brooklyner

just fiddling with some TdF stats... the last place rider (155th) is 3 hours and 53 minutes behind lance. seems huge right? but the difference in their average speed over the 1902 miles so far is just 1.3 mph!!! lance=26.1, last place=24.8. everyone else is in that narrow range! the difference between the top riders is totally negligible.

dahvaio

Well, when your talking about over 77 hours of riding... that is a big difference...

RD Olivaw

A break down by stage would probably tell a better story.

cydewaze

Both of those averages are still better than mine for a 20-mile ride

noisebeam

A 5% performance delta between elite atheltes is actually very large.

Al

dfw

Most riders are spending a lot of time pulling for one or more of their teammates which Lance doesn't do. Many riders are going after only stage wins or king of the mountain or sprinting points which Lance doesn't do. If you think that all of those riders could definitely improve their average speeds if they didn't have those other objectives, the difference becomes even smaller.

Mr_Super_Socks

Yeah, but the point is that 5% - which may be a large difference for elite athletes - is actually a negligible difference for the rest of us submutant humanoids (Bob Roll's colorful words).

johnny99

That's a 4 hour difference over the course of the race. And that doesn't include riders who were disqualified for being too far behind.

Also, you have to remember that the peloton rides together for most of the race. You only see large time gaps during the time trials and on some of the mountain climbs.

dahvaio

How about each of the team leaders? Most of them don't pull.... I saw Lance, Ivan and Ullrich working together on the mountain stages...

Look at Roberto Heras... even though he did some pulling on the mountains on the US Postal Team he still did way better than being a leader of a team.

I highly doubt that the guys who do all the pulling could improve their speeds that dramatically.... The time gaps develop in the TT's and Mountains...

noisebeam

Not sure of the point, but I can tell you as a submutant humanoid that if I could (or when I) get a consistent 5% gain in average speed that would be (or has been) very significant - it can take months of training.

Al

webist

I am in awe of the speed and technique of all the riders in the Tour. Actually, I am in awe of the spped and technique of nearly any racer.

dfw

Some of the riders who don't have a snowball's chance in pergatory of winning the overall race still manage to impress the hell out of me. After one of the finishes, Bob Roll mentioned that one of the sprinters was clocked at 54 Mph on level pavement. This was after going well over 100 miles. You'd have to just about drop me out of an airplane to get up to that speed.

dahvaio

For me.... I am in awe of anyone who is a professional racer because those guys are fast...

The only way I could accelerate to 54MPH on level pavement is to convert my bicycle into a motorcycle...

I've reached about 36MPH on a level road from a stand still but can only maintain it for a little bit...

samp02

that is interesting. I can go that fast...down a LONG HILL

timmhaan

actually even some of the flat stages it's common to have 10 or 20 minute gaps from the main pack. i think in this tour (other than the initial TT) riders began to lose big time in stages 5 or 6. some make it up and some never do. i remember lance and co was behind like 20 or 30 mintues at the beginning of the 2001 tour.

simplyred

Lance's average speed sounds pretty close to my sprints...
LOL... sigh - got a long way to go...

SunSwingsLow

Is this going to be the quickest TdF ever? I know they were clocking a serious advantage over 2003 a few stages ago. Has that still held?

collegeskier

According to my math the current average speed for Lance is 41.86 km/h and last year the full average was 40.56 km/h. Also according to my math if they hold just 33 km/h the slowest pace for any stage the will still finish faster then last year and I dont see the speed being that slow consider there are no mountains left really and the ITT should be faster. But I don't know what the fastest average speed ever was last year was second fastest.

Crack'n'fail

What is the fastest overall average speed for a Tour winner?
Lance Armstrong (USA) won the 2003 Tour with an average speed of 40.940 kilometers per hour (25.44 mph). He covered 3,400km (2,100 miles) in 83 hours 41 minutes and 12 seconds.

From Trek's website, FAQ about the TdF

Smoothie104

I this year on pace to be even faster???

KingTermite 

Wow! That is very interesting....I would have thought it would have been a lot bigger too.

Dolomiti

Not many km's left either. Today's stage and the final are short. And then the ITT which will be fast.

collegeskier

I am willing to say that smootie is right. After todays stage if they average a very slow (for them) 30 km/h (18 mph) through the ITT and into Paris then they will be the fastest tour ever.

allgoo19

Ttue, it's pretty depressing.

But hey, I'm not getting any help from drafting behind somebody!
(As if to make it sounds like I can add 5mph more, if I drafted.)

slider

I agree that the time gaps develop in the TT's and Mountains, but that doesn't mean that the domestiques wouldn't have better average speeds if they didn't have to do so much added work, pulling their GC guys along, going back for bottles and lunch, catching breaks. If you look at the way Noval or Padrnos are right at the front doing all the work from the beginning of the stage until the climbing begins and then end up 30+ minutes back with the autobus. I have to believe that if they could ride their own pace from beginning to end, they would cut that time difference in half.

-s