monstrous ratios (and average speed)

Remco Evenepoel dominates the time trial of La Vuelta and puts a serious risk on the final victory.
Roglic (second) and Mas (tenth) do not sink completely, but now they can only hope for a bad day for the young Belgian. Or in a sharp decline in the third week.

Today’s great performance is perhaps the least surprising of those shown in the Spanish stage race. Remco has always been very strong at the time trial, but the gaps are impressive: Roglic, second, finished at 48 “, Cavagna, third, at 1 minute.

Longer and longer relationships

Evenepoel faced the time trial with a very long gear combination: it had the 60 on the front and the 11-30 on the rear.
Such a large front chainring allows to reduce friction, since the chain turns with a wider curvature, gaining a few watts.
This is the reason why gear ratios of over 60 teeth on the crankset are almost always used on the track.
We had talked about it in depth in this article.

Among other technical details, we recall that Evenepoel tackles the chronographs with 165 mm cranks, therefore very short. A trend, that of shortening the levers, increasingly widespread among the Pros, especially in triathlon and time trials. The advantages are aerodynamic, but not only. We talked about it in the article below:

Short and aerodynamic cranks. What correlations and what advantages?

Terrific average speed

Probably Evenepoel will not have pulled the 60 × 11 all the time, but given the final average speed he will not have taken it off so often.
The Belgian, in fact, covered the 30.9 km in 33:18 “, at an average of 55.7 km / harriving at the finish still in thrust.
At the end there was a favorable wind, but net of the standing start and the curves, it means that he always traveled on the edge of 60 km / h.

Interesting to observe too the average pedaling cadencewhich despite the huge anterior crown was very high: 100 rpm per minute.

Among other technical details, we point out the 3D printed appendices (to which we are now used to) and the new Specialized TT5 time trial helmet, with internal headgear which is an integral part of the helmet itself. According to the data provided by Specialized, in a time trial of 30 km like today it can allow you to gain up to 20 seconds.

HERE you will find the stage classification and the general of La Vuelta 2022.