Col du Tourmalet Climb Analysis From 2010 TdF Stage 17

Today's mountain top finish involved the climbing of 18.4 km of the western side of Tourmalet (see detailed 3D terrain here), from Luz-Saint-Sauvier onwards. The Tourmalet is the queen of all climbs in the Tour de France and the roads here are some of the highest in France. The Henri Degranges prime was won on the summit by none other than the lanky, steely looking Luxembourgian Andy Schleck, but he did not manage to gain any time advantage on the Spanish climber Contador as the latter finished an inch away from him. Andy promised a strong effort today to aim one last time for the yellow jersey before the final time trial. It didn't happen as planned.

How It Happened :

1. At 18.4 to go, the leaders were in one group of some 10 riders. The speed, as reported on Eurosport at 19K to go was some 25 kmph. But this was on a mild gradient before the Tourmalet officially began (we can assume their speed dropped by 2 Kmph when the gradient kicked in) . At this point, they had 3:59 seconds advantage over the chasing pack.

2. When the leaders had 18K to go, the chasing group with the favorites had just passed the 20K to go sign.

3.       Time Gap 

 = Time To Finish (Slower) - Time to Finish (Faster Leaders)

Knowing the time advantage of 3:59s (0.066 h), speed of leaders = 23 kmph, and distances left for each as stated above, speed of the chasing pack at 20K to go is then calculated by :

Speed = 20 / [0.066 + (18/23)] = 23.58 kmph ~ 14.7mph

This speed is high as the sections before the foot of the climb were only gradual.

4. When the leaders were at 10.1 K to go, Carlos Barredo from the chasing pack attacks. The time gap to the leaders drop steadily per kilometer.

5. Andy Schleck who is also in the pack chances upon the opportunity to make something happen. With 10K to go he accelerated and passed Barredo. Contador marked Schleck and took his wheel. Both go hand in hand up the climb, eating up into the time advantage of the leaders (by now, their group had also splintered due to several attacks within.

6. The time gap drops rapidly per kilometer after Schleck's attack (see graph below). How rapid is the Contador-Schleck surge? In a matter of 1.6 km, they completely destroyed the advantage of 1:21s enjoyed at the front by Katusha rider Alexandr Kolobnev. He was caught and passed at 8.4K to go in a matter of 28:30s from the start base of the climb.

7. From hereon, Contador and Schleck are the leaders. With 5K to go, they had a 1:15s advantage on the chasers.

8. Alberto tested Andy's legs by giving it a go at 3.8K to go. Andy responded and trivialized the effort but surprisingly, he did not counterattack. Perhaps both may have found that they were at their absolute limits and hence decided to ride to the summit without any further attacks. There was no sprint to the line but the finishing speed as reported on Eurosport was 14.4 kmph, with a margin of 1:30s over the chasing group. Andy gave a hug to Bert on the summit while the latter winked at Andy and patted his face. "You know, we really are the best around here..."

Data & Calculations :

1. Weather : 10 deg C, low visibility with bit of snow in the morning, overcast with a weak wind from the SW, according to Metro News France. Wind can be consequential to the race. Racers like Carlos Sastre know it.  However without a CFD analysis or something similarly sophisticated, the wind vectors are hard to predict given the number of switchbacks, trees, spectators & vehicles. A theoretical analysis of its effect on power to weight ratio was given here for perspectives sake.

2. Procedure : Climb profile divided into 18 sections was borrowed from Velopeloton. Grade was extracted for each individual kilometer. Using a mammoth Eurosport footage recorded using 18 GB of hard drive space (phew), the racers were timed on these 18 sections using my stopwatch with an error of +/- 2 sec. Time gaps/advantages and VAM's were also extracted/timed from the footage video. Power to weight ratio was then calculated with Ferrari's formula using VAM, taking into account the grade of each of the 18 sections. An analysis done this fashion, is a bit on the conservative side opposed to one assuming a constant grade and constant ground velocity. From the perspective of drafting, this analysis is a bit on the overestimating side. All in all, the VAM method is between those two. So for Watts/kg, it is good to represent a figure obtained from this method with an error tolerance of +/- 0.2 W/kg.

3. Change of time gap per kilometer : As shown below : 

4. Climb Time : Time taken by Contador & Schleck to complete climb was approx. 53 mins 25 seconds for 18.4 kms according to race footage. However, from Horner's power output file, it was determined the he took some 52 minutes 22 seconds to climb which puts the leaders at 50:37. This is the figure I will use (with some caution because this depends on how it was operated on). It is quite challenging to put this into perspective with previous editions of the Tour. Data is lacking and I have had to pour into past Cycling News reports to extract any sort of approx. information. I have put together what I could glean in the following table. Please do review it, correct me, or help me fill in the blanks if you can. 

5. Average speed for climb : Av. speed of the duo from calculations (after passing Kolobnev) = 12.62 mph for 8 km. From Eurosport live online, their finishing speed was recorded to be 9 mph. 

6. Average power to weight ratio : Prior to getting caught, Kolobnev and his group exhibited approximately 5.5 W/kg +/- 0.2 W/kg. Average for Contador-Schleck was 6.03 W/kg +/- 0.2 W/kg for 8km after passing Kolobnev. See speed and power to weight ratio below :

7. Climbing Rate (VAM/Ascention Speed) : Average VAM or climbing speed (see detailed explanation for climbing rate) after Schleck and Contador overtook Kolobnev was 1696.5 m/hr. The change of VAM with grade is exhibited below for the parties in the Kolobnev group before the catch and the Schleck-Contador breakaway after the leaders were caught.

Power Meter Data

Both Chris Sorensen and Chris Horner put forth hard efforts during the climb. Surprisingly, Horner made it with the group of chasers and he was the best placed Radioshack rider. As and when I see powermeter information about their efforts, it will be appended here for review/comparisons. The trend of releasing powermeter data is limited in that it monitors only a few riders for a limited amount of time/kilometers before they are expended. But it is should be the most objective indicator of performance, while heart rate is the best indicator of effort. 

UPDATE : Chris Horner's Power Output file from SRM is shown below. His average power output is 5.65 W/kg for the entire climb. Relates very well to my estimate envelope of 5.5 +/- 0.2 W/kg as stated above. Notice that SRM missed out on publishing this cyclist's HR value. It is absolutely important to know his effort intensity level. Viewing such information without HR is as good as no information.

Some Limited Footage

Found on Youtube for your pleasure : 

Part 1 :

Part 2 :

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