What to Look for in the Time Trial
There used to be a race called Bordeaux-Paris that lasted from 1891 to 1988. It was an unusual one, 560-km (350-miles) long, one day, the last half of it behind dernys - or motorized pacers, usually driven by a quite corpulent man to better aid the drafting effect for the rider behind. It was the setting for some of cycling’s greatest dramas, especially the 1965 edition where Jacques Anquetil did the Dauphiné-Liberé double (with almost no sleep between the finish of the stage race and the start of B-P). Starting at 2:00 AM, the race was the setting for all sorts of shenanigans, the long night providing cover for cute practices.
One of the most famous ones, back in the rough and ready days of the sport, was to thread a length of fishing line through a bottle cork. The pacer would hold the end of the line, the rider would grab the cork with his teeth, the throttle opened up and voila! The rider was now pulled along at a much faster speed, the Commissaire in the follow car unable to spot the thin line.
I was reminded of that practice while reading an article in L’Equipe yesterday, about a time trial ‘innovation’ brought about by Team Ineos. They load up the team car roof with up to 10 “spare” bikes, creating in essence a wall that pushes through the wind. The effect is to create a bubble of compressed air between the team car and racer that in essence pushes the rider forward. This is particularly effective when the car is following at what was the UCI mandated 10-meters behind the time trial rider. Professor Bert Blocken, of the KU Leuven University in Belgium, an expert aerodynamicist, was the first to spot this practice, did wind tunnel testing on it, and successfully lobbied the UCI, armed with this new information, to lengthen the follow distance this year to 25-meters.
Still, according to his research applied to today’s TT, if a loaded team car is at 1-meter behind - and that does happen so watch for it - the overall gain would be 25-seconds, 6-seconds at 5-meters, 3.5-seconds at 10-meters and 2.5-seconds at the UCI mandated 25-meters. In a race this close, where mountain stages have been fought tooth and nail only to have seconds separating the leaders, these TT practices could prove decisive. As yet another French proverb puts it, “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.” The UCI needs to put a cork in this one.
Who will win? The two leaders have been so close that it’s impossible to say. Will Pogačar again upset the Jumbo-Visma apple cart as he did in 2020, shocking Primoz Roglič? Or has Vingegaard’s slow steady controlling of the Slovenian been a perfect TT preparation. The Dane has continually stated that this is his week. Pogačar looked slightly off on that last mountain stage, is his lack of preparation finally catching up with him? And how about Wout van Aert? Can he finally win his stage? I worry about the Belgian and the massive efforts he makes on almost a daily basis, most of the time for no personal gain. You can ruin a bike rider in the same way you can ruin a racehorse. Time for him to be the unique leader of a team with no distraction, no duties except those that benefit his wild levels of talent. The sport would be better for it.