Riding the Tour and Talking with Adam Hansen

Report from Elizabeth Hartman - TrainingPeaks correspondent at the Tour de France

This year, TrainingPeaks is lucky to have me, Elizabeth Hartman, as a correspondent on the front lines of the Tour. I am here riding the stages from Toulouse to the Alpe d'Huez, and I have met several of the pro riders along the way so far. To see an interview with Adam Hansen discussing the team's goals and the benefits of training with technology, please click here or watch the video below.

About halfway through the 2008 Tour de France, the race is still far from over: Cadel Evans holds the lead by a single second, while Ricardo Ricco's brief blaze of glory has sputtered out in the drug scandal that seems to surround cycling almost no matter how hard people try to keep the races clean. Cadel's team will have to work hard to control the peloton with him in the yellow jersey, which may be too much of an effort to make during the next few days of flat stages across Provence before the Tour enters the Alps. While team Silence Lotto works away at the front of the pack, team Columbia hopes to position themselves for a comeback, with Kim Kirchen, Mark Cavendish and George Hincapie leading the group and supported by riders like Adam Hansen and Marcus Burghardt.

To see Adam interviewing Mark Cavendish, the "fastest man in the world," please click here. I will continue to post more footage as the race continues, and you can also check out my personal blog on the trip so far.

One way to try and comprehend the sheer effort involved in riding the Tour de France as a professional is to compare the workout files from one of the pro riders (power files from Hansen, Hincapie and Burghardt with analysis can be viewed on TrainingPeaks) with a file from a recreational rider like me. To view the TrainingPeaks file of me riding up Tourmalet from Bagnerre de Bigorre, please click here, and please don't make too much fun of me for riding so slow. This is the climb that the pros rode up on their way to the mountain top finish at Hautacam on Bastille Day, when Kim Kirchen lost the yellow jersey to a super-human effort by Cadel Evans, who was injured from a crash the day before. See Adam Hansen's file for comparison at TrainingPeaks.com/tourdefrance2008/ (stage 10).

You can also watch me climbing up the Col d'Aspin (click to view the TrainingPeaks file viewer) on the 13th of July (see the the Google Earth view above). Click this link to view my entire ride with the descent when I may have gone slightly faster than I normally would have because it was quite cold and I was therefore motivated to get off the mountain and down to a cafe in the village on the other side. Again, you can compare (but don't laugh) my files to that of Adam Hansen (open stage 9 at TrainingPeaks.com/tourdefrance2008/) which, according to Hunter Allen's analysis was "Survival for Adam today. Nothing much besides that on the docket". Even then it was 6 hours in the saddle, nearly 350 TSS points and 5,800 kJ's.

The next few days should be relatively calm compared with the drama of the Pyrenees, as the Tour winds its way across the lavender fields and sunflower covered hills of Provence. Watch to see if Cadel decides to hold onto the yellow jersey or passes it along to for another team to carry before the final challenge of the Alps, with the stage on July 23rd, the Alpe d'Huez, representing the most difficult day.