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vanhelmont

Wisey, your post on people falling off time trial bikes got me to look for Hinault time trials on you-tube, where I found this on Hinault and Lemond in 1986: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=7_YGWlex9nM

Hinault is on a funny bike with bullhorn bars, and Lemond rides a pretty standard looking diamond frame with dropped bars. I couldn't see that either was other than round tubes, but they might be. They should be Huffy, and I have one with aero tubes (flattened gas pipe!) that must be from around that time. Anyway, you all probably know Hinault was out to take the yellow jersey away from Lemond on this time trial. He almost crashed on one corner, and Lemond did. Would they have already had weird geometry by '86, or were they just pushing the envelope?

The other interesting source on bike design I came across the other day is Gene Portuesi's Cyclopedia of 1974, with an article on "choosing your bike,"
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/cyclopedia/index.html
The section on massed start bikes says pro's would have had several different bikes to choose from, with a longer wheel base, slack angled frame for rough roads (like Super Corsa and TdF frames up to '73), and shorter wheel base, stiffer angles ('74 and later frames) for better roads. The time trial bike section says time trials are held on better roads, and riders go at a steady pace instead of sprinting, so lighter tubes are used. He doesn't mention angles.

On the high position in modern TT bikes, I saw something about Discovery testing positions in a wind tunnel, and they found that Basso was actually more aerodynamic in a higher position. Could they be sacrificing handling to aerodynamics? But Wisey, your helmet story is great, and points to looks rather than function being the key.

By the way, Portuesi also notes the importance of fashion in bike design.

Dave

verktyg

Paul Wiseman

Oops. I had completely forgotten about Greg crashing in the final TT in 86. Embarassed

lofter

sandranian · Site Admin

In the tt's, the flat cruising speed would usually be in the neighborhood of 30mph. One of the fastest TT's ever in the Tour was LeMond's 89 victory, where he averaged 34.5 mph.

Zabriskie's 2005 TT is the fastest ever, but that was only 19K, so really almost a prologue.

LeMond's 1989 TT was over 25K (15.5 miles), so that was relatively short as well, but still...average of almost 35mph is unreal. Oh...and it is reported that the course had an elevation loss of 247 feet over those 15 miles. So...it was technically a "downhill" course!

Gtane

They really are astonishing speeds. For me, just getting to 35mph on the flat would be enough of a struggle just once in my lifetime, let alone averaging it in a TT.

Here are some useful stats on The Tour (go to the foot of the page for the PDF files of information).

http://www.letour.fr/2009/TDF/COURSE/us/histoire_statistiques.html

If you go to the 'Miscellaneous records' file, you'll see all the individual time trial records, as well as the team time trial records, amongst others.

Tim

Paul Wiseman