Hi, and welcome to the Neil Ashton Podcast.
In each episode, we explained some of the fascinating ways
that science and engineering are changing the world around us.
We talked to leading engineers from elite level sports like
cycling and Formula One to some of the world's top academics to
understand how fluid dynamics, machine learning and
supercomputing are bringing in a new era of discovery.
We also hear some of their life stories, their career advice,
the lessons they've learned on the way that I hope will be
helpful to you too. So sit back and enjoy this
episode. Hi and welcome back to the Neil
Ashton podcast today. Super excited about this, this
episode. I'm a big fan of cycling.
I'm a big fan of the use of engineering within sports, hence
my love of Formula One. And I couldn't think of a better
person and team to speak to, to help people to understand what
cycling is all about and why engineering and technology is
such an important thing for the sport.
And in some ways, cycling is becoming, in my opinion, and
growing to become more like Formula One in being not only a
human sport, but one where technology is really making a
difference with really exciting innovations that that then make
their way to to you and I, you know, the, the, the public.
And so today I'm speaking to to Kurt, Kurt Bergin-Taylor, who's
the head of innovation at Tudor Pro Cycling.
And I kind of say in a way that if you're in the know, you're a
bit obsessed with with cycling like I am.
I think it's pretty universally accepted that Tudor are
actually one of the up and coming teams who I think have
a very good chance in the next sort of two to five years of
winning Grand Tours and some of the biggest races.
As you'll find from the conversation today, you'll see
they are taking really an amazing long term view of how to
take technology and, and really, yeah, build up a team and a
process and science to to really extract the maximum
performance out of their riders.
And of course the equipment based in based in Switzerland
with a very famous owner in Fabian Cancellara, who of course
is one of the world's most famous cyclist with amazing
palmares and and Tudor obviously is one of the world's sort of
top, top watch brands. It's a, it's a very interesting
company, but really what we're talking about today is about
what what is cycling, I suppose a little bit just to start off
with. That's how we started the
conversation. But really diving into the areas
where technology makes a difference, where science makes
a difference, and ultimately where there is innovation
potential, which is the whole point of of Kurt's job.
So we go through, you know, things like nutrition, thermal,
so how the human body reacts to heat and cold.
We talk about some of the influence of aerodynamics around
the development. You hear some of the stuff
they're doing, their use of CFD in terms of, you know, mannequin
pedalling mannequins, how the strategy happens.
You hear some about the number of race days that they have, the
logistical challenges, hopefully all just to give you a
better sense of why I again, I perceive now cycling as being,
if you're into Formula One, I always say get into cycling
because I really do think it's great human and technological
sport. But at the end we talk about
something that again, you, you know, it's a common theme of
these podcasts is advice for people wanting to get into to
the sport of cycling. But I'd say just in general
advice for people wanting to do well in engineering and science
and in any of the sort of sports engineering side.
So, yeah, I, I, I really enjoyed this conversation.
I, I actually learned some things from it and I was even
more motivated with all the latest technological advances.
So I, I hope you are too. I'm going to put some links in
the chat about Tudor and so you can learn a little bit more
about the team because again, I do think it's interesting and
hopefully from there you'll make your way to learning a little
bit also about the sport if you're not so familiar with Pro
Cycling. So yeah, today sit back and
enjoy this episode with Kurt Bergin-Taylor of Tudor Pro
Cycling. Maybe you could tell a little
bit more about yourself and Tudor Pro Cycling.
Some people listening are probably really into cycling and
proper geeks and know about the different teams.
But maybe just to level set everybody, maybe you could just
say a little bit about you, what you do at Tudor and who are
Tudor Pro Cycling. Yeah, absolutely, Neil.
So really my background comes from from academic.
So rather than some people in cycling who've come from kind of
being a professional athlete themselves, mine's more from
from an academic background. Did a master's and then a PhD at
Loughborough University in the UK and that was really around
kind of physiology and nutrition around cycling really.
So understanding kind of from a human component and that really
kind of enticed me into wanting to work within, within cycling.
I was really fortunate at that point in time to be able to work
with people on the track. So people like Dan Bigham, who's
kind of a performance engineer now working within cycling and
also and, and doing some really interesting things about that
human equipment interaction and, and looking at how to move
forward, performance forward. And, and it attracts a really
nice environment for that because it's, it's measured, you
know, it's controlled. It's like a science experiment
every time you go on the boards.
So it's really has this culture for for innovation and that was
something that I enjoyed so much.
I really then decided I wanted to work within within cycling.
And then I had the opportunity to go to Canada.
So I worked for the Canadian federation on the track towards
the Tokyo Olympic Games. And that was a really amazing
experience in this kind of performance scientist role.
So sitting in between the human, the equipment, the whole system
innovation really and looking at that as a as a system and
that was such a great experience towards that games.
And yeah, really had a positive impact on on where I saw myself
moving forward. Then COVID hit and yeah, the
whole world kind of changed. So that was really a point where
we decided that we had to come back to Europe and then had an
opportunity to work within a professional cycling team more
as a coach, which was Team DSM at the time.
I worked there for two years, mainly in that physiological
kind of coaching role. And then the opportunity with
Tudor Pro Cycling came up to kind of sit back in that more
holistic kind of space. So working with the physical and
technical components of cycling, which is where I kind
of see myself really as as a scientist, like not as a as an
engineer, not as a physiologist, but really as a
scientist. You can kind of, you know, make
experiments, understand A versus B, and then find the right
people with the expertise and knowledge to kind of drive
things forward. In terms of the team, it's a
really, it's a really interesting story.
It was really born out of a team called Swiss Racing
Academy. So there was a team in the past,
a continental level team, which is like the third tier
basically of cycling that was there to encourage Swiss
riders to be able to make it professional basically.
So it was a team that was made, so they had basic conditions to
race, to have a salary, to have bikes, and that has been there
for many years and was really kind of a successful pathway for
Swiss riders to get into professional cycling.
And in 2022, essentially that was going to close.
So they struggled to gain their funding and it happened at a
really difficult point in terms of timing.
And basically, the guys who were left on that team were not
going to be able to find another team because all the teams
were full. And then the owner of our team,
Fabian, Fabian Cancellara, who's a very famous and successful
cyclist from, from Switzerland, really saw this opportunity as
really saving, you know, the opportunity and careers of
these, these young Swiss riders.
And he put himself in their shoes and said, well, if I don't
step in and, and give them this chance to, to ride, like
what's going to happen to their career?
And that's really the, the start of that process.
Then he found out pretty quickly, you need sponsorship,
you need help, you need support.
And that's where Tudor came in. Tudor being the, the watch
brand, part of the Hans Wilsdorf foundation with Rolex as the
main sponsor of, of the team. And that started in 2022.
And now we're we're going into our third year of being a Tudor
Pro Cycling really, which is it's gone from strength to
strength. We're a pro team, so second tier
technically, but with like a world tour mindset.
So we really see ourselves growing towards being one of the
biggest teams in the world. And we're investing now in the
kind of future of the team. We have a really long term
vision. We invest in the staff, we
invest in the people, we invest in the science really because we
know long term that's what's going to make us at the highest
level in the sport great. Yeah, and I suppose at least
from, from myself watching it, Tudor's definitely seen as one
of the top teams that potentially will get, you know,
promoted, I guess, you know, in the in the coming years and
gets the invitations to the to the sort of Grand Tours.
So I guess to many people who are not deep into sport, you may
people may not know the difference between the second
tier and the top tier because Tudor tends to be in actually
quite a few of the big races anyway.
But you know, before maybe we get into some of the more
detailed topics, what you know, what's it like working for a
team? I imagine it's a bit like
Formula One where there's a difference between, you know,
the races, you know, the Lewis Hamiltons and the Julian
Alaphilippes now and the team behind.
So what what does it look like to to work for a pro team?
You know, like a typical week, you know, how much are you at
the races versus back at testing places in factories, just to
give a sense. Yeah, yeah.
No, I'd say the first thing is it's not very typical.
So it's, it's one of them industries where especially my
role kind of as as head of innovation, it really sits
across, you know, many different disciplines and, and yeah, with
with the first thing really with cyclists, the season is so,
so big. So we race from the middle of
January until the end of October.
So we can be racing at three races on the same day all across
Europe and even across the world.
So it's a big logistical challenge first of all, where
where everything occurs. We race roughly around 250 days
a year in that period. So it's quite a lot of time on
the ground that's obviously without the preparation before,
after logistics and things like that.
So that during that period really most of the time is
focused on delivery of race delivery of performance
delivery. So a lot of my support then is
about optimization of setups, making sure that all the work
we've done is executed. We, we have a really big push
on, on the application of innovation.
which I think is really important because we can do a
lot of, you know, really cool things, but actually to get them
to be applied at the right time with the right people in
the right races is massive when you can have 3 or 4 races
going on on the same day. So that's a big push during the
season. We still have our innovation
team that runs basically 24/7 throughout the season as well.
So we have a setup based in Silverstone.
We have 4 full time engineers, we have a PhD student, we have
an industrial designer, all working on technological
development. So we look at all the strands
which we can approach really and we move them forward.
And we have 3 strategic themes with all our innovation.
So we look from aerodynamics because we know that's the
biggest force that we overcome as a cyclist.
We look from thermal because we know thermal challenges are
really, really important. And then we look from safety.
So everything that we do, we always try and say, can we make
it faster or economically, can we understand the thermal
properties and can we ultimately make it safer for the riders
going into race and competition. And that can be if we're in the
wind tunnel testing, it can be if we're doing fabric testing in
the wind tunnel, whole system testing.
How are we doing bike development?
How are we doing CFD simulations?
Are we doing velodrome testing? Are we in the field, doing
in-field measurements of rolling resistance or tire
development? Are we working with academic or
industry partners on different projects?
So it's really varied depending on what we have going on at
that point in time. Yeah, I always find this
fascinating, and I guess This is why so many people I know have
this love of cycling who also tend to be into things like
Formula One, because the technology is such an
interesting part of it. But you mentioned something
about the thermal side and that's something that I
personally wasn't as familiar with until I personally did the
Étape du Tour in like very hot temperatures.
I was like, OK, thermal does actually make a lot of
difference. So maybe could you explain a
little bit more because I think this may actually be useful for
day-to-day cyclists who are doing things.
What sort of technology or learnings do you get about
cycling in sort of more extreme conditions over, you know, very
hot or very, very cold? But how does that influence the
performance of a cyclist? Yeah, it's a really good
question and it's something we see more and more is integral to
the performance. I think that too are very
different, you know, scenarios and situations.
If we look at hot weather, we know that in Europe, from
probably May until the end of August, it can be 35–40°C in
some races, which we know is a really extreme environment.
And we also know that the riders are getting fitter and
stronger, which means they're putting out more power
outputs, which ultimately means they're putting out more heat
as well. Because yeah, what you see on
the pedals is actually probably only 1/4 of the energy that's
actually produced. The other 3/4 of that is thermal
energy as well. So we know that you have these
guys sitting in really hot environments making a lot of
thermal energy, and something has to give.
And ultimately that is performance.
You know, we see more and more that it can be so critical to
performance. If you overheat, things start to
shut down, your body protects you from that and ultimately
performance is part of a consequence of that.
So we try and do a lot of research around heat.
We do probably a few different strands.
So we do kind of prevention and preparation.
I would say so. We train the riders to tolerate
heat demands. We know that that is a trainable
stimulus like getting fitter. You can also tolerate heat
better. You get changes with your sweat
response, you get changes with plasma volume, you get these
physiological changes which allow you to to basically deal
better with the heat. So we do a lot of that
preparation and we've seen more and more in cycling.
That is probably the thing that's really increased a lot in
the last year's research around that area, understanding
of that area, understanding the transient responses that can
be done there. And then we also see we do a lot
of prevention stuff. So we look at precooling.
Can we bring down the temperature prior or even during
exercise? Can we create a bigger thermal
sink so that we know there's just more room to drive heat
into? And there's lots of great
researchers in that area. We work with partners quite a
lot on on that. We do a lot of work around
fabrics and helmet design and things like that to understand
convective cooling and, and material components and
properties to really help with with that.
And we're doing a lot of work around UV radiation because we
know also this, you know, the radiative effect of sun as well
and things like that. So there's definitely a lot of
work to be done from a heat perspective to really allow
athletes to perform in hot conditions.
But like you said, also in the cold, it's something we see more
and more. You know, some of the biggest
one day races in the world, they're in Belgium in the middle
of March and April. And I can tell you now from
being there first hand, you want every layer of clothing you have
on possible because the conditions can be really quite
harsh. And that's something we also
know if riders get cold, if they get wet, it also has a massive
detriment on their performance. So it's something we work on
quite a lot to also understand what can we do from a material
perspective, from an intervention perspective, How do
we do the logistics around that?
You know, there's so many things that ultimately come back to
logistics. How do you make sure you
potentially have hot bottles that are available on the course
when the whole peloton is strung out over over a few kilometres
or doing clothing development to understand how to, you know,
improve breathability or insulation in a harsh
environment. So yeah, we really try and do
quite a lot of work around that to understand what's going on.
And I think on top of that, just something we've generally been
doing with the team is we do a lot of work to understand real
world conditions. So it's something that's been a
big project that we do around everything is we have all these
tools and techniques to, you know, to simulate in science.
We try and take out the variables to to get answers, but
we're trying to also understand how we tune them variables to
understand things moving forward.
So thermal being a massive piece, but yeah, wind,
turbulence intensities, all these different things we're
trying to understand so we can really make more informed
decisions with the tools we use and the data that we drive out
through our through our techniques.
And maybe linked to that then, So what about, you know, we've
seen a lot of people now tracking and I think there's
some brand names that are shown on certain TV show commentary,
you know, where they talk about their recovery, their sleep
recovery and nutrition, things like that.
How much of that do you think has contributed or maybe here's
the big, here's the big question.
You look at the current riders and look at them breaking
records and and seeming to go faster and faster.
How much of that do you think is down to bike technology?
So aerodynamics, how much of it is down to training and how
much of it is down to things like nutrition and sleep?
Like what? Do you see them all equal or do
you think some are more important than others?
Yeah, I think they've all played their part in improving
cycling over the last kind of 10 years, I would say.
I mean, taking them individually, nutrition has been
a massive driver for sure. If you look at where cycling was
10 years ago and where it is now in terms of definitely all the
research around carbohydrate intake, how to increase uptake,
how to understand fueling, that's dramatically changed.
And that we really know has helped drive performance
forward. Because if you can have more
carbohydrate availability and you can oxidize more
carbohydrate, you can generate more energy.
And I think that has been a, a big push with performance.
And I think you see now that the training volumes that are able
to be sustained the the physical level within racing and and
just what you see mainly under fatigue.
I think that's the biggest thing that we've really seen a shift
is. Not only the fresh capacity of
riders, but what they can do after four or five, six hours,
what they can do after days, weeks of stage racing.
I think that a lot of that is down to really optimizing
nutrition. And you can see even since I've
been working in professional cycling, the investment from
teams around the area. You know, we have two
nutritionists, we have 4 chefs, we have a food truck, we have
nutrition sponsors, we have nutrition partners, we have
academic nutrition partners. We have data scientists that
look at all the data that we generate around nutrition.
Actually, you know, we measure hydration status.
We look at energy expenditure to make sure that we match on a
day on day, on a meal, on meal basis across, you know, a
Grand Tour for instance. And a lot of that has really
helped drive performance forward.
We see riders can train more, get sick less and perform much
better, especially under fatigue.
And a lot of that I think is down to nutrition over the last
10 years, definitely aerodynamics and equipment
development has moved forward a lot.
You know, I think there was some teams early on that kind of
clicked this. And I think, yeah, you know, it
started really on the track. I think if you look at equipment
development and where you see performance, I think British
Cycling were kind of the the real front runners of that from
probably 2004–2008 onwards on the track.
And then they're starting to understand the physics involved.
And as you know, there's such massive potential there.
The rider is, you know, 80% of probably the drag in the system.
And then what you wrap the rider in is a big part of that as
well. So it's there's a lot of
opportunities there that are now starting to be more and more
understood. And we just see that the peloton
just goes faster and faster. And for me, knowing the
relationship between power and speed is, is cubic.
It can't all come from power. You know, it's not that riders
are all of a sudden getting to the, you know, to the cube more
powerful, but actually the, you know, the, the demands are
coming down as well because we're getting more aerodynamic.
We're understanding that speed relationship.
So that's been a big driver moving forward.
And I'd say because of that, that's why as a team we're
really, really focused on the safety part as well, because we
just do so much, so many innovations to make our riders
faster, fit and stronger, but we're also then putting them at
more risk. You know, if you can go down, if
you can go down climbs 10 kilometres per hour faster
now, if you can take corners faster, if you can do this
faster, that faster, we should also look after the riders
more. So that's really why every
innovation we do, we also take on that responsibility to make
sure that we try and keep them safe as well.
And I think, yeah, every team should do that.
But we take that really seriously at Tudor Pro Cycling.
Yeah, that's a very, yeah.
There's definitely a sort of hot topic, isn't it, on the
equipment versus the rider versus everything.
It's, yeah, one I guess you could dedicate an entire
conversation to. But one thing I did on that
point of maybe training, I was listening to Geraint Thomas on,
you know, on his podcast and I think he was talking with
Pavel Sivakov about like the different training and they were
talking about the sort of Team Sky where they basically just
starved themselves and and went out comparing to now Pavel was
talking about the sort of zone 2.
But I always thought it was surprising because I assume
that, OK, all the team do that anyway.
But it it sort of made clear that he was describing that
there was they spent a lot of junk miles that people would
just go out. And because they're chatting
with mates and they're drafting and they're so strong, the
riders that they were probably only in zone 1 where now they're
trying. And he says he was, he almost
starts just training on his own because it's it's impossible to
do. Is that something that you've
seen as well as a very recent shift towards this more rigorous
focus on extracting the maximum amount of all the time you're
on the bike? Yeah, it's really interesting
with training methodologies, there's, there's many ways to do
it. And I think the longer I've
worked in professional cycling, the more I've realized that
it's really tailoring it to each individual rider.
That's the most important thing.
And the reason I say that is it's, you know, they have the
same demands, you know, relative.
I mean, a sprinter's obviously different to a climber or a
classics rider, but they're endurance cyclists first of all.
So there's this key kind of
physiological underpinning of what you're trying to achieve to
and then you've got these specific components on top.
But I think we're a lot of or where maybe even when I was
younger, people see training as is, is as you're training the
machine, you know, you have these inputs and you have an
output. And what we know now more and
more and what I know working with with humans is that the
input you put in doesn't always necessarily end up being the
output. And the reason being is that,
you know, training is the one lever we can adjust as a coach
or as someone working within cycling.
But what we can't adjust is the stress on their on their
everyday life, their family, did they sleep well?
What's their nutrition like? Are they happy?
Are they depressed? There's all these different
factors that go into a human being.
And that what we understand more is that humans are very
complicated systems. They're not just, they're not
just individual inputs, but they have all this, these inputs
actually interact with each other as well.
And I think it's more about, I find tailoring the training
relative to that. So you have your idea, you have
your plan, you have your overall vision and goals and
periodization, things like that.
But it's been able to to tweak and tailor that relative to
what's going on within that rider's life.
Because, you know, you might have the best plan in the world,
but if they're not eating properly or they're stressed at
home, or, you know, they're running a second business on the
side that you don't know about, then actually your
optimal training might not be correct.
Because, yeah, it's good on paper and it moves forward.
And I would say every training methodology can have its
benefits. It's something that I really
reflected on quite a lot. Now, working in different
environments and different teams, you see lots of different
ways of achieving success. And ultimately I've seen things
that, you know, maybe I wouldn't actually have done, but I've
also seen them be very successful.
And I've also started to, to, to learn and understand from,
from them experiences that you can do things in many
different ways. And yeah, some teams have
certain philosophies and, and some riders go really, really
well for them philosophies and other riders don't.
And my philosophy is always to try and make the individual
rider better. So I and I think when I look at
kind of successful coaches or, or people that I really respect,
it's the ones that make all their riders better, not just
one. And I think that's where that
individualisation, that communication with a rider, that
understanding of where they're at and tailoring their training
to them is stronger rather than just saying, OK, this is my
training philosophy, we do it or or you don't.
Yeah, that's a good point. And I guess this is what's, I
guess maybe to people listening or to watching this who are into
cycling. It's always the tricky thing
because we there's always a temptation to follow a specific
guide because you hear that somebody else does it, but you
don't know whether should you just follow it and you just need
to suck it up and just, you know, deal with the suffering,
or is it just not well suited to you and you would be better
doing something else? It's, you know, there's so much
not misinformation, but there's so many different theories out
there, isn't there, that it's hard for an amateur cyclist to
really know what to follow. It's it's.
Yeah, definitely. Sensationalized as well.
I think so, especially when you, you know, you have a full time
job and a family and and everything else and you're
trying to do this as on the side, it is really difficult.
You want to try and extract as much as you can out of it.
And that's where I think it can be difficult because
professional riders, they ride the bike, that's their full time
job. And actually the other thing
they can do is they can recover professionally.
And a lot of amateurs can't do that.
And I think that's the the challenge is you want to do what
the pros are doing, but actually you can't do the
recovery part. And we know that adaptations,
they don't actually occur when you're on the bike.
The stress happens then, but the adaptations happen afterwards.
And if you can't have the adaptive processes, then maybe
the training doesn't fulfill what you want it to achieve
because you can't do the other proportion of that.
Yeah, no, that, that makes complete sense.
So what maybe going a little bit more into the, you know, the
bike side of things. Where do you see the the sort of
big performance areas nowadays?
You know, is it, you know, in the bike, the fabric, you know,
the tyre choice, you know, where some of the maybe
interesting areas that that you think have led to some gains
and maybe where are sort of future areas that people are
starting to to explore now? I think the biggest thing you
can look at really is, is the whole system approach.
Like for me this is really critical looking at the rider
and all their equipment as a whole system.
The more kind of information or, or testing I've done, what you
see is if you change one component of it, it's a cascade
and everything else is interacting with that.
And if you can't just say this helmet is fast, this skinsuit is
fast, this bike is fast. It's in what context with what
rider, with what demands. I think that that's the really
kind of where I really see the innovation happening now on that
individualized level, you know, because there is just such
different demands on on them individual user cases.
So, for instance, a sprinter, you know, we know sprinters go
70–80 kilometres an hour in the final and we know they have to
have very aggressive positions to try and put their heads in
certain places. And we know because of all that,
that we need to understand certain flow structures, certain
stiffness, aerodynamics, we need to understand vision, we
need to understand how all that interacts with each other.
And we need to understand
fabrics relative to that rider at them speeds.
Whereas that is completely different.
If you look at a climber, for instance, you know, the demands
of a climber are going up, the climber probably coming down,
the climber on the other side. And if we look at the whole
system, the position, the orientation they're in, it's a
completely different system. So one helmet is not going to be
perfect for both. One skinsuit's not going to be
perfect for both. One bike's not going to be
perfect for both. So I think what we'll see in the
industry of cycling is long term is this individualization
development. So can we build stuff on an
individualized basis? Can manufacture methods cope
with that? You know, can we find ways to
really individualize it? And I think that's where we see
real benefit in terms of the performance moving forward.
Yeah, that is so interesting. I, I must admit that that sort
of aligns to some of the findings that I found, you know,
when I was working on some of the British Cycling stuff.
It's almost an unbelievably complicated optimization problem
because you know that the, the bike, the rider, the wheel, the
helmet and you, what you really want to do is test every
combination with every other combination.
And then whereas I guess a lot of the time because of
commercial reasons, partnership reasons, you're like, hey,
helmet manufacturer independently just give me a
good helmet, but you haven't been involved in that.
So with that, what you're trying to say that you're trying to be
more involved with the partners so they can, so you're not just
buying off the shelf something they've made, but potentially
it's a little bit more aligned to your needs and how that
interacts with the other bits you have.
Yeah, 100%. It's something we've really
driven forward in the last years and it's still a continual
process. But we have what we call like
reciprocal relationships with our partners.
So we really make sure that when we select our partners, their
partners that want to go on this innovation process with us
because it's not easy, you know, it costs money, time, effort and
we're really, you know demanding of what we want.
But we're also, which I think is quite unique, we also have the
capacities in house to actually put time and resource towards
them problems. So it's not that we just knock
on the door of our partner and say, OK, we want a new bike or a
new helmet. We say no, we want to go on this
project with you. We understand the demands that
we're aiming towards. Let's do it in a collaboration.
So, you know, a perfect example
could be when we were developing a new helmet and we were
developing a new helmet with a, with a new partner and we had
wind tunnel trips happening in, in, in their location.
Wind tunnel trips with our, with ourselves in the UK.
We had riders there, we had 3D pedalling mannequins.
We did simulation, we did all these collaboration approaches,
thermal fit development over over over a long period of time
to really make sure that the initial product we had was as
evolved as possible in the time we had.
And yeah, and we continue to try and do that across all the
things you said, the bike, the tires, the wheels, the clothing.
It's something that we're taking ownership of internally as a
cycling team. And I think that's quite
different to maybe many other cycling teams is we invest
resource in that. You know, we have engineers, we
have an industrial designer, we have fabric experts in house
that complement the expertise of our partners to really make
sure that there's investment from our side to to tailor the
products to exactly what we need.
So we really start to understand that and move it forward and we
see that that will really be our way of moving forward and,
and being at the forefront and it takes time, but I think it's
the right way to do it. Investing in that innovation
process is where we see really critical to to our performances
in the future. And how easy or difficult is it
or a barrier to get the riders involved because you've said at
the same time they're off doing 60–70 race days or however long
some of them do, How easy is it to get them to come, you know,
to a test or to go? Is that a limiting factor
sometimes? Yeah, there's a few things to
that. I think the first thing we do is
whenever we speak to new riders, we always tell them
about our process, that we're, you know, we're an innovative
team, that we take risks, that we push the boundaries on these
things. And that ultimately that
requires investment of time as well.
And you know, for some riders, maybe that's not what they want
from their cycling team. And therefore it's a
conversation to have early on to set expectations.
But we've also realized as we move forward that still it's,
you know, it's impractical to expect riders to be available
24/7 for the, for these learnings.
So what we really try and do is we try and leverage
methodologies that allow us to do a lot of the stuff
beforehand. So we do a lot of simulation.
We have 3D scans of the majority of our riders.
So we can do a lot of digitalization.
So we can do a lot of CFD computation.
We can do a lot of clothing optimization fit, we can do a
lot of understanding external to them even being needed.
We also create mannequins and we have mannequins of, you know,
our higher priority riders pedalling mannequins that allow
us to go to the wind tunnel and test things without them being
there. So we have really high
repeatability methods. You know, it's also what we find
is with riders, I'm sure anyone working with humans and doing
testing, as you see that it's really difficult to get reliable
data because naturally you're a human, you get tired, you get
hungry. Whereas if you have a mannequin,
you can run them for 10 hours a day and get ready for
repeatability and not have to feed them.
So it gives you a lot more scope and capacity to do that work.
But there always needs to be a validation step and that's
really important. We always make sure that all the
work we're doing loops back to either field testing or some
kind of simulation tool, be it wind tunnel track testing in the
field to validate the findings that we find from doing all this
kind of in-depth research. And for sure that costs time
from the riders. But we try and educate our
riders on why we're doing that.
We, we empower them, we show them their data.
You know, I think we're really open from that perspective.
We, we give them that information so they understand,
OK, we're asking you to do this and we've provided you this and
this is the consequence. And for the majority of riders
we work with, they're really involved in that process and
they really understand it. I think it's one of the nice
things with cycling. It's such a data rich sport that
actually a lot of the cyclists understand watts; they
understand watt savings, they understand speed gain.
You know, they're even some of them, you know, they understand
aerodynamics and they can quote you the equation for XYZ.
And yeah, it's definitely something that's really powerful
in cycling that that you can have that conversation and they
know how hard they train to try and gain 10 watts.
So when you can tell them you can find it from something
else that they're usually quite grateful and willing to invest
that time in. It and do you see a shift
between the younger riders who were just coming through from
the development squads and the older riders?
Is there a has has has all of this changed?
The past 5–10 years meant that the younger riders are far more
educated than maybe the the older generation are.
Yeah, it's, that's a really, really good question.
It's something that we we see quite a lot in many different
ways. So I think generally the younger
generation are a lot more, like you said, maybe educated on it
and, and, and thoughtful of it, but I'd say sometimes also
obsessed with it, which can be quite interesting.
You know, it's sometimes they think it's a, it's a PlayStation
game and, and you know, it's a laboratory and, and, and it's,
you know, it's only this equation of numbers and, and,
and clothing and equipment and things like that.
And what you actually see is, you know, you've also got to
make decisions within a race. You've also got to be able to
tactically and technically be able to execute on a bike.
And there are things that sometimes are often overlooked,
you know, with the younger generation that that that's what
also wins your bike races. It's not just all this physics,
but actually there's a it's a sport and there's decisions and
it just we had some really interesting talks with with
Julian. Julian has joined the team
recently and historically, you know, he's not a man who's
obsessed with data or insights, something like that.
He's a guy who wants to race his bike, but he also understands
the value of it and he trusts that if we say, OK, we're going
to do XYZ, we're going to try to prove it, that we're working
on that in the background, you know, and he's really open to
that. But that was one of the things
that was really important when he joined the team that we do
this stuff. But he also has that passion
about racing your bike and, you know, and educating the younger
riders on tactics, technical positioning.
There are things that we also know are super important as
well. So it's definitely an
interesting time in cycling from that regard.
Yeah. And I think that's a really good
point actually, because I feel in some ways that, you know,
Team Sky arguably were the one that really heralded this shift
to a more like marginal gains obviously data-driven, but I
would argue that potentially it turned.
Maybe it was the personalities who were in the team, but he was
a little bit mechanical, a little bit the emotion maybe
went out of it a little bit, which led to a bit of a backlash
almost on some of that. And but now you've got people
like Tadej who clearly do a lot of the data stuff where you, you
know, he does a lot of training and the team.
But it it it's perceivably seems more impulsive and more
emotional, a bit like Julian Alaphilippe.
So I guess the sport has to balance both, doesn't it?
If it becomes too obsessed with all the data and sort of
mechanical stuff, then the human side and what we love of seeing
riders may sort of lose that as well.
So I guess maybe that's the the balance isn't?
It definitely, it's storytelling, you know, it's
people, it's, it's, and I think the same thing happened with F1,
you know, it's, it's, it's finding a way for people to to
build them emotional relationships, to tell these
stories, these experiences. That's just as important as all
the tech that allows for them things to happen, you know.
So it's definitely this, this balance for sure.
Yeah, One thing that I would love to see, and I, I assume
it's been discussed and maybe it's just not happened for
various reasons, is I find the riders are so good at masking
their pain that it's, you don't always know.
And as a sort of more geeky person, I would love, and I know
they've started to do this a little bit, but I would love to
have their like body temperature, their heart rate,
their power, like in real time. So I could sort of see how much
they're suffering almost, you know, because sometimes you see
somebody and you think they're doing great and then they
suddenly just go and you think, surely, you know, he's felt that
for a while, but he's just hidden it, you know?
Do you know what I'm talking about?
I don't know. The data could be.
Used to make the sport more interactive in a way.
It's a really good point and it's something, you know, as a,
as Tudor and, and people I speak to have thought about a
lot. It's, it's how do you improve
that viewer engagement? You know, can you give more
insights to allow, to allow for a better experience?
And I think it's something that F1 did over the last, you know,
5 or 10 years with cameras and, and having more of the, the
radio on on on the TV and things like that.
I think them things are that they're the really nice insights
that you gather and you think, oh, OK, yeah, that, you know, I
have this unique insight on what's happening in the F1 car.
And I think cycling can, can definitely move forward.
There are there are some initiatives, there's initiative
called Velon, which is kind of a set a separate company that
kind of is attached to certain races and they have like more
data insights and they share certain insights they have in,
you know, in video footage of the races.
But apart from that, it's quite controlled from the UCI.
So it's not something a team could do individually.
You know, it's not like we could put cameras on every bike and
release it to the world. It's very restrictive from that
perspective. So it would take a from a UCI
level from an organization to, to kind of take it forward.
But for me, it's something that should definitely be done.
And if it's done on a level playing field, there's no
negative consequence of that. If everyone has to have a
camera, then it's the same, you know, and then you get all these
insights. So no, I will be definitely for
that. So maybe one you, you mentioned
a little bit and maybe this is tying a little bit to some of
the AI or machine learning side of things, but maybe first on
the strategy side. So you've talked a lot about
nutrition, bike design, how much data can be used to optimize
strategy? You know, when someone should
try, because sometimes I watch a race and I see somebody try to
break away and I think surely there's an optimum power for
them to just get that break, you know, to get the elastic to go.
And you think, oh, if they could
have just gone for another 10 seconds, maybe they would have
actually made it. Is there any way that you can
look at that sort of more strategy side of things with the
data-driven sport as it is now?
Yeah, it's something I think a lot of teams are are trying to
do and excited about. Like I said, cycling's a very
data-rich sport. So we have a lot of data.
You know, we have second by second data on all our riders
for maybe 1000 hours of training a year for many, many years.
So we have a lot of data there and I think people are now
starting to harness it. We definitely have quite a few
projects that we look at, you know, we try and look at certain
riders. Can they make it in certain
races, you know, maybe sprinters for instance, can they pass
certain climbs? What's the probability of
chances of success to get to a certain point?
Yeah. Do we expect a breakaway or not?
I think it's quite an
interesting one. Do we expect it to to succeed?
Should we should we participate in that on certain stages?
I think there's, there's lots of things that can be done.
There's a lot of stuff around race choice and, and picking
certain races for certain riders, understanding where
their kind of potential is, you know, for, for results.
So yeah, there's definitely a lot of optimization for, for
those kind of data insights from data that's driven there.
And then I think also with AI and, and the other kind of
emerging techniques, there's, there's lots of stuff to be done
around, around all the CFD computation stuff that we do.
We've found that really in the early processes of that, but
every time we run a simulation, every time we generate some
data, we know that there could be long term potential insights
in that data. So it's really about
understanding how to sequence, to store, to evolve to know that
maybe, you know, maybe not now, but in one year, 2 year,
five years, there's, there's insights that can be gathered
from that. And I think it's, yeah, making
sure you're in the the right place now to set them things up
so that in the future it is definitely a possibility, that's
for sure. So would it be fair to say that
probably cycling has for the past, you know, 2-3, four years
been moving far more to a data-driven approach, But we're,
we're only just entering now the age of really AI for it.
That would it be fair to say that most of cycling is probably
always just now really getting into potential.
So that could be something in the coming years that that could
be used because as we talked about that sort of design
optimization, you know, you've got so many different choices
that seems or even logistics, I guess AI is a classic tool for
optimizing things. Yeah, yeah, it definitely is
something that I think we'll see more and more of.
I think the sport itself is getting more professional, more
funding. It's having, you know, more
people like myself working in sport, you know, kind of sitting
in between the lines of of scientists that are kind of
integrated. And yeah, I'd say most of the
highest level teams now are starting to understand that and
invest some of their resource in that and not just in better
riders or, you know, or things like that.
So what how about for for Tudor in particular, what does the,
the sort of future hold? What, what's the big target, I
guess this year and the coming years that that is driving all
this towards? Do you have some very specific
things that the team is trying to, you know, focus on and and
and succeed? Yeah, I think as a team, I mean
we have, we have quite a lot of strategy.
I think in terms of where we want to go.
We're we're really fortunate that we're a long term team.
We have a long term vision and and a sustainable long term
vision, which I think is quite unique in cycling.
I think the first priority of the team is really to be in a
position to allow us to have the full race calendar.
So for people who don't understand cycling, if you're
not a World Tour team, if you aren't one of the top 18 teams,
then essentially you're kind of at the will of the race
organizers to invite you to the biggest races.
So we know if we achieve a certain rating every year, being
one of what's called the top 2 pro teams, then that will allow
us to have a full race calendar.
And then once we have a full race calendar, it then opens up
all the opportunities in terms of where we want to go and how
we want to do stuff at the moment.
Because we're a brand new team, we have to rely on them
invitations, which can make planning and strategy quite
challenging sometimes. So that's our first real goal.
And really the long term goal, especially from my perspective
is around the innovation team is really to just be a world
leading innovation team with regards to performance.
So safety, aerodynamics, thermal from all the opportunities,
having this whole system, individualized approach around
key riders, looking at them as a whole system is really where
the next, you know, 5–10 years look like.
And we can really do that ultimately, because we have a
sustainable platform to launch from.
You know, it's, I can imagine it's quite hard if you're in a
team that's unstable to think, you know, I'm going to do this
now and it might not pay off in five years, but we, we're in a
real good place that we can do that.
And I think that really allows us to be a front runner in the
future and really invest in this kind of data-driven science
driven approach. So maybe turning maybe towards
the end of the of this chat, towards the topic that, I think
is I personally am always interested in which is the
advice for people and engineers wanting to get into the sport.
You know, you, you came through the PhD route and then you, you
know, you sort of work towards, you say like different sports,
then track and then team, you know, looking back, what sort
of advice? Maybe let's break it down from a
is it? Yeah, well, first of all, high
level advice and then maybe we can pick apart some stuff.
Yeah, I think about this a lot. I I really try and, yeah, take
responsibility on myself to, to look back at, you know, when I
was younger and what were the reasons why I, I'm in the
fortunate position I am now. And I really try and give back
to that because for me, some of the things I really reflect on
is I had really good mentors. Like I had people who went
through that process and really allowed me to connect, to
discuss, to learn, to evolve, grow.
And I think that was fundamental to where I am today, having them
mentorships. If it's just having a coffee,
picking the phone up, what do you think about this?
Oh, I have a friend who does this.
You know, why don't you have some conversations?
I think that I'd really encourage that spirit of, you
know, mentorship is really important and I think it's
responsible both for young practitioners, but also for
experienced practitioners like myself to, to also give back, I
think is really important. I think the other thing is work
ethic and, and, and doing your time like it's something that I
really, you know, pride myself on and was something that really
allowed me to move forward. You know, I was the first person
to say yes to a volunteer opportunity to fill up bottles
on the side of a rugby pitch, you know, or if it was to go to
a swim meet in, in, you know, wherever and at 6:00 AM in the
morning, just to, to be embedded within sport opportunities.
And I didn't, and I really tried to take on as many opportunities
as I could when I was younger just to see and feel and
understand why I wanted to work in professional sport.
And that goes a long way because when people see you're just
willing to, to say yes and, and to, to understand and learn, I
think can be really valuable. And, and that's a trait that I
really look for in people. I look for that kind of willing
spirit. I think a lot of people in my
experience, you can train them for the, for the skills that you
need, but actually the, the character and personality of
someone is kind of ingrained. And I think if you can show
that, you know, you're willing to, to work, to, to listen to,
to put, to put effort in, to be passionate about something.
I, I go for that any day over someone who has, you know, five
years experience of doing the job already, You know, I really
look for, for that. So that would be some of the
things I would say mentorship really and and that kind of
spirit of just willing to, to do.
And what about from a practical point of view?
What sort of are you looking more for like engineers, more
for sports science, more for like data science?
Is there certain sort of skill sets and maybe degrees that put
you, I guess traditionally sports science would have been
the route in to a sport. Is that still the case or do you
think it's more about like engineering and data science
now? I'd say historically you're
correct. It was sports science and, and
really probably was, yeah, the first investment I'd say from
professionals, at least in cycling was sports science and
understanding sports derived things, physiologists.
And what you saw is then people generally then sat like myself
across many spectrums. You know, we did data science,
we did performance analysis. We kind of did the bits that we
did some nutrition, maybe we did different things to really
allow performance to move forward and having that
generalized skill set was probably the way in.
I'd say, you know, 5 or 10 years ago, I'd say now sport within
cycling in particular, there's enough investment and
understanding that these really specified roles are coming in
and become really important. And I think for people who have
them specific skills and their passion for sport, there's some
really unique opportunities growing.
So for instance, data science, you know, I, I know a bit of, of
data science, but not to the level of a data scientist.
And I think if you can come in with them skills, but also the
conceptual understanding of cycling, you, there's massive
potential for that in the future.
And the same with engineers, you know, having aerodynamic
engineers, design engineers, Mechanical Engineers that have
this desire to work in cycling and this conceptual
understanding of cycling, I see more and more opportunities for
them either within professional teams or within partners that
work with teams. And you see that's definitely a
growing field now really that high level science within,
within sport and particularly with cycling, it's more and more
opportunities. And is there are there any
recommendations? You know, when people sometimes
ask me about Formula One, sometimes I say, OK, well if you
can't get into Formula One, try and do with a lower
quote-unquote quote, lower formula first just to get a
practice spin. Is that something people can do
with cycling? Or is that a slight almost gap
that you know, it's either you've done a university course
or you work for a cycling team, but how do you get the
experience to know? Is there any things that you're
aware of that people can clue themselves up on?
Cycling-specific knowledge. Yeah, yes, it's definitely
difficult to make that bridge like you said, I'd say 1 The
thing that I've seen successful people do is using the
opportunities they have through their time as a student to allow
for opportunities to interact with with professional sports.
So, you know, if you're an undergraduate or a master's
student and you know, you have to do a placement or you have to
do a final year project, trying to drive that final year
project in a direction where you can interact with a
professional team is a really nice way.
Because if you can approach them and say, you know, I need to
do 200 hours of X, Y, Z. I need to do simulation, I
need to do wind-tunnel tests, I need to do in the field
research on this topic. And I think it's really
interesting for you and we can shape the question to answer
your problems. They're the kind of things that
would get me really excited, you know, students that have
that initiative, that have that capacity to drive to drive
this thing forward. And it's a, you know, it can be
a three month interview. And even within our team, we
have one member that came directly from that kind of
process. You know, he showed
initiative, stepped through it as a as a master's student and
really secured an opportunity straight from graduating in, in
professional sport because he showed that initiative to yeah
on, on how to move, move himself forward.
So I'd say really try and shape the experiences you have towards
sport and, and bring a question and a solution rather
than just, you know, asking for experience.
I think that's something that's can really help you break into
professional sport and, and also don't worry when you get a no,
you know, I think if I remember my initial period, I applied for
so many job opportunities and, and yeah, and, and sometimes
it's not the right time, the right place and, and that's
completely fine. And, and I really believe they
shape you to the person you are, you know, and, and yeah, don't,
don't give up when it, when it becomes difficult.
I think that's just something that really allows you to to
break into difficult industry. No, that's, that's a great piece
of advice. And no, I, I actually, I mean
the big picture, I always, and I guess the reason why I, we're so
keen to speak to you and, and generally talk about cycling is
I feel like engineering or sort of sports side of engineering
almost is some people turn away from engineering because it's
almost perceived as not being exciting or it's not being fun
and they see football or whatever or cycling as being
fun. And I suppose one of the things
I've always been a fan of is that if you can link those two
things, then it's like you have the pleasure of working on
something that you actually like.
And I think Formula One was traditionally always that thing.
But I think it's it, it has,
it's just hard to get into. That's just the one.
And there are so many aerodynamicists working in a
team 50, I don't know, maybe 70 that you're just working on,
you know, the equivalent of optimizing a spoke on a wheel,
let's say, where I guess if they work for someone like your
company, they're going to be working the whole thing
probably. So it's like it's more rewarding
maybe actually to sort of go into a cycling thing maybe than
Formula One in a way. So it's almost, maybe I'm
encouraging if there's people listening to maybe consider
getting into the sort of cycling side of engineering because it
could be more fulfilling potentially than your
traditional Formula One. Yeah, it definitely offers that
opportunity to go through the whole process as well.
You know, it is a sport. We, you know, we're much less
budget, we're more, you know, agile with our resource.
And yeah, if you're in aero analysis within cycling, you
work everything from, you know, conceptual CFD all the way to
to real world validation with a human being.
And you're you get to have all them touch points across that
that piece. And I think it makes you a much
better practitioner when it's like that, you know, when you
can understand from really complex kind of, you know,
fundamentals all the way down to convincing a human being of
the work you're doing and getting their feedback and
having a holistic approach. That to me is what gets me out
of bed every day. You know, I get to do this
really complex science, but actually apply it and then
ultimately seeing it in in competition and, you know,
watching it on TV or be there in person.
And, you know, having your heart rate at 180 beats a minute
when when they're going into a final and thinking, yeah, I've
played a small part in that. That's, that's a really nice
feeling. And I would definitely encourage
people who are interested to, yeah, to reach out and and to
look at opportunities inside because it's definitely a
growing space moving forward. Great.
Well, yeah, thanks so much Kurt, for for for chatting today.
I'm hoping people, you know, got the same that I have this,
which is just this excitement, I guess for for cycling and you
know, For Tudor, I think it's great when there's these new
relatively new teams coming in trying to sort of shake it up.
And I think it's it's good because it makes the more
established teams aware they've got to shake up and it.
And it's good also for people
who wanted to get into the sport, that there's more
companies, more jobs. So yeah, thank you so much for
speaking and educating us all on on what it's like to be a Pro
Cycling team. Perfect.
Thanks, Neil.