Stage 7: Los Angeles Individual Time Trial

• Day: Sat, May 22
• Start: L.A. LIVE
• Miles: 20.9

• Average watts: 302
• Average heart rate: 162
• 54th place

Darren Lill was happy to finish today's time trial stage having ridden below his max effort in hops of saving his legs a bit for tomorrow's final tough day in Agoura Hills. Darren finished 54th, 4:21 behind the winner Tony Martin.

Lill averaged 302w for the 46' race. This is well below his estimated functional threshold power, but certainly to be expected after such a hard stage yesterday to Big Bear on stage 6. Most guys who are not in the top 20 of this race are simply riding through the trial at a 90-95% effort in order to have fresher legs for Sunday's very race.

The nice thing to see in darren's file is how well he paced the time trial. When you break the race down into thirds he rode a very steady even pace the entire race only deviating 7 watts between the three segments.

Besides the power data showing fatigue you can also be see signs of fatigue within the heart rate data. Lill only averaged 161 heart rate within the time trial compared to a 30-minute stretch of time at 170bpm within stage two.

Tomorrow is a tough day and I hope Lill has enough energy to help the team leader Phil Zajicek for at least half of the race on Sunday. It will be tough since the top general classification riders are sitting very close within just a few seconds of each other.

Darren Lill was happy to finish today's time trial stage having ridden below his max effort in hops of saving his legs a bit for tomorrow's final tough day in Agoura Hills. Darren finished 54th, 4:21 behind the winner Tony Martin.

Lill averaged 302w for the 46' race. This is well below his estimated functional threshold power, but certainly to be expected after such a hard stage yesterday to Big Bear on stage 6. Most guys who are not in the top 20 of this race are simply riding through the trial at a 90-95% effort in order to have fresher legs for Sunday's very race.

The nice thing to see in darren's file is how well he paced the time trial. When you break the race down into thirds he rode a very steady even pace the entire race only deviating 7 watts between the three segments.

Besides the power data showing fatigue you can also be see signs of fatigue within the heart rate data. Lill only averaged 161 heart rate within the time trial compared to a 30-minute stretch of time at 170bpm within stage two.

Tomorrow is a tough day and I hope Lill has enough energy to help the team leader Phil Zajicek for at least half of the race on Sunday. It will be tough since the top general classification riders are sitting very close within just a few seconds of each other.