Scientific explanation behind Pogacar's disappointing time trial: "His position was much better in the 2024 Tour"

Stefan Deckx is a movement analyst at the University of Antwerp and was closely involved in Victor Campenaerts' successful world hour record attempt. He gets straight to the point. “Pogacar's center of gravity is too far forward,” he tells Knack magazine. “His elbows rest on the handlebars, which means he can't put enough pressure on his rear wheel. At such high speeds, that can cause problems, especially in a corner.” Thijs Zonneveld had already drawn the same conclusion.

"The lines are wrong," says the scientist. What does that mean? As an example of the perfect position, he cites Evenepoel, who won the time trial in the Dauphiné. "With him, the intersection of the line through his shoulder and elbow and the line through the front fork is exactly in the axis, the center of the front wheel. That's perfect geometry. All the forces from the upper body come together there and balance each other out. This gives you ideal power transfer to the rotation of the front wheel, perpendicular to the road.“

”With Pogacar, that intersection is behind and above the front wheel's axis. This makes his bike less stable, more difficult to control, and works against him. Moreover, he transfers the power from his upper body less efficiently. He doesn't push his bike enough into the ground, as it were – unlike the downforce of a Formula 1 car. This means the entire chain – from front to rear wheel, from elbow to foot – is less closed."

The current position of the UAE Team Emirates - XRG leader is even worse than his old position, for example, during the seventh stage of the Tour de France in 2024. "The line through his shoulder and elbow ran in front of the front wheel axle, not behind it as it does now. It even ran almost parallel to the line through the front fork. So there was no intersection with the front wheel axle, which is not ideal – as with Evenepoel – but better than Pogacar's current position.“

But it's not just the steering stability that's the problem; the pelvic tilt is also not good. It is tilted backward. "The backward tilt puts more unfavorable tension on Pogacar's lower back. He is also less able to use his rear muscle chain: the gluteus maximus (the largest muscle in the body), the hamstrings, and the lower back. The pedal kick is also less powerful. He pedals flatter and, therefore, less diagonally backward. Compare it to the sloping starting blocks in athletics, where sprinters push off with their feet," Deckx compares.

So why did UAE Team Emirates change its position in such an unfavorable way? The Belgian thinks he knows. “I suspect they mainly looked at the cda value – the coefficient of aerodynamic drag – and paid too little attention to biomechanics and the body's lines of force. Pogacar may now be more aerodynamic on his bike. But that doesn't outweigh the biomechanical disadvantages.”