Tour Stage 3: Will’s aero advantage

Featured Athlete: Will Frischkorn

When Will finished today, he was tired, but he wasn’t blown. At 5020 Kilojoules, an average power of 274 Watts (303 when pedaling), and less than 30 minutes of zero time, the day was about as good as it gets for a 5 hr day. But, when I went over Will’s numbers with Danny Pate, I was surprised by Danny’s reaction — a quick, “is that all?”

“What do you mean, is that all,” I replied. To which Danny proceeded to point out the obvious – that Will was basically out there the entire day, in really heavy winds, at speeds that kept 175 or so of the best cyclists in the world from catching them. When it comes to numbers and real world experience, there’s no one I trust more than “The Pate” at giving me perspective. He’s been using power and racing for so long now that he’s literally a human calibration rig. So I asked, what he thought Will’s numbers should’ve been for that performance, to which Danny responded, “at least 1500 or 2000 more Kjoules than I did.”

Danny who had been sitting in the pack all day finished the race with a total workload of 3906 Kjoules and an average power of only 211 Watts (265 when pedaling), or 22% less than Will. Not one to discount Danny’s intuition, I immediately began thinking about all of the aero road equipment we’ve unveiled at this year’s Tour. From the new AR Felt, the Oval aero handlebars, and the new Pearl Izumi aero jersey, Will was on some pretty fast equipment today. So to cut to the chase, I went to Will and asked him how fast he thought all that stuff actually was. His immediate response was that he felt he had a 15 to 20 Watt advantage all day. Interestingly, adding 15 to 20 Watts back to Will’s average would’ve made the difference between Danny and Will about 1400 to 1500 Kjoules instead of the 1100 Kjoules that we actually measured.

As unscientific as this comparison is, I’m not that surprised how closely both Danny and Will, independently, agreed on the discrepancy between the actual versus their expected values for the day. While all the credit goes to Will today for a truly incredible and inspiring ride, if I were to trust my rider’s intuition as much as I trust the numbers, then both tell me we had a major aero advantage today. In the end, it’s that combination of heart and innovation that makes this program and our sponsors so great to work with and that will hopefully bring us more days like today.