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How to go fast and influence people: Alex Dowsett profile
‘I was talking to Matej Mohorič one day and he assumed that, – just by looking at him – I’d be able to tell his CdA. I just went with it, like, “Yeah, point two three on the TT bike, a bit more on the road bike.”’
CdA is the coefficient of aerodynamic drag, a single number derived from complex calculations that expresses a rider’s aerodynamic efficiency. The fact that Mohorič – a winner of Milan-San Remo and a technical whizz himself – would ask this question says it all. Alex Dowsett’s early career may have seen him hallmarked as the haemophiliac time-trial prodigy, but by the end the boy from Maldon was known for something else: an uncanny understanding of how to go faster.
Local education
Dowsett hung up his aerosocks at the end of last season and in April swapped Andorra at altitude for life back at sea level in Essex. That marked the end of a 13-year career in which he amassed six national time-trial titles, two Giro d’Italia stages and one Hour record (52.937km, set in 2015). And yet, he laughs, there was one race more important than them all.
‘The Maldon 10 time-trial. There was a running joke that me getting a sub-19 was more important than winning WorldTour races, and an element of that was true. Each pro has their testing ground. If you live in Girona it’s the Rocacorba and mine was the Maldon 10. It was my wind-tunnel, my place to test pacing strategies or how to ride in different conditions. No one takes photos so I would take different sets of kit. I learned an awful lot about how to go fast there.’
Quite why Dowsett saw cycling through such a methodical, data-driven lens even he couldn’t tell you. Perhaps it was two years of marginal gains at Team Sky, or maybe the fact his father was a racing car driver. But nurture or nature, Dowsett quickly became the type of rider who ended up testing 53 skinsuits, gold-plating his sprocket to reduce friction and working out the optimum temperature for the velodrome (30°C) before embarking on that successful Hour record attempt, or indeed setting the Maldon 10 course record at 18min 51sec. Precisely the kind of rider you’d want on your team.
How fast works
‘Just after the Hour I rode a time-trial at Bayern-Rundfahrt with a young Marc Soler,’ says Dowsett, then at Movistar. ‘Marc came up afterwards and said, “Alex, can I ask you about your time-trial?” So first – because he’s Spanish – he asks me how much I weigh. I say 78kg. “Ah,” he says, “I’m 70. Good. How much power did you do?” I say 395 watts and what about you? “400.”
‘Now, the Spanish work in watts per kilo for just about everything, and this isn’t computing – I beat him by two and a half minutes. So I ask him how many watts he was doing over a section of the course that was a descent then a climb. “400 on the descent.” And how fast were you going? “60kmh.” And how much power were you doing uphill? “400 watts.”
‘OK, I say, on the downhill I was sat on my top tube doing zero watts and 70kmh, then on the uphill I was doing 500 watts – because I had the energy – so I’m beating you on watts per kilo. I also started from a higher speed and I’m decelerating at a slower rate because I’m putting out more watts per kilo than you. Then at the top I’m re-accelerating from a higher speed than you are. It’s like the differences are biblical.’
It’s incredible to think of teams and riders being ignorant to such concepts, yet Dowsett says Soler was far from alone.
Bad tools
‘I joined Katusha-Alpecin in 2018 – Katusha was a clothing brand. We had Tony Martin, four-time World Time-Trial champion, and he hasn’t won a race since he joined. I know we have a slow skinsuit so I say I can get [skinsuit specialist] NoPinz to make our TT suits, they’ll be fast and they’ll have Katusha logos on. The team says no, they have to be Katusha suits.’
The problem, says Dowsett, is teams are beholden to sponsors, and not every team can be Team Sky ‘telling Shimano their wheels aren’t good so they’ll be riding Hed wheels’.
‘There are very few riders who look at their equipment and think, “This doesn’t get any better.” I spent a lot of time gathering data to show teams that our equipment meant we were rocking up to races with one hand tied behind our backs.’
Dowsett gives the examples of the Factor Slick TT bike he rode in 2020 for Israel Start-Up Nation, so slow the team called it the ‘Factor tractor’. Or when he asked Katusha for flat base bars on the team’s TT bikes – presenting his own research in support – only to denied because ‘Cancellara rode low base bars’.
However, even Dowsett admits it’s too reductive to simply blame your tools all the time. Sometimes things are well beyond even the sponsors’ or teams’ control.
The Kittel conundrum
Brought in as lead out man for 19-time Grand Tour stage winner Marcel Kittel, Dowsett and his Katusha teammates were destined to live or die by the big sprinter’s results. The trouble was, he wasn’t getting any.
‘Marcel was a specimen, but his headspace was wild. Once we were at the BinckBank Tour, it was raining and there was a problem with the [Canyon] Aeroad’s rim brakes and we were struggling big time with stopping. I was captain, checking on Marcel all day, and he was good – it even gets to the point where Marcel’s like, “Alex, stop asking, I’m fine!” Then 10km before the finish I look behind and he’s gone.
‘I drop back and back, to last wheel, and there he is. “I just can’t do this,” he says, “this is a nightmare, I can’t even stop.” OK, I say, the finish is 4km, arrow-straight, so you’re not going to need brakes that much, but no pressure, we can go with [Rick] Zabel. Then with 4km to go he comes next to me and says, “I think I’ll sprint.” Well, there’s nothing I can do for you because I don’t have the power to get you from last position to first in 4km. He’s like, “No problem, I’ll do it.” He then carves his way through the peloton and ends up finishing second to a bike throw by Fabio Jakobsen. I’ve never seen anything like it.
‘The next day is a 15km time-trial; we roll in and we’re all comparing numbers. I’d done an alright ride and Marcel goes, “I averaged 500 watts for 15 minutes.” I was like, mate! That is so much power, and he says, “Yeah that’s about right.” And then the next day I try to move him up to the front with 15km to go and every time I’d go over 400 watts he’d be like, “Easy, easy!” He couldn’t do it.’
Sadly for Dowsett and Katusha, Kittel was unable to find any form, nor indeed much happiness. He left the team, and the sport, midway through the 2019 season, sending a simple WhatsApp message to the riders: I will be announcing soon that I’m stopping racing, but thanks and goodbye.
‘It’s pure speculation but I just think the pressure he was under from the team was too much. You’ve got 30 teammates plus staff all riding on your ability to win races. I sympathise with that greatly. The first half of my career I was good, the second half I was trying to remain good. It’s stressful.’
Present future
Back in Essex, the highs and lows of the WorldTour might be gone but Dowsett is still ensconced in the sport. He now works with aero-kit specialist NoPinz as R&D advisor, runs his own coaching company and has a thriving social following that ‘for want of a better word puts me in the influencer space’. He has just released his autobiography, Bloody Minded, and he’s still involved in Little Bleeders, the charity he founded in 2016 to help children with blood disorders get into sport. And then, of course, there’s gravel – albeit the comic irony of ex-road pro goes gravel privateer isn’t lost on him.
‘People won’t like me for saying this, but I think gravel is for road riders that aren’t good enough to do mountain biking. I’ve done a few gravel races and I thought I’d be out of my depth, but I wasn’t. I did the gravel national champs and I was on the start line next to Alistair Brownlee. I jested saying I felt like a proper amateur, and then this chap next to me goes, “Well, you are now.” Harsh, but fair.’
Still, there would seem to be two natural places for a rider so well-versed in bike racing and so well-respected by his peers: ‘I’ve had one request for commentary but I said no because everyone who does it already is so good. And team management? I wouldn’t want a DS role; I’ve already spent too much time away from home as rider. But an advisor to a team, helping their riders go faster? Yeah I could see that.’
• Alex Dowsett’s autobiography Bloody Minded (Bloomsbury) is out now. This interview was based on episode 91 of the Cyclist Magazine Podcast. To listen to the complete interview, click here
Team talk
The employment history of Alex Dowsett
Trek-Livestrong, 2010
Dowsett kicks off his pro career at a team more famous for its (soon to be disgraced) patron than its results. Teammates include Taylor Phinney and Justin Williams, who goes on to found the Legion team alongside brother Cory.
Team Sky, 2011-2012
At the beginning of the decade the juggernaut is winding menacingly up, amassing a roster of British talent that includes Mark Cavendish, Bradley Wiggins, Geraint Thomas, Chris Froome, Luke Rowe, Ian Stannard and Ben Swift.
Movistar, 2013-2017
With Alejandro Valverde and Nairo Quintana heading up GC hopes, Dowsett is free to roam in time-trials, winning the Stage 8 Giro d’Italia ITT. The team also backs him for his successful 2015 Hour record bid. Arguably Dowsett’s best years are here.
Katusha-Alpecin, 2018-2019
By 2018 Katusha is beset by financial difficulties, something only exacerbated when their £1.2m signing, Marcel Kittel, fails to win any major races. Kittel quits suddenly in May 2019, and by the end of the season Katusha has folded.
Israel Start-Up Nation, 2020-2022
Dowsett signs with the new outfit owned by Israeli-Canadian billionaire Sylvan Adams. It proves a tumultuous relationship, with Dowsett almost left out in the cold until an emotional win at the 2020 Giro (another Stage 8) secures a two-year deal.
Dowsett on…
…the rise and fall of Ineos
‘I don’t think they’ve fallen behind, they’ve just been overtaken by UAE and Jumbo, who have been rethinking everything Ineos set as a benchmark ten years ago. Maybe they’re going, “Well, this is how we won all those Tours de France,” and that must be the hardest thing in the world – to look at the way you dominated and admit that actually you need to rethink it. They’ll return to the top I’m sure.’
…another Hour
‘I did give some consideration to an attempt in one of those recumbent speed pods. But I was so broken after my last attempt in 2021 that I’m good to never do another one again on an actual bike..’
…why coffee matters
‘I’m a very recent coffee snob so I’m well versed in mediocre to awful coffee, and I’m very tolerant of it. I think the nerdy, process-driven ambition to achieve the ultimate cup of coffee lends itself to the typical cyclist mentality, with a side of being able to chuck a disproportionately large amount of money at a hobby as you convince yourself performance has nothing to do with the mediocre talent operating the machinery. I know this from personal experience… of a friend.’
• This article originally appeared in issue 147 of Cyclist magazine. Click here to subscribe
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