from Jesse Bartholomew
With Team Slipstream’s success at the Tour of Georgia we knew there would be a big opportunity at the upcoming Giro and we wanted to be there to help however we could. The amount of preparation for the opening stage’s team time trial is staggering. When I arrived in Palermo, Sicily almost 4 days before the start of the race, team staff had already arrived and begun preparations and the riders had been preparing for weeks prior to that even with camps at their home base in Girona, Spain.
After their successful ride that put Christian Vande Velde in the maglia rosa, David Zabriskie asked Allen Lim, team physiologist and master mind behind the team’s preparation, not to share the details of those few weeks but I’ve got a few insights that I don’t think David will mind our CycleOps customers knowing.
Allen helping me prepare computers.
To begin with, anytime a team trial is part of a grand tour, especially early in the race, it puts extra strain on the team simply due to the logistics involved. Each rider will need their time trial race bike but also a spare bike. The spare is important for a couple of reasons, most important of which is in the event of a problem out on the race course, but it also provides a bike for the riders to use on their newly supplied trainers while warming up prior to the race. This way, no time is lost between the warm up and the start. At this year’s Giro, the team warmed up until 5 minutes prior to their start time, following a precisely scripted routine by Allen Lim, the team’s physiologist.
Team mechanic Dameon Shanks peparing David Zabriskie’s race bike with a surprise real wheel that David didn’t see until a couple hours before the start.
The time trial bike preparation is on top of the team’s road bike preparation. The riders will have 3 bikes here, one race bike and 2 spares. Typically there are 2 follow cars and so each car will have a spare for each rider, ensuring that no matter what happens on the road a car will be able to help a rider with minimal time loss. Needless to say, all these bikes require A LOT of PowerTaps. For the Giro alone we provided approximately 60 PowerTaps for just 9 riders. This way we are guaranteed that every second of data will be captured. However, a full spring of racing all around the world with multiple set ups has highlighted the one down side of a wireless PowerTap which is keeping all those hubs matched up with the proper computer. The team mechanics have developed a unique numbering system but for the Giro the systems were consolidated to get enough PowerTaps for the 3 week Grand Tour. This meant a “re-paring” effort was needed and it just so happens CycleOps Product Managers are specially trained for such an effort. With some help from our Italian distributor and Allen Lim himself we made short work of the task.
Next up were trainers.
In addition to the PowerTaps, CycleOps also supplies trainers to the team and we had a fresh set sent in, thanks again to our Italian distributor Charlie. The team has been using some prototype trainers since their Silver City, NM training camp, but we had originally not planned on supplying the European program with this product. It turned out that the team they liked them so much, we went ahead and sent another prototype batch over. The reason the team likes them so much is that unlike most trainers they have multiple power curves. This shouldn’t be confused with multiple resistance settings because resistance settings are needed to accommodate different power requirements within a single workout, the difference between a warm up and a sprint interval for example. The new CycleOps trainer allows for multiple power curves which is in effect like having 4 different trainers in one. This is important for a Giro squad that has the likes of Magnus Backstedt that can easily to 5 minute repeats at 500 watts because of his bigger, more powerful physique compared to the lighter, built for climbing legs of somebody like Pat McCarty. For Magnus I set up the trainer with the maximum power curve, for Pat the second curve. This allowed 2 very different riders to perform 2 very different and wide ranging warm ups on the same trainer.
More preparation.
After all the equipment preparation the riders arrived on Wednesday evening. They had a quick dinner at the hotel and were off to bed. Thursday morning they all met at the mechanic’s truck for a 9:00 ride after breakfast. Because team had the team trial in their sights they did both training rides before the stage on their TT bikes, which was about 5 hours in total. For those of you with TT bikes you know they are built for speed and not much else the team issue Felt DA is no exception, so 5 hours is a lot of time to be in a full aero tuck, but it got the riders familiar with the set up and allowed time to evaluate any additional changes they may need.
One of the perks of being a product manager, for me at least, is that I occasionally get to join the team on their training rides. Since today would mostly be easy it was a great time to suit up. The weather had been great the past couple of days so I was looking forward to getting out and enjoying it.
The days training ride headed East towards Messina. After a crazy ride through town the roads cleared up a bit and the guys did 2x20 minute “medium” efforts, taking 30 to 90 second pulls each. In order to not disrupt their rotations I motor paced the car for during these efforts and even that was hard. They were doing roughly 50 kph (32 mph) on the flat road heading towards Messina. Christian Vande Velde was doing between 350 and 450 watts while on the front and between 250 and 300 watts while sitting in.
Looks like I won’t be selected for the team…..that’s David Millar looking back to make sure I was disposed of properly.
Compared to the actual race efforts, Christian averaged about 34 mph for the entire effort and all his pulls lasted 30 seconds at over 450 watts. When “sitting in” he averaged about 350 watts. In order to warm up for this sort of intensity Allen had a prescribed warm up routine that not only consisted of the time directly before the stage start but the whole day. Following is a rough summary of the days plan:
8 AM- Riders wake up
9:15 AM- Road ride, 1 hr. with Allen and one mechanic following
12:00 PM- Lunch
2:00 PM- Arrive at race start
2:15 PM- One lap on race course, easy. Goal to inspect course
3:00 PM- Begin warm up on trainers with ice jackets
Warm up details: 20 minutes at endurance pace with high cadence, 10 minutes Threshold pace (hard), 2 minutes at Race pace (Vo2), 3 minutes easy, 1 minute at Vo2, 4 minutes easy, 30 seconds at power held during pulls, 4 minutes and 30 seconds easy.
3:45 PM- Off trainer. Put helmets and radios on.
3:55 PM- Take one energy gel
4:05 PM- Start Time
The white vests have been soaked in ice
One thing you may have noticed is that the riders all used ice vests despite the relatively cool temperatures in Palermo the morning of the event. They also used a series of high powered fans that the team brough from Girona. This, according to Allen Lim, is essential for keeping the overall heat load to a minimum while still allowing the rider’s legs to “open up” and prepare for the effort ahead.
Once out on the road the team is followed by two cars, just like the road stages except that both directors, including Allen Lim, are in the first car. This way Lionel can drive, Matt White can focus on radio communication with the team and Allen can “run the numbers” based on a custom split calculator he can manipulate in the car real-time. This allows the team to pace perfectly, ensuring they don’t blow up too soon and that the riders are “popped” at the right times to ensure only 5 finish.
Needless to say all this work payed off in the end with the team taking the stage and the pink jersey. Before the final results were in the team was celebrating in the fact that they executed the plan they layed out. Everybody did their job and there were no mistakes.
Dave Z doing the robot at the team presentation