S9 Ep41: Service Course | Reverse Engineering

This episode of Service Course starts out at the Finsbury Park Road Race in 2015 where Tom is up against a rider who is using a dangerous position on the bike, said rider would be ejected from the Tour of Turkey some five years later for using that very same position. For this episode, loosely themed around positioning, Tom rides solo as Lizzy continues her recovery from a concussion sustained in Strade Bianche.

Tom speaks to some of the smartest people in the business, starting with Dr Xavier Disley, the man behind Aero Coach. Xavier is an aerodynamicist who works with World Tour teams through to amateurs, basically anyone who wants to get faster on two wheels. As well as supplying some very slippery hardware, Xavier also publishes a lot of data, and his latest data dump is a study into the most effective aero positions on a bike.

With a couple of them now banned, it's some pretty important info. Following Xavier is the one and only Dan Bigham who speaks to Tom from his car, parked outside the velodrome in Copenhagen, from where he has been masterminding the Danish team's assault on the gold medal in the team pursuit. Dan's new book, Start At The End, is a great insight into his thinking, and the way he uses reverse engineering and the socratic method to take apart cycling, and then put it back together again, but faster. To top it off, Tom also speaks to Michael "Dr Hutch" Hutchinson, who talks about his quest for the fastest position on the bike and confesses to never having seen Rocky IV.

Service Course by The Cycling Podcast is supported by Science in Sport. For 25% off all your Science in Sport products go to scienceinsport.com and enter the code SISCP25 at the checkout.