Alpe d'Huez: TDF Fastest Ascent Times 1982-2015

Update of the Alpe d'Huez climbing times and speed chart previously posted here and here. Read those previous posts for discussion of context.

Edit (28 July 2015): since posting this two days ago, I was alerted to some updates made to the 1991 ascent times. Two sources did work with archive video to better verify these times, the net result being an addition of 41 seconds to each of the 1991 ascent times.

Thanks to https://twitter.com/ammattipyoraily for the posting the data.

This chart shows the average speed of the five fastest ascents up the Alpe d'Huez climb for each year the Tour de France included this climb, with the exception being the times from the 1980s which are the average speeds for fewer riders (as data on five fastest ascents in those years is not available to me).

As a reminder, I chose to average the 5 fastest ascent times for a couple of reasons:

- it reduces the individual noise in the data for year by year comparisons

- the 5 fastest were most likely to have been giving it close to maximal effort and would be representative of the quality at pointy end of the field

- the available historical data I have on ascent times doesn't permit increasing that sample size all that much in any case.

 Here's the data in table format, along with some extra context information. I've also ranked the average ascent speeds of the 5 fastest for each of the 13 occasions during 1991-2015 that Alpe d'Huez was climbed. I left out ranking 1980s ascents as I don't have times for all 5 fastest riders for those years (IOW the actual average speed of 5 fastest would be lower).

As we can see, 2015 ranks as the 8th fastest TdF ascent over that period, when based on the 5 fastest ascents each year.

Here's the same table but with weather conditions for the airport nearest to Boug d'Oisans listed from 3pm to 5pm on the day of the race. I was only able to source data back to 1997. If anyone knows of an online almanac of weather data for near Bourg d'Oisans for years prior to 1996, please let me know.

Weather data source: http://www.wunderground.com/

Note the variability in temperature from year to year, and importantly the prevailing wind direction and speed. 

Now how such prevailing wind actually plays out on the slopes of the Alpe is hard to say, but we should expect some differences from year to year in the speed riders can attain given their power on the day.

Or put another way, any power estimates from ascension rates comparing year to year will have some error depending on how the localised wind plays out. The climb obvious has many changes of direction, and wind at rider level is different to the prevailing conditions (normally measured at 10m above ground level and as a rough estimate it's about half that at rider level). Of course localised wind will be shaped by the Alpe itself as well as boundary layer features such as trees, road cuttings, vehicles and so on.

Map: http://www.alpedhueznet.com/

The prevailing wind was from the North East in 1997, 1999, 2008, 2011 and 2015; from the North West in 2003 and 2013; from the South West in 2001 and 2006 and from the West in 2004.

Course profile shows the climb is not a constant gradient:

Source: http://bike-oisans.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/profil-montee-alpe-d-huez.png

Fastest five ascents up Alpe d'Huez from this year's stage were:

and here are the fastest 5 riders by year (click to see larger version), with lines marking the time of the 50th and 100th fastest ascents of all time: