter-Phinney, former Olympic medalists in cycling, bicycles are really cool. Taylor also knows them. So do the people who are equipping him.
His bike, made by Felt Racing of Irvine, Calif., weighs only 14.96 pounds. That’s lighter than some bike locks. It has to be. Differences between gold and go home are in the hundredths of seconds here.
Felt has spent an extraordinary amount of time in the wind tunnel trying to shave every spare hundredths of a second.
“There are some (bikes) that are not aerodynamic at all,” Phinney said. “And we put all our focus on aerodynamics. That definitely helps me.”
Also, being 6-feet-4, Phinney is aerodynamic as it is. He just started using a new aerodynamic helmet from Giro that’s closed off in the back to prevent an air vacuum underneath.
“Seeing is believing and looking good is feeling good,” Phinney said. “And feeling good is going fast.”
Unlike his ultimate goal of riding in the Tour de France, Phinney’s pursuit race doesn’t take three weeks. It takes a little more than four minutes. It is 16 laps around a 250-meter track, where two riders start on opposite sides and pursue each other.
Phinney comes with the confidence of having won the junior world championships in this event in Cape Town, South Africa, and as the youngest man in the field, he has no pressure.
“I was really nervous for junior worlds, which is weird for me,” he said. “I was going in as the favorite. If I didn’t win I’d be a failure in everyone’s eyes. I got that over with. Here, I’m completely relaxed. I’m having a good time.”
To his mother, who should know, that’s a good sign.
“For him, it’s like, he’s so fresh,” she said. “He sort of knows what the other guys are capable of and, quite honestly, they have no idea what he’s capable of. They’re more afraid of him than he is of them. We still have not discovered what his limits are.”
His chances of gold are slim with Great Britain’s Bradley Wiggins the heavy favorite. Phinney finished eighth in the senior worlds, but he doesn’t lack confidence.
“I’m feeling hot, man. I feel good,” he said.
