Aero sunglasses and cut-off skinsuit sleeves - Ben Healy's aero tricks for breakaway speed at the Tour de France

Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) used race craft, guile, technical optimisations and of course, power to claim a solo victory on stage 6 of the Tour de France on Thursday.

The day's breakaway took a long time to wrench itself free of the peloton, and it took a lot of power and effort for the eight-rider move to establish a lead which then began to grow.

Healy eventually launched a well-timed attack with 42km still to ride, and piled on the effort under a burning French sun, finally crossing the line to win with a gap of 2:44 over 2nd place Quinn Simmons (Lidl Trek).

Healy has built a reputation in recent years as a rider who takes advantage of every possible aerodynamic and technical optimisation he can. Yes, other riders in the bunch do the same, but it's something that seems to have stuck when it comes to Healy.

He's been known to use the Cannondale SystemSix aero frame on occasion (though that isn't common currently) and make use of the POC Procen Air aero road helmet for a lot of road stages.

These are the standout signs, as well as narrower bars and turned-in gear levers to help achieve a sustainable aero position.

Healy mentioned what an attritional day it was and explained how hard the break had to work.

"Maybe I spent a bit too much to get in the break, but that's just the way I do it. And then once we were in there, we really had to work for that gap, and it was just on the pedals all day."

Amateurs often focus on watts and how high they are, but often the name of the game in racing, especially pro racing, is to get those numbers as low as possible; less effort and more speed is the way to go.

Healy used a range of optimisations to try and save as much energy as possible, and explained he went all out for a stage he had been targeting for some time.

"I don’t push the most power out of everyone, but I just try and be as efficient as I possibly can. Today I had full TT tyres, a waxed chain, a TT skinsuit, a road-ish helmet and just maximised absolutely everything."

Tour de France and professional riders are constrained by their sponsor and equipment partners' products; in short, they have to use the specific (albeit very capable) equipment provided by the team.

Some squads have a bit more wiggle room than others when it comes to options, i.e a couple of different tyres or a range of kit and helmets. Healy has that at EF Education EasyPost, and chose the fastest options for his breakaway bid yesterday.

Fast-rolling tyres

Firstly, he chose to use Vittoria Corsa Pro Speed tyres, the very fastest road-going tyres the Italian brand makes, technically a time trial or triathlon tyre, they are lighter, thinner and faster than the regular Corsa Pro, which a lot of riders in the bunch usually roll on.

The tyres have a 320TPI construction and weigh a claimed 250 grams for a 28mm version, although it looks as though he used 30mm.

They, on paper, have a higher puncture risk, but Healy decided to run them in his bid for glory.

Just how much faster is the Corsa Speed? We tested them in our CN Labs road tyre test, where we tested a range of performance road tyres on a rotating drum and measured total power loss with some very accurate power meter pedals.

The 28mm Corsa Pro Speed tyres were the fastest model we tested overall and were a good handful of watts more efficient than the more standard Corsa Pro. Depending on the pressures he used and the road surface, Healy should have saved a not-unattractive amount of watts there.

Waxed chain

Next up was the waxed chain Healy used. He may use a waxed chain all the time; we don't know for sure.

EF mechanic Jac-Johann Steyn told us the team used regular chain oil back when I spoke to him alongside several other Paris-Roubaix mechanics in 2024.

I hear it can be laborious for teams to wax chains en masse at races, but this is something that is becoming a lot more common as teams buy into the gains.

The team's website lists Silca as a partner, so let's assume Healy's chain had been treated with Silca Secret Hot wax, one of the best chain waxes on the market, and backed up by independent testing.

This potentially represents another handful of watts compared to a slower alternative.

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Aero helmet and aero sunglasses

Next up, Healy's choice of helmet and sunglasses, both from team sponsor POC.

Healy chose the almost-time-trial-esque POC Procen helmet and aero-designed Propel sunglasses, which marry up very cleanly to the sides of the helmet. There must be a small gain to be had here, along with the efficiency of the helmet itself.

POC claims the sunglasses introduce the concept of aero gains to sunglasses and cites CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) testing and modelling, albeit without any total savings claims, to maximise performance.

We also tested the POC Procen Air in the wind tunnel for our CN Labs helmet test, in which I wore 23 helmets in a wind tunnel head-to-head, and the helmet emerged as the fastest on the day. It's probably safe to say Healy has done his own testing too, and that wearing it saved him at least a handful of seconds compared to a slower model.

Time trial skinsuit with cut-off arms

The Irishman wore a Rapha Pro Team TT Aero skinsuit, a $550 option that Rapha claims is its fastest ever skinsuit.

There isn't a short-sleeve version on the brand's website, which is what Healy wore, but upon closer inspection, it seems Healy simply took the long-sleeve version and cut the arms off. Perhaps the long sleeves would have just been too warm given the 27-degree average temperature for the day and, in turn, a disadvantage in the heat, so it looks like Healy busted out the nail scissors and cut them off.

Other optimisations

Looking elsewhere around his bike, it appears Healy also used an aero FSA chainring, Rapha aero socks and what appear to be the 60mm carbon-spoked Vision Metron RS wheels, which launched this year.

There may have been one or two other moves that we just don't know about.

In a refreshing move, his team posted a reel showing Healy's power numbers from yesterday, which gives an insight into what Healy's day looked like.

Watch the whole reel for a huge amount of very interesting data, but the stage winner's max power didn't exceed 1,000 watts for the day, and his normalised power for the stage was 329 watts. Though there will have been some big numbers for certain points in the stage, such as Healy's solo move and some effort to get into the break.

It's probably fair to say that with a slower helmet, skinsuit and tyres at the very least, Healy's power output for the day would have been higher; it would have taken more effort to travel at the same speed.

It's incredibly hard to win a Tour de France stage, and while ultimately, riders still have to pedal the bike and know how to race, which Healy clearly does, any optimisations that save effort are surely worth exploring and taking advantage of when you are out in front alone.