This says it all really..... Oops! Murphy's Law costs Ullrich German victory Jan Ullrich (T-Mobile) at the Tour de France, with Xentis front wheel correctly orientated - the white marks cut the air first.
Photo ©: Sirotti
Jan Ullrich (T-Mobile) in the final time trial of the Tour of Germany, with the wheel reversed. Worth 30 seconds?
Photo ©: Mani Wollner
Did a combination of Murphy's Law and a mechanic's blunder cost Jan Ullrich overall victory in the Tour of Germany last week?
Take a close look at the front wheel in these two pics. It's a four-spoke Xentis carbon fiber aero wheel, claimed to be one of the most aerodynamic wheels available. Jan Ullrich's T-Mobile team is sponsored by Shimano, but Ullrich himself is widely believed to have a clause in his contract that allows him to use any equipment he likes - provided it's better for the particular purpose than the sponsor's. So you better believe that if he decides to use a Xentis wheel up front, he's certain there's an advantage to using it.
Xentis wheels are designed to rotate in a particular direction. The spokes are an airfoil shape, which means they will have less drag if they're rotating in one direction than if they're going in the other.To help mechanics install them properly, the wheels have painted markings on the leading edges of the spokes.
Back to the pics. The top one is Jan Ullrich in the final time trial of this year's Tour de France. The bottom is from the Tour of Germany. Notice that the front wheel is orientated differently in the two pics. In the Tour, the wheel was correctly fitted, with the painted markings cutting the air first.
At the Tour of Germany, the wheel was the wrong way round.
While Ullrich won the stage 8 time trial, he finished second overall to Levi Leipheimer in the Tour of Germany. The final margin was just 31 seconds. If the wheel had been the right way round, might Ullrich have won stage 8 by a greater margin, perhaps enough to win the race overall?
Gerald Possarnig of Xentis certainly thinks so. In an email obtained by Cyclingnews, he said, "It can be assumed that this error cost victory in the Tour of Germany. The 30 second deficit Ullrich showed in the general classification indicates about a 20 Watt difference in power over the race distance of 31km. We don't have measurements to confirm this, but we can estimate that this mistake caused a 20 Watt loss."
While it would be easy to blame Ullrich's mechanic for fitting the wheel the wrong way round, let's not forget one of the classic formulations of Murphy's Law: "If a component can be fitted in two ways, and one of them is wrong, it will invariably be installed incorrectly."
[[/url] Since the Cyclingnews tech desk doesn't claim to be completely fluent in German, here's Herr Possarnig's original comment: "Es steht zu vermuten, dass dieser Irrtum den Sieg bei der Deutschland-Tour gekostet hat. Die 30 sec Rückstand, die Jan Ullrich in der Gesamtwertung aufwies, bedeuten etwa 20 Watt an Mehrleistung über die Zeitfahrdistanz von 31 km. Wir haben zwar keine Messwerte zur Verfügung, aber es lässt sich abschätzen, dass dieser Fauxpas eben diese 20 Watt Verluste gefordert hat."]
Photo ©: Sirotti
Jan Ullrich (T-Mobile) in the final time trial of the Tour of Germany, with the wheel reversed. Worth 30 seconds? Photo ©: Mani Wollner
Did a combination of Murphy's Law and a mechanic's blunder cost Jan Ullrich overall victory in the Tour of Germany last week?
Take a close look at the front wheel in these two pics. It's a four-spoke Xentis carbon fiber aero wheel, claimed to be one of the most aerodynamic wheels available. Jan Ullrich's T-Mobile team is sponsored by Shimano, but Ullrich himself is widely believed to have a clause in his contract that allows him to use any equipment he likes - provided it's better for the particular purpose than the sponsor's. So you better believe that if he decides to use a Xentis wheel up front, he's certain there's an advantage to using it.
Xentis wheels are designed to rotate in a particular direction. The spokes are an airfoil shape, which means they will have less drag if they're rotating in one direction than if they're going in the other.To help mechanics install them properly, the wheels have painted markings on the leading edges of the spokes.
Back to the pics. The top one is Jan Ullrich in the final time trial of this year's Tour de France. The bottom is from the Tour of Germany. Notice that the front wheel is orientated differently in the two pics. In the Tour, the wheel was correctly fitted, with the painted markings cutting the air first.
At the Tour of Germany, the wheel was the wrong way round.
While Ullrich won the stage 8 time trial, he finished second overall to Levi Leipheimer in the Tour of Germany. The final margin was just 31 seconds. If the wheel had been the right way round, might Ullrich have won stage 8 by a greater margin, perhaps enough to win the race overall?
Gerald Possarnig of Xentis certainly thinks so. In an email obtained by Cyclingnews, he said, "It can be assumed that this error cost victory in the Tour of Germany. The 30 second deficit Ullrich showed in the general classification indicates about a 20 Watt difference in power over the race distance of 31km. We don't have measurements to confirm this, but we can estimate that this mistake caused a 20 Watt loss."
While it would be easy to blame Ullrich's mechanic for fitting the wheel the wrong way round, let's not forget one of the classic formulations of Murphy's Law: "If a component can be fitted in two ways, and one of them is wrong, it will invariably be installed incorrectly."
[[/url] Since the Cyclingnews tech desk doesn't claim to be completely fluent in German, here's Herr Possarnig's original comment: "Es steht zu vermuten, dass dieser Irrtum den Sieg bei der Deutschland-Tour gekostet hat. Die 30 sec Rückstand, die Jan Ullrich in der Gesamtwertung aufwies, bedeuten etwa 20 Watt an Mehrleistung über die Zeitfahrdistanz von 31 km. Wir haben zwar keine Messwerte zur Verfügung, aber es lässt sich abschätzen, dass dieser Fauxpas eben diese 20 Watt Verluste gefordert hat."]