What The Hell Was That? (Final Tour De France Wrap Up!)

This episode of the Get Fast podcast is brought to you by Tribello Coaching, where we help triathletes and cyclists like you train smarter to race faster. You are joined as always, but your hosts, former Australian Ironman champion Gerard Donnelly, and I am Jordan Donnelly. In today's episode, we've got another jam packed episode talking most things the Tour de France. We have so much to fit in and how everything that you can learn from the Tour de France can be applied to cyclists and triathletes to learn some pretty incredible lessons over a pretty incredible race, which is panned out to be better than we could have ever expected. A couple of housekeeping things as per normal. If you want to get our programs to help you train smarter and race faster, just go to getfastpodcast.com that's getfastpodcast.com you can subscribe to our email list and that's the best way to get access to our programs to help you. Again, we are doing this podcast virtually over the interwebs and so we hope that the audio quality can remain at a high standard as we endeavor to always have. But bear with us if there is any audio or video issues because of the coronavirus period, which is still kicking along, unfortunately. But it didn't stop the Tour de France. And so in today's episode, we want to talk about two major topics of the Tour. One, the time trial, which really applies heavily to cyclists and triathletes alike. The infamous time trial and everything we can learn from watching that incredible stage. We're going to go through our Tour highlights as well. The best coaching tips you've summarised, dad, that you learned from the Tour and which can apply to everyone watching, as we're all athletes watching. We're all wanting to gain as much an advantage as we can and learn from the very best, the pros. But before we get into those two things, a couple of things so much happened in the last week that we're going to struggle to get through it all. But a couple of major things that we wanted to touch on before we get into the tt. And the summary was in that third week, I wanted to start off by talking about Egan Bernal. And Egan Bernal pulled out of the race. He had some poor performances, he clearly wasn't up to scratch. And then he pulled out of the race. And whether he was so injured that he had to pull out or he just pulled out because there was no point finishing when he wasn't going to win, we don't know the exact details. That's a little bit vague on that. I was personally one of the people that was disappointed to see him pull out. It was kind of disrespectful to the race. Just because you aren't going to win, you might as well finish the race. But you are an advocate of knowing when to bother racing. If you are underdone, you would say, don't even start. And knowing when to pull the pin when it's not your time, you know, you better to regroup and go back and train for next year's tour. So what were your thoughts on Egan Bernal pulling out?

Yeah, I wasn't too. It didn't phase me too much. But I would like to make the comparison. Quintana was performing just as poorly, yet he continued on. I am not a big advocate of dnf, which is do not finish. Did not finish. You know, I would still, and I've done this myself, continued on in races where I was totally out of contention. But in respect for the event and for my sport, I kept going. And sometimes that's detrimental to, you know, what's going to happen down the track because you're going to go deeper than you wanted to, especially, you know, talking about an Ironman triathlon. And, you know, there's marathons where people keep going when it's. When, you know their goals aren't being achieved. So there's so many pluses and minuses with this question that you've raised, which is. Which is a ripper. I'm sitting on the fence a bit. I really think Quintana did a great job continuing on. But what did he. What purpose did he serve? Well, lots. The sponsors. The sponsors wanted to see and keep riding. And, you know, if anything, he got more coverage because they kept showing him getting dropped so that, you know, he got. The sponsors want to see themselves on telly. So whether it's for good or bad, for bad, you know, they normally want to see themselves in the break not getting dropped, but they still got their name on telly, which is the number one goal for sponsoring a team.

One interesting point on that would be also I thought out of respect for his teammates, maybe he would continue on because as soon as he was out of contention, Ineos then switched to going for stage wins and they won a stage. Carapaz and Kwiatkowski coming first and second. That was a great moment. I really enjoyed watching that. But I thought, Bernal's never going to be in this position where he has an opportunity to work for his other teammates compared to Them working for him. So I thought it would have been a nice chance for him to try and pull some weight for them to help them get a stage win again. They said he was, he had back pain and knee pain. I don't, I don't know the facts, but I don't believe it was bad enough to pull out. It would have been nice for, if I was the team director to try and use him in that regard and then freshen up and prepare for next year.

Definitely that's a really good point. You know, these guys sacrificed their whole career for the GC guy and it was great to see those two guys have an opportunity and you know, all the INEOS guys had an opportunity soon as Bernal was no longer in contention and they tried three days in a row before they actually succeeded in getting a 1, 2. I was wrapped for Kiatowski and who was the other guy was with you?

Richard Carapaz? Yeah.

And I was wrapped for those two. And you know, it could have turned out that Carapaz could have, could have got the polka dot jersey, you know, in the end, but it wasn't to be. But they won a stage so they got something out of it. You know, Bernal foot pulled out of the Dauphine as well and so did Roglic. In fact with one stage to go after he crashed, which is a fair enough reason to pull out. And Bernal was, you know, preparing for the tour. So whatever the reason he pulled out for and he said he had us all back at that stage, you know, you're within your rights to do whatever you like. It's a lead up race and it is disrespectful to the Dauphine but he had no chance of winning that either. So you don't want to set a precedence of if I can't win, I'm not going to finish. That's a bad precedence to start. And you know that's happened a little bit in junior and under 23 racing at the elite level where I've had guys who have been asked by the commissaires to pull out once they've been not in contention because the program's going to be slowed down for the rest of the races. And, and I think that's a really bad way for an association. And I'm, I'm really disappointed in when they do that, having to, you know, having been told our guys have been told to get off the course when they, you know, as a coach I'm telling them, you know, don't in 120k bike race, don't ride flat out for 50k then, you know, then put pull out of the event. It's not doing your career any, any good. It's not getting you used to riding 120k or 90k or whatever the distance is. They're forever stopping the guys from finishing. I think it's a really bad idea. That's another whole topic, that one. But yeah, look, I definitely, I'm in favor of people finishing, but if there is a legitimate reason, and let's face it, you know, they're paying him big money. He's a superstar and they want it. And maybe they want him to line up for the Giro and they've got, you know, we could all have egg on our faces and ineos come out and win everything at the Giro. So, you know, it's a weird year. There could be an enormous amount of reasons for what they're doing. And Dave Brailsford's not a dumb operator. He has orchestrated that many victories for that team over that long a period that he has got something up his sleeve. So don't discount what they're planning next. You know, imagine Bernal, you know, assisting Geraint Thomas at the Giro. What a combination that's going to be.

Yeah, definitely, definitely. One last point at Bernal and we kind of touched on it the last two weeks about how there's been such a big difference. We don't actually know how big a difference between how the riders trained in the COVID period in lockdown. And we know that Geraint Thomas came out and said that he wasted his training. We do know that Bernal was posting mammoth sessions on Strava. He's posting eight or nine hour indoor rides, which we actually spoke about a few weeks before the Tour. We said that indoor riding is harder on the legs than outdoor riding. So a two hour ride indoor can equate to a four hour ride outdoor. And now he's getting some back pain and knee pain. You could almost argue that it was too much and he actually overused his body. And it also brings up an interesting point that we talk a lot about getting the right bike fit, being the right position to one, increase speed, but two, prevent injury. And it shows that even the pros get it wrong sometimes.

Yeah, well, I'm, you know, having spent such a long period in lockdown. I had in the first stage, I had 50 days where I rode without going outdoors and I certainly was feeling fatigue in my legs and the pressure on my, you know, my aging body. My knees was, you know, you can't pedal an indoor trainer like you can pedal outdoor. It is quite restricting almost. I mean, you've got, you know, the good pedalers will be able to manage it. But I found myself not pulling up enough in the 360 degree rotation of the pedaling action and just pushing down too much because I was in races and being competitive and when you push down on the bike, the bike moves forward, you get a response. But when you push down on a stationary trainer, it stays still. So I think the pressure comes back onto your body. So, you know the old adage that never spend more time on the trainer than you're going to do sleeping. So, you know, if he's doing six to eight hour sessions and he's not sleeping more than eight hours, he's close to, you know, doing too much, in my opinion. And as we know, form and timing is everything. Fitness building is the key. But you can be as fit as you like. If you stuff up your timing for the to peak at the right form, then, you know, and that's a question that we'd have to pose for Roglic, you know, flying during the Dauphine, flying at the start of the Tour. And he did this last year at the Giro and you know, really exposed himself in the last couple of days and cracked and lost and he's done it again. So he has won the welter, so he has won a Grand Tour, but he's cracked at the Giro now he's cracked at the, at the Tour de France. And their harsh words cracked. It sounds like, you know, he had one bad day and it's costing the Tour and it just happened to be the most important stage on the Tour, which was the threshold time trial, which we spoke about two podcasts ago. Imagine if the Tour comes down to that time trial and look what happened. Exactly what we predicted happened, happened. You know, I got asked, what do you think? My wife asked me, what do you think is going to happen on the time trial? I said, well, logic tells me that it's impossible for second to get 59 seconds back on first because he's not showing any signs of cracking. And the outcome that happened, I could not believe. And I do worry sometimes when it seems ridiculously incredible achievement that sometimes it is not real. So I'm always questioning that because of the history of cycling and it's, it's reputation as not being.

Yeah, it's fair enough to question that.

Given the history, but it is disappointing to throw that out there when the guy's probably, you know, if the guy's ridden the race of his life and people are questioning, you know, and that's the problem with a sport that's had such a history. You question so many things now because you don't trust it anymore. That's a whole other topic as well. But certainly, you know, to be able to not only lose 59 seconds, but then add another 50 seconds on top of it to lose. What did he lose? A minute 50?

Yeah, combined. Because he lost the tool by 50 seconds. So. Yeah.

Yes. So not only has he lost 59 seconds, he's actually added another 50 seconds in, you know, to really make sure that he did win. So if you're comparing Bogarta against Roglic, certainly there was a massive crack. And I think the tactics of Vergaccia, and that's something we want to talk about with coaching tip, is, you know, the pressure Bogaccia put on Roglic by riding so hard and he was losing 10 seconds, 12 seconds, 15 seconds in the first 5K. And Roglic had to change his tactic from the rest of the jumbo visma, which was ride to your numbers, progress from positive to negative, split and come home strong. And it worked for Dumoulin, it worked for Van Aerts, it worked for Richie Porte. But Roglic got thrown under the bus because Vergacia put so much pressure on him. He had to change his tactic and racing and he had to stop the time from blowing out. And I think it. I think it blew him up.

Yeah.

And it's a great training tip. Do you follow your numbers when you're racing or do you race and risk blowing up? And, you know, in his position, you're defending the yellow jersey, you gotta race. And so I don't criticise that decision, but I think it cost him. The tactic of Bogaccia to put pressure on him was incredible.

Yeah.

And, you know, he rode so much better than Dumoulin and Richie Porte, who were the second and third best riders on the day. And Van Aert was the fourth best rider yet. Vergacia was, what was he, a minute 20 ahead of Dumoulin and.

Yeah, and Porte was the same time.

And a minute 40 ahead of Van Aert and minute 50 ahead of Roglic. So, yeah, really, really interesting stage. That really was the decisive stage of the Tour.

Yeah, let's keep diving into it because we've got a lot to cover in the tt. And one of the main points for all our athletes listening, whether you're a cyclist or a Triathlete is that everything adds up in a time trial. Right. And so every single part matters. And really, you know, when you think about all the way, I want to touch on the warm up, the warm up all the way through to the start. How you take the first corner, the first 30 seconds, every corner you take, every uphill, every downhill in a 36 kilometer time trial. I am often surprised at how close the pros are because I just think with the amount of variables, I'm surprised there's not create more gaps. And I was so shocked when Port and Dumoulin rode the same time. But if you look at their breakdown, how they got there was totally different. You know, Dumoulin got to the bottom of climb and potentially 40 seconds ahead of Porte. And then Port rode the second fastest hill behind Poga Cha and ended up with the exact same time as Dumoulin. So it's just funny how over 36km they can ride totally different. If you had them side by side, like virtually, they would be completely different positions but then end up riding the same time. I find that fascinating.

But imagine, Jord, if Port hadn't changed bikes.

Yeah.

Could he have ridden the same way on his time trial bike as he did on his road bike? That'd be the first question.

You would think that they would be confident that they couldn't, which is why they risk the change, you know, And.

Lucky Dumalon didn't change, but would he have ridden better on his road bike?

Yeah, exactly, because he ended up losing a bit of time on the hill.

Yeah. So the variations of how you went about it and we do bang on about, you know, negative splitting to really perform better in a time trial and ride to your numbers and. And you know, that's the question that was. It was so intriguing to see how people arrived at the finish with completely different methods. And it was horrible watching the people who are crawling to the finish and you know, the guys who really measured their effort from start to finish, really hitting that last hill. And I think you had some time gaps for, you know, various riders who rode the hill the best.

Yeah, yeah, I pulled them up here because that's. It's interesting to look at when you just look at the hill. And Poga Char was 20 seconds ahead of Port, which was surprising for me because he beat him by a minute 20, which means he beat him by a minute on the flat and only 20 seconds on the hill. It shows how.

Well, that's a really interesting comparison there, you know, so Richie matched pocket char on the Climb. You know, not a lot of people would know that, that piece of data, but that's what the coaches would, would glean out of that. Richie, you did quite well. We've got to work on the section before that. Well, maybe that was his strategy to ride to a number that he rode to and that enabled him to ride better power in the second half.

Well, I was going to say Richie said in the interview he reckons it's the best time trial he's executed. So he was absolutely stoked with his performance.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And compare Poga's climb time to Roglic's. That was horrible.

Yeah. Well, this shows where Roglic might have cracked. He was, he was a minute 20 behind on the hill. So that's why he ended up losing the Tour by just under two minutes. And you saw that Poguchar started to crack him before they got to the hill. You know, in the, in the virtual things that were showing that, wow, he's overtaken him. And then Roguelus just blew out on the hill. You know, he absolutely got destroyed. And that, you know, he's his 11th best rider up the hill behind Bargiel, Mark, Solaire, Landa, a lot of others, Carapaz. But Roglich was supposed to be one of the best climber in the race, which he showed all the tour. But he wasn't the best in the time trial.

But that's what, that's what the flat section caused. The pressure that Pogajar put on him caused him to ride a different race. So by riding too hard at the start, Roglic couldn't climb the way he wanted to because he was in the red zone already racing against Poga, who was already put 10, 12, 15 seconds into him and he lost a minute 20. So in hindsight, as a coach, you would still tell your athlete, sure, you have to race, but did we know Poga Cha was going to blow up or not? That would be the question, you know, and prove that he didn't. He was able to hold that. But I would not be really risking my whole event on chasing someone who is 21 years of age, who doesn't have experience and it's got nothing to lose and could, could end up capitulating halfway up the climb. So Roglic, you know, you had a tough decision to make. Do I keep chasing the time and keep limiting my losses or do I ride my own race? And you might not have lost by so much. So if you're going to lose, you know, don't lose by a minute 20 on the climb, lose by 10 or 15 seconds. And then he's only 30 seconds he's lost. He's still in the lead, you know, so. So there's a lot in that. And it's, it's, you know, from my coaching point of view, I would definitely say ride your own race. I know there's competitors who are. Who are challenging you, but you don't want to ride their race. And I think that's the mistake he made. And that's just my opinion, but I think it's a valid one. We've backed it up with a lot of evidence here.

Yeah. And how often do you see that in triathlons where people start the bike leg and they might see people in their age group flying past them and you, you. Do you risk trying to stay with them or do you just ride your own race? And it's such a tough decision to make in the moment because there's a lot of adrenaline.

You might panic a little bit in a triathlon. It's not a tough decision, Jordan, if you start riding someone else's race more the fool you. And I've been the biggest fool in that at the biggest race in the world. And, you know, I cannot let anybody do that anymore. That if you see people riding past you at the start, good luck to them, because you'll see them if it's an ironman, you'll see them at 140k creeping while you're riding the same pace the whole way to the end. And even the pro, the best cyclists in the world have proven, just from what we've discussed, that, you know, can be either way, you've got a race, but you've still got to understand your numbers. And it's such a great example as a coaching tool to analyze this and understand, you know, even the elite guys can still get it wrong sometimes.

You've made that clear as day, I think. But talking about Roglic cracking a little bit, and you said off air that you didn't like to use the word cracking because he still came fifth in the time trial. And it was also a matter of Poga Chow producing the most unbelievable performance that no one predicted and no one could have expected, which is, again, a whole other topic. But there are some factors I was watching with Roglich which came to my attention, and one was that he decided to warm up right until the last second.

So I'm glad you brought that up. I was horrified at what I was watching. Um, and we're pretty, pretty Detailed in how our warmup goes for, for our races and for our time trials. And you know, the gap was two minutes between each rider. So Superman and Poguchar and Roglich were the last three riders. So six minutes or Lopez to go. Six minutes. Then Boguchar, then Roglich. Yeah, his helmet on with six minutes to go on the ergo at 26 degrees. Are you crazy? And ironically, the helmet started going everywhere halfway through the ride. But why is he warming up with a helmet on when we know that heat is dissipated through feet, hands and head and he's stopping, he's cooking himself on the helmet and he was still on it with less than two minutes to go. You know, you need to stop warming up and give yourself at least five minutes. And I put that in our program. At least five minutes between the start of your race and the end of your warm up and stand up and walk around just to let the blood move around and you get back on the bike and you feel really fresh. I think he was just missing the boat there on his warm up. Everything like this contributes. Don't, don't underestimate how all these things are so important to the outcome.

Yeah, definitely. And I thought when I was watching, I thought this is either going to work in his favor, he's going to come out so hot and he's going to dominate this time trial. He's going to look as perfect as he has all tour and he has since racing started back again, or it's going to have the opposite effect and it's going to be a disaster for him. And it turned out to be the latter. And we don't know, we can't blame it on the wall art, but it seemed to be a factor.

No, it's not. Never one thing. Jordan, as we say many times, it's always a combination of things. You know, it could have been an accumulation of the whole three weeks that properly. But we've already identified that we think he got his execution wrong. We think he's warmed up poorly and we also think, we said this two weeks ago. Can he hold form from six to eight weeks out from the Dauphine all the way through? And it's been proven. So it's not one thing. I think it's the execution of the last stage, the critical, the warm up didn't help. I think his form was on its way down. So we've really torn it apart here and proved that it's never just one thing. It's always a combination. He might have had a really bad sleep that night before because all he's got to do is hang in there for one more stage and he's won his first Tour de France. Boy, how much pressure. Think about that. How much pressure. Whereas Bogaccia had no pressure. He had nothing to lose. 21. He's got another 10, 10 years of this ahead of him, you know, and he can just have a crack. And as he said himself, I'm either gonna spectacularly win this or I'm gonna. I'm gonna crack so badly I end up 10th. And. And that was the risk he was willing to take. And as we've said many times, big risk, big reward.

Yeah, exactly right.

And, boy, did he get a big reward.

Yeah.

I think even he was shocked how far he won by. And Van Aert and Dumoulin's face. For me, that said it all.

Yeah.

I felt so sorry for Jumbo Visma. They. They'd done so many things right, and yet one. One day they lose it.

I was. I was laughing at their face. I wasn't laughing. I was in shock as well. I. I stayed up and watched it because I actually went to bed and then set my alarm and got up because just I really wanted to see Richie. And they started at 1am and I didn't want to stay up till then because then you'd finish at 3am But I really wanted to see Richie. And I just was interested to see because everyone had completely discounted it and said Roglic can't lose. But there are a few people that were reminding us that Polka is the Slovenian national time trial champion. Roglic has had some. He's a strong rider, obviously, and all the GTs are gun TT riders. But he's had some historically poor performances in tts recently and he's improved. But a lot of people were saying that Poguchao will take some time back and maybe max 30 seconds, 40 seconds, not two minutes. But I was interested to see how close Poguchar would get if he got within 10 seconds. Would they race on the final stage to Paris or something like that? So I really did want to watch it and it was well worth getting up for. I do want to touch on Poga Cha in a second. There's a few points on his performance, Brian. Last couple of points on Roglic. I wanted to ask about was the form thing, because we said he's really informed coming into the Tour. It's hard to hold form for the entire three weeks. He just looked horrible in the time trial. So you talk about execution, the warm up, all these factors, the build up of the three weeks of fatigue, but he just. I saw a highlight video today over the whole Tour and it showed his stage win in stage three, I think it was, or four, where he won the sprint up the hill. And he just looks, he looks strong, fresh. He just blew everyone else away in the last climb day. He looked unbeatable on a hill. And then you compare that to how he was riding the hill in the time trial. He looked like he forgot how to ride a bike. His cadence was all over the shop. He didn't look strong, you know, he didn't look like he was going fast and he obviously wasn't going that much slower than the rest. But this is all arbitrarily kind of looking at him, but it just seemed like he was. His helmet was half off his face. It just looked like a disaster all around.

He looked haggard and ragged and that was the pressure from Pogaccia. And I just think when you blow up Jordan in a time trial, it's ugly. And, you know, the things I think about is, you know, I can't wait to sell this bike. That's the first thing that comes to your mind. And I reckon Roglich is saying the same thing, get me off this thing. This is just horrible. It's going worse and worse. And when you can't pedal because you know you've lactated your thresholds, your heart rate's over in the red zone, there's nothing you can do. It's over. And he did well to limit his losses, even though he still ended up coming fifth. So gutsy effort to hang in there. As I say to the guys who get it wrong, even at club level, gutsy effort to keep going when you've blown it and you know you've blown it in the first 10 minutes of a 20 minute effort or 30 minute effort, and I think, you know, he was trying to ride a high cadence so he could actually keep the power up. And he was trying everything. He was out of his seat more than you seem. He was. Yeah, yeah. I just felt for him there. I felt.

Yeah. Well, I wonder, can you, you know, you talk about riding yourself into form and how riders will ride themselves into form over the Tour and they do it over a bunch of races. Can you ride yourself out of form? Especially over a three week period? You know, Roglic was so strong at the start and I wonder that because if he was so protected by his teammates, he almost wrote himself out of form a Little bit. By having to do less efforts. You know, Pulga Cha almost could have gained fitness over the Tour because he was on his own a lot and he had to do all the efforts himself. I wonder if that, I mean, science would tell us that that doesn't really add up. You know, sports science, exercise science would say that doesn't make as much sense to dramatically change your fitness in such a short period of time. But a lot of riders would arbitrarily tell you that there's days when you have good legs and there's days when you have bad legs and it just happens. And I wonder if, you know, Roglic being so protected until the last kilometer of every stage meant that he wasn't actually gaining any fitness and guys around him were getting better.

Yeah, a whole lot in what you've just said. But I look at the Dauphine and gee, they rode hard in the Dauphine. We watched that and you know, Jumbo Visma were on the front. It was like they, you know, they had three weeks of the Tour, but they had. What was the Dauphine? Five.

Five stages.

Yeah, they had five plus three weeks with a little gap in between. So they. I think there were four stages in the Dauphine that were mountain top finishes and they were on fire back then. And we said at the time, can they hold this form for another three weeks plus these five days. And I think they missed out by probably three or four days because the previous stage that Pogacha won, the mountaintop finish, you know, Roglich was just hanging on, wasn't he?

Yeah.

So that was a worry for me. But I just didn't think that the time on the time trial was going to be so great. But there you go. But as you said, it was so good to see Richie and you know, that's a whole topic in itself which I'm really keen to discuss. You know, especially when we were so critical of him early on and. And it was goosebumps, wasn't it, to see him.

Yeah, definitely. I want to get to Richie now. Highlights. We'll get to him in a sec. But I do want to finish talking about the TT and talk about Poga Cha's performance.

It's just too much to talk about Jordan.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I'm keeping you in a certain chronological order because we'll go off on a tangent, but some notes on Poga Cha's performance. He rode the hill section without a power meter, so there's talk about he did that for various reasons to make the bike as Light as possible, and then black computers at 200 grams or.

Something, but I'm not buying that one.

But he wanted to write a feel, and so he rode with the numbers up to the hill, and then it was all out effort up the hill. And, you know, there's already arguments online about the use of power numbers and not. And you always talk about there's a time to race, and if there's ever a time to race when you had one more heel to win the Tour de France, that was it. And I wrote a really good article which spoke about how numbers can really teach someone like Froome how to ride their exact numbers, stay within their limit, and then they can launch one specific attack because they know they won't blow up. And in this effort, Poga just needed to not worry about the numbers and go as hard as he could. And the numbers can almost limit you mentally if you're looking at them, because you go, I actually can't. I. I know I can't hold 600 watts for 15 minutes, so if I'm looking at numbers, I know I'm going to blow up. Whereas if he just forgets about them, he can ride above his limit because he's got no kind of mental limit. Looking at the bike computer, I think that was a really, really valid point.

Look, people who dismiss the power meter are foolish. And the reason he was able to go full gas from the bottom of the climb was because he had a power meter to start. Yeah. So he rode the rock. He rode the right of his life, using power to get him to the point where he was just going to go a PB effort. Yeah. And so the power meter enabled him to get there without blowing up. And then there's no, you know, I'm telling all the guys we coach, you know, today's a PB effort. You know, you can look at. Look at the power meter, and it's a number that's new to you, but that's what a PB is. You want to see new numbers.

Yeah.

So, as I said before, he had nothing to lose. He could risk everything. So riding to feel, racing that hill was exactly what he should have been doing. But he used the power meter to his advantage. And, you know, you can't just dismiss these things. Had he ridden without a power meter from the start and still won, then I take my hat off to him. That's incredible. Riding to feel. But he didn't. He rode using data to set himself up to ride the light, the ride of his life. So I'm a big advocate of PB riding. You know, I look down, it's numbers I've never seen. Well, I don't care. I want to do a PB today and I want to beat my previous best 15 minute climb number. So, yeah, you know, the number is going to tell me that I'm going well, that's a positive. You know, I'm above what I'm on target for a pb, so.

And we can't take anything away from him because we kind of almost as a caveat, have to say that the performance was borderline ridiculous. But, you know, we have to give credit to him until he gets disproven. We'll celebrate the victory and celebrate the performance because it was just out of this world and it was so exciting to watch. And as you always say, you know, it's just never over till it's over. And he just put everything he had into that. And I think something you also touched on a lot is how good is time trial training and how good is threshold training for a rider and how important do time trials actually become for cyclists and triathletes.

If there was ever an example this tour was, you know, and we said it in week one, is this Tour going to come down to the time trial and those people who dismiss threshold riding, which is what time trial, time trial training or time trial racing is. You know, you've got to have that in your armoury. And we've said it many times, as a club racer or a recreational beach road bunch rider, you want to be able to attack your bunch and then ride solo for five minutes. And if you haven't done any threshold riding, you're going to ride solo for a minute 30 and then blow up. So you want to have that in your armory. And you know, how many stages in this Tour Craig Anderson won two stages by One of them was by Sunweb's magnificent tactics. But the other was his own tactic where he counted against Martin Trenton and rode away from 10 of the best top riders in the world and rode a threshold to the finish. For it was over 12k. It might have been 15k. And that proves to me, you know, anybody else who did that counter attack like Anderson did, who hasn't got the ability to time trial would never have won that stage. Yeah. And you know, or even club races have Tours. Club or local clubs have tours with time trials in them. So get better at it and it's going to help the other aspects of your riding anyway. And, you know, it's the bread and butter of triathlon anyway, if you can't time trial, you're not going to be able to compete very well on the bike anyway. So. But you know, managing your efforts is something that, you know, we talk about all the time and you know, Anderson will be looking down at his numbers, going right 15k, that's going to be a 20 something minute effort. Let's dial that in. And every time he came to a rise, you know, he was putting the pressure on and we talk about it all the time. When the ride is hardest, that's the time gains. So into the headwind and on the uphills, that's when he can beat the guys who are chasing him. And on the downhill, when they can use each other, that's when they'll catch him back up, but not by much. So, you know, once again, threshold riding is just such a key to everything we do in triathlon and in cycling. And to dismiss it is just naive, I think.

And as you always say, it's never one thing. It's a great program, has threshold writing, but also has over under efforts, also has short, high intensity efforts, also has endurance writing. And that's probably the key, isn't it? People might try and skip one of those like threshold writing, but it's all key.

Yeah, well, it's, it's interesting you've raised that point. Ah, if I want to get better at my time trialing, I better just do threshold training. We don't advocate that. We advocate to have a balance and bring your threshold training along with all the other things like the endurance, like your speed, like your sprinting, like your bunch riding, bring them all together so that, you know, sure you work more on your weaknesses, but not at the expense of the things that you've got going well. So just to do a threshold based program, you know, if that's in an off season, that's fine. But you know, in the middle of a really good program, when you're working towards a race, you can't just do threshold writing. You know, I'm advocating to do it, but that's not every session, you know, you've got to have other sessions in your program to make you a balanced rider.

Yeah, no, that's great. What a TT it was. I can't believe it came down to that tt. I actually couldn't, like I said, I stayed up to watch it and I couldn't go back to sleep after it. I was so wide awake, I was so amped up, I couldn't believe the performance. I just watched and really it was just such a great tour around. And that's why we've done three weeks of podcasts in a row on the Tour de France, because it's been so exciting. And it's not just the race itself, it's the fact that we can learn so much. So let's go through our highlights of the Tour. Take me through. I think you create a list of your six best highlights of the Tour and the best things we can learn. Take me through your top of the list.

Yeah, well, it was so easy. I picked up the pen, had the paper and I just went bang, bang, bang, bang. I didn't think about it. It was. I could have gone for more to a highlights, but I think we ended.

Up with similar lists. But even go backwards, even start with your sixth best and go to the number one.

Okay, this is a bit, this is a bit left of field. I. My sixth, my most important. I'm gonna start from six. The least. The least Tour highlight. How can it be the least? Anyway, I think changing of the guard. I really believe that this is the Tour where we just see the emergence of a new crop of riders and the longevity of the Sagans, the Valverde's, the guys who've been such legends and given us such joy for a decade, their household names. And now we've got a new crop and I started writing them down. I've got Pagaccia, Van Aert, Hershey, Van der Poel, Roglich, Mass Grand, Martin Kuss. There's just so many. And then you think about Bernal.

He's forgotten, but he's only 23 off of 24.

Ala. Philippe's just reasonably new, he hasn't been around a lot. Caleb Ewan, you know, it's exciting. We've got this, we've got 10 or 15 guys who could win any Spring classic, any Tour, any race in the world now. And you know, I look at Van Aert and I think, is this guy one of the greatest all round riders in history? Because is there anything he can't do? I mean he's won sprint stages, he came fourth in a time trial and he's been on, on the front, riding up mountains, dropping Yates and who are pure climbers.

There is, yeah, there's talk of him becoming a GC in a few years, which is interesting.

I can't wait for the world titles in a week's time and I love to see Van Aert win that event, but that's another topic. But that's a changing regard. Caleb Ewan My fifth, two stage wins. Really disappointing this morning for him, but that's position. Position. Position. Position is key. But, you know, two years in the Tour de France, five stage wins, and to think that he wasn't selected three years ago when he should have been, that was a mistake, not selecting him, and he's proven them wrong. And, you know, he's on his way to a massive career, and he's such a likable person, and he ground his way around those hills and never gave up with his one thought of, I'm gonna win on the Champs Elysees, and unfortunately, didn't work out, but he suffered. He suffered badly, you know, but he had a great Tour.

Yeah, definitely.

So, Richie Port. I know it's not my number one highlight, but, you know, his journey was. Was. Was incredible. The crosswind day, he loses a minute 30. Then he has a double puncture going into Lyon and changes the bike like flash and doesn't lose any time. Then on the gravel, he gets a front puncture and the GC riders all attack him. You know, really questionable tactics, and he rides his way back on. Just fantastic. Never say die. I'm here for one reason. I've just had a baby. I've sacrificed so much. I'm not going to let a puncture destroy my race. And then he finishes it off with the time trial, and he ends up on the podium on the Champs Elysees, which is going to be the highlight of his career. And I think that to finish in the top 10 is a real fantastic achievement. But people always remember that you're on the podium, you know, first is the ultimate. But to be on the podium as a GC rider is, you know, something you'd really hang your hat on. And I think you should be proud of what he's done. And as much as I'm critical of his tactics, a lot of the time, he would probably be a better bike rider if he had better tactics some of the time, because his ability is unquestionable and he just had such bad luck. But, you know, as we say about luck, the better you are, the lucky you are. So, you know, I just. Sometimes I think he just needs to think things through a little bit more clearer. But, yeah, so that's. That's my fourth. This is just a general statement, and you said it before, it just highlights. It's never over until it's over. And never give up. You know, you should go down with the boat sinking, you know, still thinking you can save it. And that's the attitude that you need to have and Pogati just proved that. Richie Port just proved that. There's just so many examples of guys who just kept persisting. Consistency will get you your reward at the end of the day. So just never give up the importance of time trialing. I think we've banged on about that enough. And my tour highlight was Sunweb's tactics. That was my tour highlight. Yeah. And look, I can rattle off Hershey. I just think he is the next superstar GC rider. If you can just improve his time trialling a bit more, he certainly, he could win some one day classics. He's just got the will to win and unfortunately he had that horrific crash when he was in the break with the Sunweb with the INEOS guys. I would have loved to have seen that finish with those three guys fighting it out. But his performance winning those two stages after he came third to Elaphilippe and second all the way around.

But yeah, second Alaphilippe and third in that bunch sprint with Pogucharan.

Roy Witcher in the bunch sprint. Yeah. And then to come out a third time and actually win solo, that was just persistence, persistence, persistence. And you know the 1, 2, 3 attack into Leon from the Sunweb boys to win that and then for Anderson to win his solo. How many stages did somewhere ended up winning? Did they. That was three. I can remember it was four.

I think it was four, but I can't remember the fourth.

But they kept putting themselves into position and look, I was critical at the start and I didn't pick Michael Matthews. But they've proved that they, you know, they did well without him and I wonder whether they would have maybe got another stage or here or there with the sprints with Matthews in there. So maybe he wasn't a good fit. But. Yeah, but I just, I reckon Sunweb were the team that didn't have the stars but got incredible results out of this tour.

Yeah. So, yeah, they were fun to watch. And I mean I was going to touch on what you said before about Anderson's time troll to the win. I loved that moment because. Because with a K and a half to go, he turned to the cameraman and screamed time. Time. Because he didn't know how far the radio mustn't have been working or something. He didn't know how far back they were. So he was riding the last 8k head down, just going. I just thought that was unbelievable that he was. He had the wind signed up with 2k to go. He was Putting his head down and it was so good to watch. And with 400 to go, he was turning around thinking, have I still got this? And he just, it was just so. I loved it. That was one of my favorite moments of the Tour as well.

It's actually the interview afterwards. And I really, as a coaching point, this is something that I really wanted get across. When he, when Trenton attacked and Anderson said in the interview, you know, because they had the 10 best riders in the world in that breakaway and that was one of the few times in the whole Tour where the quality in the breakaway was unrivaled and Trenton's attacked and the whole bunch were on their limit. And Anderson said, my goodness, we were all on a limit. And I thought it's now or never. So I, I just go off the front and take a risk. And it might work, but it might not work. And it was only the second counter attack was that, you know, Trenton attacked and that was the counter attack. And normally you need to do 3, 4, 5 of those before something happens. The peloton made a huge mistake. The breakaway. And because CCC had two riders, Trenton had just done his attack. What should CCC's teammate do? And who is it? Greg van Avermaet doesn't counter. I'm stunned at the tactic. And Anderson said the reason why, because they were on the limit. And the person who bluffs the most, which was Anderson, got the victory. He was on his limit. He could hardly breathe. He said, but I've got to go now. And it was, he said it was a weak attack, but I'm sure the whole bunch, the breakaway were going. One rider, no chance, we'll gobble him up. But give, give a person a break and they'll take it the whole way to the finish. And you know, there were two things happening in that breakaway bunch. There was the sprinters trying, you know, trying to win the stage for points and the, and the one day guys trying to just win a stage from the Tour de France. So, so there are two different scenarios. And that played into Anderson's hands because they, they were all hesitating and every time they hesitate, he was getting five more seconds.

Exactly.

And you know, a couple of one off attacks, then they'd all look at each other. How come one person beat 10 people over 15k? That's how it happens.

For me, that was a bit of a theme of the Tour. I was watching it, it was my partner's probably first time watching the Tour in depth because I was watching some. So much of it she was forced to really try and understand what was going on, which I think is a common thing that happens among people who watch for the first time, they go, they start asking all these questions. And so often I would be explaining what the. What the people behind were doing when someone was off the front because they were all looking at each other. And I was left frustrated. So many times in so many stages when guys would look at each other, guys would miss turns, guys would just sit up and pull off and they'd look at Alaphilippe or Sagan and go, you do it. And then they end up all sprinting for second place. And I know you hate sprinting for second place. You go, what's the purpose, dicks? Like, you're supposed to win. And for me, I just. I was left so frustrated so many times when it was awesome to see Anderson do that solo break, but at that stage, there was 10 of them. There's no way they should let one get off yet. They all play this stupid game of let's look at each other. I'm going to risk not getting to sprint for first and save energy here. What's the point of saving energy when you don't even get to sprint for first? I just. Yeah, I don't like that.

And look, then they're not. Their thinking is that it'll come back together. That's what they're thinking is so. And that just plays into the hand of the person who's risking everything, which is Craig Anderson. And. And it can work one out of 10 times. Yeah, I could work one out of 100. And that was the day that it worked.

Yeah.

Against. You know, and we've watched Paris Roubaix, where the same things happened where one guy's attacked on some of the hardest sectors and stayed away and taken risks and ended up with a reward. So it can happen many times, but it's rare.

Yeah.

What about your.

My list was very similar to yours, maybe just a slightly different order. I'll probably summarize it by saying my Tour highlight was the fact that it was the best Tour I've ever seen, I've ever watched, probably apart from getting to see Cadell win. And that was more special for you because you were in France for that. I was watching it on tv, but that was a pretty special Tour. But in terms of excitement, I think this was one of the best run tours. I think the stage selection was almost perfect. You know, they mix and match the stage selection each year to try and manipulate the race, which I think is Fine. They're trying to make it more exciting and I really think they got it right this year. The mountain stages weren't so hard that the riders were stuffed and couldn't attack. They weren't so easy that it could just be one team tempoing on the front. Although Jumbo Visma did a lot of that. But that Queen stage was absolutely incredible. Jumbo Visma couldn't do their normal thing on the. Once it got to 18, 24% and it was just rider for rider and that was one of the best stages ever seen because it was just back and forth. Guys would get 50 meters up but then get caught. And it wasn't ridiculous attacks like you used to see with Armstrong and Ulrich, where obviously they were doping. So it was a bit extreme. It was more. They were on their limit and guys were dropping and then clawing their way back. And I actually found that more exciting than seeing superhuman efforts that you kind of go, oh, that's clearly not right. So for me, that was the biggest highlight, was probably one of the best tours I've seen. But my sixth one was actually. I loved seeing a lot of the winning moments. I thought a lot of the stage wins were really special and obviously to each rider that wins a stage, it's so special to them. Poguchi winning his first one, he was so emotional. Sam Bennett winning his first Tour stage win, he was crying. That's how emotional it made him. Caleb Ewan is just over the moon. So passionate. The Sunweb guys were just so excited every stage. When Carapazz and Kuriatkowski hugging each other, I got goosebumps watching a lot of these riders win. It's wins that they'll remember for their whole career. I really enjoyed just those winning moments. Number five was. Yeah, number five was the sunweb tactics, like you said. Anderson's double win, I absolutely loved that. And I loved that they were really riding as a team, you know, it wasn't just riding one rider trying to win a stage. You often see that with teams. I don't know, maybe an example is Co Fetus where one rider goes in the break each day or something. And they're just trying to have a crack with one rider each time. And it almost just seems futile where the rest of them stay in the bunch and one goes. Whereas sunwed would have 2 in the break almost every time. And they were so calculated with their moves. They had those counters going. When Anderson went off and won that second one, you know, there was two somewhere riders in that breakaway again. So they were in a great position again. I just thought they made the race so exciting with their tactics.

It's interesting, Jordan, you mentioned Kofus, their tactics. I haven't won a stage for 12 years.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly right. Stage number four was the stage selections. I mentioned that with this best tour I've seen, I think. Yeah, they just really nailed. Nailed that part. And having one time trial at the end, the way it was with that uphill, just. They must have hoped that it would be really close finish. And it was. Number three was seeing Caleb get another two wins left a little bit disappointed. After Champs Elysees especially, his whole goal was to get through the mountains and he absolutely suffered. And he made the time check by four minutes on one stage. And his lotto teammates, his poor lotto teammates carried him through the hills to get him to the Champs Elysees. I feel really bad for them, but that doesn't take away from the fact that two stage wins is incredible and five in two years, like you said, is a massive Aussie highlight. And the SBS commentators spoke about the fact that, you know, two Aussies in the tour and two Aussies had very successful tours. Two out of two. So.

Yeah.

And also, like you said before, with the changing of the guard, you know, Caleb versus Bennett is going to be pretty good race over the next few years in terms of the sprint competition. I think that's going to be really good to watch. My number two was the GC battle. I thought the battle over the whole three weeks was really exciting. Wide range of riders, even seeing Lopez win that Queen stage, come third. But then he still suffered the tt. It was just. There was just so much going on. It wasn't just Froome versus someone and then Froome beats them by two or three minutes. And the number one moment for me was actually Richie Port. And I guess we spoke about this last week, but I want to make an official formal apology to Richie. We've hung a bit of shit on him sometimes on this podcast, all in good nature.

We were roaring for Richie.

We were absolutely roaring for him. And like I said, I woke up at 1am to watch him because I really wanted to see him get on the podium. I just think that is an incredible effort. The second Australian to ever do it. It's so exciting. It's the best. It's the best thing as a supporter to get to watch an Australian do so well. We do it all the time in the Olympics or when the Australian soccer teams play or something in the World cup. We get Right behind them. And it's so fun to be able to be patriotic and watch an Aussie do so well. So I was so excited for him to get third. Thoroughly deserved after all these years of efforts. And, yeah, you can forget about the years of bad luck he's had. That really caps off his Tour de France riding. It'll be interesting to see what he does from here, because he's going back to ineos, I think, to be a domestique. But he shows how strong. How strong he is. And again, if you take away that time gap that he had with the wind, you know, he was. He was right up there with Roglic and Poguchar the entire way through the mountains. He lost a little bit of time, so really incredible performance. And, yeah, if I ever spoke to Richie, I would say sorry for hanging shit on you about your bad luck. And that was unbelievable to watch.

But I think you've got really good summary there. And look, it shows how much it means to the riders, especially, you know, each rider who wins a stage of the Tour de France, it's something they'll have for the rest of their lives. And, you know, for our everyday cyclists and triathletes that we coach, you know, there's special moments that you'll remember, too, and the suffering and pain that Richie's had over five years or six years, how much sweeter is it for him? You know, if everything came easy, everybody would do it, but he's had to fight and scrap and have so many moments where it seems like the world's against him, but he's got a really good, even temperament and doesn't seem to get phased by a lot of things. And that frustrates me about him a bit, too. But, you know, at the end of the day, he has now made it to the podium, which no one can ever take away from him. Sure, he hasn't won the Tour de France, and he possibly should have already won the Tour de France. He's had that much bad luck when he was in such great form. And it was the year Froome won. I reckon Richie was one of the years Froome won. I reckon Richie was in better form, but he had to ride for him. So, you know, but to eventually get that, it does mean a lot to them. And especially a year like this, I think it means more to people now because, you know, we take for granted the life we used to have and. And I'm amazed that the Tour actually got to the finish in the first place. And I think that's what I think the emotion of the riders this year was. They're just grateful that they've been given an opportunity to resume their careers when, you know, the world's in, you know, a really different position than it's ever been in before. So I think there's a lot to take out of this Tour. And, you know, I'm so excited. The world titles and then the Giro, it's, you know, and then, guess what, I was just thinking about it today. The Spring Classics are being held in autumn, but it's our spring. Yeah, that's interesting. So we get to watch the Autumn Classics in our spring.

Yeah.

So I'm pretty excited about it, considering we've been there for five spring European Spring Classics five years in a row. Now we actually get to experience it in our spring.

So, yeah, it's going to be an unreal next two months of racing, like you said, the World Champs, the Giro, the Vuelta, and then all the Spring Classics are filtered through that. And the fact that the best riders have to kind of split up because if you're doing. I think it's. If you're doing the Giro, you can't actually do Paris Roubaix.

So, yeah, you have to. You have to. This is a year where many more riders will win events because it's spread. It's so tightly packed. You know, normally the year's spread out and people can, can pick and choose their races, but now you've only got one or two opportunities, and if you don't take them, you've missed the boat. So it's actually exciting to think what's going to happen next. And don't underestimate what the planning, like we said about, you know, ineos, you know, they've got. I'm sure they've got things up their sleeve that, you know, they could end up by November having won, you know, Giro, the welter and five stages of the Spring Classics, you know, so just because it had one bad result, it's exactly what we talked about in week one of the of the Tour. Just because Caleb didn't win the yellow jersey, don't drop your bundle, you know, Never give up. This is the message. So I'm interested to see how ineos respond in the next coming weeks. That would be my prediction for what's going to happen next.

Definitely. Well, that's a great way to finish. It's been an epic three weeks. We've certainly enjoyed talking about it on the podcast. Please let us know if you enjoy us talking about the pro racing, we can talk about it more. I'm sure we'll be talking about the World Champs and the Spring Classics and the other Grand Tours because we love it so much and there is so much to learn and there's been a massive list of lessons that we've learned so far this tour. We'll probably keep speaking about the lessons over the next few weeks because there's more to come. We couldn't cover it in every single podcast that we've done each week, but yeah, it's been a great, great three weeks. We're happy to wrap it up there. And that's enough for this episode. Just a reminder, if you want to get our best tips and secrets to train smarter and race faster, you can go to get getfastpodcast.com that's getfastpodcast.com you can subscribe to our weekly email list and that's the best way to get onto our programs to help you get these coaching tips to train smarter and race faster. That's it for this episode. We'll see you next time.