Average speed in Tour close to record
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Ask McQuaid. It's all been downhill with the wind behind. I blame global warming.Dan0
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and how many pan flat stages have there been? Much of the wind has not been from the tail, but side."Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.0
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Think it is too early to say. The Alpes will have a big impact on the average speed which will drop right back.Rich0
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Only one serious* Pyreneean stage this year too
*well, you know what I mean...___________________
Strava is not Zen.0 -
The Alps will become a "snail" fest, now the Saunier Duval afterburners have run out of fuel...."Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.0
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Thre are too many variables to take into account to use average speed on its own as an indicator of doping. You could look at average power outputs on the climbs - that'd be a better indicator, but then again Landis was "only" averaging something like 390 W on the climbs in 2006...
The average speed should drop by the end (at the moment I worked it out to be 41.16 km/hr) though as the remaining 8 stages see 3 mountain top finishes (we've had only one so far, at 36 km/hr average speed), 3 "flat" stages, a timetrial (which will be run at a fast average speed but the distance will be much shorter than a normal stage) and the stage into Paris, which I would guess is run off at a much lower speed (due to the farting around before they get to Paris) than a standard flat stage.Le Blaireau (1)0 -
I was thinking a similar thing actually. There is a list of average speed here
http://www.bikeraceinfo.com/tdf/tdfstats.html
There is substantial variation between neighbouring years - look at 1981! Am not sure how easy it is to compare different years though - the ability/willingness of teams to chase on the flat stages must have an impact? Comparing quite a while back would be difficult as well because the advances in sports science should mean that they are going a bit faster now. We also now have 2 rest days instead of 1. There has only been one big mountain stage so far and that was run at a fast pace thanks to CSC.0 -
Ahead of the today's fastest schedule and, according to the local French weather forcast, into a stiff North-Easterly.
52.5kms in the first hour......"Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.0 -
Statistics are only correct if you put them in the proper context. Why are today's TDF's so much faster than when Eddy Merckx rode? Is it simply because of doping? Or do you think it's because in Merckx's days they rode about 4,300 km and today they do about 3,200 km? How about when Greg Lemond rode? Also, about 4,000-4,100 km.
There are so many factors: better bikes, gear, training, fewer kilometers and, yes, doping. But 800 to 1,000 FEWER kilometers HAS to make a difference in overall speed.0 -
Blazing Saddles wrote:Ahead of the today's fastest schedule and, according to the local French weather forcast, into a stiff North-Easterly.
52.5kms in the first hour......
The schedule is calculated according to a constant average speed. On stages like this, especially, the pace is often massively fast in the first hour or two as breaks fight to get away. I presume you are familiar with road racing?Le Blaireau (1)0 -
Another factor is that the road surfaces are much better. If you see footage from the fifties/sixties the roads for the mountain finishes look not much better than those on the Plan de Corones circus in this year's Giro. Even the surface on l'alpe in 86 looked pretty poor compared to today's standards0
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donrhummy wrote:Statistics are only correct if you put them in the proper context. Why are today's TDF's so much faster than when Eddy Merckx rode? Is it simply because of doping? Or do you think it's because in Merckx's days they rode about 4,300 km and today they do about 3,200 km? How about when Greg Lemond rode? Also, about 4,000-4,100 km.
There are so many factors: better bikes, gear, training, fewer kilometers and, yes, doping. But 800 to 1,000 FEWER kilometers HAS to make a difference in overall speed.
I think that you are using a few extremes there as this year's tour is longer than the 1989 one that Lemond won and only just shorter than the 1990 edition. I wonder which one will be faster?
It will make a difference although you have to go back to 1987 to find a tour which was more than 500km longer and this year's length is comparable to the other ones this century. As several people have pointed out the equation that governs tour speed has many variables. Is it true that more countries are into cycle racing now so there is a greater pool of top athletes? 0 -
DaveyL wrote:Blazing Saddles wrote:Ahead of the today's fastest schedule and, according to the local French weather forcast, into a stiff North-Easterly.
52.5kms in the first hour......
The schedule is calculated according to a constant average speed. On stages like this, especially, the pace is often massively fast in the first hour or two as breaks fight to get away. I presume you are familiar with road racing?
As familiar as you are with sarcasm, it appears."Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.0 -
Which bit was sarcastic? Remember I'm just reading what you've written...Le Blaireau (1)0
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Well OK. Taking what you wrote on face value. Yes, I am familiar with road racing and have been for many a year. (too many)
I suspected that the stage pace was unlikely to slacken, given they were chasing a tough 4-man group.
46.1 km average, mostly into a head, left shoulder wind.
Having said that, the roads they used were not as heavy as most found in this part of Provence.
Merely an input for Iain's question."Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.0 -
One factor always overlooked (particularly when considering the rises in speed in the 90s) is television.
Back when they only showed the last couple of hours live, there wasn't much point going on a break or racing before then.
Now the stages are shown live in their entirety, so breaks go from kilometre 1, thereby raising the speed of the early parts of the stage. The last hour's speed probably didn't change too much.Twitter: @RichN950
