The Art of Time Trialing.

Why is Fabian Cancellara, the winner of Stage One and the wearer of the Yellow Jersey, such a good time trialist (and I have made the statement that he is the best of his generation, maybe the best ever: 2 time World Champion, Olympic Champion, Two time Winner of the opening TT, Two time wearer of the Yellow Jersey) Sure, he's big and strong (6 ft 1 in, 180 pounds) and he can crank out 500 watts at will, but it's more than that. He also has a very, very good technical team. This is becoming a very big part of winning a TT these days at the highest level, especially at the Tour, where a millisecond of drag can be the difference between victory and ruin. The fact of the matter is, this...
Is not a lot of bike for the wind to look at. That is about the most sleekest set up I have ever seen on a bike. Here's another shot:
(and the guy behind him is Denis Menchov, the winner of the Giro D'Italia, a guy who started a minute and a half behind Fabian. Yea, he was caught for a minute plus...) Compare this with another, Bradley Wiggins, who finished third on the day...The thing is, that there is not a lot to notice to the untrained eye. But that brakeset sitting out in front, the exposed cables, the clunky hood set up, the "higher" profile aero bars, all of that can potentially mean the difference between first and third on the day... the difference of 20 seconds.
Here's a perfect example of a total mess up front for an ITT set up. We have Oscar Friere, a sprinter who's riding his regular road bike with bolted on bars: Seriously, the problem here is that Oscar could care less about his result, he only cares about making out of the day so he can start tomorrow and be there at the end for the sprint finish. But his set up is a total disaster. He started with his regular bike, as I said, drop bars and all, cables everywhere, lots of stuff out front for the wind to be caught up in. Just a mess.
One more example, here's Ballan: Again, cables are exposed, among other things, like the brakeset. Go back and compare that picture with Cancellara... and you see how he spent so much more time paying attention to his setup... or, I should say, how his tech's spent that time. Attention to detail was the difference for victory for him. No doubt.
One last look at Fabian:Not much to look at from the front, and then his job is to just rail this TT and deliver the goods... his tech's did a great job of getting him into the right bike and the right position for the win.
Half this victory goes to them.
OK... I saw this picture at work, this is the winning TT Bike from a different angle.
this is the cycling equivalent of a hot knife slicing through warm butter.