Bicycle change strategy for uphill time-trial races

Abstract

In uphill time-trial cycling races, riders have to travel along routes characterized by high-gradient variations in the shortest time possible. Due to this gradient variation, the appropriate selection among time-trial bicycles and traditional road bicycles is essential to reduce the power demand. For some uphill courses, the bicycle selection is not necessarily unique, with the possibility of a bicycle change during the race to take advantage of the performance of each type of bicycle for specific sections of the route. In this study, a method for planning the bicycle-changing strategy is proposed. A dynamic model to predict the race time for two types of bicycles is implemented, and an optimization problem for minimizing the race time is presented. A case study is analyzed in which the uphill time-trial route of the Giro d’Italia 2014 is studied in the context of professional cyclists’ performance. It was found that the use of the bicycle change strategy led to a time saving of about 43 s with respect to the time obtained when using only a road bicycle. It was also found that a combination of the bicycle change strategy with an optimal pacing strategy led to a time saving of about 92 s.