The Dutch had a weird time at
the Olympics MTB and BMX events, and we’re still left mulling over what happened. The riders who were expected to do well did poorly and Niek Kimmann, who was racing with a broken kneecap from a collision with
a race official who walked in front of him, won gold. Not to mention, two of the three Dutch BMX women who raced collided with each other in the first semi-final run meaning Laura Smulders, who put down the fastest female quarter-final lap time and was a favorite to win, did not finish.
Today though, we're going to be talking about Twan van Gendt. The tale of Twan is not all that different from the story of technically proficient Mathieu van der Poel who
left his yellow jersey spot at the Tour de France to “win gold at the Olympics” only to crash out on the Sakura drop. van Gendt, the reigning BMX Supercross World Champion, came into the race with high expectations and what seemed like all the advantages in the world, but the events that followed reminded us that Olympic victory still comes down to whether a rider can keep it together when it counts.
Twan van Gendt in his final days of prep at his home course.
van Gendt's extra gear on the
first-ever two-speed Olympic BMX bike made headlines, and a podium spot seemed like a given since he trained on an Olympic replica track that Red Bull helped build near his home in the Netherlands. Still, his races didn’t play out the way he had hoped.
Rather than a single quarterfinal and single semifinal race for each heat, the Tokyo Olympic BMX quarterfinals and semifinals each consisted of three runs per heat before a single final run for the top eight riders that made it there. In theory, the three-run system allowed riders some forgiveness from, say, a single bad run or a crash out of their control. Unfortunately for van Gendt, a rider who had three bad runs in a row was out of luck.
Things started out well. In the quarterfinals, van Gendt won the first race, then took second in both the others to the eventual winner, Kimmann. It looked as if his extra gear might have given him some extra speed, though he wasn't dominating the holeshots as some expected.
In the semi-finals, van Gendt had three out of three bad runs. In the first race, he and compatriot Joris Harmsen bumped each other. In the next run, van Gendt simply didn’t have the pace. Third, he was taken down in
the crash of US favorite Connor Fields. He finished 8th out of 8 in the first two, only finishing 7th in his third semifinal run because Fields was stretchered off the course.
On Instagram, he attributed it to bad luck:
| You've got to be a little crazy to go all-in for 1 race in a sport where it's impossible to even hold all the cards. We have done absolutely everything in our power over the past years to come here best prepared. A little tough luck in the semi's and my journey ended there. But what a journey it has been.—Twan van Gendt |
This would have been a much different article had van Gendt won the final. There would have been an outcry from the traditionalists who think a geared BMX bike is a contradiction, and the conversation would have been about whether he won because of an unfair advantage. Several BMXers would rush to follow suit and put shifters on their bikes. Eventually the technology would be less cost-prohibitive than it is today and we would all get over it, just like mountain bikers have gotten over dropper posts and mullet bikes and 29ers all the other cool cutting-edge sacrilege out there.
Since the races played out as they did, it’s more complicated. van Gendt did have three great race runs, but they weren't the race runs that mattered. His slowest quarter-final time was 40.555, which would have put him into third place in the final. His semi-final races were just troubled. Maybe he didn’t sleep well the night between the quarter- and semi-final. Maybe the other racers were just more prepared. Maybe he just had really bad luck. Accidents do happen. The tough part of this whole thing is that we really can’t know whether his extra gear helped him at all, since all these riders are great at baseline and they’re all pushing for whatever marginal gains they can get. All we can do is speculate.
Still, I wouldn't be surprised if van Gendt's Olympic bike changes BMX. Not everyone will have forgotten that he had three great runs. Now that someone has used a multi-gear setup at a high-profile, modern race, derailleurs on BMX bikes have another opportunity to catch on. We're at what could be a tipping point. Or, this could remain another interesting blip in bike racing history, like Barry Nobles' and Brian Lopes' multi-speed BMX bikes of years past.
I, for one, am curious to see what happens.
I watched those races, and it is clear that gearing would help. For most of each race, they are spinning like mad whenever they try to pedal. This bike would have been better with more widely-spaced gearing. That means a bigger chainring, but so what?
I am not sure multiple gears help that much, the ramp at the gate is made to make up for the lack of a shorter gear and use gravity to accelerate quicker at the beginning of the race and it has been tried for years without sticking.
If BMX is pure, how come modern bikes aren't the same material/style/design as BMX bikes from 30 years ago?
What makes one aspect of design evolution more pure than another 'impure' one?
...
"In the next run, van Gendt simply didn’t have the pace. "
Oh, what could have been, if the bike hadn't been caught up in the unfortunate event of being ridden too slowly.
What is so cost prohibitive about a modified $60 derailleur?
It’s easy. I’ve got a singlespeed only frame running a mech with an off the shelf hanger. Converting a race bike would be even easier as you don’t need to worry about practicality of wheel removal etc...
Where do you think this insidious power loss is coming from? Genuinely curious.
I think whatever in subtle inefficiency is introduced in a geared system, even in the same gear, the dynamics of a longer, suspended chain, probably less rigid chain/cogs, possibly worse chain line, etc, add up to a miniscule amount of mechanical disadvantage but are magnified in our perception... We start to loose the mind game, and in a sprint like BMX, that mind game might be worth more than a few watts.
I'm with Drew-O in that I'm not really sold on that being a massive efficiency advantage but lots of SS riders certainly perceive it to be. I would imagine Gendt would have trained on the 2 speed bike enough to not lose the mind game but who knows?
Difference in speed was huge and easily measurable. Fixie was a full bike length+ faster than gears everytime.
As long as the jockey wheels aren't clogged up with gunk (and the bike is otherwise well maintained), then there is no real world power loss inherant in a geared setup with a good chainline, compared to SS. At least not over the course of a sprint race.
People always come up with excuses for why their more traditional, more "pure" setup offers advantages. In the case of Fixie/SS/Gears, these reasons are normally pure fantasy.
There is an argument for mandating SS only in BMX in order to simplify the sport. However anyone who says geared is slower because of the gears is just plain wrong.
To look at this semi-scientifically: About 1,5% of your power is lost to derailleur pulleys, which is not a lot to begin with. It's a lot more if you are comparing a bike with fixed gears that is in pristine condition to a bike with draggy pulley bushings and a dirty, old chain. It's less if you are a pro that invested in oversized pulleys and ceramic bearings. Seems the top speed benefit could easily outweigh any power wastage.
Compared to the enourmous advantages offered by gears, there really is no competition. Gears are faster than SS overall despite a tiny drop in total power that reaches the rear tyre.
As for SS vs Fixie. There are no disadvantages to SS at all. SS loses nothing to Fixie, while allowing you to briefly slow your cadence where necessary which can gain you a surprising amount of time in a race. SS is faster than Fixie outright, with no caveats.
If that finish line were moved out further top gearing would have mattered, but not for what we were doing.
Organizers were picky about measuring the distance, but I don't know what it was. 100 yards maybe?
Anyhow, just acceleration basically.
So fun and addicting. I recommend putting one on in your town. Bring beers costumes and a terrible 1st place trophy.
(Now I'm just thinking: "How does this guy know where I live?!?" It's in the PB bio apparently and in my case outdated by more than 10 years, hahaha. Gotta change that...)
I ask because there's a ton of BMX news from the Olympics that kinda puts 'dude tries out derailleur in BMX race' in the shadows. This isn't new and given the result it didn't prove an exciting technical breakthrough in BMX racing.
IMO first woman to land 360 flip is interesting news.
It's easy to forget that although BMX racing has been around for 50+ years the SX flavor has only really been around since the lead-in to the 2008 Beijing games, we're just now seeing the bikes start to adapt with disc brakes, longer frames, lower bb, and now geared set-ups.
This is the track: www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOBqa9IQXx4
This is the nice documentary I mentioned: www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFXdnIYi7ig
Dirt berms allow for more skill and overtaking opportunities in my opinion
The product is called soil tack. When applied over a dirt and clay mixture it dries like a varnish on top. Mostly done to stop erosion due to rain it also creates a very smooth surface which helps to increase speeds. When I crashed at the 2015 Worlds in Zolder the surface was so hard it tore up my aluminum bar end. Great stuff when things are going well, less so when it goes to shit.
Trendy approach and make it
E - B M X!!
Full suspension of coarse
Super mega boost spacing and mix wheel setup
Optional
Did I miss anything?
www.leelikesbikes.com/bmx-shifter-bike.html
BMXers with their archaic ways.
Said no one ever