Road men, welcome back to the podcast. One of my favorite guests, it's Mr. Alex Dowset.
Today we dive into the aerodynamic hacks and tricks that Alex Dowset used to help Mark Cavendish break the tour of France stage winning record. We look for aero innovations within Aana and show you how you can use them to go a little bit faster. Welcome to the Roadman podcast, Mr.
Alex Detis. Alex Dis, welcome back to Rob Podcast. Thanks for having me again.
Number three, four is our annual catch up anyway. Yeah, I have a few on repeat on the annual. It's you, Dylan Johnson, Alex House.
There's a few I like to catch up with each year. Jine, yeah. Oh, okay.
Yeah, good people. Yeah, good lads. Good lads.
Uh, you are obviously retired couple of years now and you mentioned something. It was just a word I jotted down as we were chatting off air. We were talking about no pins, uh, skin suits and the idea of those pockets and we said, "It's so obvious in hindsight.
" And I just I jot down that word obvious when we were saying it. And I was wondering what's obvious in hindsight about your training that you wish you were doing when you were world tour cuz you have been I know you're in a bit of a lean period at the moment, but you have been mixing it up with running and other sports. So any lessons from that that you wish you applied for when you were full-time?
Um, I probably mainly around nutrition if I'm honest. And I know Simon Yates touched on it in an interview recently where just eating more well eating more at the right times and less at the right times. So less about eating more, more about just eating at the right time.
The macro timing of it. Yeah. just the amount of like pre-r pre- breakfast riding I used to do like and it was always just the actually the failure I used to feel like when coaches would be like you need to go on like a low carb sort of 4hour ride and I just feel like death and I might like bail on a ride at 3 hours think feeling like a failure because my body wouldn't let me run on just fat and protein.
It just it was there's very little I could do to turn that round. And you hear stories of other pros doing like intervals on just a black coffee for breakfast. And I was like I can barely get out of bed without I get out of bed without breakfast.
And yeah, hindsight knowing now that that was I was yeah I was I was feeling like a failure unnecessarily because the tail end of your career was the nutritional pendulum swung towards through me eating smoked salmon and scrambled eggs and avocados up on Mount Tada for him telling us he was eating smoked salmon. Yeah. You reckon it was a smoking mirrors?
I think a little bit. A little. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I think um I got a feeling Inos, Team Sky, Inos knew that there was an element of everyone copying them.
So like, what if we just release some This is what we're doing, but it isn't actually. Maybe we're leading everyone else down there. Interesting.
I must chat to David Dawn. He's the nutritionist in Inos. I'm not sure how long David's been there, but he built the the Hexus app.
Have you used this yet? Hexus is the app. I think there I think by the end of the year.
Yeah. Like mo half of the world tour or something I think are on it. Yumbo aren't on it.
Red Bull aren't on it. Is Dan on it. I don't know.
Yeah. So it it basically plans out your nutrition for you gram macro gram by gram and it plugs into your training peaks and figures out what session you're doing, what session you have planned, and what session you had done yesterday and figures out your macros around that based on if you want to lose weight, maintain or slightly gain weight. Yeah.
Shocking amount of food you need to eat. It's It's wild, isn't it? That's the unbelievable.
Yeah, I know. Sort of I say I don't know it's like nutrition within the is not not my area. I just know every single rider has their own set of scales at every meal.
And I asked Mike Toyerson about them. I was I was just like a casual like Christless, you know, this has changed for the better from when I was racing and he was like it's actually it's there to eat. This is what's changed as well is it's not there to limit the amount you eat.
It's there to make sure that we're eating enough. What's the lesson in that for an amateur, though? Uh I I for me it's timing.
It's just all about timing. To sit here and go, "Oh, everyone's just eating more." That isn't to say, "Oh, to the to the to the amateur to go home and just like double your intake.
" It's it's timing around training. Um and I I worked on a in the last couple of years I would say I got the leanest healthily leanest and most powerful in my career and that is that was all down to timing of nutrition not restriction not restriction no it was and actually with timing and quantity correct I didn't I was never had I never had like hunger pangs I never got in from a ride feeling like I needed to inhale the entire contents of the fridge. Yeah.
Um training was remarkably consistent. I didn't have bad days. I didn't have I didn't have like every day was like a good day, good enough.
Um and everything was much more predictable. Um so it was yeah, he just he just had more control. Um, the part I found really counterintuitive about it is it's the Sunday ride for your amateur because most amateurs get the bulk of our endurance done Saturday, Sunday.
Monday's typically a rest day. So, Sunday evening, you've just ridden long Saturday, four or five hours. You've ridden long Sunday, four or five hours.
Saturday evening actually requires a bit of restriction because Sunday evening, sorry, Sunday evening requires a bit of restriction because you're stopping looking at your diet in like 24-hour cycles. You're looking at, okay, well, what's coming ahead tomorrow? And there's nothing coming ahead tomorrow.
So, you don't really need to fuel very much for nothing coming ahead tomorrow. Yeah, I think the club guys are quite likely to go out and bang a 16inch pizza and go, I kind of earned it over the weekend. Yeah.
And they don't Yeah. it's not going to do any harm. But if we're talking about absolute performance, um because if yeah, if they've done five or six hours and you're looking at, you know, five or six thousand calorie like day, then that's still an awful that's hard.
That's hard to get to. Um but yeah, I mean my I had a year of that where I used my fitness pal to track and I was taking everything on a on a 24-hour like when I woke up to when I go to sleep and I what we found And with tracking my weight as well, generally training was a three-day block, one day rest. And my weight would go, you drop, I don't know, point three or point four of a kilo every day of the three-day block.
And then on the rest day, you'd gain I'd gain a kilo. I knew if on the rest day that I had maintained the weight of the 3-day block, um, I was in trouble for the next training day. I I I had to have gained something because it's replenishing glycos glycogen stores.
It's it's water um retention. Um so what was what I was doing was it was taking everything I was I was doing exactly that. I'd have like Sunday for example Sunday would be like a big 5h hour day.
Um, and if Monday is a rest day, like Sunday, I would be trying to get my fitness power up to a like minus like 500 calorie deficit minimum. Maximum minimum like no more. Yeah.
Um, so I'd be doing all my eating after the ride and and then I' be like, right, Monday, that's an 1,800 calorie day, so it' be mostly protein and fat. and then I'd just be flat as a pancake on Tuesday in terms of training because I haven't replenished any glycogen stores. Now, what um I kind I spoke to a nutritionist in Oregon who um kind of just changed my thinking.
Is isn't this what all the pros are doing now? And it's that to start thinking just always three meals ahead of training. And there's possibly an easier way of doing it than a um a 24-hour cycle.
I I don't I haven't used this the Hexus app or the I think Jumbo Visma have one as well. The free athletes kitchen or something or something like that. Something like that.
Yeah. Um I used to just think three meals ahead. So if I'm training like say Mon say Saturday, Sunday, Monday.
Saturday's a big day, Sunday's big day, Monday's a rest day. Like Saturday doing my training ride. We're going to have high carb I have my recovery drink.
Um high carb lunch, high carb dinner, high carb breakfast, big training day Sunday, recovery drink, and then you're on the low carb. Um that then it kind of you said your day finishes at your recovery drink and then your next day starts at your meal after your recovery drink after training. So it actually becomes quite intuitive when you think about it.
The way you explained it there, you're thinking that two, three meals ahead cycle. Yeah. But where I struggle with it a little bit is for somebody, the club rider who's trying to cut weight, someone who's trying to lose five, six kilograms, it can feel quite counterintuitive to be tucking into bigger feeds than normal while trying to lose weight.
Yeah. I mean, I guess there's um uh you if you're fueled right cuz I mean like people love to eat. People love food.
It's a like it's a big topic of conversation for probably 80 90% of the population in economically developed countries is trying to eat less so they can lose weight. But a love of food. Yeah.
Um if you are well fueled, you will be able to exercise harder. You you will burn more. So you kind of enable you you will enable more food if that makes sense.
And then but then when it's time to restrict you really restrict. And I think that's it's just more polarized isn't it? It's like when it's time to eat you bloody well eat.
And when it's time to restrict you you can restrict without fear. Do you think those GLP1 antagonists, your ompic are going to creep into cycling or are we past that era of temptation for that stuff around food? I think I' I'd like to think we're past that.
I don't I don't see the I think the knowledge is so the not the knowledge of how to do it whilst training efficiently is is so good that if riders I don't know if riders are needing to do that then don't know if pro cycling is the place for them if good for Yanick though Yanick could have won six seven tours with us just just to add to the like the cabinet of whatever it was going on. Yeah. Untested how empaic could go into the mix.
Yeah. Yeah. He still looked great though.
He did. Yeah. Oh, that's it only gets in shape.
Those pictures at 98 tour him and Pantani climbing. Pantani's in the Uno X kit. They're just like iconic images of Olrich.
They don't make humans like that anymore. No. No.
It's um Yeah, that was that was an era, wasn't it? peak masculinity. So you do have you're as you're self-confessed not an expert on nutrition.
You are an expert on aerodynamics and you are in a standard this year. How did that how did that transition happen from could we call you internet influencer pro cyclist gravel racer internet influencer? I yeah internet influencer.
Yeah, I guess so. I guess on the surface of it was just um I had a phone call. I had a No, I had a WhatsApp from Cavendish uh six weeks out from a tour to France.
Just a casual, hey mate, do you know anything about tire aerodynamics? And um I called him. I said, I I'm said, your message concerns me.
I like Yes. Yes, I do. I is in do I know anything?
I know what's fast and I know what isn't fast through a massive amount of testing. Um, so I do, but I'm like three things concern me. One, it's six weeks out to the tour to France and you're thinking about this.
Two, this hasn't been done in the winter. And three, you're calling me like from Do you have mates? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
But like, you know, I have nothing to do with his racing. of nothing to do with Estana at this time. And I was like, shouldn't there be, it's like, shouldn't there be someone who has done this quite a long time ago?
Um, and then C was like, yeah, yeah, but you you know how it is in like an awful lot of World Tour teams. Um, you kind of have to do this stuff yourself. So I kind I said, um, okay, well, what's I said, yes, I can and help.
What else is going on? What else is missing? um and just asked a few questions, found a few holes, and he was like, "I'm off to a wind tunnel next week.
" And it was interestingly only the second time he'd ever been in a wind tunnel in his whole career, which I found Yeah, I found surprising. Um, and so went along, found some um found some holes uh that we could fill um just to get some sort of um get some advantages for him. Things like the arrow bottles really worked on the Willia.
Um what sort of savings is an arrow bottle? That was about 2 and a half% uh saving on CDA. Okay.
Um that's pretty big. Yeah. Yeah.
Um, you just looked at it and you just kind of like, well, it looks like it's going to work and oh, it works. Um, is the consideration for cal when you're talking about or maybe the answer is both. Is the consideration CDA at 75k an hour?
We had Yeah, we were doing speed or cruise speed. Uh, we're doing high speed, low y. Um, so yes, it was it was it wasn't 75.
I think we were at 60 or 65. Um, so yeah, and then we played a bit with helmets. I actually put a it was quite entertaining.
Put a um we took a number of helmets with us. Some work, some didn't. Uh the yeah the Trex TX ballista helmet worked very well on him, but the gyro arrow head that Jumbo Visma are now using in um in racing worked the best.
And I was like that's a you decision. That's a you decision of you. Mark Cavendish is going to take an arrow helmet into a into a road race.
There's your legacy guard. Yeah. Yeah.
But I think in the end Lamar um took note of the flaws and added a they added like a a little fin thing to the back of the back of their helmet which you've seen our Estana riders at the moment. It's a gold it's it's gold. Um so yeah, we found that was another two and a half% that that gyro arrow head.
Um considering how close that stage win was or any sprint stage win normally is. Yeah, he he chucked everything and the kitchen sink at it. Um, and it was So, yeah, back to your original question, helped a lot, and then uh Cab said to the team, you should employ him, and the team employed me.
So, you he initially text you about tires. I remember chatting to Matt Bottl about this, and you know, I'm so out of the loop on this stuff. Bot was telling me it's actually more about the tire, wheel, bike system now as a whole rather than one in isolation.
We can't just say they are the fastest tires full stop. It ends up being different based on those other variables. Was that your experience with it?
Well, we we it's funny in the end I think we didn't after all that we didn't really look at tires. Um we because there was there was larger gains to find elsewhere we felt. Um but Matt's Matt's bang on.
Um, and tires is something I think is there's Yeah, there's there's been no Matt Matt is very right. Tire type, tire size, rim width, internal rim width. It's a bit of a minefield.
So, you can't you kind of have to make it specific for your setup. Um, and then ride like rider preference, race environment. um all front and back as well all comes into the equation.
Um but that's quite interesting as a consumer because you know if you go on to wherever you buy your tires Sigma Sports or whatever like there's no data about this. There's no like this tire will work best with this wheel for this type of rider on this bike. You're just really presented with the tire options and then you come home with the tires, then you listen to a podcast like this and you're like, "Oh, boss.
" Yeah. Yeah. It's I I think the reason for that is I don't I think tires is the next frontier um for quite big steps forward.
I I found some stuff this winter. I was like that's that's alarming. Um, so yeah, I do think tires is next.
And I think the reason there is no rockolid information on it is because it's um because I don't think anyone's got rock solid information. I think certain people have information that is specific to them and their wheel set and their roads and their um their racing discipline. Uh but yeah, you take it a crit, it's just a tire for a criterion.
Well, is it American crit or British crit? Because in American crit, you don't really go around corners so much. In a British crit, you you're heavy on the brakes and you're really testing the limits of the tire on sometimes quite alarmingly rough surfaces.
And that is a that's quite a different it's quite a different um requirement. So, I got a time tri bike in the winter. Haven't started playing around with it yet.
I was meant to go over to Mash and do a fit on it. I haven't I'm running compact wheels on a BMC. How do I start to create a bro science home experiments to work out the best tires for this bike fit?
Bingham was saying to me that chat GPT is becoming like an invaluable resource for the bro science enthusiast at home because you can start to get data and plug it into chat GPT and that can start doing a lot of the calculations that you really needed to be good at maths to do before. Yeah. Oh wow.
Um the camp disc. Yeah, they're quite narrow, aren't they? I I don't have a frame of reference.
You see, like like to look at it, it looks quite narrow, but it looks a lot more narrow than the zip disc, which is the only other one I've put my hands on in the last 12 months. But like I I don't know is the honest answer to that. Um, yeah, I'd go I'd go test Silverstone's pedaling efficiency rig is where I'd go to find your answers on tires cuz that's it just takes the guesswork out of it.
Um, you think it's possible with a body rocket gimbing or is there too many unknowns? Uh, not withh everything above the bike. Um, Eric there says you could you could do it, but it requires some some backwards maths.
You wouldn't be looking and then you would have to be very stable. It's I think for that specifically, I would use the pedaling efficiency rig and Silverstone. I I try not to do it outside.
Um just mainly because you just you get very black and white answers there. Um cuz you put in Yeah. tire size, tubeless, inner tube, liner, no liner.
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I think there's an interesting gap for someone to create a software tech product to walk you through and onboard you into optimizing your TT bike with some basic tests. Yeah, I'd I'd agree with that. Um there's a huge knowledge gap like you talked about John Archerald giving you a spanking in the 50 last year like swinging that John will be delighted.
Uh but you know there's a there's a there's a talent golf there's a genetics golf there's a training golf but possibly even a bigger gulf at the front end than them races and aerodynamics golf. There's a few people really have dialed in to unlocking this aerodynamics puzzle and the vast majority of the, you know, the trailers behind haven't unlocked that. And it's like, how do you bridge that gap?
Is there secretly a dude in fifth who's all the horsepower in the world? There there is it's just it's it's hard, isn't it? Because everyone's so different.
Um I yeah every everyone is so different that it is very difficult to create something that kind of looks after looks after all almost all you know takes 90% of riders and goes you can if you do this this and this you'll be like 90% there. I I I that's that's really tough to do and and Yeah, I'll be honest. I'm struggling with the question because it's never some I've always taken people on a case- by case basis when I'm trying to help them go faster.
It's it's yeah software to you could take you could take an average a standard deviation of or an average of people's angles like a retool bike fit would do for a road road rider and go we're roughly like we're roughly here for handlebar height like shoulder height and um I think also like maybe like tors also height in relation to shoulders as well because there's a lot of that whether you're pushing your imagine you're doing a plank on the floor and is whether you're relaxing your spine to drop between your shoulder blades or you're pushing your whole body up. Um, it's only and I think most people try most most people try and drop the drop the spine because then that tucks the head more um or enables you to tuck the head more in between the shoulders. There's only one rider that really made the pushup position work and that was Tony Martin.
Um, but he was the panzer. Yeah. But he he was a a lauren to himself, an enigma, an anomaly.
There we go. Tony was an anomaly in the time trial world. Um, so yeah, but developing something.
Yeah, I I positionally I think uh a refined time trial specific retool could could get there. And is this a problem on a smaller scale you're trying to solve with a Stanner? Because obviously you alluded to working one-on-one with Cavendish with the size of a world tour squad now.
Do you have time to work one-on-one with every rider? We work. Yes.
Yes, we do. Um some big winter training camps to rattle through um we did. Yeah, we we managed to arrow test on the track 60% of the team.
Um, and it's it's actually my first time doing track testing from the other side of the fence, especially with non-track riders. I've done track arrow testing, but cuz they can't hold a black line. Yeah.
One I mean, one rider, I won't name names, one rider like almost crashed. Name them. No.
Um, and he was just like, I've never ridden the track. I don't know how to ride the track. And and actually, I don't want to do this.
I was like, "Okay, it's fine. I don't want to be responsible for a collarbone break under my watch anyway." So, um, and actually, we're going to get nothing from this because you're going to be terrified of just riding the track over getting like positionally dialed in.
You could see there was one there's one rider uh Romel um who was a track rider and it's like you're looking at his numbers like Jesus Christ like he's just clocking same every like CDA is is not moving around at all. It's just remarkable. I'm like what's going on here?
It's like oh he's a pursuit. So then a kind of the track testing um I I don't I think it's good because I think riders are under the same stresses they're under when they're well or not exactly the same because it's you know eight laps versus 18k or whatever but it gives they're having to put power down. I think the downside to it is fatigue um and an unfamiliarity of the track and a lack of your angles as well, but there's something to be said for it.
Um yeah, I I think my preference would still be heading to the win tunnel there. Yeah, but it starts it's like paralle principle, isn't it? It starts to get them 80% of the way there for 20% of the effort you're knocking off some of the really big gains.
Yeah. And I think with a starter, you know, you look at our roster, we have we do not have um I hope and I hope no one would mind, we do not have a specialist. Aaron Gate would be the closest to our time trial specialist.
Um but even for and and Mike Toyerson and Fedorov are time trialists, but we like we do not have a um who can Gan is the obvious one like say even a Mikl. Yeah. Um, so we have GC riders who have to be good at time traveling.
Um, and that's so, so it's kind of the efforts is where do you focus your efforts? And the time trial has been, um, we've made enough of an effort, let's say, on In some ways, does not having the star make it easier to assemble a TTT team? Yeah.
Yeah. Um, no. I think it's I think a TTT.
Uh, poor I've danced around that answer, haven't I? Um, I don't think it makes a difference. I think having a star just gives you someone to to lean on.
Um, but ultimately, I think having a a team having a team that is a team is the important thing for a team time travel. Yeah. I having trying to remove because we had the Paranese team time trial recently and um the one thing and I went out I I I don't know I kind of I'd say I dsed for the day um and the one thing I say is like when I was at Bobby Star alarmingly good at team time triing for very much a lack of work in the team time trial.
Um, and I said for me it put that down to like a fundamental lack of ego within the team. Like everyone just left their ego on the bus, went and did like what they could do and not a single second more. And I put that down to two things.
One is like the Spanish the whole mentality within Maui Star was was brilliant um and really conducive to um an ego-free team time trial. And the second thing is that almost the like obviously there was no pacing strategies, no power predictions, no um how long you spend on the front. It was even like when it came down to order, there wasn't much consideration for order either.
So, and I I'm not saying that was the best way of doing it. I was saying there's something in it just that like you get off the front before you start slowing the train down. Yeah.
Like that's that's pretty much a smart group of riders to pull that off though. Yes. Yeah.
And they were they knew their ability and they were and we had a smart group of riders in par. So um I think a couple of leaders what happens with the team time trial as well interestingly is the riders take control of it. Like the more you do like we did the more training you do the more the riders start talking.
It's like, well, we need to do this, we need to do that. And the riders take ownership of the race cuz they've suddenly they've ridden the course. They know the course better than than we do from from Vello Viewer and from all the tools that we have at our disposal, but they've they're the ones that have ridden it at speed and at power.
Um, so yeah, there's a real and then the DS I think depending on the DS's experience of team time traveling is how much input like they have. We when I was a pro, we had one one of my Yeah. One of our like people in my job for a teen time trial at Copy Bartley was like, "Oh, this is the order I was thinking.
" And we all just went, "Nah, no, absolutely not. Like, park that. will like don't you worry yourself about it we'll sort this out and we dsed it ourselves and won it.
Um, so I was very much, you know, and I think I have good experience in the team time trial, so I can be a lot of use, but I was very much when you've got the likes of Case Bow and Mike Tinyerson in the group who are naturalb born leaders, not afraid to say to someone, you need to do this better or you're doing this wrong. Um, this is how you improve and saying it in the right way despite them being Dutch and the Dutch like abrupt bluntness. Um, everyone listens.
So, and yeah, you talk about software veler you know some of the stuff you would use for an individual time trial you might go and use my best bike split. Is there a similar type software you can use or can you adapt my best bike split for team time trials? Um I I just adapted best bike split to get a rough idea of how long the race is going to take.
Basically, it's um you're not mapping out turns and power targets based off that. Not really. No, I mapped out just off I don't believe I don't um I mapped out a rough idea for the first six kilometers um because it was on the motor racing circuit and mainly to focus around riders trying to make changes happen on turns to make changes more efficient.
Okay. no sort of no and so the riders aren't changing like just before corners and getting in the in the way of the entire team in a corner and making life more difficult for themselves. But I think if there hadn't have been a motor races circuit, I'm not sure I wouldn't I'm not sure I would have even done that.
Um I just I think un why didn't we do it? I think it was a um lack of no lacks negative. I think it was a was I I didn't know the riders well enough.
Like I don't know that we' done most of the aero testing on the track. So we had a we had a a track CDA, but I'm quite I'm always quite dubious about trusting whenever I go a testing. I don't care much for the actual number that gets shown up.
I only really care for an improvement on the day. Yeah. Because if you take the same position to like a body rocket um a test outside, a wind tunnel test at Silverstone, a wind tunnel test in Milan and then a uh a track a test, you are going to get four different CDAs.
And I could not tell you which one is correct. And I do not care either. All I care about is on that particular session is we try and improve it.
Um I guess it becomes more interesting if you have the same group of riders now going to do Azure Italia TT or you know the base of the same group of riders you can start to make deductions from the previous length of turns power you can yeah you can and they know as well and I think the riders it's experience as well the riders like for Nikico Vinorov it's his first ever team time trial and he was terrified you could tell he's like just asking the most amount of questions And he's like, "What if I do? How do I do this?" I'm like, it it's very difficult to say like, "Mate, you just need to stop thinking about it, but do it right, but just stop thinking.
You're thinking too much. Don't do that. Just feel it.
" What was with the different colored overshoots? Oh, yeah. So, that was um that went better than I expected.
Uh that was it was always something I've been sat on it for a while. It's just I had the opportunity to implement it. Um so his oversho actually the gloves were my focus not the oversho uh the oversho worked well as well.
Um when you are you're on the front you've done a huge effort world tour guys generally it's sort of 30 to 45 seconds 500ish watts. Um yeah, seven. Um so with the numbers it was a a coach once in a 10 time trial was like you need to do seven watts per kilo on the front and as right again going back to that relationship between rider and coach.
We were like don't don't tell the riders that because then they'll focus on it. Like ultimately if the riders keep the speed, keep the momentum which is all it boils down to and you look at the data afterwards, it will probably be around seven watts per kilo give or take like but don't try and ask the riders to sit on that because they'll like I think pace then power then starts fluctuating. I say that feels like it could be very surgy then because you have, you know, to use the outlier example, you have Ghana coming through as an 83 kg rider at 7 watts per kilo on a flat road's going to be very different than, you know, your climber coming through at 7 watts a kilo.
Exactly. And then also because then you Yeah, you're using a watts per kilo um your watts per kilo. A watts per kilo has a small amount of correlation with arrow for I think people who are not specialists because it's a general size like if you've if you got bigger if you are bigger then you'll have a worse error than someone that is smaller on a like real fundamental level.
So there is a small amount of correlation and if you look at team time trial numbers at the end generally yeah seven watts per kilo on the front uh back then was roughly what it took. But I think with pacing strategies if you say like please hold like x rider 473 watts on the front then rider starts dancing around that it's like 460 bit more 480 a bit less 460 bit more 480 a bit less and all of that's doing is tanking the the momentum. um and sending like waves down the team time trial line that are not helpful.
Um so but the different colored gloves and over shoes, sorry the I sat down um years ago with Lewis Hamilton's uh engineer uh Bono who um he was just chatting about uh the drivers don't look at the lights when they go out. they they have them in the periphery because you react to stuff in your periphery faster than you react to it if you're looking at it. So, it's kind of like, okay, there's there's one thing um the first when you're coming back, yeah, you're on the front, you're doing big power, you've done a big effort, you swing off, and then the certainly for me, the most terrifying part of the team time trial was getting back onto the back.
Oh, you miss that, you you're in a real trouble. Um, so that has to be clinical. It has to be perfect.
Um, and there's a lot going on. Uh, lines like there's always movement in the line. Um, and you you've got to come off the power and get back on it again and time all that correctly.
So, you're looking for your guy and everyone everyone kind of looks the same. And that's a great idea. I had the penny drop there.
Yeah. And everyone like And yes. Yes.
We can all tell who's who like on a but there's also if you've got to have a big proper look obviously there's an arrow loss there. Um the first thing you see the rider's gloves. So like so if you're in your periphery you're not waiting for a set of green aana glo blue aana gloves you're waiting for bright pink like you you're going to see that quicker and it's like bang like get in.
Um cuz you almost need to be moving in for someone who hasn't ridden it. You're not waiting for the entire train to go past and then moving in, you're almost slightly moving in all the time. It's like if you execute it perfect, it's like your front wheel and their back wheel are so close to touching as you just peel in.
It's like the old um team pursuit team back in the day. They're like, "Don't aim for their back wheel. Aim for their bottom bracket and you will hit their you'll land on their wheel.
" And that takes some like nerves to do that for the first time, but they're right. And that's you're 100% right. You're not aiming like Yeah, you're aiming to get there at the right time.
So you're just getting and then it's not even I think what the rider said, you're not even aiming for your gloves. You're a you know then know it's like I'm going to see orange gloves, green gloves, pink gloves and then it's me. Yeah.
So that was the first thing. The second thing, um, I then actually asked for just different colored over shoes only for Tada and Champasan, our two GC guys. Um, but in the you're working with an Italian kit manufacturer, so things get lost in translation, but just everyone different color gloves.
I didn't I I didn't want to do that because um of the UCI. I was like I was worried if we make a big show of it then that's something the UCI if everyone's got different color gloves and imagine the UCI would have been like oh weird okay but if you don't know different color gloves different color over shoes and it looks like a big thing catching a chance and there's chance they will say no um but everyone had different color over shoes the riders were like we want to wear the over shoes as well because I again I think that whole peripheral v peripheral um vision something brightly Going back to I when I was a child time triing on the road and my parents being a bit worried. I think they got a piece of advice just to get me bright yellow over shoes because for car drivers seeing something seeing a light is one thing.
Seeing something brightly colored is another thing. Seeing something brightly colored that's moving that catches your Yeah. catches your attention quite a bit.
So um I was like okay well you know this works as well. And the rider was like no we want we want to use these. So they had that.
Um, so it was that. The third thing from the team car behind it is so easy to see who is who. And we used all of the we made sure that we used the gloves and the over shoes in training so that every member of staff knew who was who.
Yeah. Um, and it's amazing how when when the when all the equip when all the gloves and over shoes turned up, Nico and Takada were both in orange, slightly different shades of orange like gloves. And I was like, that could have been done better.
You know, there's the color spectrum's vast. We didn't need to go to burnt orange, burnt orange and fluuro orange. But you you still by the time the race came around, it's like you knew who was who exactly.
it didn't really matter. Um, so from the team car behind, we had uh one rider like missed a turn and it was like I was on the radio and it was so easy for me to then go, okay, like this rider is sitting on um case you're now looking for um Tahada's wheel. Tahard is in burnt orange.
Yeah. Um and that made that a lot easier rather than just trying to work out quickly who's that whose wheel is he on like quickly now. It just it made those decisions faster as well.
Um because that can be super messy in the heat of battle. It sounds obvious for someone listening, but if you're a two beats below max heart rate trying to figure out whose wheel you're now on with one person sitting on, did he just skip one turn or is he sitting on totally and it's like to have that conciseness and clarity of communication is really important. Yes.
And that that worked for that. Um so yeah, it worked. I mean, yeah, we got 13th, which I think there was, I said in my Instagram post, internally that was a positive result.
Um, so everyone was happy. It kept our GC boys in the GC battle. Um, so it was Yeah, it was it was it was positive and and a bit that I didn't get afterwards, like the the buzz about the gloves and the overshoes.
It was the team were like, "God, we're getting so much press from this." It's like this there's two teams being talked about with the team time trial jumbo visma because they won it and ask. Uh before we finish up, I asked uh our some of our email list uh some questions to ask you because you were coming on and did some not really odd ones, but standard enough ones.
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Worst cycling purchase. Uh, so pretty. I've got a BT track bike now, but when I was a kid, I bought a set of BT um I know I sent them back off Stuart Dangerfield BT handlebars that I really wanted to work on my time trial bike, but they didn't.
They made my position a lot higher, but they were just they were a thing of beauty. Um so, not those. Um, I'm going to throw mine out there when you were thinking compact group just doesn't work.
Um, I promise like one of those things you you know is I guess it's based on what you know now. Um, say maybe maybe ketones before I understood them. Yeah, they work for almost no one.
I've had physiologists on the podcast talking about how basically there's nobody should be using those. There's never been good peer-reviewed data on them at all. And we, again, I fell into that trap as well.
We had them as early sponsor on the podcast. I was like, maybe they're doing something, but like it's just you've never there's no good data on it. It's like how do you know?
or it just becomes placebo. Yeah, probably that. Um, I'd say I never actually I'm I'm custom handlebars.
I'm I am so on the fence with custom handlebars. Um, because for two reasons. I think the aftermarket options now are so bloody good.
Yeah. and just the the limiter on custom handlebars for any positional changes, positional development. Um, I did buy a set of custom handlebars in my career, but they were custom for Matias Brandley.
Um, it was on the factor Hanzo and I can get them. I'll show you. I'll show you.
Yeah, these the factor was not a simple I don't know like Oh, they're beautiful. The Factor wasn't a simple um bike to put handlebars on in its infancy. And yeah, Matias Branley had had these made and he said he's like, "Oh, the the guy that makes them, he'll make them he'll make a set for you as well.
" And I got sent a set of instruction or a set like a a um a list of like dimensions and everything that I'd want my hands in. And I was like, I don't know. Like without going and spending three or four hours in a win tunnel like I don't know.
And I put my arms in brands. I was like, "These are nice. Make me them.
" Yeah. And that's And yeah. So I mean custom custom handlebars I if you are if you have spent 10 to 15 hours testing and you like have have made a position work then and only then get the custom handlebars.
But even then, make sure that they're like symmetric, like symmetrical. I know you're killing me here cuz I have my TT bike. I've It's Ben O Conor's old TT bike.
So, I have his 3D printed arrow bars on it. And my mate who's aerodynamicist with Fusion, he's just like like there's almost no chance they're going to work for you. There's no no adaptability whatsoever in them.
They look so cool. And it's like, I really want to make these work, but I can hardly like I can hardly get into the position on them. Yeah, I mean it just the options are so good now.
Like Aerero Coach has every kind of hand position you can want. The I've been so impressed with the Vision option we have with Aana. Um Vision make great kit.
Yeah, like the adjustability of them and the comfort. I mean, I think they're based on Wan Arts custom handlebars and like unsurprisingly they're comfortable because they're Wan Arts custom handlebars. And that's you get on a time trialist's bike with the exception of the anomaly that is Tony Martin, you find that it's it's it's much comfier than you're expecting it to be.
Like I thought my TT bike was comfortable after the National 25 in 2020. I got on Dan Bigham's TT bike. I was like, "Bloody hell, this is more comfortable.
" Um, what's the XLAB bikes like? They're fine. They're good.
Cuz there's a lot of I I don't know many of the Astana lads personally, but I know some of the the Catlan lads pretty well. And I know when they heard they were getting van rises, they was like, "Oh, come on. Are you kidding me?
" And then they were actually quite happy with the bike in the end. I'm sure it was a similar sentiment when it people heard we're going from Willier to XLab. The riders were Yeah, I thought I was more worried about the rider um perception than I needed to be.
The riders were far more open-minded about it than I really thought they were going to be. Um, and hats off to them for that. The um the road bike is is very good.
Um, the TT bike we've I think as a starting point, we've been very lucky with how good it is. Um, and one of my first jobs within the team was to stick everything in a tunnel and test everything and make sure that it stacks up. The TT bike was quicker with and without a rider than the Willers bike, not the Willia that Kung's riding or that now Fjure are riding.
Um, which Estana I don't think Estana ever had the option to have because it was a joint venture between Four and Okay. Willia, but it was it's quicker than Willia's um previous time travel bike quite significantly actually. And uh yeah, and the road bike was um I didn't test it against a Willia.
Um the road bike was was in the like the the very correct ballpark as well. So that's good. Um and it's it's interest.
It's like it's a this is a line I've been wanting to use for a while. Um like with the teams because obviously the team's doing it like very well this year. Um and there's been we've made quite a few changes.
Obviously the bikes, tires as well. um that which was a me thing. Um when the and I'd say everyone has moved up like 30 or 40 positions in racing just where they finish in the race.
Everyone's moved up and and it's kind of like when there's a step change difference in the way everyone's performing or when all the riders performing. It's actually not about the riders, it's about everything else. riders probably won't be too happy about me saying that, but it's the, you know, I wasn't in the team last year.
Um, but I know from PE riders that were saying there has been a step change difference in the team this year and like the results are showing for it. You know, we're we're second in the team rankings at the moment, which given the relegation battle that the team's got on is exactly where we need to be and exactly what we need to be doing. So, it's um yeah, it's pretty cool.
Two or more rapid fire ones before we finish up. Favorite cycling holiday destination. Um probably Lanerati.
Lanzerati in the winter. Very windy in Lanzerati. Yeah, I like I just I like that.
But in the winter especially, I I never quite understood. I understand why teams go to Calpe because of um like you can drive everything there and the Canary Islands, you'd have to fly everything there. But for solo winter training, I've never understood the fascination with Calpe and Morca in the winter when you can go an hour and a half longer on a plane and have guaranteed shorts in New Jersey weather.
Yeah, it's a good point. Uh, and the last one, the now that you're back mixing it with regular Joe's and Janes and the group spins and club rides and local tens. What's the biggest mistake you've seen amateurs making?
Um, it's rapid fire question. It's not a rapid fire answer, is it? My one's probably uh was on a group ride.
Terrifying. uh not with my group and I seen a lad descender with the wrong crank down going around corners. Oh, okay.
Yeah, that's that's good one. Nearly set me on fire. Sparking through the corners.
Wow. Um I can't Yeah. I hate train it.
Try training efficiently. Um just too much going riding with the lads. Same speed all the time.
Yeah, same speed all the time. Sometimes just riding hard all the time because you're time crunched. So you maximize the time that you have.
So you got an hour like I'm just going to make it a really bloody hard hour. Top three. Yeah.
and and perhaps like the all the indoor training platform Zift and whatnot are the best thing ever. Like don't get me wrong, but there's and yeah, people just racing on Zift all the time. Um because it's fun and I get that, but not doing the the efficient training that's going to make them better.
And you know what Zift as well because there's you know Zift, Ruby, all the platforms like they are amazing but there's there has to be a Netflix effect because they're businesses. So they have to retain customers. You see this a little bit in coaching where if you're coaching if a if a coach's primary concern is client retention and having low churn, you have to create these sessions that are kind of nonsense.
It's like a load of cadence changes, a load of three minutes at this, two minutes at this. Whereas I remember Michael Barry coaching me and it'd be just like five hours look over hedges and be like you never log on to Zift and it's like three hours zone one. It's like yeah I hear but you chat to the physiology chat to Steven Syler Dan Lang any of these guys and they just prioritize so much zone one zone two riding.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean I I that's athlete I think that's client client athlete dependent um how much time they've got. Yeah.
Um just that what motivates them. I mean coaching I think coaching is quite an easy job but it's the people skills that's it's it's knowing what gets the most out of your the person you're working with. how to and sometimes yeah like you say nonsense maybe isn't the the word I'd use for it is it was more like what's going to give them motivation to do it and it might scientifically it might not be the best thing but from a um as a as a young lad I coached who had he was like he was at he was doing sport science at university so he probably knew more than I about that aspect, but struggling with motivation.
And I set him like a sort of load of zone 3 stuff to do instead of V2 max stuff. And he's like, "This doesn't make sense." I was like, "All right, we'll set you something that makes scientific sense.
" And he got to the end of the week, he had done he hadn't done any of it cuz motivation was low. I was like, "Well, maybe something that was a little bit easier on the head would have been the better thing to do this week because then you'd have done something." Yeah.
Um, so yeah, I think that's uh that's a great lesson. It's it's all or something rather than all or nothing. Yeah, it's better to do better to do something, isn't it?
Uh the very last one. Are we going to see you back on YouTube? I need to I do need to I being perfectly frank, I'm barely riding the bike at all at the moment.
And I'd love to tell you it's because I'm I I'm very busy. I am busy. Got two very young children.
Um and and an exercise at the moment seems almost um exercise as time consuming as cycling is like don't get me wrong and go out for a run smash the crap out of myself in half an hour whereas bike riding unless you've done it like for me an hour still feels like it's um like it's not really training even though like an hour now it does it does feel a bit longer but Um it's it's everything around it. Getting ready, the garage, the bike, it it and when Chanel and I are both um you know joint joint parenting seems like quite a selfish way of exercising when I could run I I swim twice a week at the local swimming club which is like at night so everyone's gone to bed in the house and I go swimming. Um, so from a YouTube standpoint, there's not much to talk about with cyclists.
Um, and I think that the job with Aana and I I wouldn't it seems deeply unprofessional to be going to Parise and doing everything that I have to do with the team time trial and then putting a camera in front of the rider's face and going, "Hey, how'd you feel about this team time trial?" It's like that. And that's not that's not my job in Estana.
And and I Estana know about my YouTube channel. And I think down the line there'll probably be some sort of um working together perhaps, but I think we you know, we have a hell of a job this year with with the relegation and that is our sole focus. So yeah, I we will see YouTube again.
It's not um I just I just don't know what to Hiasis. Yeah, I don't know what to put up at the moment and I don't want to put up for the sake of putting up Um yeah, that's a wrap. Alex Da, our annual catchup.
Thank you. See you in 2026. See you next year.
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