TdF Speed Trends 1947 - 2017

The 2017 edition of the Tour was a pretty quick tour in terms of average speed, and I suspect the relative lack of mountains played its part in that. Having said that, I can't specifically say whether of not the number of ascent meters was substantially different, it was just an impression from looking at the overall route.

Last year I posted an item with various charts about speed trends for the Tour de France. If you want to know more about the charts, what they mean, the data and where I stole the idea for some of them from (thanks Robert Chung) then have a read of that earlier post - it's not overly long.

So here's an update of the charts to see where 2017 falls.

First the overall speed trend by year:

2017 was the second quickest Tour on record.

How about average stage distance?

Right in line with the overall trend of shorter average stage distances. This may well continue as the ASO experiments with more short punchy stages, plus the ITT distances were less than in most recent tours.

Here's the average speed v overall distance plot with each decade colour coded:

We can see 2017 is still within the speed v distance cluster of 21st century Tours.

And the residuals plot?

Here we see the 2017 edition is right in line with the expected trend.

Now the obvious question about the overall trends relate to two other factors besides overall distance, one being impact of doping during different eras and the other being total ascent meters during the tour as a proportion of total distance.

The doping stuff has been done to death here and elsewhere and there really isn't much in these plots to definitively say much about it anyway. You can look at the peak in residuals in the period of 1990s to 2000s and say "ah ha! doping!!" but then you'd also have to explain the other peak in residuals from late 1950s to 1960s. No EPO or blood bags back then. So while doping has played its part, it's not the only or whole story.

About the amount of climbing though, in the last year I made an attempt to work out the number of climbs ascended each Tour. I went through online archive data to count the number of times each col was climbed in the tour for each year. It was pretty laborious research.

I got to something like 750 different mountains in the database and counts for each year, but was unable to complete the project of identifying the data for each (distance, vertical metres, gradient), nor did the archive identify in which direction the mountain was ascended. which matters quite a bit for some climbs.  Add to that the archives were not consistent in which climbs were included in the stage descriptions - and climb categorisation (i.e. HC, Cat 1, 2, 3, 4) has evolved over the years.

It became apparent that unless there is a source available that provides the actual race routes, then attempting to work out the meters ascended for each year was a pretty futile task. I gave it a go though.

Perhaps someone out there has actual race route data going back to 1947? If that's the case then we can map them using current technology to come up with a pretty decent indicator of ascent and descent metres for each edition of the Tour.

Conclusions? Not a lot with respect to 2017 edition. It's pretty much on trend.

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TdF Speed Trends 1947 - 2016 - take 2

Following on from yesterday's post, here's another take on TdF speed trends post WWII:

As usual, right click to see larger version.

It should be pretty self explanatory. Each year's speed and distance is shown and colour coded by decade so it's easy to see the general trends. Progressively the tour has been getting shorter since it recommenced after WWII, and speeds have in general been rising.

So when someone points out that speeds are increasing and wants to assign a causation there are of course a myriad of possible reasons, however one of them is clearly an overall reduction in distance ridden. even so, one needs to be careful when seeking to assign possible causal factors to this relationship, e.g. doping.

The idea for this chart was stolen from a post Robert Chung presented on Stack Exchange examining the TdF speed trends. Robert's original post and charts can be found here:

http://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/7661/why-arent-tour-de-france-riders-going-any-faster/7812#7812

It's a good read and goes into a bit more depth as well as examining the trend line and residuals and why it's not so smart to immediately jump to conclusions about causal relationships.

Year to year variation, and possibly "era" to era variations are influenced by many things, the parcours is the most obvious example with some tours being more mountainous than others, while better/lighter/more aero equipment keeps coming along, influence of doping, better training and preparation, more dedicated focus on the tour, better pay attracting better athletes overall, general weather/environmental conditions (e.g. warm and dry vs cold and wet), changes in race strategy and tactics, and so on.

The data I used comes from the Tour de France online archive. comes from this wikipedia page, although there are minor differences in race distances listed for some years between that and the distances listed on he TdF's own website archive, but not enough to change the visual. I may update the chart to satisfy my own anality if I can nail down the discrepancies.

Here's another way to view the same data, which plots the same average speed trend line in yesterday's chart overlaid with the trend in race distance:

The inverse trend showing increasing overall speed with reducing race distance is as apparent.

And for the sake of completeness (of stealing Robert Chung's plots that is), here are the residuals of speed on distance by year:

This plots how far above or below the speed v distance trend line the actual race speed is for that year. Also shown is a 5-year moving average of the residuals so a general trend above/below trend can be seen. IOW if there were some causal factor (e.g. doping) in the 1990s and 2000s that resulted in above trend speeds, then we'd also need to explain the above average speed trend in late-1950s and early-1960s as well.


When I looked at this yesterday, it was to point out some logical fallacies presented in a Facebook posts I saw, i.e. that the 2016 tour was faster than Armstrong's 2000 tour, and of course the (fallacious) logic that it implied doping was a bad as back then.

Well I thought it use to examine that non-sequitur and example of cherry picking data to suit a narrative.

For a start, yes the 2016 tour was faster than the one in 2000. Just. By 0.05km/h, but it was the fourth slowest tour since 1998, and only the 16th fastest since WWII.

So as a case of cherry picking, it was a poor effort. Once you looked at all the data then it is placed in better context.

Cherry picking is bad enough, but the non-sequitur was that the average speed tells you something about the doping status of the winner. It doesn't. In other words we really can't infer much either way about doping of riders in general, let alone an individual, from such data.


And while I'm at it, here's a chart plotting the trend in average stage length, which has been steadily dropping. It's similar to the trend in total stage distance but there are slight variations as the number of stages varies between 20 (on many occasions) and 25 (in 1987).

And another one, this time plotting Average Speed v Average Stage Distance:

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TdF Speed Trends 1947-2016

Just putting down a placeholder for this chart for reference since I had cause to look at the data recently.

I'll come back to this chart later.

Tour de France general classification winners
Year	Cyclist	Distance	Time/Points	Average Speed (km/h)
1947	Jean Robic	4,642 km (2,884 mi)	148h 11' 25"	31.32
1948	Gino Bartali*	4,922 km (3,058 mi)	147h 10' 36"	33.44
1949	Fausto Coppi*	4,808 km (2,988 mi)	149h 40' 49"	32.12
1950	Ferdinand Kübler	4,773 km (2,966 mi)	145h 36' 56"	32.78
1951	Hugo Koblet	4,690 km (2,910 mi)	142h 20' 14"	32.95
1952	Fausto Coppi*	4,898 km (3,043 mi)	151h 57' 20"	32.23
1953	Louison Bobet	4,476 km (2,781 mi)	129h 23' 25"	34.59
1954	Louison Bobet	4,656 km (2,893 mi)	140h 06' 05"	33.23
1955	Louison Bobet	4,495 km (2,793 mi)	130h 29' 26"	34.45
1956	Roger Walkowiak	4,498 km (2,795 mi)	124h 01' 16"	36.27
1957	Jacques Anquetil	4,669 km (2,901 mi)	135h 44' 42"	34.40
1958	Charly Gaul	4,319 km (2,684 mi)	116h 59' 05"	36.92
1959	Federico Bahamontes*	4,358 km (2,708 mi)	123h 46' 45"	35.21
1960	Gastone Nencini	4,173 km (2,593 mi)	112h 08' 42"	37.21
1961	Jacques Anquetil	4,397 km (2,732 mi)	122h 01' 33"	36.03
1962	Jacques Anquetil	4,274 km (2,656 mi)	114h 31' 54"	37.32
1963	Jacques Anquetil	4,138 km (2,571 mi)	113h 30' 05"	36.46
1964	Jacques Anquetil	4,504 km (2,799 mi)	127h 09' 44"	35.42
1965	Felice Gimondi	4,188 km (2,602 mi)	116h 42' 06"	35.89
1966	Lucien Aimar	4,329 km (2,690 mi)	117h 34' 21"	36.82
1967	Roger Pingeon	4,779 km (2,970 mi)	136h 53' 50"	34.91
1968	Jan Janssen	4,492 km (2,791 mi)	133h 49' 42"	33.57
1969	Eddy Merckx	4,117 km (2,558 mi)	116h 16' 02"	35.41
1970	Eddy Merckx*	4,254 km (2,643 mi)	119h 31' 49"	35.59
1971	Eddy Merckx	3,608 km (2,242 mi)	96h 45' 14"	37.29
1972	Eddy Merckx	3,846 km (2,390 mi)	108h 17' 18"	35.52
1973	Luis Ocaña	4,090 km (2,540 mi)	122h 25' 34"	33.41
1974	Eddy Merckx	4,098 km (2,546 mi)	116h 16' 58"	35.24
1975	Bernard Thévenet	4,000 km (2,500 mi)	114h 35' 31"	34.91
1976	Lucien Van Impe	4,017 km (2,496 mi)	116h 22' 23"	34.52
1977	Bernard Thévenet	4,096 km (2,545 mi)	115h 38' 30"	35.42
1978	Bernard Hinault	3,908 km (2,428 mi)	108h 18' 00"	36.08
1979	Bernard Hinault	3,765 km (2,339 mi)	103h 06' 50"	36.51
1980	Joop Zoetemelk	3,842 km (2,387 mi)	109h 19' 14"	35.14
1981	Bernard Hinault	3,753 km (2,332 mi)	96h 19' 38"	38.96
1982	Bernard Hinault	3,507 km (2,179 mi)	92h 08' 46"	38.06
1983	Laurent Fignon#	3,809 km (2,367 mi)	105h 07' 52"	36.23
1984	Laurent Fignon	4,021 km (2,499 mi)	112h 03' 40"	35.88
1985	Bernard Hinault	4,109 km (2,553 mi)	113h 24' 23"	36.23
1986	Greg LeMond	4,094 km (2,544 mi)	110h 35' 19"	37.02
1987	Stephen Roche	4,231 km (2,629 mi)	115h 27' 42"	36.64
1988	Pedro Delgado	3,286 km (2,042 mi)	84h 27' 53"	38.90
1989	Greg LeMond	3,285 km (2,041 mi)	87h 38' 35"	37.48
1990	Greg LeMond	3,504 km (2,177 mi)	90h 43' 20"	38.62
1991	Miguel Indurain	3,914 km (2,432 mi)	101h 01' 20"	38.74
1992	Miguel Indurain	3,983 km (2,475 mi)	100h 49' 30"	39.50
1993	Miguel Indurain	3,714 km (2,308 mi)	95h 57' 09"	38.71
1994	Miguel Indurain	3,978 km (2,472 mi)	103h 38' 38"	38.38
1995	Miguel Indurain	3,635 km (2,259 mi)	92h 44' 59"	39.19
1996	Bjarne Riis[A]	3,765 km (2,339 mi)	95h 57' 16"	39.24
1997	Jan Ullrich#	3,950 km (2,450 mi)	100h 30' 35"	39.30
1998	**  Marco Pantani	3,875 km (2,408 mi)	92h 49' 46"	41.74
1999[B]	Lance Armstrong	3,687 km (2,291 mi)	91h 32' 16"	40.28
2000[B]	Lance Armstrong	3,662 km (2,275 mi)	92h 33' 08"	39.57
2001[B]	Lance Armstrong	3,458 km (2,149 mi)	86h 17' 28"	40.07
2002[B]	Lance Armstrong	3,272 km (2,033 mi)	82h 05' 12"	39.86
2003[B]	Lance Armstrong	3,427 km (2,129 mi)	83h 41' 12"	40.95
2004[B]	Lance Armstrong	3,391 km (2,107 mi)	83h 36' 02"	40.56
2005[B]	Lance Armstrong	3,593 km (2,233 mi)	86h 15' 02"	41.66
2006	Óscar Pereiro[C]	3,657 km (2,272 mi)	89h 40' 27"	40.78
2007	Alberto Contador#	3,570 km (2,220 mi)	91h 00' 26"	39.23
2008	Carlos Sastre*	3,559 km (2,211 mi)	87h 52' 52"	40.50
2009	Alberto Contador	3,459 km (2,149 mi)	85h 48' 35"	40.31
2010	Andy Schleck#[D]	3,642 km (2,263 mi)	91h 59' 27"	39.59
2011	Cadel Evans	3,430 km (2,130 mi)	86h 12' 22"	39.79
2012	Bradley Wiggins	3,496 km (2,172 mi)	87h 34' 47"	39.92
2013	Chris Froome	3,404 km (2,115 mi)	83h 56' 20"	40.55
2014	Vincenzo Nibali	3,660.5 km (2,274.5 mi)	89h 59' 06"	40.67
2015	Chris Froome*	3,360.3 km (2,088.0 mi)	84h 46' 14"	39.64
2016	Chris Froome	3,529 km (2,193 mi)	89h 04' 48"	39.62

** 1998 Stage 17 was abandoned (Festina Affair rider protest)

Update 28 Jul 2016:
Chart has been updated

The 1998 value was revised down due to removing 149km from total distance since stage 17 was abandoned. Calculated average speed is still a little higher (40.14km/h) but not much over what the official site reports (39.983km/h) but I can't seem to work out why.

It equates to about 14.4km missing from total reported distance or about 21 and a half minutes in total duration being unaccounted for. Prologue that year was 5.6 km and I've included that and time bonuses for stage wins by Pantani wouldn't account anything like that much.

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Bemusing aero equipment choices at the Tour de France

2016 Tour de France. Stage 18 ITT Megève. GC contenders giving away time with bike set up choices. Why?

Here's the course profile:

Here's a table with the aero choices made by the 20 fastest riders on the day. As far as I can tell all rode using a skin suit (although some of the suits were not exactly a good aero fit). Note - I've updated Mollema's entry a few hours later as he was using a rear disk wheel.

Note: Rodriguez swapped from a time trial bike to a road bike part way along.

This suggests all these riders recognised that aerodynamics still mattered, but not enough that riders thought it worth using some other basic aero kit. Perhaps they felt there was too much of a weight penalty (there's not BTW). Or they did not feel good climbing on a TT bike, or were concerned with the descent? Lack of preparation is my take.

For reference, I used photos from the various websites to work out who used what. For front wheel and helmets, there might be a little debate as to it fits the category of aero or not. Needed to be a full aero TT helmet to count and what looked like low-ish profile wheels went in the "No" category. Always happy to amend if people spot errors.


Richie Porte, with not even an aero front wheel, let alone an aero helmet:

Fabio Aru, not much better:

Contrast with the stage winner Chris Froome who used all the aero aids at his disposal:

Images:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/tour-de-france/stage-18/results/

Average speeds for the top 20 ranged from 31.5km/h to 33.2km/h. Aerodynamics still matters quite a bit at such speeds. So why not take advantage of it?

Yes it was hilly but the lack of aero equipment choices for a TT even at these speeds does rather bemuse me. Weight penalty of helmets and wheels is negligible and any small benefits are outweighed by aero losses.

More discussion later. Perhaps.

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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:

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Tinkov's Triple Tour Challenge: 10 Fun Facts

OK, so Oleg Tinkov has made an offer and it's got people talking. Which is probably his main aim, he's like that, never shy of a bit of entertaining nonsense or stirring the pot with ideas from outside the cycling box.

But I'm not so sure it's an offer too good to refuse.

So unless you've not kept an eye on any cycling news media channel over past week, then you'll no doubt have seen news of the challenge.

Here's the cyclingnews.com link:
Tinkov offers a €1 million to Contador and his Grand Tour rivals

In a nutshell, this is Tinkov's offer as quoted in the above article:

"If Quintana, Froome, Nibali and Contador all agree to ride all three Grand Tours, I'll get Tinkoff Bank to put up €1 million. They can have €250,000 each as an extra incentive. I think it's a good idea,"

Personally I just don't see it happening, simply because the risk to a rider's peak performance is too great and the proposed reward too little to compensate for throwing away the prize money and sponsorship attainable from a GT victory, especially a Tour de France victory. I'm just not convinced on the ROI.

Others have written about it and I don't propose at this time to add much to those discussions. For a couple of perspectives, see Inrng's comments about the practicality and marketing, and Science of Sport's take on the (not unsubstantial) physiological consideration:

inrng: Oleg Tinkov’s Indecent Proposal

The Science of Sport: Tinkov’s 3 Grand Tour challenge: Physiological, or folly?


Instead I thought I'd list some fun facts about the history of riders who have completed all three Grand Tours in the same year. Remember that the Vuelta a España only began in 1935, compared with 1909 for the Giro d'Italia and 1903 for the Tour de France. So we about talking about 70 years of all three grand tours, however due to various wars and a calendar gap, in 12 of those years not all three grand tours were contested.

So here are 10 fun facts about riders who have completed all three grand tours in the same year:

#1
Only 32 riders have ever completed all three Grand Tours in a season (the same year).

#2
The completion of all three Grand Tours in same season has only been been done 41 times.

#3
Marino Lejarreta (ESP) did it four times between 1987 and 1991.

#4
Adam Hansen (AUS) has completed 10 consecutive Grand Tours, the most by any individual. The first of this remarkable feat being the 2011 Vuelta and since the last was the 2014 Vuelta, he can extend that record in 2015 if he completes the Giro d'Italia.

#5
Only one rider ever has won a Grand Tour and completed all three Grand Tours in one season. Gastone Nencini (ITA) won the 1957 Giro.

#6
Podiums are rare from riders who complete all three Grand Tours. Including Nencini, only five riders have ever managed that feat.

#7
Others podium finishers who also completed all three Grand Tours in the same year include:
Marzio Bruseghin (ITA) 3rd Giro 2008;
Marino Lejarreta (ITA) 3rd Vuelta 1991;
Bernardo Ruiz (ESP) 3rd Vuelta 1957;
Raphael Geminiani (FRA) 3rd Vuelta 1955

#8
No rider ever has won or placed on podium at the Tour de France and completed all three Grand Tours in the same year.

#9
The nearest to completing that feat was Carlos Sastre (ESP) with 4th place Tour de France 2006.

#10
Only two riders have completed all three Grand Tours in a season and finished top 10 in each: Geminiani in 1955 and Nencini in 1957.

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