Road Cycling - Tour De France

I am a mountain biker and really don't know much at all about road cycling at all, but with the Tour De France starting I was wondering a few things. What is the average speed that those riders ride at and what would their maximum speed be? I was also wondering about how the teams work. Does a team always ride together and if they do does that mean that Lance Armstrong's postal service team are just as good of riders as he is they just don't get the recognition. In my local newspaper they said something about Lance wasn't planning on winning the prologue because he did not want his team to have to protect the leader so early on in the race. Do they just mean they would ride faster in order to keep the yellow jersey or what.

Originally posted by Bsktball55
I am a mountain biker and really don't know much at all about road cycling at all, but with the Tour De France starting I was wondering a few things. What is the average speed that those riders ride at and what would their maximum speed be? I was also wondering about how the teams work. Does a team always ride together and if they do does that mean that Lance Armstrong's postal service team are just as good of riders as he is they just don't get the recognition. In my local newspaper they said something about Lance wasn't planning on winning the prologue because he did not want his team to have to protect the leader so early on in the race. Do they just mean they would ride faster in order to keep the yellow jersey or what.

the speed of tour stages can vary...most of the opening stages are flat and the riders are fresher, so they are definately gonna have a faster overall speed. for instance stage one was 39.93 km/h...i'm not sure the "fastest" speed reached is on the flat stages though...sure, the sprinters haul ASS at the end of a stage finish (prob close to 50mph?), but decending down the Col de la Madeline in the alps would also have you doing 60 miles per hour...


there are many different types of teams...ones which have strong riders (for teh time trial and mountains) which have a chance for overall victory, ones which have a primary sprinter (telekom for example) and others which have no "clear" leader, but try from day to day to get a stage, whether in the mountains of flat (like the mapei team). for a team going for the over victory, they will ride together as best they can and try to stay out of crashes, not miss any breaks, and keep their legs fresh for the mountains. a sprinter team will ALWAYS be visible at the end of a stage when they have all their men up front setting a fierce pace so no one will attack around then and eventually have the chance to propel or catapult their sprinter to victory...

the riders on lance's team are strong for sure, but i don't think any are as strong as him. for instance, roberto heras is an AWESOME climber, but lance seems to just have more power on a climb. but heras' job is to pace him up the mountain, and stay with him as long as possible. so lets say the race is going up a mountain...and there is a group of 20 riders in the lead including lance and 3 teamates...one team mate will be setting the pace till he gets tired and peels off, then the other will take over and so on. its their intent to be with lance as long as possible on the climb, but the more effort they give, the more they are sacrificing themselves for him and will get tired and drop back to another group...

as for defending the yellow jersey, lance's intentions are to have it when the race ends in paris 3 weeks from now. there is really no point having it this early on cause so many of the riders are close in time (separated by seconds), anyone can take it away. plus, its kind of a given that if you have the jersey, you are gonna defend it, and since lance's team is going for the overall victory (to make sure he wins) they don't wanna waste any energy early on...

hope that helps :D

Thanks that explains a lot.

My wife found this site quite good for explaining tactics:

http://sport.guardian.co.uk/flash/0,10272,748606,00.html

click on the cyclist to the left of the map.

usps averaged about 45mph on the team time trial

They may be good, but not that good! It was a 42 mile stage and it took about 1:20. I'd put their average closer to 31 mph.

Just before the team time trial the other day, Chris Carmichael (Armstrong's coach) made the point that Armstrong (and a couple of others) were considerably stronger than the weakest few on the team. That meant that they had to think very carefully about what order they would ride in because it would create gross pacing imbalances (and therefore inefficiencies). It would also mean that Armstrong would have to hold back on a climb, because otherwise he would lose the rest, and thus lose even more time without the paceline functioning properly.

So no, the domestiques are typically not as strong as the 1, 2, or 3 who lead a team.

Cheers,
Jamie

Andrew, great site, thanks for the tip!