Marcel Kittel's TdF power

Dorset_Boy

Some interesting figures of MK's power output during 4 Tours de France.
Average power output and best FTP were nothing to write home about, but enough to bag 14 stage wins.
https://cyclingweekly.com/news/racing/tour-de-france/marcel-kittel-reveals-the-power-numbers-and-effort-behind-his-most-successful-tour-de-france-years-490513?utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&fbclid=IwAR2EY-c2XfrkUisNSojAVXSsRTbD9u3tTRa4aXef1D7IEEcPoh5-xf_5ITg

bobmcstuff

I know people with better FTP than that! W/kg wise at least, 430 is a lot of watts.

Obviously they can't do 2000 watt sprints though. But it's mind blowing that he ever made time cuts in the mountains.

pblakeney

Sitting in the peloton, or grupetto, for 95%+ of the race is never going to produce outstanding figures. Not that I'm kidding myself that I could do it.

Pross

It's not really a surprise that average and FTP aren't very high. All he is there to do is the bare minimum effort until the last few hundred metres. I was chuffed to get over 1000w for a few seconds and I'm probably a similar weight ) heavier than Kittel so that finish power is insane.

rick_chasey

I guess the point of Kittel in a stage like that is he does as possible until the final what, 5km? And even then he is trying to do as little as possible whilst maintaining position.

Dorset_Boy

He will still have had to haul himself over c.20 major climbs in each Tour and that is where I'd have expected the FTP to be set, and would have thought it would be north of 5 .5 w/kg when the top climbs are banging out 7+ wkg for almost an hour.

Of course on other stages he's hiding in the pack and largely being towed along.

Ben6899

Article said:

Kittel’s average power for each stage ranged between 256w (2.88w/kg) in 2017 and 264 (3.02w/kg) in 2016.

I'm assuming that is average rather than normalised (giving Cycling Weekly the benefit of the doubt!)

elbowloh

What are his figures compared to others in the group, firstly other sprinters and secondly, the winner of the tour? Only then can you really draw any conclusions.

Ben6899

elbowloh said:

What are his figures compared to others in the group, firstly other sprinters and secondly, the winner of the tour? Only then can you really draw any conclusions.

They're almost certainly lower. Prodigious sprint power aside, the rest is bordering on the "pretty average" side of impressive.

rick_chasey

It'd be more fun if you had the entire team's power data and you could see how they collectively spent their efforts.

I suspect the lads pulling the break back had some much bigger 'average' numbers.

Kittel is supposed to be doing as little as possible on days like these.

bobmcstuff

Dorset_Boy said:

He will still have had to haul himself over c.20 major climbs in each Tour and that is where I'd have expected the FTP to be set, and would have thought it would be north of 5 .5 w/kg when the top climbs are banging out 7+ wkg for almost an hour.

Of course on other stages he's hiding in the pack and largely being towed along.

Yeah, that was my surprise - I am surprised he ever made time cut in the mountains with an FTP like that. Obviously sitting in the bunch on a flat sprint stage is one thing, but getting over hour long climbs with an FTP which is realistically no better than a good amateur and getting inside the time cut when as you say the leaders are doing silly watts is remarkable.

Apart from anything else, he must have had to spend most of the day riding at threshold on mountain days - sounds nasty.

This chart provides some general comparisons:

bobmcstuff

Kittel (red) vs me (blue):


My sprint is so bad

Although 1940 watts at 90 kg isn't that high in terms of w/kg, sprints will be more about raw watts (or watts/drag) than w/kg so the relationship breaks down for flat sprints

DeVlaeminck

Depends if 4.9w/kg was his FTP set in a test or set during the race - either his best hour power in the Tour or 95% of his best 20 minutes in that Tour.

Edited so it makes sense!!

bobmcstuff

DeVlaeminck said:

Depends if 4.9w/kg was his FTP set in a test set during the race - either his best hour power in the Tour or 95% of his best 20 minutes in that Tour.

It's not that clear from this article but it reads as if that was what he did during the races; best effort during the Tour. I guess the full paper would be clearer.

Harry182

rick_chasey said:

I guess the point of Kittel in a stage like that is he does as possible until the final what, 5km? And even then he is trying to do as little as possible whilst maintaining position.

Exactly this. Kittel's job was to win the stage in a sprint. Expending as little power as possible until the stage finish was part of this.

Pross

Maybe he was hanging on car doors going up the mountains.

m.r.m.

Different blonde. Same nice hair... Herr Gel vs. pomade les cheveux. 😉

/Carlton: interesting tidbit let me tell you, pomadig in German means moving slowly or through hair gel if you so will... hihihihi... so, you could say Arnaud Demare better be moving a lot quicker to beat the likes of Marcel Kittel. Arnaud or Arnold like you could call him judging by his legs, though I once had a bunch of legs by the way, albeit those were from a frog and it's exactly that type of amphibious ability the rider's are going to need on a rainy day as this one , isn't it Shaun... 😁

RichN95.

While your mate maybe close to his w/kg FTP, he isn't after two weeks of racing

bobmcstuff

RichN95. said:

While your mate maybe close to his w/kg FTP, he isn't after two weeks of racing

True. Doesn't say where that best 20 minutes came from either though - could have been from Stage 1...

I'm not doubting it's true, it's just surprising that he ever got over mountain stages within time cuts. He must have been destroyed after that.

ddraver

think of him next time you go to the Alps and take the mick out of your 'sprinter' mate for being slower than you...

*grumbles*

DeVlaeminck

bobmcstuff said:

RichN95. said:

While your mate maybe close to his w/kg FTP, he isn't after two weeks of racing

True. Doesn't say where that best 20 minutes came from either though - could have been from Stage 1...

I'm not doubting it's true, it's just surprising that he ever got over mountain stages within time cuts. He must have been destroyed after that.

We just don't know if that's his FTP or 95% of his best 20 minute power in the race or his best average over an hour.

rick_chasey

You casual reminder Cav’s numbers were relatively speaking rubbish but he was, well, one of the greatest of all time...

sherer

was thinking talking about this last year with some mates.

if Juraj Sagan sits on the front pulling all day until hes done and coast in and Peter Sagan sits in until the last 2k then wins who would have spent the most watts during the stage ?

Think it would be Juraj but Peter would have the higher numbers.

yorkshireraw

Gruppetto sprinters are also usually the quickest on descents - you just never see it on TV, so they would pull time back on the leaders going down.

The time cut is just that though - a calculation of how slow they can go to stay in the race, using as noted above the least amount of energy.

When Cav just made a time cut in the 2018 Tour it was the same stage as that year's Etape, which was 'won' 20 minutes slower. Whatever the numbers say, these boys are still better than 99.9% of cyclists on the planet, even uphill.

Dorset_Boy

yorkshireraw said:

Gruppetto sprinters are also usually the quickest on descents - you just never see it on TV, so they would pull time back on the leaders going down.

The time cut is just that though - a calculation of how slow they can go to stay in the race, using as noted above the least amount of energy.

When Cav just made a time cut in the 2018 Tour it was the same stage as that year's Etape, which was 'won' 20 minutes slower.

The Etape was timed from the lakeside park in Annecy.
The TdF stage start wasn't until they'd ridden down the western side of the lake, so was c.15 kms shorter.
However, it does show just how quick the grupetto are in comparison to ex-pros, current semi-pros and wannabe pros, let alone mere mortals!

yorkshireraw

Dorset_Boy said:

yorkshireraw said:

Gruppetto sprinters are also usually the quickest on descents - you just never see it on TV, so they would pull time back on the leaders going down.

The time cut is just that though - a calculation of how slow they can go to stay in the race, using as noted above the least amount of energy.

When Cav just made a time cut in the 2018 Tour it was the same stage as that year's Etape, which was 'won' 20 minutes slower.

The Etape was timed from the lakeside park in Annecy.
The TdF stage start wasn't until they'd ridden down the western side of the lake, so was c.15 kms shorter.
However, it does show just how quick the grupetto are in comparison to ex-pros, current semi-pros and wannabe pros, let alone mere mortals!

ok cheers for the info.

Indeed.

bobmcstuff

sherer said:

was thinking talking about this last year with some mates.

if Juraj Sagan sits on the front pulling all day until hes done and coast in and Peter Sagan sits in until the last 2k then wins who would have spent the most watts during the stage ?

Think it would be Juraj but Peter would have the higher numbers.

Probably - in that situation Juraj would probably spend the most kilojoules (measure of total work done) and Peter would have the highest peak power. Assuming it was a bunch sprint.

You can try and work it out if you want: https://www.unitconverters.net/power/watt-to-kilojoule-hour.htm , but obviously there's so much guesswork involved. Some pros do release these numbers so that would probably be just as good a way to do it.

bobmcstuff

Dorset_Boy said:

yorkshireraw said:

Gruppetto sprinters are also usually the quickest on descents - you just never see it on TV, so they would pull time back on the leaders going down.

The time cut is just that though - a calculation of how slow they can go to stay in the race, using as noted above the least amount of energy.

When Cav just made a time cut in the 2018 Tour it was the same stage as that year's Etape, which was 'won' 20 minutes slower.

The Etape was timed from the lakeside park in Annecy.
The TdF stage start wasn't until they'd ridden down the western side of the lake, so was c.15 kms shorter.
However, it does show just how quick the grupetto are in comparison to ex-pros, current semi-pros and wannabe pros, let alone mere mortals!

I remember watching Cavendish in one of the British nationals, maybe 2015 where Kennaugh won? He was climbing pretty well then!

Remember it cos he gave quite a pissy interview answer when the interviewer asked if he enjoyed being able to showcase another side of his riding or something. Except it wasn't quite worded like that, came across a bit more critical, and I guess he was still a bit fired up from the race.

ddraver

On the flipside to sprint power

https://twitter.com/INEOSGrenadiers/status/1361384502925393920?s=19

little jaunt around the summit of Mt. Blanc

Teid...whut?