Olympics tech - the old and new

[tommasini]

I titled this the old and new - because this article linked to below about tubbies being the go to choice for the dutch track team. https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/we-alw ... t-records/

What I also noticed yesterday on the tube was how many of the track team sprint teams were using Campy disk wheels.....so in the same cyclingnews article today, perhaps the reason why: "the CULT bearings in the Campagnolo Ghibli disc wheels, now the choice for almost every nation after years of Mavic dominance are really excellent".

And then theres all the talk about the costs for Olympics track frames.......

The game of marginal gains is alive and well at the Olympics.

[danridesbikes]

the Ghibli comes as a clincher, do mavic make clincher comete? that might be more the reason

[TobinHatesYou]

the Ghibli comes as a clincher, do mavic make clincher comete? that might be more the reason

Per the article, they are using 200psi, which would preclude clinchers. Italy is using them because, well, national pride. I know a couple other teams are using Ghiblis, but most teams aren't. There's a host of wheels being used with no clear consensus. Team USA used flat Zipp discs and narrow-stanced forks. Team New Zealand is on 8-year-old bikes. The real difference makers are the skinsuits everyone is wearing, otherwise it mostly comes down to the squishy human turning the cranks.

[mgrl]

Don't forget that the main reason the Olympic track frames are unbelievably expensive is that they theoretically need to be purchasable but they don't want to sell any.

[LanceLegstrong]

I had a thought the other day about Olympic gear. For the road side, I know for the most part the rider's trade team is supplying the gear right. So within the Belgian team, Remco is still riding Specialized, Wout is on Cervelo, Stuyven is on Trek. Do they have to ride that equipment if they didn't want to? Like, I get that they have bikes. But let's say that Stuyven really didn't like the new Trek Madone. Could he decide to buy a Cervelo and race that? Or Remco and Wout are training together and Remco tries on the weird Giro TT helmet and it's way faster. Could he buy and wear that for the TT? Or are they obligated to use their trade team sponsored kit? Or is it like an unwritten rule where technically you could use other equipment, but you wouldn't dare.

[Requiem84]

I had a thought the other day about Olympic gear. For the road side, I know for the most part the rider's trade team is supplying the gear right. So within the Belgian team, Remco is still riding Specialized, Wout is on Cervelo, Stuyven is on Trek. Do they have to ride that equipment if they didn't want to? Like, I get that they have bikes. But let's say that Stuyven really didn't like the new Trek Madone. Could he decide to buy a Cervelo and race that? Or Remco and Wout are training together and Remco tries on the weird Giro TT helmet and it's way faster. Could he buy and wear that for the TT? Or are they obligated to use their trade team sponsored kit? Or is it like an unwritten rule where technically you could use other equipment, but you wouldn't dare.

The sponsor of their road team does not allow riding any other equipment. Not even in training are the riders allowed to ride other material. And most definitely they are not allowed to ride anything else than their team material.

Imagine Remco Evenepoel saying he wants to ride a Cervelo at the Olympics and the winning it. Will be extremely bad publicity for Specialized: "Remco couldn't win on a Specialized, so he rode a Cervelo"....

[mgrl]

It's not always the case, eg Dowsett was going to ride a Shiv in Tokyo if he was there.

[LanceLegstrong]

I had a thought the other day about Olympic gear. For the road side, I know for the most part the rider's trade team is supplying the gear right. So within the Belgian team, Remco is still riding Specialized, Wout is on Cervelo, Stuyven is on Trek. Do they have to ride that equipment if they didn't want to? Like, I get that they have bikes. But let's say that Stuyven really didn't like the new Trek Madone. Could he decide to buy a Cervelo and race that? Or Remco and Wout are training together and Remco tries on the weird Giro TT helmet and it's way faster. Could he buy and wear that for the TT? Or are they obligated to use their trade team sponsored kit? Or is it like an unwritten rule where technically you could use other equipment, but you wouldn't dare.

The sponsor of their road team does not allow riding any other equipment. Not even in training are the riders allowed to ride other material. And most definitely they are not allowed to ride anything else than their team material.

Imagine Remco Evenepoel saying he wants to ride a Cervelo at the Olympics and the winning it. Will be extremely bad publicity for Specialized: "Remco couldn't win on a Specialized, so he rode a Cervelo"....

But that doesn't seem to carry over to track though. Like the US women's track team is riding Canyon and Zipp. Kristen Faulkner is an EF rider on Cannondale. So if they ride a different discipline they can use different stuff. But then you see other countries and each of their riders are on a different bike (for track).

[BdaGhisallo]

The sponsor of their road team does not allow riding any other equipment. Not even in training are the riders allowed to ride other material. And most definitely they are not allowed to ride anything else than their team material.

That's not completely true, though, and it can't be. For instance, just about every rider named to a national team squad is going to be using a different jersey/shorts combo than their trade team and it's very rare that the same company makes their trade and national team kit.

Also, some national teams do deals with equipment sponsors and riders selected have to ride that equipment, no matter what they use with their trade team. I don't know if you noticed, but all the Team GB riders were using Lazer helmets. Pidcock won his gold with one and the women rode the road race in them. Pidcock uses Kask helmets with Ineos and Lizzie Deignan uses Trek helmets when riding with the Lidl-Trek team.

Jenny Rissveds got into a whole kerfuffle some years back with the Swedish National Team because they had signed some equipment deals for their riders and she wanted to use her trade team gear. It stopped her riding for the Swedish National Team for a while, as I recall.


It is, though, rare for riders on the road or in MTB to be forced to ride a national team bike when representing their countries. Their bike setup is simply too personal and they're too tuned into their position on it to risk injury by being forced to adopt another for a very short time, so that has never really been done but, you can rest assured, that if national federations thought they could reasonably do it, they would surely auction the sponsorship rights for it.

[CarlosFerreiro]

It's not always the case, eg Dowsett was going to ride a Shiv in Tokyo if he was there.

He covered that in his book - his trade team contract covered that he could choose any equipment he wanted when riding for the national team.

[Requiem84]

Sure - for track riding it makes sense (some brands don't even have track bikes!). And for the team kit idem dito; it's a requirement to ride in team kit, so their own teams can't legally enforce riders to use their own branded kit.

I have yet to see a road ride where a rider of a top team was allowed to use a different brand bike. Specialized, Cervelo etc pay millions to their world tour teams to have them use their equipment. Having a rider of their team riding something different during a world championshiop or OS would reflect extremely bad on them. In fact, some riders have been even sued for using a different bike during training rides (especially in the case where a rider was moving teams and already wanted to try out his new bike in December).

[kytyree]

That reminds me, I think it was the Australian women's team pursuit team, they had 3 different frames between the 4 riders. 2 Factors, a Dolan, and an Argon 18, just seemed much different than what the other teams were doing.

[CampagYOLO]

I had a thought the other day about Olympic gear. For the road side, I know for the most part the rider's trade team is supplying the gear right. So within the Belgian team, Remco is still riding Specialized, Wout is on Cervelo, Stuyven is on Trek. Do they have to ride that equipment if they didn't want to? Like, I get that they have bikes. But let's say that Stuyven really didn't like the new Trek Madone. Could he decide to buy a Cervelo and race that? Or Remco and Wout are training together and Remco tries on the weird Giro TT helmet and it's way faster. Could he buy and wear that for the TT? Or are they obligated to use their trade team sponsored kit? Or is it like an unwritten rule where technically you could use other equipment, but you wouldn't dare.

The sponsor of their road team does not allow riding any other equipment. Not even in training are the riders allowed to ride other material. And most definitely they are not allowed to ride anything else than their team material.

Imagine Remco Evenepoel saying he wants to ride a Cervelo at the Olympics and the winning it. Will be extremely bad publicity for Specialized: "Remco couldn't win on a Specialized, so he rode a Cervelo"....

But that doesn't seem to carry over to track though. Like the US women's track team is riding Canyon and Zipp. Kristen Faulkner is an EF rider on Cannondale. So if they ride a different discipline they can use different stuff. But then you see other countries and each of their riders are on a different bike (for track).

And likewise Lidl-Trek's Elisa Balsamo was riding a Pinarello with Campagnolo wheels last night.

I guess some of it depends on whether the brand they ride for on the road actually offers a bike for the chosen discipline, many brands don't have a dedicated track bike for example.

At the last Olympics INEOS's Tom Pidcock rode a destickered BMC mountain bike when winning gold as there wasn't a Pinarello MTB option but fast forward 4 years and now there is so he's riding that instead.

[jo.k]

Team GB rode the UKSI bike in the 2012 olympics, at least three out of four in this photo (not actual race photo though):

[rhs2z]

Initial review of Toots Ashaa RR bar:

Unfortunately, my assiomas have been broken. (I just got the replacement from favero.) So this will be a qualitative review. I can compare them to the ornix bars, which I was using previously (and liked overall). I've also used enve 35 bars.

Look and finish
These bars look badass and the finish is excellent- much better than ornix on inside of bars.

Weight:
It was around 255g, 100g less than ornix.

Stiffness:
Solid enough for this 150lb rider..

Installation:
I run rim brake mechanical, semi-internal cables. Installation was FAR easier than ornix and enve. It seems to me that this is because there is almost a straight line between the port near the shifter clamp and the port near the stem clamp.

Geometry
I am always trying to push myself out in front of the BB, opening the hip angle. I use a 140stem but still wanted more reach. This was the main reason why I bought these bars.
First impressions are VERY positive. Before, it felt difficult for me to crank at threshold power for long periods when in my best aero position: I would always be sacrificing 20w. I can now just CRANK IT when in my lowest position. I'll be able to verify that I am getting more power once I get my PM working again.
The bars also have the extra rise. Visually, I am now getting something that looks like a praying mantis TT position, although I can't comment yet on whether I am getting an advantage here without doing some real tests with the power meter.But I think that this extra rise is another reason why I feel less cramped when getting very aero.

Ergonomics
The Ornix bars are a bit strange- they have these "bulges" in both the drops and on the tops of the bars. It was always hard to keep my forearms resting on top of the bars for a long period (ie, a 45km merckx TT).
I like these bars WAY better. Just a smooth, flat top of the bar for resting the forearms when the race moto isn't looking haha.I have the bar tilted so that the flat plane angles slightly upwards- this gets more of the praying mantis effect.
Overall, I love these bars so far. Hopefully they won't get banned next year.