Well, the Tour de France is over for another year and it's been a spectacular race. From a first week of crash-marred wet stages, a second week of impasse in the Pyrenees and a third week culminating in an intense battle in the Alps and Cadel Evans' victory in the Individual Time Trial...what an event!
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We've already focused on the sprinting element of the race and illustrated some very impressive power outputs in the finale of sprint stages, especially given the length and speed of the race.
When the race hits the big mountain stages you'll notice the sprinters drop away from the rear of the peloton quite quickly. This isn't necessariy because they can't climb well (they would leave most amateur cyclists standing still in the hills) but in the main their objectives are to conserve energy and spend as little time riding near to or above functional thershold power in the mountains. At times this can be difficult as riders try to stay within the race time limit to avoid elimination.
Back to the pure climbers though who challenge for overall victory in Grand Tours, in general we are looking at guys who weigh under or around the 65kg mark and have a power to weight ratio in the region of 5.5+ w/kg. Remember, it's essential to look not just at pure power outputs but to analyse these in relation to a riders weight. Eddie Fletcher, our sport scientiest, explains more about power to weight ratio and how this can affect a climber.
We were hoping to look at Chris Horner's data as the Tour progressed but his unfortunate crash early in the race means that there is no publically available data for the main GC contendors; what we are able to see though is data from Alberto Contador's excellent domestique Chris Anker Sorensen (via TrainingPeaks).
During Stage 14 to Plateau de Beille, Chris finished 20th at 3:39 to the stage winner and stayed with the leading riders for just over 30 minutes on the final climb. It's no surprise to see Chris working hardest on the final climb to Plateau de Beille where he averaged 392 Watts for the first 10 minutes of the climb, pretty much on his limit. If you've ridden this climb you will know that the first 2-3 kilometres are very steep with the peloton traditionally hitting the climb hard and fast. After 10 minutes the climb eases and a small group of select riders rode cautiously in anticipation of attacks which rarely materialsed. At this point Chris spent 10 minutes at a more comfortable 376 Watts but remained in the front group.
After 30 minutes of staying with the front group Sorensen had to pull back and rode the rest of the climb at a more reasonable pace. For the record, the first 30 minutes when Chris stayed with the lead group, his power to weight ratio was 5.75 w/kg. Chris' average cadence for the stage was 87rpm at an average speed of 19.6mph which is incredible given the terrain. On the steep Col de Latrape he averaged 88rpm, illustrative of the high cadence in the professional peloton.
The temptation for riders is to hit a mountain at high speed from the lower slopes and send themsleves into the 'red zone', i.e. working close to maximum heart rate, where it's very difficult to recover without losing significant time to the lead group. We like the way Bradley Wiggins rode in the recent Criterium de Duauphine where he rode at his own tempo when the attacks started and slowly regained contact with the lead group. (ps. we're pretty sad we never got see how Wiggins would have fared in this Tour).
This 'measured' kind of riding requires a lot of knowledge of your own physiological makeup and confidence in your own ability. It's important to grab recovery time during the mountain stages, whenever a road goes up it usually has to come back down, so the descents provide a superb opportunity for most riders to eat and recover. Some of the top sprinters will find they they are having to push on the downhills to ensure they stay in the time limit but descending is more about technique rather than pure power.
Cadel Evans showed how measured riding can gain big results in the Alps. Having lost over a minute when he had a mechanical problem early in Stage 19 he didn't panic. Most riders would have pushed themselves to catch a break which included GC contenders Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador. We beleive this was a key moment in Cadel's victory, we would love to have seen Cadel's data from that stage to reinforce this point. Congratulations to Cadel Evans on a superb victory.
If we can be so bold and leave the Schlecks with a little bit of advice - there is a great training tool out there to help considerably improve your TT performances - give us a call!