XDS-Astana’s already vibrant equipment had an additional rainbow aptitude through the stage 3 group time trial in Paris-Nice on Sunday, with every rider sporting completely different colored overshoes and socks – pinks, greens and yellows relatively than their typical white.
But this shiny accent wasn’t only a style accent, the truth is it was a sensible concept from the group’s new efficiency engineer and retired time trial specialist Alex Dowsett.
“The gloves and overshoes is an concept I’ve been sat on for a very long time and was grateful the group let me implement it and that the riders purchased into it. (And that UCI okay’d it!)” Dowsett wrote on social media.
The goal, he defined in a reel posted to the team’s Instagram, is to assist riders determine one another when slotting again into the road after their activate the entrance, one thing which may be an additional effort throughout what’s already a particularly demanding self-discipline.
“The massive tough factor about group time trials [is that] from that respect everybody appears the identical,” Dowsett mentioned.
“So there may very well be that break up second the place you’re like ‘Is that Tejada or is that Teunissen?’ The very first thing you see from every rider is the palms, so I assumed what if we may make everybody’s gloves a unique color. So as a substitute of searching for the particular person or the using model of that particular person, or counting ‘one, two, three, 4, 5, six, I’m in’, you’re simply searching for a color.”
Those colors – fashionable pastels, becoming nicely with the group’s color scheme – had been on every rider’s gloves and overshoes, making the completely different members of the group identifiable from any angle.
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There’s no monumental efficiency profit, Dowsett concedes, however that is extra within the model of the marginal positive aspects of Team Sky the place the Brit began his profession.
“It’s a small benefit, let’s not beat across the bush,” Dowsett mentioned. “We’re not saving on aero positive aspects or something. This is a bonus amongst the riders, I feel, and it’s a small one.
“It’s additionally for the administrators within the automotive behind, they’re not having to memorise riders’ numbers. I feel it’s going to simply be simpler for the administrators to know if somebody must miss a flip, if somebody says they’re struggling, if somebody’s getting in off the again. It will hopefully be simpler to relay that info to the riders as nicely.”
Little tips to assist groups determine their riders appear to be turning into extra widespread within the peloton. Jonas Vingegaard, for instance, is carrying a crimson helmet throughout Paris-Nice this week, presumably partially to assist differentiate the chief from his Visma-Lease a Bike teammates.
Ultimately, XDS-Astana completed thirteenth on stage 3, received by Visma-Lease a Bike, however they had been considered one of solely two WorldTour groups to go to the road with three riders, so one thing of their plan definitely labored.
“Boys rode nicely, we’re a working progress [sic] on the TT aspect so the consequence was encouraging internally,” was Dowsett’s evaluation.