Technical Analysis – Alaphilippe

The Tour has entered into its dog days, the relatively uneventful transition stages taking us to the big general classification battles in the Alps and Pyrenees. I missed yesterday’s stage – day at the beach - so have decided to indulge in one of my favorite pastimes, that of analyzing racers and their particular technical attributes. Who better to begin with than the current Yellow Jersey, Julian Alaphilippe. 

Riding positions tend to follow trends, with the stretched out, “pedaling from the back of the bicycle” positions of the 1980’s through the late 1990’s, with their 72.5 degree seat angles, long top tubes and cranks being replaced with a new trend that was begun by, wait for it, Lance Armstrong. 

Lance underwent a complete technical metamorphosis between his Motorola days when he was riding those wildly overbuilt, laid back Eddy Merckx machines and the new Lance under Johan Bruyneel at US Postal. Johan, who was a technically perfect racer, formed on the track and possessing a most beautiful souplesse (smooth, fast pedal action) brought Lance back to the 1970’s – and please keep in mind that these are strictly my observations, I’ve never spoken with them about it – with a position that reminded me of the classic Colnago positions of Giuseppe Saronni, Didi Thurau and other greats of the era. Those positions were defined by a highish saddle, pushed forward, with a high, long stem in front. The effect was to roll the athlete’s body up and over the top of machine, providing more equally distributed weight on the wheels and encouraging a track racing “coup de pedal”. 

When Lance exploded into action at the 1999 Tour, pedaling so much faster than anyone else, channeling the high-cadence climbing styles of 1970’s stars as Lucian Van Impe and Giovanni Battaglin, the difference seemed so startling because his rival were stuck back in the 1980’s. I’ve done a lot of analysis of this, watching videos and counting pedal strokes, and in fact compared to today’s riders, Lance wasn’t pedaling all that fast, hitting 92 – 94 rpms. His cadences did seem to increase with each successive Tour as his body adapted to the new style. The forward position also accommodated Lance’s curved back, which was always under pressure in the old positions. When I’d comment on the early 1990’s live and ESPN shows we did that chronicled his rise through Dave Chauner’s nascent American road racing circuit, Lance was constantly sitting up and stretching, trying to alleviate his chronic back pain. I never saw him do that in the Postal years. 

Fast forward to Chris Froome, whose style and approach to racing is a carbon copy of the Texan’s, including Tenerife altitude training camps, forward position, team makeup, highspeed pedal action and tactical approaches to the Tour. Froome’s Pinarellos have always have zero-setback seat posts (sitting him in the middle of the bicycle rather than the back) with his saddle height set to allow 100 – 130 rpm pedal speeds. (Lance btw, had a Selle San Marco Concour, pushed almost all the way forward). One more trend that Lance began was the forward, slightly pointing down saddle which had the effect of rolling the hips forward. The new interest in aerodynamics has accelerated this nose-down saddle trend that allows the stems to be slammed all the way down. The rider bodies are now in essence rolled over the front of their machines. 

Now to Alaphilippe who, in a shocking revelation, sports a flat saddle. Oui c’est un scandal! The Maillot Jaune is quite the old-school rider it turns out. He has a zero-setback seat post which follows the current mode – look around, almost everyone in the Tour seems to be using them now – but keeps his hips square and sitting full on the saddle rather than pitched forward. His Specialized is small, a recent Velonews review of his bicycle termed it “too small”….not quite sure about that, but with the limited size choices available today, excepting Pinarello, who offer twice the measures, the riders must often make do. Small frames generally have steeper seat angles and of course lower head tubes, all which serves to accommodate modern position trends. Alaphilippe does sport another trend difference, his stem is short and brake levers quite high on the bars, which moves his hands up, shoulders back and pushes that upper body mass onto his hips rather than pulling it away. He’s quite compact, perfectly balanced and able to use large gears, as we saw with his opening up the Deceunink lead-out trains, also able to pedal at very high cadences on the climbs whenever he wants.

But most interesting of all, Julian Alaphilippe uses rollers, old fashioned, 19th century rollers, still the very best device for creating a balanced bicycle racer. And not just the pure balance of simply being able to stay on them, rather, the coordinated body balance developed from the finger tips to the toes. Think free weights vs machines, which is why in track racing infields, where the fastest, most acrobatic riders in the world gather, you’ll see rollers and not stationary trainers. 

There was an incredible rider from the 1960’s named Rik Van Looy, the only rider in history to win each and every classic, winning his first at 19-years old and his last at 36. He was infamous for long hard training rides that finished up with roller sessions when all his teammates were exhausted in their beds. Alaphilippe, who ignores his wattage meter on his 320-kilometer training rides, shows us that despite all of the modern developments, all of the scientific research, some things like hard work and pedal action, just never change.