I’m no expert, but it just seems crazy to me that Sam rode that much faster than some really talented riders and then had the legs to run like that.
No one had a bike split within 4 minutes of him
He looked really aero on tv. Was it the socks? It can’t be the socks, can it?
Or was his NP that much higher?
Apologies if this was already discussed in the race day thread.
All of his time gain - on Blu/Iden/Ditlev group as well as on Wurf chasing - happened in the last 35 miles. From the 77 mile time check to finish. It is really infathomable how much time he gained on guys of that caliber in such a short distance.
Interesting.
I was wondering what aerobars he used. It looked like his extensions might have had electrical tape between them. Also wondered why he didn’t use the special trek speed concept BTA.
Hate to break it to everyone, but aero didnt have much to do with that last 40 miles, they basically had tailwind most the way. One thing you could look at was his 315 watt average for the entire course, that’s some serious watts for this race for sure. And his back wheel set up was the most aero too, not many had that same option as he did…
Not sure why everyone is so surprised, he does this in just about every race he has ever done. He goes off the front because he is the best swimmer, and often puts time into the bike too on most of the guys. Only difference here was he actually had a great run afterwards, now that was unexpected, and by everyone…
He rode about 7% faster from mile 77-112. That’s indeed outstanding. Rough calculation on bikecalc shows a change from 270W to 330W to go from 26.5-28.5mph which they were doing with the slight tailwind. The socks helped but not that much. Did he just put the hammer down?…
I noticed what appeared to be a possible cadence change by him in the last portion also. Tailwind or just pushing harder?
now that was unexpected, and by everyone
Not everyone! 
His Strava graph doesn’t show much of a change from what I can see, but likely given the speed increase and tailwind. He showed only 147HR on the bike and 150 on the run, even at that level it’s mind boggling to see numbers like that.
There was also some interesting riding “positions” going on with his ride, that several times the broadcast brought up with him riding way more to the “left” on the road.
There was a screen grab in the other thread that shows him as the leader riding right behind a moto that is far left and thus he’s now way more left and closer to the yellow line than the white line.
Make that what you want. As I said in the thread, if the moto is riding left in the best position to not be in the way, let’s hope the athletes also ride in the correct position to not get more artificial drafting support than already is going to happen because of all the support vehicles on the road.
Did he just put the hammer down?…
no
Power was consistent.
Would need power data from the others to work out whether they backed off.
As for aero, I calculate an average CdA right on 0.24, which is good for a tall guy, similar to Frodo. But I’d expect Gustav and most of the smaller guys to be lower.
Looking at conditions, the last year I have data saved for is 2017. Yesterday 6mins faster in the model for him.
Ladies conditions on the 6th around 30 sec slower than the race on the 8th
Well technically he could have gotten a blocking penalty those times he rode way left. But if you are the leader it’s not your problem if the moto does not have enough juice to get up the road and out of your way.
Blocking sure. Drafting moto is not really the problem of the race leader. It is the problem of the race officials and coverage
But hey, if you want the best chance to benefit from lead motos who can’t drive fast enough just swim faster !!!
But it is your problem as a racer if you are actively riding left to get the draft of the moto. You have no business riding to the left if you are the leader. You should be riding to the right for all racers except when passing. So if your riding way left + gaining advantage from the moto, that’s a huge fairness issue. It’s not the responsiblity of the moto at that point to get out of the way. The moto riding left is in the correct position, the racer is not. End of story.
ETA: By having the motos on the left, the speed of the moto especially for the leader is not an problem, because the leader will always be passing the moto on the right, because the moto may be slowing down / speeding up, etc. The moto’s speed when in the left road position should have ZERO bearing on the leader unless he’s actively drafting it. It’s not really that complicated.
There is a rule for riding on the left and that is blocking for which he could easily have been penalized. That takes out the moto discussion anyway even though he was drafting it as much as he could
What tape between aero bars?
Where can i see that?
That’s what happens when u have a moto in front of you. Especially on the downhill from Hawi
if your riding way left + gaining advantage from the moto, that’s a huge fairness issue.
ETA: By having the motos on the left, the speed of the moto especially for the leader is not an problem, because the leader will always be passing the moto on the right, because the moto may be slowing down / speeding up, etc. The moto’s speed when in the left road position should have ZERO bearing on the leader unless he’s actively drafting it. It’s not really that complicated.
Posted this on another thread:
There were moments when the motos were offering a significant drafting advantage. Probably this happened more up the front, and of course we saw more of that. But mostly it was transitory.
What did stand out for me was Laidlow consistently (ie for long lond periods) riding well to the left (rather than to the right) of the lane presumably (he thought, see below) to maximise the advantage from the moto ahead but to the side of him. Noone was overtaking him, so he was not blocking anyone: I guess the benefit of riding alone or with one other and a much higher proportion of the 4:04 (!!!) with your nose in the wind (@ 44+kph).
At 20m there’s a 15% drag reduction if directly in line. But lateral displacement of 275mm (ie 11") reduces that by 60%: so down to 6%. The lateral displacement of the camera moto would be at least a metre and probably 2m, so the actual reduction in drag would be minimal.
Worth also bearing in mind that when the moto is right beside the rider (eg close-ups) there is some increased drag on the rider: maybe this counter-balances the ‘ahead’ drafting advantage.
https://twitter.com/realBertBlocken/status/1545119860543340544/photo/1 and
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/David-Burton-4/publication/271706103_The_Effect_of_Spatial_Position_on_the_Aerodynamic_Interactions_between_Cyclists/links/566f3bdd08ae4d9a42571da1/The-Effect-of-Spatial-Position-on-the-Aerodynamic-Interactions-between-Cyclists.pdf?origin=publication_detail
Deals/covers lateral separation as well as gap between wheels in line separation. For TTT riding 10cm to one side may allow for greater safety margin but disadvantage is greater than riding a full wheel diameter back, for the trail rider.
https://bigislandnow.com/…-chasing-in-the-run/
https://twitter.com/IRONMANtri/status/1578879184377909248/photo/1
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He said he didnt pee thinking of the bike record
The chase group were confident he wouldnt sustain the run so were happy to let him go and save the legs for running
The chase group were reluctant to put in the work up front, gustav kept sitting up inviting kristian to take a pull, both had the plan to conserve into the headwind but magnus went to the back leaving them in the wind which wasnt the plan
The sub 7 guys (dowsett/bigham) tested the socks and were surprised how much they saved
Wurf didn’t want the bike record, he wanted to run fast
The chase group also had plenty of motos monitoring, almost 1 per rider at times
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Olaf and Gustav said the second pack was very surgy, with Magnus and trying to drop the other guys, and this slowed them down when they went into the headwinds
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You can’t use the bta aero bottle unless you run the stock extensions. Plus a standard round bottle bta is simpler for most. He’s using some kind of custom adapters to run standard round extensions.
Also, in the press conference, Sam mentioned that he changed frame sizes 3 days before the race. I think it was a smaller frame than what he was using before.