A time trial isn’t always the most compelling racing to watch on television. So Denmark palmed a few Kroners to the weather gods for some rain. With a cobbled section through Amalienborg, it seemed crashes were on the horizon. but none actually happened on that pavé.
Stage 1 of the 2022 Tour de France took riders around a 13 kilometer loop here in Copenhagen. The rain started to fall about an hour and a half before the race start. So it seemed like riders heading out early would have the advantage. That included a lot of GC contenders. But the rain tapered off later in the stage, tipping the scales toward late starters.
In the end, Yves Lampaert came away with a surprise victory. Notably, Lampaert was the only rider on his Quickstep-AlphaVinyl team not wearing Specialized’s new (and very odd) TT helmet.
About that Specialized Time Trial helmet
That odd-looking lid is the TT5 from specialized. Any team at the Tour de France that rides Specialized equipment debuted the helmet during the stage 1 time trial. The helmet includes a head sock which supposedly improves airflow over the rider’s ears and face. This unfortunate-looking lid faced much ridicule on social media. I highly recommend Googling “Peter Sagan Monty Python helmet.”
Kask also showed off an oversized TT helmet, which seems to indicate a trend we’ll need to look out for over the next few seasons. Such advancements come after lots of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) testing. So brands must be seeing something in testing that indicates bigger helmets are faster. Like the Specialized lid, the Kask helmet appears to be very closely approaching the line of what is actually legal under UCI face shield regulations.
At the 3km banner
After visiting the team paddock before the start to spy on new time trial gear and bikes, I headed back to my AirBnB right next to the 3km to go banner. That’s where I posted up to take photos and video while the rain soaked me to the bone. It made for some compelling photos, and one very chilly photographer.
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The Danish crowd was raucous. The ground shook when Mads Pedersen came through. It was incredible to watch the riders zip across slick cobblestones through Amalienborg, the Queen’s winter residence. Only later, after I dumped all my photos onto my computer, did I zoom in on their faces, finding the grimaces the cobbles inflicted.
The time trial stage in Copenhagen marks my sixth Tour de France that I’ve covered in person. In all of those six years, I saw very little racing, as I was often cooped up in press rooms prepping gear and tech galleries and punching out stories, or sitting in the back seat of a car on my way to the finish line before riders arrived. So it was a thrill for me to stand on course and snap photos of riders coming through. I saw more Tour de France racing yesterday in the rain in Copenhagen than in all of my other Tours combined.