- Cycling has changed and adapted since its beginning
so in this video, I'm gonna run you through
a few professional cyclists that have helped
change the shape of our sport to what it is today.
(slow techno music)
Let's kick off with a man who's done
arguably more than anyone else
to help change the face of our sport.
You may recognize the name Campagnolo
and it was Tullio who started the legendary
Italian bicycle component manufacturer.
Before he started Campagnolo,
Tullio raced at the highest level
competing in Milan San-Remo and Tour di Lombardi,
just to name a few.
But it was on November 11, 1927
where Tullio had an experience
that would change bike racing.
He was leading a race solo in the Dolomites
where he came to a point where he needed to change gear.
In those days, you had to take your wheel out
to be able to change gear.
Tullio had incredibly cold hands and numb fingers
and wasn't able to undo the wing nuts
to be able to get the wheel out
so he thus had to retire from the race.
Three years on and a lot of research,
Tullio came up with the first cam mechanism
quick release skewer.
And in 1930, this became standard
across all bike manufacturers
and is still used to this day.
Tullio wasn't done there and continued to innovate
throughout his entire life.
And in 1949, he came up with the Gran Sport
twin cable parallelogram rear derailleur.
That became a prototype for just about every
rear derailleur out on the market today.
Thanks to Campagnolo, we're able to change gear easily
and also take a rear wheel out to change a puncture,
even with the coldest of hands.
(techno music)
We've got another tech innovator now,
the iconic American Greg LeMond,
the first American to win the world championships
and the Tour de France, not once, but three times.
Where Greg lead, the world pro peloton followed.
LeMond was the first rider to win the Tour de France
on a carbon fiber bike,
which is now the most used bike material in the pro peloton.
But most importantly, he introduced aerodynamics
to the pro peloton.
In the 1989 Tour, LeMond went into the last stage
in a 50 second deficit to Laurent Fignon.
And over a 24.5 kilometer time trial,
making up that time gap was near impossible.
But LeMond turned up on the start line
with an aero helmet and clip on bars.
These allowed LeMond to make up the 50 seconds to Fignon
and also surpass it
and he ended up winning the Tour de France
by eight seconds.
These days, we know aerodynamics
is incredibly important in pro cycling
and so I guess we've got, well,
L'Americain to thank for that.
(hip hop soul music)
Now moving on from Greg LeMond's aero bars,
I think we should make the transition into cycling kit.
And it was Tony Maier that invented the first
micro-shorts for cyclists.
He got the idea from a Swiss ski team.
Arguably, Maier could have made this list himself
because, well, he was actually a cyclist.
But we've gone for the man who introduced Assos shorts
to the pro peloton and that was Peter Post.
Peter Post was a Dutch pro cyclist
whose career spanned through the 50s, 60s, and the 70s.
He enjoyed some great success on the road
but was mostly known for his six-day racing,
where he became one of the best six-day racers of all time,
winning 65 six-day events throughout his entire career.
When he retired, he became the TI-Raleigh manager
and while there, the team won pretty much
everything worth winning, from the Paris-Roubaix
to the world championships to the Tour of Flanders
and, well, the list goes on.
In 1977, Post approached Maier to create Lycra shorts
for his TI-Raleigh team, who then became the first team
to wear a Lycra cycling kit.
Back in those days, it caused great confusion
to, well, all the pro peloton at that time.
But as we know to this day,
that Lycra is the most used material in cycling kits.
(chill hip hop music)
Alongside the technological innovations,
there are also riders that fundamentally changed
the way the races were ridden.
Mario Cipollini was a professional cyclist
and he was also known for having
an incredibly flamboyant character
and he showed everyone through what he wore.
Cipollini was regarded as one of
the best sprinters of his generation
and arguably one of the best of all time.
And while the fashion trends came and went,
there was one thing that did stick
and that was the way he raced with his team,
namingly the lead out train.
Cipollini wasn't the first
to use his team to discourage lead attacks
and also to put him in the perfect position
for him to launch his sprint.
But he really did perfect the art of the lead out
and the sight of the Saeco train
delivering the Lion King to spring glory
was one of the defining images of the era.
And now, to this day, every pro team out there
uses that lead out to help deliver
their team sprinter to glory,
very much using Cipollini's wisdom.
(slow techno music)
Rob Hayles is maybe a name a lot of you
might not be familiar with
but if we're talking riders that were fundamentally
way ahead of their time,
then Rob Hayles has to make the list.
He was predominantly a track rider,
winning three Olympic championships
and 16 national titles.
And he also saw great success on the road
and that's where we really saw
how fundamentally forward-thinking he really was.
Hayles was never happy with just accepting
his cycling kit the way it was.
And he continued to adapt it and change it
and he was actually one of the first pros
to wear skinsuits in a cycling road race.
And while he did so, he actually sewed pockets
to the back of his skinsuit
so he was able to hold food in it for those longer races.
He liked to ride really narrow bars
and crafted little bits onto the end of his brake hoods
so he could get in a more aerodynamic position.
He as the first person to invent the Ass Saver
out of carbon fiber.
And what about the trigger shifter?
That allowed him to shift gear a lot easier while sprinting.
Now Rob Hayles did come under a lot of ridicule
during his career.
But it's quite clear now that he knew exactly
what he was on about.
(trance music)
Our next trendsetter could be a contentious one
and a man with, well, not the best reputation
but we can't deny that Lance came up
with some groundbreaking techniques
that didn't involve what he put in his body.
So here we're gonna talk about Lance's iconic cadence.
The accepted wisdom for as long as gears have been around
is to select the biggest gear and push it as hard as you can
to be able to go as fast as possible.
And if you selected a smaller gear,
this would mean you would get dropped
and ultimately go slower.
But Armstrong found if he selected the higher gear,
meaning if he selected one
where he could pedal at a higher cadence,
he was able to put more pressure
on his cardiovascular system and less on his muscles,
thus being more efficient and, ultimately, faster.
If you compared footage of him and Jan Ullrich, for example,
then you would see a massive difference.
This was a massive talking point in the 90s
and it's still a big talking point to this day.
(trance music)
Moving on to some more recent trends,
and it's impossible not to mention
cycling's favorite buzzword, marginal gains,
and also Britain's first ever Tour de France winner,
Bradley Wiggins.
When Team Sky first started in 2010,
a big part of their ethos
was to look at the minuscule details.
Lead by Dave Brailsford,
they really honed in on the little things,
from the training to the bikes to even the sleeping.
But the issue with marginal gains methodology
is that it came across quite mechanical.
So their signing the finely charismatic Kid from Kilburn
was the perfect way to be able to sell marginal gains
to the wider public.
And nearly nine years on from Wiggins'
time trial and Tour win,
marginal gains is popping up everywhere,
even beyond cycling,
in business and, well, all walks of life
and now that is a big trend.
There you have it, some real trendsetters
that have helped to develop our sport.
Well, if you think that there is a trendsetter out there
that you think deserves to be on this list,
then make sure you put them in the comment section below.
And if you did enjoy this video,
then give it a big thumbs up.
And if you want to see some more trends of 2019,
then why don't you check out this video just over there?