Frenchman Pierre Rolland, the leader of the American Cannondale-Drapac Pro Cycling Team, warms down on a stationary trainer after a stage in the Tour de France. Rolland is using a special low-friction chain, made by CeramicSpeed, that his team hopes will improve his performance over the three-week race.
Daniel McMahon / Business Insider
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ARCALIS, Andorra, July 12 — Every second counts in the Tour de France, and so does every watt.
2016-07-11
The 1989 Tour underlined that fact when after three weeks, 2,041 miles, and 87 hours, 38 minutes, 35 seconds of racing American Greg LeMond won by eight seconds. That time was thanks in part to LeMond's use of aero bars, at the time a new technology in pro cycling.
Another example can be seen in the efforts made by the US-based Cannondale-Drapac team, which has done what it can to ensure that its leader, Pierre Rolland, performs his best. Like LeMond, the team looked to the latest advances in technology.
So in addition to modernizing Rolland's training program — team boss Jonathan Vaughters observed that Rolland had been "training like it was 1975" before joining Cannondale-Drapac — the team has purchased state-of-the-art cooling mattress toppers from ChiliPad and bought 21 specially treated chains and rear-derailleur pulley systems from CeramicSpeed. Here's what they are all about:
This is Pierre Rolland's custom-painted Tour de France Cannondale SuperSix Evo fitted with a CeramicSpeed UFO chain and pulley system. The "UFO" stands for Ultra-Fast Optimized. He is the only rider on his team given this chain, and he is the only rider in the Tour de France with it too, as far as we could tell.
CeramicSpeed describes the UFO as an extremely low-friction chain that saves watts and therefore gives riders "free speed." It says that upgrading to the chain alone can save 2 to 5 watts.
The CeramicSpeed UFO chain is normally used only in time trials, but for this Tour de France the team boss, Jonathan Vaughters, asked to have a new UFO chain for Rolland on each stage to give him every advantage possible.
James Griffin is the mechanic in charge of working on Pierre Rolland's bike. He puts a new chain on every night after washing the bike and giving it an all-around safety check. He sends the used chains to the team's service course.
In addition, the bike has alloy pulley wheels fitted with low-friction bearings and a lightweight cage made from a polyamide and carbon-fiber finish. Because the chain moves through the derailleur in a straighter line than conventional derailleurs, the system reduces friction in the pulleys by 60%, offering a watts savings starting at 2.4 watts, the company claims. It costs about 500 euros.
As of the first rest day, Rolland sits about four minutes down overall on race leader Chris Froome, in part because Rolland suffered a crash on stage eight after a slow leak softened his front tire. But Rolland often shines toward the end of the Tour, and he has won stages in the third week. The idea with the chain is that Rolland will have some extra watts in the bank later.
CeramicSpeed claims that a rider can save 10 to 16 watts using its complete system — that is, the hub bearings, bottom bracket, OSPW system, and UFO chain. That is quite a lot of watts when you consider that at this highest level the difference between first and second place can be minuscule.
And though Rolland is using just the chain and pulley system, that alone can make a difference over a three-week race. And that's what Vaughters and Cannondale-Drapac are banking on.
Daniel McMahon was the copy chief of Business Insider and Insider from March 2014 to August 2021. He occasionally wrote, too, about cycling, language, and other things.
