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- With four Tour de France wins out of the last five,
and their marginal gains philosophy seemingly
everywhere in cycling, and perhaps, sport as a whole,
at GCN, we believe that Team Sky have
fundamentally changed the sport of cycling, and here's how.
Are we right?
Let us know in the comments down below.
Let's get started.
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Team Sky's management team have played a huge part
in the team's success, most notably perhaps Dave Brailsford,
who was also performance director of
British Cycling until April 2014.
British Cycling is the organisation where
many of the ideas and philosophies behind
Team Sky originated and were first developed.
'Marginal gains' is probably a term that
pretty much everyone in Team Sky is sick of hearing,
but it's worked.
The team have left no stone unturned in that quest for
improvements, no matter how small or large the cost.
So, although these ideas were initially scoffed at
by many others in the cycling world,
and a good example is warming up and warming down
on turbo trainers before and after road races.
You now see Team Sky's initial ideas adopted
by many others in the cycling world,
and the team aren't going to rest on their laurels.
We caught up with Sir Dave Brailsford at
one of their extended training camps in Mallorca last year.
Here's what we have to say.
- By the very nature of this sport,
we very rarely get together as an entire group.
So, for a lot of the time, we'll see each other,
little groups with each of the races,
but it's difficult to get the whole group together.
So we spend a lot of time in the evenings
as a staffing group doing a lot of work.
So we'll plan out, I don't know,
all of our sport science interventions,
and how are we gonna do up what we call perform and support.
We'll do the race programme, you know, we'll do, I don't know,
we've got all the mechanics together and
we'll look at how they're working, so procedures.
You got all the Swannies there, and say like,
"This is how we're gonna work."
We map it all out.
- Brailsford was also particularly clever in who he hired,
especially in the case of head coach, Tim Kerrison.
Kerrison spent 2010 with the team,
but in a role where he learned and observed and
thought about what he could apply from his background as a
swimming coach to his role within cycling.
This all paid off.
Kerisson's now one of the most well-respected coaches within
the sport of cycling and he's played a huge part in the
four Tour de France victories that
Team Sky have to their name.
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It's fair to say there were more than a few sceptics out
there when Team Sky attempted to apply what
British Cycling led in the very controlled environment of
the velodrome to the way less controlled and
more open environment of road racing.
And for a year or so,
maybe even they themselves started to doubt.
However, they soon proved the doubters wrong.
Take the 2012 Tour de France.
They figured out the fastest and the most efficient way to
get to the top of a climb was to ride at a high,
but steady, pace all the way up.
So they built a team of strong climbers
around time trial's Bradley Wiggins.
When attacking riders like Vincenzo Nibali changed pace and
went up the road, the team continued to set the same pace
and soon brought these riders back and Wiggins won the Tour.
So, it's safe to say they have figured out
an effective way of winning the Tour de France
in the mountains and the time trials.
- [Cyclist] Haven't lost it yet.
Did you get that? (laughs)
- Although, it does have its critics,
some people say that it's perhaps not
the most entertaining way to win bike races,
and Team Sky's rider Geraint Thomas even went as far as to
say that he's paid to win bike races,
not to be an entertainer.
I have to say that I think Chris Froome has
perhaps bucked this trend, though,
especially in the 2016 Tour where he seemed to
have found a really effective and
very entertaining way of winning the race.
The classics, on the other hand,
have proven far harder for the team to crack.
They did win their first monument this year in 2016,
with Wout Poels at Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
But, on the whole, they have struggled to find a winning
formula for this far more unpredictable way of racing.
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Marginal gains is the philosophy, the way of thinking,
about improving performance that British Cycling pioneered,
and that Team Sky and British Cycling
have continued to epitomise.
Although, they might be a little sick of
hearing about it and being asked about it by now.
In fact, you might be sick of hearing about it by the
end of this video, because we are gonna mention it a lot.
A quick search for 'marginal gains' brings up
life-hacker articles,
links to university management courses, and more.
And saying that something has changed the world might
seem a bit strong for a cycling video,
but it's possible that this has
at least changed some aspects of the world.
And started by British Cycling, continued by Team Sky.
Think of marginal gains like this.
Even if you're at the top of your game at something,
you can break down what you're doing, analyse it,
and then go on and improve it by a percentage of a percent,
or you know, a point of a percent.
So, say you have ten things that you
improve by a tenth of a percent, you get a one percent gain.
Doesn't sound like much,
but then if you look at the results from
this year's Tour de France,
Chris Froome's winning time of just over 89 hours and
his winning margin of four minutes and five seconds
from Romain Bardet,
that's just 0.07 percent
over the course of the time.
Which is minuscule.
So think, all of these things that Team Sky
work on contribute to those winning margins.
The extent to which Team Sky go in pursuit of
marginal gains possibly has to be seen to be believed.
In fact, they even take duvets, mattresses,
and pillows along to the hotel for each of the riders.
They went further than that in the 2015 Giro, though,
when they took an RV for Richie Porte
to stay in so he didn't even have to stay in hotels.
This has affected cycling, because we've seen other
teams since we started GCN back in 2013
steadily take more team staff, more equipment,
and more vehicles along to the races.
We all looked a bit younger than 2013, too.
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It was really, really tempting to bundle in
our tech section in with marginal gains,
but we know that you all love tech and the fact is,
it was actually easiest to see marginal gains when
you can see them physically in front of you on pro bikes.
Let's start with stems.
Stems might seem like a strange place to start,
but if you and I go out to buy a stem,
we buy them in 10-millimeter increments.
If you're a Team Sky rider,
you can get your Pro stem in one millimetre increments.
That's incredible.
So, Geraint Thomas rides a 121-millimeter stem on his bike,
and it just goes to show how much further
Team Sky go than many other pro teams,
and how much further their partners go to make sure
that their riders get the best treatment possible,
and so can perform as well as possible.
If we look at the bikes,
we can actually see through GCN Pro bikes,
just how much the bikes have changed since 2013.
They have a lot of bikes.
They take 55 of them to the Tour de France.
Let's take a look at a montage of the
Team Sky Pro bikes over the last three years.
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Can you spot the differences?
You actually have to look quite closely,
because although the Pinarello frames have clearly changed,
the Dura-Ace groupsets haven't
changed all that much since 2013.
Although they will change soon,
when Dura-Ace R9100 comes in.
So to find the differences,
you have to look very, very closely.
Let's take Chris Froome's extra-light,
climbing bike for the 2016 Tour de France he has.
A really paired-down and customised Dura-Ace satellite
shifter on his tops are actually super-glued to save weight.
He has a carbon fibre, 3D-printed Garmin holder,
and even a carbon fibre, 3D-printed number holder.
One gain that actually might seem like
a reverse marginal gain are the bottom brackets.
So back in 2013, they had press-fit bottom brackets.
But since 2014, when the team mechanics requested it,
Team Sky have actually got a hollowtech tube,
so a slightly more traditional screw-in bottom brackets.
Why?
Because they're easier to replace,
and they withstand the elements a little better.
So marginal gains philosophy isn't
just applied for the riders.
It's also applied to the team staff.
Team Sky's bikes for the cobbled classics and the
cobbled stages of grand tours have also shown
this approach of constantly refining and improving
the equipment that they're riding on.
A year ago, Chris Froome had a Pinarello frame with a
small suspension unit at the rear,
whereas for the Tour of Flanders this year,
Luke Rowe was riding a prototype where,
instead of having the suspension unit,
the flex was built into the frame.
Dan actually took a look at it
just before the Tour of Flanders.
- This one, the K8, is actually in the prototype stages,
so Luke Rowe is the only guy on the team
at the moment to be riding it.
Basically, some of the team were a
little bit slow to adapt to the suspension,
because they only get to ride it
really for a couple of races a year.
So Pinarello produced them, albeit with the same
characteristics, the same geometry, the same tyre clearance,
but they've simply removed that rear shock.
So this is a little bit more familiar to the guys.
- The team's time trials bikes have
had a lot of upgrades over the years, too.
Chris Froome now rides on custom,
3D-printed time trial bars.
Actually, quite similar to ones you might see on some
British Cycling track bikes at the upcoming Olympics.
But with time trials,
it's not all about really, really advanced equipment.
It's also about getting the basics of having a
good position on the bike, and just your aerodynamics.
Right.
So, with new arrivals like Mikel Landa,
Team Sky spent a lot of time testing and refining their
positions on the bike in a controlled environment,
like the velodrome in Mallorca,
which is where Matt and Dan caught up with him.
- And then we've got a funky bit of software
here from a company called Alphamantis,
and what that enables us to do, it pulls all that data in,
basically gives us a really, really easy live feedback tour.
So rather than talk to and take painstaking analysis,
or post-effort, it's straight in front of us,
and it's live so it helps us make better decisions, quicker.
- Team Sky spent a lot of time calculating
exactly what equipment their riders should use
on a given time trial course on a given day.
So on Stage 18 of this year's Tour de France,
Chris Froome was actually the only rider to go for
full TT setup, including a disc wheel.
And that paid off, because he went on to win the stage.
It does seem wrong to call it a gamble, though,
because I'm really not sure that Team Sky makes those.
Anyway, Dan got to see Chris Froome's bike before the stage,
and find out exactly the decision-making process
that went in to choosing that setup.
- A Pinarello half-updates that will be a
time trial bike for 2016, and there's a few redesigns.
It's lighter, but of course it's more aerodynamic, as well.
This looks very unique in the back, here.
This is the cover of the rear caliper.
And this design, apparently,
reduces the amount of turbulence,
where the air sometimes will get
stuck here at the rear of the bike as it passes.
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- Team Sky and their sponsors are always
working together to push on and create products that
will benefit the riders as much as possible.
Take saddle sponsor fi'zi:k, for example.
fi'zi:k already curate a huge range of saddles,
so there is probably one to every backside on the team.
That doesn't stop from customising covers or shapes
to suit every rider as much as possible.
Muc-Off, who sponsors Team Sky
for bike cleaning lubrication,
developed Hydro Dynamic chain lube for the team.
Chain lube may not seem like an area where there's much to
gain, but it's definitely something that can be worked on,
and if your chain rolls more efficiently,
you will ultimately ride faster.
And to show how fast Sky and their sponsors push
to develop these products,
Muc-Off actually had to create a new bit of
testing equipment to make Hydro Dynamic lube.
Helmet sponsor Kask are an original Team Sky partner,
and most of their top range of
helmets now was developed with the team.
The Protone is a cross between a lightweight,
well-ventilated, and aerodynamic helmet,
so the best of all three worlds there.
The Infinity helmet is an all-out aero helmet,
but has a sliding vent,
so all that means is when it gets a bit hot,
you can let some air in, but when it's really grim,
so think races like the Spring classics,
you can shut all of the elements out, too.
A particular area of development
has been the time trial helmet.
So Sky started with the Bambino,
which was shorter than the time trial helmet
had traditionally been.
And in the 2016 tour, they've gone for the
Bambino Pro Evo TT, which,
not quite as short as the original Bambino,
but not quite as long as the old-school aero helmets
that we used to see, five, ten years ago.
So through their partnerships with their sponsors,
we can see that British Cycling's ethos of
pushing forward and gaining wherever a gain
can be made really manifests itself with Team Sky.
And, the good news is that under UCI regulations,
many of the products used on the bikes
will actually reach us and consumers eventually.
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Team Sky have a very sophisticated rider support setup.
I counted 55 members of staff on the team's website,
compared to 29 riders, so almost double.
And in the recent Tour de France,
there were 34 personnel for nine riders.
Matt and Dan found a bit more about how
Team Sky support their riders with
Rod Ellingworth at the Team Sky Mallorca training camp.
- Yeah, I mean, there's a couple things, too, really.
I think a lot of people forget,
it's actually called a training camp.
So that's what we try and do, is train at the camp.
What I think a lot of other teams have too much
going off around the camp, so they have lots of media,
lots of sort of sponsor stuff going on.
So we try and minimise that as much as we can.
And we try and do that in the October camp
where we don't have any cycling.
So lots of interviews and all that sort of stuff.
So here we can concentrate on the training,
and then let's just get out there and
do what they have to do and prepare for racing.
- Team Sky's team buses are built around making
the riders feel as comfortable as possible and
providing them with a home away from home
for before and after the races.
Nicknamed 'The Death Star' by other cycling teams,
Matt went a bit Darth Vader when he took a look around.
(heavy breathing)
- Obi-Wan, we meet again.
Here we are.
Straight away, no expense spared at all,
and this is essentially the benchmark that
all other world tour team buses are measured by.
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- Nutrition is one of the most important areas
for any sports person,
and Team Sky have a performance nutritionist and
two team chefs alongside nutrition sponsor
Science in Sport to support them here.
Each rider has a tailored diet plan that includes
Science in Sport products for race and training days,
and we spoke to Henrik Orre,
their chef at their Mallorca training camp,
to find a bit more about what the riders like to eat.
- Well, we were looking at something
that's not too heavy for the stomach,
so a steak wouldn't work, for example.
We would do something light with fish,
chicken would be perfect,
and then we would make sure there's
a lot of carbs ready for them.
They always have a variation of
four different carbs every night.
It's been rice, quinoa, potatoes, or pasta.
- At the same training camp, we also caught up with
James Morton, their performance nutritionist,
to find out the general theory behind
Sky's diet plans and their nutrition.
- The number one goal, really,
is to replenish all of the carbohydrates that you've used.
That's the first and foremost,
that's what we're trying to achieve.
Second and final, and means second in importance,
is protein intake after the race,
because during the hard stage you're effectively
in a state of protein breakdown, if you like.
And then what you need to do is ingest
high-quality protein to help the muscles recover.
And then last, but not least, is obviously dehydration.
So, okay, and dependent on the temperature of the race,
you lose a lot of fluid.
We need to put that fluid back in quite quickly.
And all three of those things go hand-in-hand
so that the next day we're ready to race again, if you like.
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- Well, though we're saying that Team Sky have changed
the sport of cycling, if not sport as a whole,
one thing that hasn't changed is the
commitment and the dedication required from the riders.
So we thought we'd leave you with a few words from
Chris Froome in 2012, before he'd won any Tour de France.
- And I'm sure there are expectations and pressure,
as you say,
but I'm trying not to think of it like that.
I'm just gonna carry on doing things
the way I've always done and
I'm not gonna be trying any harder
because I'm already trying my hardest,
so that's not gonna change anything.
- From their British Cycling beginnings
through their marginal gains philosophy,
we do believe here at GCN that Team Sky
have changed the sport of cycling,
and probably had a huge influence on sport, as a whole.
But, do you agree?
Let us know your thoughts down in the
comments and if you've enjoyed this video,
please do give it a thumbs-up, too.
If you'd like to see more GCN content about Team Sky,
we've put together a playlist with
all the videos we've made with the team, that's right there,
and see our latest video with Team Sky.
It's a marginal gains-packed,
Chris Froome's extra-light climbing bike.
Just click down there.
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