Fillipo Ganna used the PCW's WAKE 6560 Front, and BLUR 633 rear wheels to win the 2020 UCI World Time Trial Championships in an upset victory.
Photo by: Beverly Schaefer
Cycling And Its Princeton Connection To The World Stage
September 29, 2020 | Heavyweight Rowing, Men's Rowing - Lightweight
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You wake up and what do you watch?
Sure, you can watch the news.
SportsCenter is always a good option.
What about a live sporting event?
Every morning from late August until Sept. 20, NBC Sports showed the stages of the Tour De France. The Tour usually set for the month of July was pushed back due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
You probably didn't know … but this year's Tour had a Princeton connection—none other than Marty Crotty '98, head coach of the Princeton Men's Lightweight Rowing Team.
It goes back to 2005 when Bradley Werntz '10, first met Crotty. Crotty, then the head coach of the U.S. U-19 rowing team, selected the rising high school senior for the squad that rowed at the Junior World Championships. Crotty would later recruit Werntz to row at Princeton as part of the men's heavyweight squad.
Crotty always had an affinity for endurance sports. He qualified for the Ironman 70.3 World Championships three straight years (2010-12) but realized his limitations and started to look for gains elsewhere, like in his equipment choices.
Crotty reached out to Werntz, who graduated from Princeton with a degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, about designing a bike wheel that could give him some free speed over his competition. "I expected Brad to be able to fashion some basic CAD (computer-aided-design) file that I could hand over to a manufacturer, but what he gave me was something much, much better," stated Crotty.
Werntz, who loved cycling and would often ride his bike to cross training, took Crotty up on this opportunity.
"I've always been into endurance athletics," mentioned Crotty. "Endurance athletics are really hard, so if you have an opportunity to find marginal gains, you do it. It never escapes me that every day I have the privilege of coaching guys, mechanical engineers for example, that are far beyond my level of intelligence. I figured, I had a need and I had a limitless supply of intellect to help me fill that need."
Crotty's idea was simple, "I could use my connections in the sport of rowing -- specifically carbon composite manufacturing -- to design, develop and produce a bicycle wheel that would help me go faster than my competition." At worst, Crotty would be able to engage and interact with one of his favorite athletes for a period of time; at best, Crotty and Werntz would find a faster bike wheel that they could manufacture for their friends and family who dabbled in road cycling and triathlon.
From there, in May 2013, Marty, Brad and Jack Leonard '10 (former captain of the Princeton men's lightweight team) -- with a little nudge from Regan Crotty '00 -- founded Princeton CarbonWorks.
For almost three years, Crotty used his vast network of Princeton alumni, supporters, and the US Rowing community to collaborate on the development of the wheel.
Princeton CarbonWorks was completed when Harrison Macris, who had a background in engineering and manufacturing along with being a rower from Boston University, was brought into the fold as one of the co-founders and as the CEO.
Using some of the industrial space from Macris' company, Macris and Werntz worked together to create the very first variable-depth bicycle wheel. The sinusoidal shape of the inner circumference of the wheel was not only more aerodynamic than any other wheel, but also gave the rider more stability in crosswind condition. By the fall of 2015, through trial and error, Princeton CarbonWorks team had created their first prototype wheel. Crotty gave it a test during his Winter Break in December.
"It was an exciting day," stated Crotty. "To see our fully developed prototype, which was a collection of all of our out-of-the box theories, and to be able to hold it in your hand, was really cool."
Despite trusting that they had developed something that would be ground-breaking in the industry, the company took time in verifying what their tests were revealing. For more than 18 months after the first test, Princeton CarbonWorks checked off all of the boxes to make sure that by the time they had a retail ready product, there were not going to be any steps backward.
Harrison Macris, Bradley Werntz '10, Richard Furchtgott '20, Marty Crotty '98 - Princeton CarbonWorks
While traveling home from the Head of the Charles in 2017, Crotty was watching a broadcast of the Ironman World Championships. About an hour into the coverage, a former Australian Olympic lightweight rower burst into the lead on the 112-mile bike leg of the event. Cameron Wurf, a complete unknown in the sport, had seized not only the attention of the broadcast, but the eye of Crotty.
"What better guy to get my wheels on than a former lightweight rower who is leading the Ironman World Championships," said Crotty. "I knew that Curtis (Jordan) must have coached this guy and I also knew that rowers always help other rowers out."
Jordan, a former three-time national champion and seven-time Ivy League champion across almost 30 years, had coached Crotty at Princeton and spent some time coaching in Australia -- by chance coaching many of Wurf's friends. There was no better person for Crotty, Jordan's former pupil, to turn to in 2017 for a little help with his wheel "company."
In true rowing culture fashion, not only did Wurf accept Princeton CarbonWorks with open arms, he tested and loved the wheels. Wurf quickly began using them successfully in competition, winning several Ironman and 70.3 distance races between in 2018 and 2019.
Fast forward to 2019 … where Wurf was signed by TEAM INEOS, a professional cycling team that had won six out of the last seven Tours de France. Crotty gave INEOS some wheels to test, expecting nothing in return.
Only because of the delay in the 2020 professional cycling season, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, were the INEO team managers able to conduct enough testing to be reassured that Princeton's flagship WAKE 6560 front wheel was fit for their special Time Trial bike that would be used in Stage 20 of this year's Tour de France. Just six days later, TEAM INEOS and an Italian national team rider Fillipo Ganna used the company's WAKE 6560 Front, and BLUR 633 rear wheels to win the 2020 UCI World Time Trial Championships in an upset victory.
Princeton CarbonWorks' route to the Tour de France and cycling's biggest stage was anything but ordinary. Crotty chalks much of their progress up to their unorthodox approach. "We have only ever wanted to make really fast wheels for ourselves and for fast riders, who share our penchant for hardcore endurance athletics," said Crotty.
"It's not every day that I'm working on a CAD file or doing a wheel design, but every day we're working as a team to grow this business," mentioned Werntz. "In my time rowing at Princeton, we went from being on the podium at Eastern Sprints to not even in the Grand Final. The year we spent trying to get back on the podium with Greg (Hughes) really solidified for me the importance of putting the team first and not letting any individual be more important than the team, and we really have that attitude at the Princeton Carbonworks. It's really let the business grow in a sustainable way."
