trail wrote:
FindinFreestyle wrote:
Sponsorships are a big barrier for TdF riders. Shimano, SRAM and Campy. Nobody makes a high end crank shorter than 165. Heck Campy Record's shortest length is 170 right now I believe. Gives you some insight into the myth and lore of cycling that really persists in that market. But yeah, the longer I fit, the higher level of athletes coming to me. A few years ago, I would have been scared to fit these guys. Not anymore. I'll fit any of them. And I intend to go after them. And pester SRAM and Shimano to at least make a 160.The narrative isn't helped, though, by the fact that among those who really, really care about time-trailling at the very highest level, they tend to have longish cranks. Not saying that's optimal, or they shouldn't go shorter, or that we should listen to pros at all. They just tend to have longer-than-165mm-cranks. 175mm on Froome's Bolide. 170mm on Roglic' Bianchi. 175mm on Tom Dumoulin's Trinity. 170mm on Wiggins' hour record track bike.
Of course these are all pretty tall men too.
No, it is definitely not helped by that. But yeah, they are tall, and one of the things I think might mitigate the need to go shorter is being super FTP gifted, and riding your bike rotated rearward at the pelvis....as Froome and Dumoulin clearly do. Roglic is more rotated and maybe not coincidentally, riding 5mm shorter. I don't think these guys are too far off the chart I posted in the OP to be honest. A world tour rider over 6 foot on 175s is not going to be nearly as screwed up as a 5'9" age group triathlete pushing 200 watts of FTP on their stock 172.5s or whatever.
But there is still some stuff to be learned about this phenomenon. I really want to get about 20 of those guys on my fit bike and see what happens. At this point I've had some version of the "holy crap, that is the most profound change I have ever felt on the bike!" reaction upwards of 500 times. So it is going to take more than "Dumoulin rides 175s" to convinicie me there is not something profound going on.
Last edited by:
FindinFreestyle: Jul 31, 18 5:39