This year marks the 100th event of the Tour de France. For Australians it means late nights, bleary-eyed mornings and the optimism Cadel Evans can once again reign supreme. But no other sporting event in the world combines such high levels of technology, health and energy as ‘Le Tour’. Therefore this week’s FutureWatch is a Tour de France Special.
To call a Tour de France (TDF) Racing Bike ‘a bike’ is like calling a Le Mans Racing Car ‘a car’. In all reality a race bike is closer to being a SCUD missile than a bike that you might see on your daily commute to work.
But for simplicity’s sake I’m going to refer to these TDF weapons as bikes. Now you might be wondering at this point what is an introduction about a TDF bike got to do with technology? A lot more than you think.
Let’s have a look at the new time-trial bike in use this year by Team Sky Racing. Last year they used a bike called the Graal, manufactured by a company called Pinarello. This bike helped Bradley Wiggins smash the field in the time trails and contributed to his place on the top step of the podium in Paris.
Pinarello just last month unveiled a new piece of bike technology that has been 12 months in the making. In collaboration with the riders that hope to power to victory in the 100th running of the TDF the new Boldie time-trial bike is a piece of technology perfection.
Here’s some of the length’s Pinarello’s technicians went to in crafting the Boldie. They put every component through a wind tunnel to investigate airflow. Subsequently this year’s bike has a reduced aerodynamic impact by 15% compared to last years’ bike. The brakes are ‘hidden’. Meaning the brakes are also integrated into the carbon fibre frame, keeping the bike very slick.
Add to that the electronic shifter controls integrate into the handles bars. And the battery pack and electronic derailleurs are…you guessed it, built into the frame.
Let’s just touch on something there. We mentioned electronic controllers and shifters…on a bike.
That’s because current racing bikes use wireless, electronic gear shifters. With a ‘mouse-click-like’ touch on the gear selector the e-shifter on the gears instantaneously selects the next gear.
Basically it’s like having ‘flappy paddle’ changers on your sports car. It’s semi-automatic gear selection on a bike with microchips and sensors galore.
Current TDF bikes cost upwards of $11,500 for the daily bike and over $16,000 for time-trial bike. You can see these machines are the most technologically advanced bikes ever made.
No matter how much carbon fibre, electronics or money is spent on these bikes they still need leg power to go. Makes you wonder what will happen when the first bionic rider enters the TDF…?
Until then, I look forward to the next three weeks of bleary eyed mornings.
Over the years about 10,000 individuals have contested the TDF. Of these just over 6,000 have been able to actually complete it
And there’s good reason the failure rate is about 40%. To finish it you need to be either a cheat (which unfortunately many have been over the years) or a genetic freak.
Each day these athletes burn 6,000 calories. Over the total race, about 126,000 calories. That’s why often you’ll see them down a can of coke on the road, just to keep their calorie intake up. To compare, an average sedate person will burn about 2000 calories a day.
It’s a testament to genetic predisposition and elite level training regimes that these guys are even capable of completing this gruelling race.
Physiologically every organ within their bodies must be in top condition, coordinated and working harder and longer than any other activity on earth.
The average TDF rider will have a heart rate over half as low as a typical person, lung capacity at least twice as large and a heart often up to 40% bigger than yours or ours.
Genetically these athletes are gifted, but hours of day after day training will also get them to ‘tour’ levels of elitism. But don’t neglect the powers of the mind also.
One of the great voices and most knowledgeable people in the world of cycling, Phil Ligget, says riders of ‘Le Tour’ need,
‘Recuperative powers and the ability to suffer more than anyone else. When you and I might say, ‘This is ridiculous, I’m going home’, these guys just close their eyes and screw their face and try a bit harder,‘
Thanks to a combination of great technology, great training regimes and some gifted genetics these guys drag themselves through the mountain passes of France every year.
It highlights the benefit of a genetic test at an early age. Maybe with the right mix of DNA your kids might end up as elite athletes like the TDF riders we see today.
While we’re on our TDF special we should also consider the huge energy potential of the field each year.
It’d be a good idea if a smart scientist or researcher could come up with a way to harness the energy that the TDF riders generate each tour.
Because one of the world’s best sources of renewable energy is the pedal power that comes from the genetically gifted legs of the 198 riders that contest the race.
At peak performance a TDF rider going uphill can produce about 400 to 500 watts. Riding in the peloton, about 250 watts.
Now let’s say they maintain that power for an hour. If we add it all up and average it out, they average about 380 watts over an hour, so about 0.38 kilowatts per hour
In 2012 Bradley Wiggins spent 87 hours 34 minutes and 37 seconds in the saddle over the whole length of the tour. He won it with that time.
If you multiply that out by the average kilowatt hours above, Wiggins generated about 33.25 kW over his tour. If every rider (198 of them) generated the same energy, that’s a whopping 6,533 kW for the entire field of the TDF.
To put that into perspective, 7,449 kW would be enough to roughly power 140 homes for a month, or 11 homes for a year.
The other thought is that the TDF isn’t the only professional tour race in the year. There’s also the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a Espana, which both also go for multiple weeks. Plus all the other week long or weekend long bike races around the world.
All combined, thats a lot of energy gone to waste. If an inventor could find a way to harness that power, we’d have another great renewable energy source.
If you add all the professional bike races around the world together and you’d probably have enough power to keep a whole city running every year.
Regards,
Sam Volkering
Technology Analyst
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