Cool article on the Polar site on the Power and Physiological Demands of riding the Tour.
Of interest was watts I just had mine measured on a bike during the VO2 test, I finished the test at 370 watts which was very hard.
Compare this to super human Lance Armstrong….
Dr. Alejandro Lucía, Universidad Europea de Madrid, Spain, has predicted that Lance Armstrong on his ascent of the Alpe D¹Huez (a 14 km climb of 8% mean gradient) in the 2001 Tour de France produced one of the greatest performances in the history of cycling: 38 minutes of near-maximal to maximal effort at an estimated mean power output as high as 475-500 watts! His average speed was 22 kilometers/hour, which he reached at a mean cadence of about 100-rpm using a 39 x 23 gear. Lance would have been averaging about 7 watts/kg.
I think I would blow the top of my head off if I did 475 watts for more than 1 minute! Click here for article.
