Modern Youth
The sight of Egan Bernal almost boastfully sitting on the very back of the peloton on Stage 16 made it clear that Team Ineos had a new approach to the Tour, a turn in tactics seized by their ambitious Richard Carapaz who took full advantage of the situation. The Ecuadorian winner of the 2019 Giro d’Italia was ever-present at the front of the high-speed peloton as it exploded, yet again, into full-speed action right from the start. Carapaz, along with along with an eager Julian Alaphilippe, pushed and prodded, looking for an opening, the duo finally succeeding and finding themselves in a large breakaway that ended up taking over 12-minutes on the peloton. The finishing kilometers of the stage provided us with even more proof that a new, exciting generation is taking over the sport.
The Ineos are still trying to bully the race into submission and after eight-years of tempo riding (riding high pace on the front of the peloton to protect the Yellow Jersey) their tactical senses have been dulled. On the penultimate climb of this brutal day, the Montée de Saint-Nizier-du-Moucherotte, Carapaz took to the front of the breakaway and just put everything he could into smashing them to pieces. Swiss Champion Sébastien Reichenbach (Groupama-FDJ), Alaphilippe and Bora-Hansgrohe’s Lennard Kämna – who had already been second in this Tour on the race to Puy Mary – all followed. First Reichenbach cracked then, after putting it into a large gear for one of his signature explosive moves, Alaphilippe spectacularly imploded, unable to get on top of the gear. Ahead was Carapaz, banging away with his staccato pedaling style, keeping the pressure on all the way to the top because – hey! They are the Ineos and the strongest in the world. Except that Lennard Kämna didn’t see things quite that way.
The 24-year old German from the northern Hamburg region already knows what it is to be the strongest in the world. He’s been World Junior and European U-23 Time Trial Champion, with a World Team Trial Championship thrown in for good measure, and was second in the World U-23 Road Championships in 2017 behind the holding-on-by-his-fingernails Polka-Dot jersey holder Benoit Cosnefroy. Kämna sat behind Carapaz to the top of the climb, then hit him with a counter-punch that the Ecuadorian had no answer for. Kämna flew over the top, accelerated down the other side and that was that, he won alone by 1’27” ahead of Carapaz, who in turn held off the excellent Reichenbach, the Swiss who has been so good this entire Tour. Carapaz was strong, but doesn’t possess that high-speed, perfect pacing style nor the tactical sense of Kämna, who to me represents a beautiful example of the German school of cycling.
Track racing, in Germany - and Swiss Germany – is base of their cycling cultures. Both countries have produced summer and winter velodrome stars for over a century with Germany being the spiritual home of 6-Day racing. That track racing influence is everywhere, especially in the way they form young riders, imparting basics such as pedal action, bike handling abilities and tactical nuance to the developing racers. I can’t find any track racing background on Kämna, but a close look at him during that solo breakaway shows the influence of velodrome culture.
His is a modern position, small frame, forward saddle with the long, low stem pushing narrow handlebars out over the front of the bicycle. When his hands are on the brake levers, his back is completely flat and his arms in a perfect TT pose. These high-speed positions are influenced by Team Pursuiters, the velodrome event where four-man teams race at almost 38-mph for 4,000-meters, the effort considered as the ultimate expression of speed/power in cycling. Team Sky, now Ineos, brought many Team Pursuiters into their road program over the years, with Geraint Thomas being the most prominent example.
Kämna is perfectly balanced, blessed with a very German fast, smooth pedal action, a quality, as we’ve seen in the rise of the youth in this Tour, that is defining the new generation. When his afterburners kicked in on top of that final climb, Carapaz simply didn’t possess the speed to follow. The German was able to turn his biggest gear on the downhill at over 120rpm, keeping the watts high, gaining speed and time where others would simply run out of gear. That ability to create high speed on a downhill is a sign of big racing class, the sort of applied speed that is required for today’s racing.
Historically, new pros take years to slim down once in the pros. Greg Lemond, Miguel Indurain and Lance Armstrong are all example of riders who took some seaons to come into Tour winning form. One more quality that is bringing this new generation to the top is the fact that they are entering the arena in an already emaciated state. Kämna cannot go any lighter that he is, and the fact that he’s been strong in the final week for the second Tour in a row bodes well for his future. What bodes well for him too is that on the day his Bora-Hansgrohe team stopped working for Peter Sagan, they came home with a victory.
The Swiss Marc Hirschi and German Lennard Kämna have been two of the brightest and most exciting lights of this Tour. Young and aggressive, holding no complexes, the pair have raced with courage, rebounding from defeats with victories. The duo are technically perfect on their bicycles, and with modern teams behind them, Hirschi and Kämna signal a return to prominence for Germanic cycling. It is personally reassuring to me that the old school basics, after having been discarded in favor of purely scientific approaches, are making a powerful comeback in this modern, incredibly high-speed era of bicycle racing. Somewhere, and you old East Coast racers will understand this reference, Fritz Kuhn is looking down and chortling with delight.