Tour de France Stage 4 TT
Analysis by Hunter Allen
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Pretty solid effort by Adam today. He paced himself well, didn't overdo it in the first 5 minutes of the ride and stayed within himself. For a flat stage, there sure was a lot of fluctuation in speed, so I am wondering if he had to deal with some gusting winds. It was a windy day, so maybe this gave Adam a bit of a fit on the way out, and the effect of the tailwind on the way in is very apparent as his watts and heart rate dropped down significantly, while speed increased. His heart rate went from 168 all the way down to 138 at the finish, and that shows how much the tailwind was really pushing him along. In a situation like this where there is a headwind and tailwind section, in order to win the event, you really have to dig DEEP for the headwind section. Whomever digs deeper in the headwind will be the one that excels the most as a tailwind neutalizes the differences in fitness. In fact, when you examine the split times, we find that the winner of the stage Stefan Schumacher created most of his gap in the first two time checks, when riding into the headwind. With Adam riding presumably as hard as he can, he only averages 350 watts in the tailwind section, which is quite likely 40-50 watts lower than his FTP.
Only 83 TSS for today's ride and 1200kJ's burned make this a nice day to stock up on carbs for tomorrow's stage is the longest in the tour this year!
