For many, Mattias Skjelmose’s time trial at the Tour de France came as a surprise.

The media have described it as a new breakthrough for the versatile Danish rider, who is currently sitting sixth overall in the world’s toughest cycling race.

Skjelmose himself also described the performance as “the time trial of my life” when he was interviewed by Danish broadcaster TV 2 after the stage. He produced a power output that even surprised him and opened the effort aggressively, yet managed to sustain it all the way to the finish.

But calling Skjelmose’s time trial a surprise almost does it a disservice. The word suggests that the performance was unexpected. It was not. Instead, it was the result of hard work, dedication and a relentless focus on optimising every possible detail.

That is why Mattias Skjelmose reached out to us himself in the spring, with the ambition of being optimised in our own in-house wind tunnel, the Tempo! Wind Tunnel.

We have recently launched our Performance Program concept, through which athletes, teams and brands can complete tailored development programmes with exactly this focus. These can range from optimising existing equipment to complete head-to-toe programmes involving multiple partners, such as the process triathlete Sam Laidlow completed in preparation for his full-distance world record at Challenge Roth.

Skjelmose had a clear objective. He was already producing strong time-trial performances, but believed they could be converted into even better results. Together with Skjelmose, we therefore spent ten hours testing to ensure that he could get even more speed from every watt he produced.

“We had both the Tour last year and the Tour of the Basque Country this year, where we could not understand why the results were not better considering the watts I was producing. So I contacted FUSION myself. They have their own wind tunnel and some of the best people when it comes to optimisation. The week after the Ardennes, I spent almost ten hours with them testing I do not even know how many different things,” Skjelmose said on TV 2’s AftenTour programme, which reviewed the stage. He continued:

“Of course, I had really good legs today, but I am certain that this is one of the reasons why it has improved so much.”

During the visit, we helped Skjelmose optimize his position and helmet choice, while also verifying the different equipment options available to him through Lidl-Trek’s sponsors.

The specific details of the improvements delivered by the individual configurations remain confidential and are reserved for Skjelmose himself. The central focus of the testing, however, was to work within the possibilities and limitations of this specific case to give Skjelmose the best possible conditions for performing at his highest level.

The Personal Performance Program is designed for professional athletes. For age-groupers and ambitious amateurs, we offer our Pro Experience, while industry partners can make use of our Industrial Performance Program.