Listened to it live over the net at work this morning. Guess I have to eat crow. I called for ONCE to win and didn't think UPS could pull it off.

I watched it live on LON and the Postal squad was awesome. They hit the first time check with the 7th fastest time and then just kept cranking it up until the finish. They were also one of the only teams that had everyone looking strong and ready to keep hammering the entire race. Check out the overall now and they have positions 1-8. Should make for interesting rides over the next few days.

I'm happily eating crow myself. In an e-mail to a friend yesterday I picked ONCE over USPS. "Oh me of little faith." I'm glad I was wrong, but ONCE was a safe bet.

I find a little hot sauce and a cold beer helps the crow go down easier. It helps if you take the feathers off first!

I think there's a lot to be learned from their pacing strategy- very applicable to tri, especially long course racing. I agree that they looked far fresher over the last several kilometers than anyone else, and they even looked great coming across the line.

Did anyone else think that their positioning was far less aggressive than some of the other teams? I know the Trek TT bike has a relatively long head tube compared to some of the other bikes, but the Posties did not look like they were very low at all. I guess this shows that a comfortable powerful position is still faster than a really aggressive position that compromises power. (not necessarily saying that other team's positions were compromising their power, just that Postal didn't lose anything by not having the front end slammed to the ground.) Just my $0.02 worth.

I think that positioning for Team TT's and individual or Tri TT's are two different birds. I would guess that the most powerful position would be appropriate for team tt's and the most aero position that doesn't negatively affect power TOO much would be the best for individual or Triathlon tt's.

This is true in road racing, why not it team TT'ing? Be as powerful as possible, and yet, draft a lot to conserve energy to be good as a road racer. Isn't this what team TT'ing is about?

Conserve as much energy as possible by being very aero is an individual tt strategy that works best...at least as far as longer tt's go.

So, I'm not so sure that the somewhat "more upright" position of USPS wasn't a purposeful, thoughtful, and most appropriate strategy compared to the teams that looked like 9 men out on an individual time trial.

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Quid quid latine dictum sit altum videtur
(That which is said in Latin sounds profound)

[reply][reply]
I guess this shows that a comfortable powerful position is still faster than a really aggressive position that compromises power. (not necessarily saying that other team's positions were compromising their power, just that Postal didn't lose anything by not having the front end slammed to the ground.) Just my $0.02 worth.[/reply]

I think that is a bit of a simplification. If you draft 8/9's of the way in a tri, then maybe it's a good conclusion to draw, but otherwise I guess it proves that at IM Hawaii it is much better to draft off the TV truck than a fellow competitor.

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Gerard Vroomen
3T.bike
OPEN cycle

what web site was that?

www.olntv.com You can listen to the audio from their TV coverage. You get some dead air and background noise during the commercials.

My assumption was that the rider at the front of the paceline is the one doing the majority of the work. The rest of the riders are more or less recovering and waiting their turn at the front (generating significantly less power and are subjected to much less aero drag). In fact, several times I saw riders at the rear of the paceline riding in the bullhorns. Therefore, I still wonder whether, for the rider at the front of the paceline (and therefore for the entire team) it's faster to be in the optimally aero or optimally powerful position. If I understand your and Gerard's comments, the rest of the riders are contributing significantly more to the overall effort than I suspected in terms of power, though not subjected to the same aerodynamic drag.

"My assumption was that the rider at the front of the paceline is the one doing the majority of the work. The rest of the riders are more or less recovering and waiting their turn at the front (generating significantly less power and are subjected to much less aero drag). "



You are correct, the lead rider is taking the majority of work for the team. Check out Carmichael's post on www.lancearmstrong.com. He explains their strategy today, with Hincapie, Ekimov and Lance taking longer turns upfront as they can produce the higher watts for a longer period of time and the smaller riders taking shorter turns.

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The Cuban Comet
(Comets are unbelievably slow over Cuba)

jkat...what I am saying is: the front man is not doing the best for the team by being in his very best tested-in-the-wind-tunnel aero position, if this position is compromising his speed even a tiny bit during his turn at the front. After all, the other 8 guys are really benefitting from drafting the front man...and the front man is going to be able to "rest" as soon as he is no longer in front. What you want is the very best sustainable top speed for each respective front man for the duration of his pull, regardless of whether or not he is in a great aero position or not (And, ideally, the bigger, stronger guys should pull longer than the lighter climber-types).

This is different than in a triathlon, where you don't get the drafting "rest" phase. In a non-drafting triathlon, you'll do better on the longer races by being in your best sustainable aero position, even if it sacrifices a bit of power. In this case, lower energy expended in order to maintain a decent speed (with energy conservation and comfort needed in order to follow the bike with a good run), takes precedence over pure cycling power.

Therefore, I'm saying that the teams with the lowest front-slammed-down aero bike positioning may have worked against themselves by adopting this position for a drafting Team Time Trial. This lowest front-end position would be more appropriate if the team time trial was a non-drafting event, where each person's individual non-drafting time trial result was added to each of his team member's times, and the sum total was the team score. That wasn't the case in today's race.

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Quid quid latine dictum sit altum videtur
(That which is said in Latin sounds profound)

Makes sense. Thanks. My assumption was that the lowest/most slammed position was also the fastest, but what you say makes logical sense, i.e., that the position that is the fastest in a tri or over a 40k TT is not the fastest for a 10-60 second pull at the front with a 5 minute recovery.