Written by: Myles McCorry

I was never that good at maths at school, or English- just riding my bike. I was really good at riding my bike. If cycling was a degree subject, I would have passed at 14 – a child prodigy. I could crack a chain and change a block when I didn’t know algebraic formula. I could tell you the last ten winners of the Paris Roubaix, when I probably should have known what the capital city of Peru was. As my first coach used to joke, “Never let an education get in the way of a good cycling career”

Well it seems like I should have listened a bit more in maths class.

Yesterday, I made my excuses and got out of the Pro Tour team car when it entered the finishing circuit; cause I had had enough. My second experience getting a ride in the cavalcade and I don’t want any more.
MATHS! Possibly because I was in team car ‘two’. The car reserved for competition winners, sponsor dignitaries and the hangers on like me. So far removed from the ‘Team car’, aka the command centre: feed station medical and mechanical hub. Something is happening every minute, full excitement and on every bend the peloton becomes visible. Our vehicle has a ‘25’ sticker on the windscreen which denotes position in the cavalcade. I seen the back of the peloton around the 30K mark, briefly.

Yesterdays race was not bike racing, it was maths. Yea riders were=2 0 racing but not with passion, with maths. The break away- they were racing hard. They had passion. Our four pros launched themselves to try and beat the system, the mathematical system and claim victory. Early in the 175km flat stage, our fantastic four escaped and worked efficiently to a maximum 4mins lead. Enter Maths. Then the pace was lifted by the defending Milram squad + maths + GPS + radios. And when the bunch was entering the final 40k the Columbia team and Quickstep joined them at front- Radios. Our four heroes were ever so predictably pulled back with 10K remaining.

Yes there was hard, organised riding by the teams to pull the leaders back. But when the GPS systems in the team cars are mathematically calibrating the breaks speed and the bunch average speed and off setting it against distance remaining on the stage- I asked to get out of the car. The information is radioed to the earpiece and the peloton can “lift it to get them at around the 9k mark” or “relax lads they are fading, you will reel them in at 15k remaining”. It was predictable and sadly inevitable that the break would be caught. The technology and the radios have had a detrimental impact on pro bike riding. A strong team can, could and should protect the yellow jersey, but when the digital display dictates the speed and result of racing not the zeal and control of the race leaders comma nd, I’m not for it. Yesterdays race could have been, really a forty Kilometre lead out for the sprinters.
The race only started with 15 k to go and thankfully, radios mean nothing in the gently up hill finishing straight.

Maths could not predict the outcome when you match Quicksteps finest against yesterday’s winner, the muscled German Grapple. A really fantastic sprint nearly made up for the rubbish stage. The first 8 riders all hit the line within a bike length. Bellows of victory and disgust and the fastest men in the world roared to the line at 75kph. Mighty stuff. André just edged home first, making it two in a row.
Looking at the series of ten images I took over the last 200meters, made me think if Quickstep had played one card instead of two and ‘finished’ the lead-out train, they would have got it!

Radios have TOTALLY killed the element of feel and rider judgement.
Riders just pawns for the Director. The elaborate, in-car GPS systems have tracked their way to ending the ‘will they-wont they’- They wont. Gods bless the mountains- only here are riders safe to race: Hands off Garmin!

The Fruitless Break

Radio says One K Faster

The Stage Win

Steve Cummings