Tour de France Geek-Out: Some Time Trial Stats

Eye-catching stat from today’s time trial: Tony Martin, the Stage 20 winner in a time of 55:33, won on the same course June 8, Stage 3 of the Dauphine Libere, in 55:27. For the civilian cyclist and for anyone who looks at the Tour racers as I do and assumes that the race takes a brutal toll on bodies, endurance, and psyches, it’s sort of a starling statistic. The guy dominated then, and he dominated today at the tail end of a race in which he’s been driven very hard to help his team’s sprinter (HTC Highroad, Mark Cavendish) and has had to go over all the big mountains with the rest of the pack.

I figured there were more interesting comparisons to be made between the Dauphine and Tour performances. Here’s another: Cadel Evans, who rode a very strong second today in 55:40, finished seventh on June 8 in 56:47. So there’s a guy who’s been driving very hard for three weeks–has been on the spot to cover all his rivals’ mountain moves and with his team’s help (BMC) has reliably kept himself out of trouble near the front of the pack–who made a major improvement in his performance in the space of six weeks. Thomas Voeckler, fresh off several harrowing days defending his overall race lead, improved by almost a minute.

One question it raises–no, not about doping–is what are the factors besides fatigue that might explain such an improvement. I’m not taking that on right now. Instead, here’s a side-by-side comparison of some of the other Dauphine/Tour performances on the Grenoble course used in both races (I haven’t done them–yet–all because my painstaking one-at-a-time method takes a little too long; I’m about to break out a spreadsheet to do the whole list).

LATER: I did the list. A total of 77 racers rode in both the Dauphine and Tour time trials on the Grenoble course. Twenty-three recorded faster times (even if they had “slow” times on both occasions; for instance, Tyler Farrar finished his Tour stage 1 second faster than his Dauphine stage, but both times he was near the bottom of the standings) and 54 recorded slower times. The most interesting cases to me are those like Cadel Evans, who finished in the top ten the first time around and still recorded a marked improvement, and those like Geraint Thomas and Rigoberto Uran who had good or at least respectable Dauphine times who were nowhere near the top in the Tour. And of course, Tony Martin, who dominated both runs.

Racer Dauphine time Tour time Change
Juergen Roelandts 61:34 58:30 -3:04
Ivan Santaromita 63:44 61:19 -2:25
Ivan Basso 61:43 59:30 -2:23
Pierre Rolland 60:20 58:23 -1:57
Samuel Sanchez 58:54 57:10 -1:44
Carlos Barredo 60:12 58:31 -1:41
Haimar Zubeldia 61:21 59:43 -1:38
Samuel Dumoulin 64:09 62:52 -1:17
Jean-Christophe Peraud 58:20 57:06 -1:14
Cadel Evans 56:47 55:40 -1:07
Maarten Tjallingii 60:47 59:40 -1:07
Vincent Jerome 62:46 61:41 -1:05
Thomas Voeckler 58:45 57:47 -:58
Yannick Talarbardon 62:27 61:35 -:52
Jelle Vanendert 61:06 60:17 -:49
Manuel Quinziato 62:48 62:03 -:45
Grega Bole 62:26 61:44 -:42
Paolo Longo Borghini 62:29 62:18 -:11
Lieuwe Westra 58:28 58:12 -:16
Chris Sorenson 59:39 59:31 -:08
Christian Knees 59:59 59:56 -:03
Kristjan Koren 58:10 58:09 -:01
Tyler Farrar 63:18 63:17 -:01
Sandy Casar 58:31 58:36 +:05
Tony Martin 55:27 55:33 +:06
Michael Schär 60:42 60:49 +:07
Rein Taaramae 57:23 57:36 +:13
Julian Dean 62:40 62:55 +:15
Amael Moinard 62:07 62:23 +:16
Danny Pate 58:39 59:03 +:24
Mikhail Ignatyev 59:52 60:19 +:27
Sébastien Minard 60:31 60:59 +:28
Tomas Vaitkus 60:47 61:20 +:33
Adriano Malori 57:31 58:11 +:40
Vladimir Karpets 58:29 59:09 +:40
Markel Irizar 59:08 59:51 +:43
Fabrice Jeandesboz 61:09 61:54 +:45
Nicky Sorenson 58:37 59:24 +:47
Jerome Coppel 57:35 58:24 +:49
Jonathan Hivert 61:48 62:37 +:49
Jeremy Roy 58:05 58:56 +:51
Yury Trofimov 60:06 61:03 +:57
Arnold Jeannesson 59:16 60:15 +:59
Sébastien Hinault 61:00 62:01 +1:01
Rob Ruijgh 59:15 60:16 +1:01
Grischa Niermann 59:55 61:00 +1:05
Christophe Riblon 57:04 58:12 +1:08
Maxime Bouet 58:22 59:32 +1:10
Gorka Verdugo 58:35 59:46 +1:11
Juan Antonio Flecha 58:42 59:53 +1:11
Robert Gesink 58:16 59:34 +1:18
Xabier Zandio 59:06 60:27 +1:21
Simon Gerrans 60:06 61:36 +1:30
Edvald Boasson Hagen 56:10 57:43 +1:33
Steve Morabito 60:26 62:01 +1:35
Tristan Valentin 61:39 63:14 +1:35
Perrig Quemeneur 59:38 61:16 +1:38
Ramunas Navardauska 58:42 60:21 +1:39
Maciej Paterski 59:43 61:25 +1:42
Luis-Leon Sanchez 59:05 60:49 +1:44
Pablo Urtasun Perez 62:00 63:52 +1:52
Sergio Paulinho 59:12 61:15 +2:03
Edgar Silin 59:45 61:56 +2:11
Rémy Di Gregorio 59:20 61:40 +2:20
Andriy Grivko 59:58 62:24 +2:26
Rui Alberto Fario da Costa 57:27 60:02 +2:35
Imano Erviti 58:49 61:51 +3:02
Nicolas Roche 58:58 62:02 +3:04
Dmitriy Fofonov 60:51 64:19 +3:18
Andrey Amador 59:18 62:42 +3:24
David Moncoutie 58:29 61:58 +3:29
Joost Posthuma 58:36 62:09 +3:33
Geraint Thomas 57:03 60:48 +3:45
Maxim Iglinskiy 61:29 65:17 +3:52
Mickaël Buffaz 60:43 64:50 +4:07
Leonardo Duque 61:14 65:21 +4:07
Rigoberto Uran 58:08 62:24 +4:16
Biel Kadri 58:10 63:03 +4:53
Brian Vandborg 58:20 64:00 +5:40