The time race is not a visual enjoyment of the audience like a sprint or a climb, but it is the "true meaning of the game". As we all know, the individual time race often plays a decisive role in the multi day race. A time trial expert can even open his opponent for a few minutes in the competition. This precious few minutes can often lay the foundation for victory and even reverse the situation of the competition.
So, the team has to pay attention to the timing training!
The Holland lottery team has a small team focusing on the "TT" project, which is supervised by Mathieu Hevo. In 2017 they achieved 7 victories in the race, including Jos Van Emden (Jos Van Emden) in central Italy twenty-first stage victory, and Primo Rogli in Z time world championship medal.
"Our team has experts in charge of time trial. Mathieu Havel is leading the project." Merin Zeman, the head of the team, said, "he is the pillar of our success. He's trying a lot of testing and innovation. "
There are many forms of innovation, from the introduction of the most advanced equipment to a slight adjustment of the posture and posture of the driver on the TT car. At the same time, the test is also carried out in the new open wind tunnel of Technische Universiteit Eindhoven. There, nine or more drivers set up a column to simulate the team timing scene.
"About eighty percent of the drivers were tested with Mathieu Havel in the wind tunnel," Mathieu said. Merin Zeman added. "The experts in the time race and the drivers who will participate in the time race of the big ring team will give priority to the test."
The team also adopted a similar approach when they would go to the camp clearance in the winter training, short-term wind tunnel test, in order to adjust the posture or set of vehicles.
"You, including Thomas, hang Coase based vroom are constantly exploring the optimal riding posture." Toure, the sky convoy, said, "but they are not only exploring the best posture, but also testing the equipment and equipment, and exploring how to make them faster.
"In our Maria training camp, some drivers will arrange to go to Parma for a variety of different equipment tests. This is very useful, and the riders can adjust their riding posture, and the second team will test the new season's new equipment.
The team will also team time trial training in the winter training camp next season, because of the tour de France has a 35km TTT stage, the group performance is crucial.
Toure added: "in Mallorca, this time of year winter, the environment is very quiet, the road is also very good, the weather is awesome, so this is all in good time together, a good time is of course training team time trial. Away from the camp and the wind tunnel, the team time training is regular winter training drivers project."
Toure has won the Olympic team pursuit champion. He is also a racing driver of a classical style rather than a racer. So he doesn't spend much time with TT cars, but he will do ITT training as much as he can.
"At this time of the year, it takes time to ride a TT car and get the best profit by improving your posture. Maybe you will work hard on your cushion, or maybe you can do it in other ways. In short, you are always trying to find the best plan to get the marginal benefit. Toure said. "Once the season starts, I will ride two TT cars a week: one is on a day of rest and the other is dedicated to training."
"More people need more practice than others. For me, keeping the same posture year after year and keeping that comfortable feeling on the TT car is not a big problem. Others are not so lucky, so we have to invest a lot of work to train time trials so as to win the team's chances of winning next season.