Brucey wrote:And many of the pro teams do so little TT work that they are not immune to making absolute howlers; for example having a radio down your back might be OK on a road stage (rather less so if you crash and land on it I suppose) but it is guaranteed to slow you down in a TT. Yet this exact thing is seen often in what is meant to be the pinnacle of professional cycling.
No-one is immune to making absolute howlers: the Garmin speed/power/etc display supplied to Geraint Thomas for the world championship time trial did not fit on the bike he was using and this was discovered just a few seconds before the start! (says "The G-Rowe Preview" episode of their "Watts Occurring" podcast)
The real question is why other professional cyclists don't spend more time optimising their setup, riding position and tactics for time trial stages in grand tours; it can clearly make the difference between victory and defeat.
It's often thought to be a balancing act: much of what you could do to aid time trialling would detract from climbing, and the opposite. There have been few riders so far who can do both equally well (Van Aert may become one, or there are other possibles) and post-Armstrong grand tours have generally been won by climbers who aren't awful at TTs, with only Dumoulin standing out in my memory as a TT expert who learned how to climb well enough, but in his Giro win, he won the first TT but not the other: he didn't need to but didn't know that when he finished and was worried watching Quintana finish.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides
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