The UCI Road World Championships and new gravel trends show: If you want to be fast, you don't just need legs, but also the right tactics and optimised equipment.
The cycling season regularly delivers new insights for everyone who wants to get faster on the tarmac or off-road. Whether at the UCI Road World Championships in Montréal or at the big races of the gravel scene: the density of competition is enormously high. Anyone who wants to ride at the very front leaves nothing to chance. It has long ceased to be just about pure leg power. The combination of aerodynamic optimisation, clever pacing and targeted equipment tuning decides between victory and defeat – principles that can be transferred one-to-one to your own training and your next ride.
How important controlled pacing is was impressively demonstrated in the women's individual time trial at the Road World Championships. On the 39.2-kilometre, largely flat course in Montréal, which according to reports from Velo and Cyclingnews led over the Formula 1 track Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, Marlen Reusser crowned herself world champion once again. She completed the course in 50:24 minutes and clearly distanced the competition. Her fiercest competitor Demi Vollering, who was traded as the favourite, had to settle for eighth place, while the young Brit Zoe Bäckstedt and the German Franziska Koch took the remaining podium spots.
Although the course only featured 220 metres of elevation gain, it held a nasty climb with an average gradient of 6.1 per cent on the final 400 metres. Anyone who overpaced here at the beginning and had already spent their energy on the flat sections lost decisive seconds in the finale. This principle also applies to recreational riders: a controlled start and saving reserves for the final third of the race are often more effective than going to the limit from second one.
The fact that the topic of aerodynamics is no longer reserved only for time trial specialists is illustrated by current developments in the gravel sector and in equipment design. In the Velo Podcast, there was recently an intense discussion about how strongly aerodynamic details now dominate the market. The spectrum ranges from special aero bottle cages and aerodynamic handlebar tape to novel aero gravel tyres, such as those developed in cooperation with WTB.
Even with modern aero road bikes like the Felt Nexar, this trend is evident. As a long-term test by the portal Slowtwitch describes, the bike is consistently designed to "go fast in a straight line". The developers even accept slight compromises in handling in tight corners or in pure climbing behaviour in order to enable maximum speed on flat sections. For ambitious amateurs, this means: if you want to increase your average speed, you will often achieve greater effects through an optimised riding position and aerodynamic details on the bike than through expensive lightweight construction.
How important the right race tactics and adaptation to external conditions are is also shown by the results of the weekend's gravel and mountain bike races. At the Chequamegon Mountain Bike Festival, Sofía Gómez Villafañe crashed early in the mud, but fought her way back and launched her winning move on the decisive climb because she found the best traction in the mud. At the UCI Gravel race in Girona, on the other hand, Rosa Klöser benefited from an aggressive riding style and working together in a group before securing the victory with a long solo in the finale.
For your own training, it can be deduced from this that technical riding skills and the ability to adapt quickly to changing surfaces are often more valuable off-road than pure endurance values. If you control your bike safely in corners and on slippery ground, you save energy that can make the difference on the climbs.
Your takeaway: Pace yourself in a controlled manner on flat segments and rather invest in an aerodynamic riding position than in extreme lightweight construction.
This article was generated automatically with AI from the sources listed above and has not been editorially reviewed.