10 Weird Things Pro Cyclists Do During Races

let's face it pro cyclists are a pretty unique Bunch well us one left foot in well with that in mind we thought we'd have a quick look at some things that make pro cyclist just so special it didn't you say we were going to look at the weird things for pros - yeah but this special you can't say weird anymore clothing manufacturers spend an absolute fortune on R&D to produce the most comfortable most aerodynamic and most sports enhancing what clothing for their customers that cost nearly as much as a small island it does indeed some why been at the top of a mountain in something such as a Tour de France do you see a rider grabbing a large sheet of that morning's leg heat newspaper and stuffing out of their Jersey Wells tradition isn't it buy 2 glass of wine at dinner yeah one for each leg and precisely they're always walking that fine line between sickness and top form especially at a Grand Tour so being sick is always present in their minds yeah so grabbing a large sheet of newspaper just enough you might imagine just to keep that wind off your chest and keep the bugs at bay what they hope you've dieted religiously you haven't even had pudding on Christmas Day because in your mind you're thinking hey it's the Tour de France and it's little over six months away yeah every single thing has been calculated every morsel that you've put in your mouth your body fat is something close to rice paper only to go and throw it all away and start the most decides to climb to the Tour de France with two full bottles in your village yeah it's not gonna happen is it so you may have heard the term go power-to-weight ratio this may be your first time but when you see the riders approaching the climb and emptying their bottles there's a reason so we worked out so we'll do some mats on this of which I'm pretty rubbish but a full bottle waste 580 grams so two full bottles waste 1.16 kilograms so when everything comes down to a watts per kilo you can see why it might start to become an issue yeah so with that in mind we looked at my calculator and put in the numbers for an average rider say 65 kilograms which is similar to our our weight give or take of 20 kilos yeah then we look at crime so we looked at a famous one that called the tormal a which is 19 kilometres long with an average grade of 7.8% and then an average boy so we're looking at set that'd be milligrams yeah and if you put those numbers in you come out with the time up that climb of fifty five point five four seconds yes so then if you take that and you add one point one six kilograms to that their total and their total time then came out of 56 minutes and 19 seconds so as you can see it's quite a significant chunk of time granted it's only a calculation but when the difference between winning and losing can come down two seconds you could see why it might start to become an issue now I know why this shutdown climbs that's just all that extra cake when you're on the bike for anything up to five hours a day or more waiting to have a pee it's not something that you can just wait until the end of the race to do know so how EMP is a really necessary skill and another is not peeing all over your shoes and you can also get some mates to help that's what you call commitment isn't it but sometimes you'll also see the race leader or peloton captain come to the front signify that they're stopping for a natural break yeah it's basically mass stop isn't it it's a safety in numbers we pull it Swan yours are a heroic bunch longer the mechanics they're the first ones up in the morning and they're usually the last ones to go to bed at night yeah but they still have time to treat their riders with the contents of their muses they hand up during the race and talking of feed zones they're probably the most chaotic parts of any by race and it does take some skill to get over and get your mousette it doesn't need this one year I'll tie a big knot in the handle of the musette so it doesn't just slide through your hand and wipe out the rider behind you but what actually goes in the lunch bag varies from team to team and also from country to country yeah I mean rice cakes have grown in popularity over the last couple of years but there's also brioches ham and jam sandwiches ham and jam there's also kind of cream cheese I used to love Nutella that used to be my favorite one Nutella sandwich all beautiful oh my writers used to love another sandwich as well but also you'll also get in there a couple of energy bars some energy gels couple of extra bottles and if you're really lucky maybe a frangipane or screw dwarf or stroopwafel a little can of coke [Music] things have massively improved in recent years in breaking technology husband logic it has indeed I mean it's not long ago with the braces such as the Vuelta or the Tour de France to name but to with rim breaking that under real heat and real pressure of the rim breaking on the descents that the tub glue actually melted yeah and so for the riders that aren't a lot of hydraulic disks yeah will be hurtling down these descents not really knowing what's around the next corner and relying on that tiny bit at one point six millimeter a bit of wire to stop them the term sticky bottle is used when a rider holds onto the bottle being offered by the directeur sportif in the team car who then taps on the accelerator for a short burst or as we've seen over the years for a lengthy period of time something of course I never did as a sport director yeah courses in punches and crashes are all part of it and gain back on behind the behind the team car is in cycling's long unwritten rules but hanging on the bottle for a long long time it's not it's 19 and over the years we've seen new belief our day to name just a couple Luthor fallen foul of the TV helicopter and yeah ultimately being disqualified yeah it's a no no cycling kits designed to be able to put on and take off on the move in the middle of the race but even the most experienced pros get caught out from time to time so cute michael woods one leg warmer on one leg warmer off at this year's lyosha baton Leo's hilarious Bowman but you do have to anticipate when the race is going on and the speed is going up when there to take your kit off so take the kit off when the race is slow getting rid of all the heavy stuff like your capes etc before the race starts get going and you start overheating in extreme temperatures trying to keep you core temperature down can sometimes be a tricky one I don't think there's anything quite like that feeling of overheating in extreme heat when you just can't cool down eyes the worst and you might have seen it in the Tour de France where the riders had a small bulge between their two shoulder blades and more often than not this was either ladies tights or socks filled with ice now the reason they use ladies ties is because they're actually cooler because the water or cold water is being filtered better than it is with a dense sock so that's how the riders try and cool themselves down at least one thing we used to say in June racing is Ron is going back to the team car and filling their pockets jerseys bottle cages with bottles yeah they even had a competition of the Giro d'Italia one game to see who could fit the most bottles in their juice and what was it like 20 it was which seems a little bit pointless releasing as that's more than two bottles per Rider but there's also a right time to go back to the car for bottles and there's a wrong time yeah q llamo bhisma's George Bennett frantically chasing to try and get back on there was bottles flying every I eventually got rid of them and then set about chasing to try and get back on yeah which he didn't he actually lost nine minutes and 41 seconds and any hope of being young beau bhisma's kind of main contender just in case boys fight failed I guess luckily fit then he didn't know but also a sport fall actually pioneered the new bottle vest which actually I think it's actually a bike first used it in 2014 yeah it was a great invention and it meant that it could be filled up in the team car just handed to the rider to put on because over the years rather than frantically trying to jam bottles down in your jersey in your pocket and over the years jerseys have got tighter and tighter and now a lot of riders wear the road skin suits which must be something even more impossible to try and get into it's a great invention yeah and it takes 18 bottles and I guess you could put it on in 120 seconds I used to spend apps the ages back at a team car one bottle time no man pro cyclists are a superstitious bunch as well especially when it comes to number thirteen now most of the time you'll see the rider that's given the dreaded number thirteen with one the right way up and one upside down yeah now I tried to trace this back to find out why number 13 is an unlucky number and I didn't find just one reason I found blows but one reason is in the main calendar the 13th baktun of the Harbinger apocalypse in for the 2012 phenomenon you've been reading Wikipedia again I mean you yeah well you might be surprised to hear that in Italy 13 is a lucky number Fareed Tredici they say means to hit the jackpot and it's actually number 17 that's unlucky so the next time you see an Italian rider with number 13 up the wrong way you know that they're merely bowing to peer pressure oh the things we do just to fit in I mean I've done yeah I bet not saying [Music] so that's it for our top 10 weird things that pro cyclists do if you like this video don't forget give it a big thumbs up yeah and if it jogs your memory or you thought that's weird then make sure you put it in the comment section below we'd love to know about it and for another video that you should watch all you should definitely watch here's my 1903 video that I did with mark Beaumont that was a big day it was indeed and don't forget subscribe to our new GCN racing channel we've got loads of live action and highlights to come yeah a lot more of this guy

Channel: Global Cycling Network

Views: 1,263,569

Keywords: weird, weirdest, pro cylist, pro cyling, pro, professional, professional cyclist, racing, race, pro racing, bike racing, bike race, tactics, newspaper, water bottle, bidon, sticky bottle, mechanic, musette, food, lunch, eat, nutrition, stop, GCN, Global Cycling Network, Sports, Cycling, Bike, Bikes, Bicycle (Product Category), Road Bike, Cyclist, GCN Cycling, velo, marty, mcdonald, james, lowsleywilliams, sec-top-10, r1, c1, ළ, Բ, Ե, Խ, Հ, 3685

Id: c12os4j0zjQ

Length: 10min 49sec (649 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 08 2019