During the coverage of the Giro d’Italia Stage 8 Individual Time Trial on OLN, the analysts noted that Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team rider Paolo Salvodelli worked on his time trial positioning in the Allied Aerospace Low Speed Wind Tunnel this year during the off-season. Initially I believed it because Salvodelli was doing so well in the race, finishing third in the time trial and moving to third place in the General Classification.
However, I later read Dan Osipow’s report on Stage 8 that appears on The Paceline. In it, he quotes DCPCT Assistant Director Sportif Sean Yates who said that Salvodelli had not been able to participate in wind tunnel testing:
Our team went to the wind tunnel in San Diego (during its January winter training camp) but Paolo crashed and broke his collar bone just before and didn’t go. There is still some work that can be done to his position. Over the last 16 km today, it probably made a difference. Those that pulled back time against him were time trial specialists and the fact that Basso has changed his position, he can classify himself as a time trial specialist now.
The detailed article on the wind tunnel testing on AMDprocycling.com lists the participants in the testing as follows:
- Jos� Azevedo,
- Lance Armstrong,
- George Hincapie,
- Viatcheslav Ekimov and
- Yaroslav Popovych
I’m sure that the Discovery Channel team has worked with Salvodelli to tweak his position as much as possible without visiting the wind tunnel. How much of his improvement is attributable to training techniques and positioning, and how much can be traced back to the bike racing technology that the DCPCT gets from its F-1 sponsors?