engineering and biomechanics in cycling
It all started in 1980 with the purchase of
a KOGA
MIYATA Fullpro. My fascination with cycling was awakened.
At the time there was hardly any literature that offered a
glimpse into this world of technology and tactics. The only
magazine was RAD MAGAZIN, founded in 1977 in the Didi Thurau
euphoria, now known as TOUR. The frames were made of
chrome-molybdenum steel, Shimano brought the first DURA-ACE EX
onto the market and modern nylon racing shoes were in
hook/strap pedals.
In 1984 I met Hans Christian
Smolik. And in his workshop I spent countless hours of turning,
sanding and theoretical physics. However, I owe my training as
a toolmaker to Franz Pawelczyk from Haan, who improved the
principle of the spoke wrench, which is now the worldwide
standard.
In 1987 my friend Andreas Kappes joined the
legendary Toshiba-La Vie Claire team as a professional cyclist.
The new LOOK carbon frames had a weak point: the glued tube
connections came loose. And the frame had to be replaced
overnight. So it happened that Andreas was sitting on his bike
but the seat position was not right. During the race it had to
be readjusted or the muscles suffered from the unfamiliar
position. His father Werner Kappes, himself a successful Berlin
amateur athlete in the 1960s, gave me the task to solve this
problem. And so I developed my first biomechanical tool and
built it after work during my semester break in a metalworking
company. In 1988 I proudly presented my 'invention' to Paul
Köchli, Toshiba's sports director. I was sent to the service de
course to show it the mechanics. But they didn't want
unfamiliar technology preferring to continue working with the
old methods. Christian Smolik then presented it in special
issue IV of TOUR 1992, but the response was very muted. From
now on I made things official and founded
ergocycle..
In 1990 I met Ulrich Schoberer
the inventor of mobile power measurement and founder of
SRM. For the first time
and with the help of his DOS-based program I was able to
measure and study the course of the torque while pedaling. It
turned out that the power and the magnitude of the torque of
the legs depended on the seat position and could even be
influenced by mental concentration. In order to put the anatomy
of the legs in relation to this the joint centers were covered
with markers and filmed with a video camera while pedaling. The
course of the markers could then be recorded two-dimensionally
geometrically from the individual images. If the respective
crank angles were correlated with the SRM data, each torque
value could be assigned to a corresponding joint angle. This
enabled theoretical conclusions to be drawn about the
generation of force in the muscle and its transfer to the body
segments involved. But in order to get to the bottom of the
secret of the optimal sitting position, I developed human
models that were supposed to confirm or refute an examination
of the measurement data.
The rise of Team Telekom
around Jan Ullrich began in the 1990s. And SRM in Jülich became
the center of performance-based training. Word had got around
in the scene that I was offering these movement analyzes on the
SRM premises. And since there was no comparable measuring
technology available anywhere else - apart from a few
universities - Eddy Merckx and his son Axel also visited me.
Based on the torque data I diagnosed for Axel a significant
difference in leg length who was contesting races for
MAPEI-Quickstep at this time. Eddy wanted to compensate this
difference in leg length with special shoe plates according to
the old tradition. However, I increased the crank length of the
longer leg according to the law:
Torque = Force x leverage
so that the torque graphs of both legs had the same maximum. In
this way, the longer leg could achieve the same muscle
strength-contraction length ratio as the shorter one. And voi
là, Axel later won a stage in Giro d`Italia.
Whether biomechanics helped is always theoretically explicable.
You win races with your head...and good legs.
In addition to my studies in mechanical engineering I acquired all trainer licenses from the German Cyclist Association. At the same time I rode bike races until 1999. My finest victory was at a criterium in Wuppertal in 1995, where I won ahead of Wilfried Trott.
