The 102nd running of the longest sporting event in the world, the Tour de France, begins Saturday. The race first took place in 1903, and it has continued every year since, except during WWI and WWII. In the 112 years since that first race, the technology utilized by the riders has changed dramatically. Today, the racers ride bikes with frames made of advanced carbon fiber. They have a total of 22 gears to help climb mountains and sprint to the finish line, and they can communicate with their team managers over race radios.
A few corrections should be made here. Aluminum did not make its first appearance in the 1990s. I have an all-aluminum bicycle made in 1975. In fact an earlier version of this bicycle won the Tour de France. The components are also aluminum, but were made by an Italian company called Campagnolo, not "Colnago." When this bicycle was set up for racing it had 12 gears, a non-steel, composite gear cluster and what they called "sew up" tires. New, it weighed 18 pounds, which is competitive with the lightest bikes available today. And I would be willing to bet that in spite of all of the tech improvements, the actual non-steroid performance times have only marginally improved, and a good share of the improvement came from improved training, not higher-tech bikes. Ferrari made some pretty fast cars in 1975 too.
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The Tour de France’s Tech Transformation
Posted by: Peter Suciu July 3, 2015 07:00 AMThe 102nd running of the longest sporting event in the world, the Tour de France, begins Saturday. The race first took place in 1903, and it has continued every year since, except during WWI and WWII. In the 112 years since that first race, the technology utilized by the riders has changed dramatically. Today, the racers ride bikes with frames made of advanced carbon fiber. They have a total of 22 gears to help climb mountains and sprint to the finish line, and they can communicate with their team managers over race radios.