Tour De France 2020 Musings: Stage 14
What is this? It is my Tour De France musings, of course! Well, what does that mean? It’s a humble column written for each stage of the Tour De France as an outlet for me to gush about cycling and practice my writing. If you happen to stumble upon these, I am flattered and hope you enjoy them (but, seriously, what the heck brought you here?).
Today is going to be a little different! I did not watch Stage 14 today. Not a single minute. Why? I planned a 104-mile bike ride instead. Starting early in the morning with one other joining, we traced the Dam 2 Dam route. Dam 2 Dam is traditionally run around this time of year between (you guessed it) 2 Dams in the area and around other rural areas of North Central Indiana. The ride usually brings people from all over the state, and even the country, but could not take place as usually due to COVID. While I enjoyed the ride, my enjoyment is not really the point of today’s writing. The point is to have fun demonstrations, for those who may not know, how insane Tour De France athletes really are.
Take a look at my stats below. I am not particularly strong or fast but I have enough experience and endurance to complete a ride like this at a 15mph pace. I traveled a distance long enough to match the size of a Tour De France stage, albeit a semi-short stage. To give context to these numbers, I am ~64 kg which means that I spent about 7 hours at 2 watts per kilogram. The fun part about the numbers and riding a “Tour De France” stage is that you get to make comparisons with Tour De France athletes.
Now let's look at a Tour De France cyclist. To make things fair, I’ll pick one that isn’t even a superstar (yet)! Connor Swift finished Stage 14 twenty minutes after the winner. The 120-mile stage (plus a few extra miles of transition) saw Connor ride his bike for 2 fewer hours than me but cover 18 more miles. He also endured 3 times the elevation gains that I had to deal with, and we cannot even factor in if there were strong winds. Looking at his weighted avg power, Connor worked over twice as hard as me in terms of watts but achieved a lower training load and much lower relative effort.
While there is no point in arguing who is stronger, you could try to factor in the fact that bigger riders do benefit from their weight in terms of absolute power. They usually can put out more power in general simply because they are heavier. So, for these purposes, let's say that Connor is 68kg (this is based on nothing). A whole 4kg heavier than me. Pound for pound Connor would still be doing over 4 watts per kilogram for 5 hours straight—still, double my efforts.
To further emphasize their insane strength, Connor has to do this every single day and has done so for 14 days in a row (minus 1 rest day). This performance comes from a fatigued and stressed rider, not an optimized and rested one. A big source of Connor’s stress likely comes from the fact that his job is to take care of GC hopeful Nairo Quintana. Sometimes that job means working hard early on to set Nairo up for climbs, working in the middle to manage crosswinds, or working at the end towards a safe sprint finish. On days where Connor finishes 20-minutes down, like today, he will go into “conserve” mode. At some point, Nairo is up the road and there is no longer a job to do. His new task is to get through to the next stage in good shape so he can perform his job again the next day. That means that, despite already doubling my strength, these numbers have additional context. At some point, Connor eases off the gas and looks to conserve for the next day. That does not mean that he is ever taking it easy but he’s certainly not going as hard as he possibly can at every moment. While I paced my effort conservatively over my 106-mile ride, I certainly wouldn’t be able to do another ride like that the next day let alone at the same pace.
The final kicker of all of this is averages. Averages in cycling can be very misleading. When you look at this stage profile there are some clear reasons why an average may not tell the same story. Sure the climbs may cause a rider like Connor to naturally put out more power and increase his average but at some point, there will be downhills where Connor is not putting down much power at all for minutes at a time. As long as he is not chasing or supporting Nairo, the gruppetto is probably descending at a slower pace. So with these minutes of zero power contributing to the average—and probably many minutes of low-to-zero watts while the peloton is slow or Connor is coasting—we realize that the average is likely even higher than what is accounted for. The stat I show, weighted average, tries to account for that but it is an imperfect metric. My average output will have hardly changed given the limited downhills, lack of peloton coverage, and stops, which further the gap between Connor and myself. While perhaps not the most in-depth analysis it is fun to see just how close or far (very very far) one is from World Tour level racing.
I don’t think its a surprise to read that a Tour De France cyclist is faster, stronger, and more durable than an average Joe, but I am not sure they always get the credit for that. Let’s take a moment to remember that guys like Connor, despite their gangly, non-ball-sport builds, are incredible athletes that deserve respect for all the hard work they did to reach the professional level. Let's acknowledge the pain they endure throughout a torturous 21 days at the Tour De France for our entertainment. Perhaps the more we make these silly comparisons the more we can humanize those we see on our TV screens. Maybe if we succeed at that we will also do a better job of considering and supporting their safety and health.
Cheers, Connor! Until tomorrow!
About me: I’m an experienced marketing and communications professional working in B2B technologies. Cycling and content creation remains a passion of mine. See my portfolio here: https://jcgawor.myportfolio.com/