I’m not sure anyone said tri bikes were inherently dangerous? Have I missed something?

I figured this was going to be how well he climbed on one tbh, not how dangerous they are ?

I think that it started in Pezcycling... I have had discussions a few times since it was put online...

I don't know if that reserve 77/disc wheelset was sold out yesterday, but it sure is now.

riding with auto traffic, praying mantis style positions... yes they are more dangerous than up right on a roadie

Are Mantis styles less safe?

Yes, time trial bikes are faster and also put the rider in a compromised position with less stability and access to the brakes.

Yes, a competent rides can ride them safely.

No, one person going fast on one TT on one TT bike does not prove that TT bikes are either safe or dangerous.

Like everything else it's not black and white.

According to NBC he was doing a lot of TT position up the hill too.

The numbers on a light road vs a TT seem a bit weird. I certainly think a modern TT bike can get under the UCI limit, so it can't be a road thing.

Pogacar's data science people had him switch bikes, but considering the speeds were almost 20mph, I really don't see why the road can be that much better.

They said on The Move that Colnago's TT big is ~2kgs heavier than their road bike.

Exactly what I was thinking. I’m sure people are scouring the internet for his socks too. It was a hell of a ride.

I thought you meant it was the end of the discussion about which bike is fastest.

this is what some of us have been advocating for some time now. as in, for about 30 or 35 years ;-)

i think what we've seen throughout this tour is that pog has very slightly more speed up climbs of a discrete length (a few clicks) than vingo. they're very close; about as close as you can be. and yet over the last 4 miles of the tt, which were entirely uphill, averaging 7% grade, vingo on his "tri" bike put a minute on pog on his road bike.

when the bike changes took place (for those riders) the categorized climb contained a 1.3mi section that averaged 9.6% and was pretty steadily that. (here's the route on ridewithgps). vingo was riding in the aero position until the pitch got to around 8 or 9 percent.

from the top of the categorized climb to the end, the route averaged about a 5% grade with a max grade of almost 8%. both wout and vingo remained in aero during that entire stretch. from what i saw just on the coverage both required something in the 8% to 9% range for them to get out of aero.

if there is a kind of course where it should be set up more like a tri bike, this is it. the pursuit position has to be in the spot for handling rather than for pure aerodynamics, and where a rider who spends an awful lot of time riding bike with aerobars in twisty, hilly terrain would have an advantage. also, any top pro triathlete has established the delta between aero position power and road bike power and he or she has worked really hard to draw that delta down to almost zero. it seems to me that's what the jumbo riders have done. but that also includes knowing when you're aboard that kind of bike how to climb fast on it and staying in aero on climbs that are of moderate pitch is how you do it.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Am I reading this correctly that you are suggesting that because Vingegaard didn’t crash today in a tour race that weekend warriors are just as safe on a Tri bike as a road bike in everyday riding??

Even the majority of the road bikes aren't on the 6.8 kg limit. The TT rigs are much higher. There's a build video of a Jumbo P5 on YouTube. They weigh it at the end. I do believe the P5 is lighter and faster than the Colnago

Is it the rider or the bikes?

Do you think TT/Tri bike handling and stability has improved massively over the last 20 years? If so what do you think it is that makes the bike better handling? Is it frame geometry, better wheel aerodynamics meaning less twitchy, different rider positions?

I couldn't imagine doing IMWC in Nice on my 20yo TT bike, whereas I can fly down the alps on my road bike swiftly with no issues.

Venga went 7.2-7.5 W/kg up the climb whereas Pogi was going more like 6.5 W/kg. I think a fully fit Pogi could have hit that W/kg on the road bike but maybe not on the TT bike. I agree with you, JV prepared this much better, likely 6-8 months (totally guessing here) of specific work on the TT bike and they won the Tour over 22 km.

i would argue the opposite in some cases. i did race nice on my tri bike a couple of times 30 years ago and it was a perfectly capable bike. some of today's TT bikes are horrible handlers. jumbo visma has the advantage of riding a bike brand with more tri bike sales than any company in history, and by a large margin. those guys know how to make a bike that handles well while the rider is in aero. meanwhile, the tour's bike course designers have made it increasingly hard (it seems to me) for riders to ignore handling and topography in a TT. some bike brands have not caught up. they're making bikes for straight, flat TTs.

i have always maintained that triathlon bike rides are not TTs. they are timed races over road race courses. this is why brands with deep tri bike histories make more capable bikes for today's grand tour TTs (and prologues in U.S. races). tri bikes must take into consideration big descents, lots of corners, big ascents, and the use of deep front wheels. but it's been that way since 1990.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

there's a lesson in this for triathletes. the last 4 miles of that ride climbed more than 1,300'. there's a 1 mile section of that, early on, that vingo rode out of aero. the max grade was 13%. that section, averaging 10%, is what he rode out of aero. the last 2 mi following that averaged about 5% and he rode that in aero. on that section he put time in pog while pog was riding a road bike and it's not like pog had a horrible day - he got 2nd on the stage. triathletes don't trust that riding in aero is fast up a hill. there's certain things triathletes do because of what feels fast (like riding rock hard tires). climbing out of aero feels fast. but unless it's really steep, it probably isn't fast.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Highly subjective but based on your history in the sport, what do you think are the best handling tri bikes out there today?

Sounds like Cervelo no.1 anyway

I'm looking forward to hearing @marcag go in to this, as I don't think he quite did the high end of those numbers.

Agreed on the rest...Jonas attacked that course unlike any other rider and the preparation showed. His handling and aero discipline were superb, save for his wide knee adjustments likely due to his saddle...

Not sure where they are at with the EC podcast but those numbers are pretty close to what I got.

The model was "calibrated" with the power files of 3 other riders and top, mid and lower mid of the standings.

Of course there are assumptions but if you put JV at the "everything was absolutely perfect" CDA/CRR/line....and calculate his watts, then put all the others a notch below and calculate watts, you get close to what Engner66 is finding.

Wow. I know he has showed that capability in his power output this Tour, but my assumptions about things are perhaps wrong. Doing this accurately for a TT is not at all my domain. I still think he wasn't pushing 7.5 on that climb, but I'm happy to be proven wrong.

I come in slightly less than that but what is nice about JV's execution is he rode perfect CDA/line/etc on the downs where it made a difference and climbed with big numbers where those things don't make as much of a difference and he is consistent in all cases. And his 'down' watts to 'up' watts ratio make a lot of sense.

If one of the assumptions was way off we would see it on different parts of the course, ie if CDA is wrong we would see it on the downs and it wouldn't show on the ups.

Everything lines up.

And while we don't have CDA/Watts for JV we 'calibrated' the model with data from riders we do.

I love it.

We are lucky to have you as a member. I can't wait for the pod.

the most successful tri bike companies have coalesced around a particular geometry: dimensions and steering geometry. beyond that, they've made their bikes with pursuit bar positions that are in the right place and, in my opinion, this is a really big pass or fail. you can lose a lot of time when the pursuit position is not really stable and i think that last tour TT was an example of how a rider really confident in that position can win time. there's almost no difference in how cervelo, trek, QR bikes ride and their geometries are almost identical. canyon is a little different, but not bad different. canyon's big departure is in the long chain stay and that helps stability (no reason why other companies shouldn't consider that). simply put, if you make tri bikes and you're really serious about the science of that, then you'll make a good bike for the sorts of thorny TT stages you see in a lot of races today. i think the tour made a stage that they thought would have a lot of teams scratching their heads, wondering whether to ride a road or a TT bike. the answer was clear. but the onus is on the bike maker to make a "TT" bike for that stage and in my opinion only some of the bike/aerobar makers were capable of that.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman