XDS Astana seek time trial edge with colour coding
LONDON, March 12 (Reuters) - Professional cycling teams leave no stone unturned in trying to shave off seconds in time trials but XDS Astana have come up with a new approach -- multi-coloured socks and gloves.
In Tuesday's team time trial at the Paris-Nice race, XDS Astana's seven riders all wore eye-catching fluorescent socks and gloves in different shades, but it was not just a fashion statement.
Team performance engineer Alex Dowsett said the different colours help the riders identify where they are in relation to their team mates during the high-speed circulations in which each rider take a turn on the front.
"When you do a turn in a team time trial, you do obviously a massive pull on the front, with really high power, and then you have to come off the power," Dowsett said in a team post on X.
"When you get to seventh position or sixth position, you then have to do another big effort to get back into the line. If you miss the back of that line by centimetres, it then becomes a third monumental effort to close the gap.
"You react to things in your periphery faster than you react to them if you look directly at them. The difficult thing about team time trials, is everyone looks the same. The first thing you see from each rider is their hands."
XDS Astana finished 13th of the 22 teams in the time trial so the jury is still out on the experiment.
"It's a small advantage," Dowsett added. "Let's not beat around the bush, we're not saving on aero gains or anything."
The team time trial will return to next year's Tour de France in the opening stage in Barcelona.
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