Performance Process: The whys and hows behind the increase in World Tour racing speeds
Spin Cycle
Escape Collective
4.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 1 December 2023
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week's Performance Process is the first in a series delving into how and why World Tour racing is getting so fast. Year after year we see average records increase and record times tumble.
Alex Dowsett is our guest on this week's podcast. Alex is a former pro, former World Hour record holder, the only known elite professional sportsman with haemophilia, not to mention six time British National Time Trial champion, two time Giro stage winner, and YouTuber. Having been a pro for 12 years, it's safe to say Dowsett is well qualified to talk us through the advancements that have resulted in greatly increasing speeds.
Dowsett kicks off the discussion on this topic with some direct insight into an accidental analysis he conducted on his own progression throughout his own pro career and how results in an event he has done since he was a kid correlate with the advancing World Tour peloton.
Dowsett gives us a break down of some of the hows and whys. We will now take this list and begin a deep dive series looking into each in all our geeky detail.
The Performance Process is a members-only podcast from Escape Collective. If you're not a member, you'll need to become one (insider or supporter level both apply – monthly or annual both apply) to listen to the full show.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | And Welcome back to Performance Process, everybody. |
| 0:15.0 | Kaley Frets, Rodeon the Glauclin. |
| 0:18.0 | What are we talking about today? |
| 0:19.0 | Well, this episode, it's kind of the first in a series that we're going to do delving into the |
| 0:25.1 | sort of how's and the ways of how board to racing is getting faster and faster |
| 0:30.6 | seemingly every single year? |
| 0:32.8 | Yeah, it's not a fact-finding mission. |
| 0:35.3 | It's a question-finding mission, this particular episode. |
| 0:38.1 | So our goal in speaking with our guest today, Alex Dauset, |
| 0:41.4 | recently retired pro, our record holder, etc. |
| 0:45.0 | Our goal in chatting with Alex today is to uncover the questions that we should be asking |
| 0:51.1 | over a bunch of future episodes. |
| 0:53.3 | So the overarching question here is, |
| 0:56.7 | the World Tour today, this is a fact. |
| 0:59.3 | The World Tour today is faster than it has ever been. |
| 1:03.0 | Right, average speeds are faster than they have ever been. |
| 1:06.0 | Time trial speeds, classic speeds, |
| 1:08.0 | Tour de France speeds, they're all faster than they've ever been. |
| 1:11.0 | And of course, given the history of cycling, this leads to questions. |
| 1:17.3 | So not only are we not going to sit here and talk about doping, we kind of can't, we can't answer a lot of those questions, particularly on this |
| 1:24.7 | podcast. |
| 1:25.7 | There is no question that racing speeds sort of increased, increased, increased, increased throughout |
... |
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