Cycling: Racing into the Headwind

"Don’t worry, I’ll get a good night’s rest tonight. I’ll do my best to be in top form for the ITT tomorrow."

...

「February 20th.」

The UAE Tour’s ITT race officially began.

The host city for the second day of racing was the capital of the United Arab Emirates: Abu Dhabi.

The venue chosen was an artificial island: Hadriyat Island.

The riders would complete one lap around the circular road on the artificial island.

From a bird’s-eye view, the road looked like a scaled-down F1 track.

After the race started, the China Sports commentator delivered his familiar opening lines and then gave the fans back home an update on Huang Chong’s condition:

"Fellow fans, there’s no need to worry. We have received confirmation from the Bora Team that our rider, Huang Chong, was not seriously injured in his crash yesterday. He only scraped a bit of skin on his elbow.

Furthermore, their team doctor treated the wound promptly after yesterday’s stage, so it won’t affect his performance today or in the subsequent races.

Huang Chong will be competing in today’s ITT, and we can all look forward to seeing his results.

First, let’s welcome our first rider to start. This is the champion of the United States National Time Trial Championships, now a rider for UAE Team, McNulty.

He was also considered the top favorite to win the ITT stage before the race.

Let’s see how he performs—"

As the race began, McNulty, wearing the US national champion’s jersey, was the first rider off the starting ramp.

Once he was on the road, he immediately got out of the saddle, putting in a few anaerobic efforts to quickly get up to speed.

Huang Chong, who was warming up on his trainer, was of course very familiar with the time trial abilities of these monsters on the UAE Team.

They were all national time trial champions from their respective countries.

McNulty was the United States time trial champion, and Vine was the Australian time trial champion.

And Bjerg had previously won the individual time trial at the UCI U23 World Championships for three consecutive years.

Of course, if they were just comparing national titles, Huang Chong certainly had no reason to feel inferior.

He was also a Chinese national champion—a two-time double champion, in fact.

’Anyone who makes it to a World Tour Team is probably a national champion, right?’

Soon, because the ITT course was so short, McNulty, the first rider to start, quickly finished his race.

When Huang Chong saw his time, he couldn’t help but frown.

He saw that the guy’s average speed was a staggering 53.978 km/h, just shy of 54 km/h.

His total time for the 12.1 km course was just 13 minutes and 27 seconds.

’Damn,’ he thought. ’As expected of a beast chosen by UAE Team to be a lieutenant for Pogačar—’

Right after, the second rider to start was another UAE Team support rider: Bjerg.

The two of them had even made a bet at the press conference that morning over who would win the time trial.

But Huang Chong had no interest in their little team game; he just focused his attention on Bjerg’s performance.

Bjerg’s pace was also incredibly fast. After the first time check, his speed was almost identical to McNulty’s.

For the other teams, this level of strength was undoubtedly overwhelming.

In the end, Bjerg’s average finishing speed was also a high 53.711 km/h, and his finishing time was only four seconds slower than his teammate’s.

"It’s truly impressive. As the home team for the UAE Tour, UAE Team has such an enormous budget that they’ve practically bought up all the top riders in the World Tour this year."

The Bora Team Leader watched as the UAE Team riders finished with such terrifying average speeds, and his heart sank.

An average finishing speed of nearly 54 km/h on a flat course was something only a few freaks of nature like Evenepoel, Ganna, Vingegaard, and Pogačar could achieve—and now, this group of UAE Team support riders.

And that proved to be the case. For a long time afterward, no other rider managed to surpass the times set by McNulty and Bjerg.

It wasn’t until the Australian rider Vine started his run that Bjerg’s time was finally beaten.

But he was only faster by a negligible two seconds, putting him in second place, sandwiched between McNulty and Bjerg.

Seeing this result, none of the riders were excited—except, of course, for the members of UAE Team.

Because Vine was also on UAE Team.

As for the results of Bora Team’s two main climbers, Zwiehoff and Buchman, the former did slightly better, with an average speed of 51.187 km/h, finishing 44 seconds behind McNulty.

The latter, however, clearly struggled, with an average speed of only 50.069 km/h, putting him 1 minute and 3 seconds behind the leader.

His rank on the stage dropped all the way to 66th place.

To end the second stage with such results showed just how idealistic Aldag had been in sending virtually the same lineup as the one for the Tour of Australia.

"Huang, don’t put too much pressure on yourself. Just do your best to show what you’re capable of. It’s your turn to go."

Huang Chong’s start time was quite late; he was the last of all the Bora Team members to go.

So, after seeing the results of six of his riders—with even the best performer, Zwiehoff, only managing 33rd place—the team leader, frankly, had no expectations left for this race.

Now, his only remaining hope rested on the team’s youngest member, Huang Chong.

But while Huang Chong’s ITT ability had been measured in internal training and tests, he had never, after all, competed in one at this level.

No one knew what kind of performance he could actually deliver.

It was common for many riders to be strong climbers or sprinters but be terrible when it came to time trials.

So the team leader could only pray that Huang Chong wasn’t that type of overly specialized rider.

As Huang Chong made his way to the starting ramp, the eyes of cycling fans all over the world were undoubtedly fixed on him.

What kind of time could this Chinese rider post in the time trial?

Could he pull off a miracle?

This was likely the question on every fan’s mind at that moment.

"FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE—"

"GO!!"

At the sound of the official’s voice, Huang Chong, riding the Bora Team edition of the Lightning TT bike, shot off the starting ramp.

Followed closely by the team car and an official’s car, he began his lap of the island along the road.

McNulty had been the first to start. After setting the fastest time, he had been watching the race from the "hot seat," the special chair reserved for the current leader. Now, he watched the live feed with interest as Huang Chong rode at full tilt.

As a newcomer to the Bora Team, a Chinese rider, and the one who had taken the orange leader’s jersey from his own team’s promising young talent, Del Toro, during the Queen Stage of the Tour of Australia, there was no way McNulty didn’t know who Huang Chong was.

In his eyes, and in the eyes of the entire UAE Team, Huang Chong was currently insignificant.

But who could guarantee that a newcomer who had just joined a World Tour Team and won two climbing stages in his debut race wouldn’t develop rapidly?

Time flew by.

Since the ITT was only 12.1 km long, taking at most 13 or 14 minutes, Huang Chong would definitely need to ride with anaerobic power, pushing beyond his Zone 4 threshold.

So, during his lap of the island, he rode at his threshold heart rate on the tailwind section. But on the headwind section, and during every acceleration out of the corners, he pushed into his anaerobic zone.

But even though he gave it his all, nailed every corner, and sprinted out of the saddle for the final 100 meters to the finish line, there was still a considerable gap between him and the first-place rider, McNulty.

It was a deficit in raw power, and there was nothing to be done about it.

His average finishing speed was 52.964 km/h, and his total time was 15 seconds slower than McNulty’s.

So, at the end of Stage 2, both his stage result and his overall classification placed him fifth among all riders.

The four riders ahead of him were:

1. McNulty - UAE - 3:23:22

2. Vine - UAE - +0:02

3. Bjerg - UAE - +0:04

4. Tobias Foss - INEOS - +0:14

5. Huang Chong - BORA - +0:15

...

Without a doubt, this result wasn’t bad at all; it just showed there was still a gap between him and the top-tier time trialists.

He was even faster than two of the top favorites for the overall UAE Tour victory, Ben O’Connor and Adam Yates, by 7 and 13 seconds, respectively.

This was incredibly encouraging news.

So, after the race, even though Huang Chong hadn’t won the Stage 2 ITT, the Bora Team Leader was still uncontrollably excited.

He gave Huang Chong a huge hug and said with a trembling voice:

"Huang, I had no idea your time trial ability was this strong!!

You’ve only just joined the World Tour—

I don’t mean any offense to your country, but I just can’t imagine how a nation could produce a rider of your caliber!"