Ride on: Bringing LYRIQ’s EV power to the Tour de France
2024-10-09
By Jacob Reising, Raj Komarivelli and Christopher Carino, GM Engineers
The Tour de France is the longest, most demanding bicycle race on the planet. Competitors ride 2,169 miles - equivalent to pedaling from New York City to Orlando and back. Every team on the Tour uses multiple support vehicles to carry spare bikes, repair tools, and supplies to keep their riders performing at their peak.
When the American team EF Pro Cycling decided to electrify its in-race support vehicles for the 2024 Tour de France, they turned to the Cadillac LYRIQ for its all-electric powertrain, 329-mile range and advanced energy regeneration systems. The LYRIQ was there for every leg, climb, and obstacle of the race, ultimately supporting rider Richard Carapaz as he won the coveted polka dot jersey on Stages 19 and 20, claiming the Tour’s best climber classification.
But handling the role of EF’s chase car is weighty. In the same way that a race car relies on a pit crew, cycling teams depend on their support vehicles. There was little room for error.
We had less than two weeks to modify the EF Pro Cycling LYRIQs for the Tour de France. Each LYRIQ needed a rooftop bike rack capable of carrying several bicycles at once, a piece of equipment we’d never made for this vehicle. The LYRIQ has a unique full glass roof, with optional roof-top rails designed for up to 110 pounds of cargo. With the clock ticking, we had to design a never-before-seen style of bike rack.
We relied on virtual simulation to design and stress-test a heavy-duty rack capable of securing at least six bikes atop the LYRIQ. To avoid damaging the vehicle from adding this accessory, the design we came up with used robust clamps—instead of bolts—to fasten the bike rack to the narrow edge around the glass panoramic roof. Attaching such a large piece of hardware and loading it up with bikes can drastically change a vehicle’s driving dynamics. We used a computer-aided engineering (CAE) simulation and Tour de France route data to understand how the LYRIQ would perform during the race, factoring in sharp curves, steep grades, and hard braking.
These simulation tools allowed us to virtually test the vehicle for loads experienced during cornering and braking. This simulated torture testing identified the weakest links in our preliminary design, ensuring that the finalized racks would stand up to anything the Tour de France could dish out. When our design was completed, a GM supplier constructed the racks to our exact specifications.
Outfitting the Cadillac LYRIQ as a Tour de France support vehicle meant creating an all-new roof rack capable of carrying several bikes at once.
By Jacob Reising, Raj Komarivelli and Christopher Carino, GM Engineers
The Tour de France is the longest, most demanding bicycle race on the planet. Competitors ride 2,169 miles - equivalent to pedaling from New York City to Orlando and back. Every team on the Tour uses multiple support vehicles to carry spare bikes, repair tools, and supplies to keep their riders performing at their peak.
When the American team EF Pro Cycling decided to electrify its in-race support vehicles for the 2024 Tour de France, they turned to the Cadillac LYRIQ for its all-electric powertrain, 329-mile range and advanced energy regeneration systems. The LYRIQ was there for every leg, climb, and obstacle of the race, ultimately supporting rider Richard Carapaz as he won the coveted polka dot jersey on Stages 19 and 20, claiming the Tour’s best climber classification.
But handling the role of EF’s chase car is weighty. In the same way that a race car relies on a pit crew, cycling teams depend on their support vehicles. There was little room for error.
Virtual design and simulation
We had less than two weeks to modify the EF Pro Cycling LYRIQs for the Tour de France. Each LYRIQ needed a rooftop bike rack capable of carrying several bicycles at once, a piece of equipment we’d never made for this vehicle. The LYRIQ has a unique full glass roof, with optional roof-top rails designed for up to 110 pounds of cargo. With the clock ticking, we had to design a never-before-seen style of bike rack.
We relied on virtual simulation to design and stress-test a heavy-duty rack capable of securing at least six bikes atop the LYRIQ. To avoid damaging the vehicle from adding this accessory, the design we came up with used robust clamps—instead of bolts—to fasten the bike rack to the narrow edge around the glass panoramic roof. Attaching such a large piece of hardware and loading it up with bikes can drastically change a vehicle’s driving dynamics. We used a computer-aided engineering (CAE) simulation and Tour de France route data to understand how the LYRIQ would perform during the race, factoring in sharp curves, steep grades, and hard braking.
These simulation tools allowed us to virtually test the vehicle for loads experienced during cornering and braking. This simulated torture testing identified the weakest links in our preliminary design, ensuring that the finalized racks would stand up to anything the Tour de France could dish out. When our design was completed, a GM supplier constructed the racks to our exact specifications.
EF Pro Cycling used these LYRIQ support vehicles to follow racers throughout the Tour de France, carrying spare bicycles and supplies to keep their athletes performing at their peak.
Regenerative braking
LYRIQ’s regenerative braking on demand helps improve driving range and overall energy efficiency, harnessing the vehicle’s kinetic energy and converting it into electricity stored in the battery pack. The Tour de France traverses some of the steepest mountain routes in Europe, and the EF Pro Cycling team knew regen on demand would be an asset.
For instance, GM engineers calculated how much energy could be harvested by regenerative braking as the support vehicles descended the Cime de la Bonette mountain while trailing the EF Pro Cycling team. That route runs downhill for nearly 15 miles, with an average grade of 6.5 percent. Our data indicated that using regen on demand, each LYRIQ would increase its state of charge by about 9% on that steep downhill stretch, ultimately adding as much as 47 km (about 29.2 miles) of range. Thanks to regen on demand, the EF Pro Cycling LYRIQs were always able to keep pace with the team, making fewer stops to charge along the route. The LYRIQs transported bikes and acted as rolling command centers from the start of the race all the way to the finish line, supporting these world-class athletes on the most challenging cycling event on earth.
