Tour de France 2023 - Stage 11: Clermont-Ferrand - Moulins | 179.8 kilometres
On paper, stage 11 is a sprint stage. The topographical difficulties are manageable, the finale is flat. Until next Thursday, it is also the only opportunity for sprinters to make a positive impression. But anything is possible in the Tour de France. A well-manned breakaway group could also get through. The question is who will be more motivated.
The fastest stage so far was the eighth, with an average speed of 47.8 kilometres per hour. That's pretty damn fast. Can a group even survive when the whole peloton is chasing at hellish speed? If everyone is chasing, then no, the balance of power is clearly in favour of the peloton. Those who are well hidden here hardly feel any wind resistance and therefore save an enormous amount of energy and could take the lead at any time. But everyone never chases. Usually, two or three sprinter teams share the job, but they only send off two riders because they want to spare the sprint riders for the finale. Effectively, therefore, there are not many more riders chasing than there are at the front. So the main question is: who is more motivated and who has the better timing?
Tour de France 2023 - Stage 11: Which sprinters could win?
Which teams could be motivated to force a bunch sprint? Caleb Ewan, Dylan Groenewegen and Biniam Girmay have yet to win, so their teams are motivated accordingly. Fabio Jakobsen may have recovered from his injuries, so Soudal - Quick Step will be pulling for him. Wout van Aert is also desperate to win, but will Jumbo-Visma go all out on stage 11 of the 2023 Tour de France for a flat finale that doesn't suit van Aert? Alpecin-Deceuninck has green and wants to extend its lead, but also has three stage wins to its name. They will definitely not be the first to go. Mark Cavendish is out, weakening Astana. Mads Pedersen has won his stage - and a very flat finale doesn't suit him either.
We can see that the chances for a group are perhaps not that bad, because the motivation of the best sprinter teams is not that clear and the peloton is already tired towards the middle of the Tour. But this is a technical briefing. So let's move on to the technology. Readers of this newsletter already know the fastest bikes of the day by heart, because they are always the same.
Number of the day: one hundredth of a second
On the 11th stage of the Tour de France 2023, however, we expect a tuning trick: Jumbo-Visma will probably mount 1x12 gears again due to the profile, making Wout van Aert's Cervelo S5 potentially the fastest bike with a lead of one hundredth of a second in a 150-metre sprint. From the 202 watts that we determined in the wind tunnel, around three watts are reduced for the road bike without a front derailleur with a closed aero chainring. We have adjusted the value in the list below accordingly.
But the fastest bike is useless if the situation is different. Let's assume a scenario like the eighth stage develops and a group goes early, but is larger and better manned. What would the riders in the group have to do to keep the peloton at bay? And how quickly can the peloton catch up with the breakaway, how big must the time cushion be?
50 km/h is possible for breakaways, 60 km/h only for the peloton
With a good position and good equipment, a professional can ride at around 49 km/h with 380 watts - on the flat. This is roughly equivalent to the threshold power of a normal pro. In a breakaway group of four, a 50 km/h pace can easily be maintained for four hours, i.e. for around 200 kilometres, because 100-130 watts can be saved in the slipstream. For a while, breakaways can also increase the pace to around 52 km/h. Above that, it becomes difficult to keep it up for longer with a few riders because the air resistance is too strong.
The peloton, on the other hand, can ride at speeds of up to 60 km/h - all other things being equal, this requires 670 watts of pedalling power at the front. This is possible if the riders at the front rotate and are only in the wind for a relatively short time. This is particularly successful when many riders join in, i.e. towards the end of a stage when the battles for position begin. The speed difference between the breakaway riders and an unleashed peloton is then around 8 kilometres per hour. This means that the peloton can make up around one and a half minutes per 10 kilometres with maximum collective effort - if the breakaway riders put up maximum resistance.
The (almost) complete field at a glance (150 metre sprint)
*) The calculations are based on the bikes tested by TOUR in the laboratory and wind tunnel. The bikes at the Tour de France may differ in some details. Of course, we have not yet been able to analyse last-minute prototypes. Background to the simulation.
Our expert
Robert Kühnen studied mechanical engineering, writes about technical and training topics for TOUR and develops test methods. Robert has been refining the simulation calculations for years and they are also used by professional teams.
