With the BMC Racing Team currently participating at a team camp in Denia, management have been working with the riders on several different areas. One of those has been to perfect time trial technique and in order to boost performance in this area, a full day was given to the discipline earlier this week.
Riders were divided into groups and did two hard tests. They firstly did a two kilometre prologue effort, and then later did a ten kilometre time trial.
According to BMC Racing Team Director Sportif John Lelangue, the idea was to examine how they functioned over the course of the day, including in the tests themselves, but also in the preparation and recovery from the efforts.
“Obviously there was no crowd, no number, but it felt like a race,” said Steve Cummings, who has moved to the team from Sky Procycling. “I felt good. I was able to put the effort out, so I was happy. Technically, maybe I could have changed things a bit. But that's why we were doing this.”
Lelangue reported himself as being happy with how things went, both as regards the riders’ performance and also in evaluating equipment. “It was good to get a real test of the material under race conditions, including things like the Hincapie Sportswear skinsuits and the Bell time trial helmets," he said.
The team includes riders such as Tour de France champion Cadel Evans, 2011 world number one Philippe Gilbert, 2010 world champion Thor Hushovd and the strong Americans Tejay Van Garderen and George Hincapie.
Video courtesy of BMC Racing Team: