Warp Speed: The Fast-Paced Nature of Cycling Trends
- John D. Eustice
- Jul 7
- 5 min read
The speeds are intense: Paris-Roubaix, the famed 161-mile-long cobblestone classic, was raced at a record 30.5-mph this year; the 2025 Tour de France, including its grueling stages through the Pyrenees and Alps, set another record with an astounding 26.8-mph average over three weeks; British track cyclist Matthew Richardson blasting to a 200-meter record of 50.5-mph; and his female counterparts in the 4-kilometer team pursuit roared to a world record of 4 minutes 2.808 seconds – a 37-mph time that would have pushed the British men out of their second qualifying spot at the 2004 Olympic Games.
This progress is not confined to cycling, as witnessed by Sabastian Sawe’s spectacular sub-two-hour marathon win at London this year.
From where in the world are these quantum performance leaps coming?
The answer, in a word, is science.
In today’s elite sport, every bit of food, equipment, training, and even comportment of quotidian life is prodded, measured, and analyzed by highly educated teams of performance specialists. The athletes have, in fact, become walking, talking science experiments.
Tires
This scientific approach is most visible in cycling equipment and the drastic changes it has undergone. Tubular tires – a cotton or silk bag sewed around an inner tube with a tread glued on the top and a base tape covering the stitching – the mainstay of the peloton for more than 130 years, have disappeared from the road scene, replaced by tubeless versions that are in general 5 to 8 millimeters wider and run at 30% lower pressures.
Counterintuitively, the much wider and softer tires, ones that absorb the imperfections in the road surfaces rather than fighting them as did the high pressure, narrow tires of the past, offer 30 to 50% lower rolling resistance according to research on BicycleRollingResistance.com. The wider tires are now matched to equally wider rims, all optimized for what is our next important point of progress, aerodynamics.
Aerodynamics
Wind tunnel testing is de rigueur in cycling today. The riders are being pushed into ever more extreme, wind slicing positions with legs set high and forward, their torsos rolled low and often surprisingly contracted. Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel, the three-time world champion and double 2024 Olympic champion, considered the most aerodynamic racer perhaps in history, looks like a pedaling bullet on his machine. Handlebars, which were up to 44-centimeters wide, are now generally contracted to wing-like 38-cm ones that provide a smaller frontal area.
Apparel & Equipment
“Skinsuits” or form-fitting, one-piece cycling kit, normally reserved for pure speed events, are now ubiquitous, used even throughout the entire Tour de France, mountain stages included.
Since it has been proved that exposed skin is less aerodynamic than fabric, shorts and sleeves are long, almost to the elbows and knees, and socks high. The UCI even has sock measuring officials at big races to ensure compliance, for a new twist on the term, fashion police. Helmets, sunglasses, racing frames, pedals and shoes, wheels, bars, stems saddles and seat posts have all undergone intense research aimed at creating the most wind-cheating, generally carbon fiber constructed products imaginable.
Altitude Training & Performance Monitoring
Research on the benefits of altitude training has changed the approach to training and racing. Today’s professional road racer must accept the sacrifice of living two to three months a year sequestered away on top of a mountain, up to 10,000 feet into the sky.
The benefits, however, are massive. Increased red blood cell production and heightened VO2 max are among the many and required physiological improvements needed to compete today.
The racers train under the supervision of physiologists who measure and analyze every effort, every bit of training load, with physical reactions sent to them via power meters (a bicycle-mounted dynamometer that measures power output), heart rate, glucose and core temperature monitors, as well as sleep and other body function measuring devices. They compete much less than before, train much more intensely, and race as though it’s the end of the world.
Nutrition
The final, and probably most radically important change has been that of nutrition. Call it the Carbohydrate Revolution – a carnivore diet will get you nowhere. Whereas even 10 years ago, Tour de France winner Chris Froome would routinely do long training rides on an empty stomach for weight loss and supposed physiological efficiency, today’s racers are stuffed full of carbs like foie gras.
In Froome’s era, 40 grams of carbohydrate – about one standard energy bar – per hour of racing was considered sufficient. Triple or even quadruple that hourly figure and add on another 500-600 grams of carbs for pre- and post-race meals – about the same as 3.5 pounds of rice or 45 bananas (!) to get an idea of how the peloton is fueled in 2026.
Consuming this amount of carbs into a body not designed for that volume has been quite a process as witnessed by several high-profile emergency leaps into the bushes such as that of the 2017 leader of the Giro d’Italia, Tom Dumoulin. Scientists and nutritionists have worked on the issue, finding the digestive hacks to allow for this massive over-fueling. Much is now ingested in liquid or gel form – remember, the racers need to stuff in all this food while their heart rates are clanging and while they are being bounced around in what is today a highly aggressive peloton. So quick, efficient and very rich are the key factors for the current energy products.
The racers must do their bits as well by enduring GI training sessions where they condition their bodies to accept all the sludge coming in. The result of all of this is that the races now start fast and accelerate all the way to the finish. Riders rarely suffer any longer from the “bonk” (sudden loss of power from hunger) and seem to possess unfaltering energy, even over a six-hour or three-week race. It is now purely the conditioning, the combination of power, speed and endurance that makes the difference.
All this scientific information and application have not only formed the fastest and most powerful cyclists in history, but also somehow served to create the most wide-open, passionate, exciting generation of racing cyclists imaginable.
The racing has been heart-in-mouth spectacular, and those who tune in to the Philadelphia Cycling Classic presented by AmeriGas on Sunday, August 30, are sure to witness a race unlike any they’ve ever seen before. Both the men’s and women’s fields will be very fast indeed.
About the Author
John Eustice is a pioneering figure in American professional cycling whose influence spans racing, promotion, and media. One of the first Americans to break through in the European peloton, he won back-to-back U.S. Professional National Championships in 1982 and 1983 and later captained the first U.S.-registered team to compete in a Grand Tour at the Giro d’Italia. After racing, he became a leading U.S. promoter, founding major events including the Bucks County Classic, Tour of Connecticut, and Reading 120. Known for his belief in bold “showmanship,” Eustice remains a respected analyst and writer, offering candid, historically grounded insight into the sport.