The Stars
For some riders, including Robbie McEwen, Thor Hushovd, Michael Boogerd, Cadel Evans, and even Floyd Landis, Oscar Pereiro and Andreas Kloden, there are lucrative post-Tour criteriums that pay a lot of money just to have Tour de France stars toe the start line. These events are not very long and are sometimes more of exhibition events, with the Tour star “heavily favored” to win. And if McEwen, Damiano Cunego, or Mickael Rasmussen, participate in any of these criteriums, they’ll most likely be wearing the green, white, or polka dot jersey they wore on the Champs Elysees today. Landis is unlikely to do any of the criteriums because of his impending hip surgery.

The Supporters
The Tour de France can have interesting effects on different riders within teams. For stronger and more experienced riders, men like Axel Merckx (Phonak) and Jens Voigt (CSC), the Tour de France can actually act like a giant training block. There’s nothing that compares to the speed and power demands of the Tour de France, and if your body can adapt to that level of stress, the Tour can be your ticket to great late-season results. After just a little bit of rest, some riders will can carry the speed and power from the Tour into one-day events and short stage races in August and September and have tremendous success.

Not everyone successfully adapts to the stress of the Tour de France, and many of the riders who crossed the finish line today were utterly exhausted. Some will have the luxury of being allowed to take a few weeks off from racing, but many more will not. There’s a hierarchy within the sport of professional cycling, and athletes rarely have the final say as to where and when they race. The riders who win races are given more time between events and more flexibility with their schedules. The further down the ladder you are, the harder your life will be. You may have just finished the Tour de France, but if team management says you have to go to a three-day stage race next weekend, it’s your job to show up and race.

The Youngsters
Many Tour de France teams contain younger riders, like David Zabriskie (CSC), Marcus Fothen (Gerolsteiner), and Thomas Lövkvist (Francaise Des Jeux) who are there to support their team leaders and gain the experience and endurance that may make them team leaders and potential yellow jersey winners in the years to come. It’s unwise for coaches and team directors to push these riders into post-Tour races too quickly. They need more recovery time to recuperate from the immense stress the race placed on their body.

Many of the younger riders will take several weeks away from competition or enter races that are not very difficult just to keep their legs turning over. Some will then start training again in September and quickly bring their fitness back up in time to compete in the World Championships in October. Others will do some minor late-season races and start the process of building on their fitness gains from this year in order to ride even better next season.

Everyone Else
Team directors, soigneurs, mechanics, bus drivers, and journalists don’t get much of a break at all. In fact, I’ll guarantee you that right now, not eight hours after the Tour de France ended, there are team vehicles carrying exhausted mechanics and soigneurs directly from the Tour de France to their next race. The same is true for television commentators, photographers, and reporters.

For coaches and team directors, the process of preparing athletes and teams for competition never ends. When Lance Armstrong was racing, we started tweaking the long-range for the following year within weeks after the end of the Tour de France. Oscar Pereiro, Andreas Kloden, Carlos Sastre, Cadel Evans, and Denis Menchov will all begin the process of improving on their 2006 Tour de France finishes within weeks as well. As for Floyd Landis, everything depends on his hip surgery. I’m confident that if there’s a way for him to recover and return to the top of professional cycling, he and the team of doctors, physical therapists, coaches, friends, and family around him will find it.

And so, another Tour de France enters the history books, and for the 11th time in 20 years, the Star Spangled Banner was played on the Champs Elysees as an American rider stood on top of the podium in yellow. Floyd Landis won an exciting and hard-fought race, and his extraordinary 81-mile (130-kilometer) breakaway on Stage 17 is a day we’ll be talking about for years to come.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Online for their excellent coverage of the 2006 Tour de France. I’ve enjoyed writing updates and sharing them with all of you and I’ve appreciated your feedback. I hope you enjoyed the Tour de France this year and will follow the race again in 2007 and beyond.

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It was clear today that the Floyd Landis and the team of support staff around him were fully in sync. In the morning he rode the time trial course, and I’ve been told that his team director drove the course twice. From the team car behind his rider, John Lelange was able to do a lot more than simply provide encouragement. Like the navigator in a rally car, he was able to tell Landis about the upcoming turns and hills before he reached them. This information can be invaluable to a rider because it lets him know if he can stay in his aerodynamic tuck or if he has to come up to reach for the brakes. Knowing what road conditions were waiting for him just out of sight also helps a rider gauge his effort.

The big risk in today’s (35.4 mile) (57-kilometer) time trial was that a hard and fast start could result in a big slowdown in the last 9.3 miles (15 kilometers) of the stage. Landis did start fast, but his knowledge of the course and his own ability level enabled him to keep his speed high all the way to the finish line. You can always tell when a rider is struggling in the second half of a long time trial; his shoulders roll back and forth and he shifts around in the saddle frequently, looking for more power. Landis, on the other hand, was smooth and powerful throughout the stage, and was rewarded with the yellow jersey for his tremendous efforts.

One of the unfortunate aspects of sports coverage is our tendency to focus solely on the athlete who wins, because it means we sometimes miss incredible performances from others. Oscar Pereiro started today’s time trial in the yellow jersey but with only a 12-second lead over Carlos Sastre, and 30-second lead over Landis. Comparing the historical results over the course of these riders’ careers, it seemed likely that Pereiro was almost certain to lose the yellow jersey and likely to fall all the way to third place.

Riding in the yellow jersey has been known to either crush a rider or give him wings, and for the first half of today’s time trial, Oscar Pereiro was flying. At the first time check, the Spanish rider who has never been known as a strong rider against the clock was just ten seconds behind Landis and ahead of time trial specialists like Sebastian Lang and Time Trial World Champion Michael Rogers. At the second time check he was 57 seconds behind, then 1:30 behind at the 32-mile (51.5-kilometer) check and 1:29 behind at the finish. Obviously, it wasn’t a winning effort by Pereiro, but it was impressive nonetheless. Instead of continuing to lose more and more time as the miles ticked by, he stopped losing time to Landis somewhere in the final 4.3 miles (seven kilometers), the hardest part of a long time trial.

Besides Pereiro, Andreas Kloden had a great time trial and was able to capitalize on a bad performance by Carlos Sastre to ride himself across a seemingly insurmountable time gap and, if all goes as expected Sunday, claim third place overall in the 2006 Tour de France.

So, after three exciting and unpredictable weeks of racing, we finally have a pretty concrete idea of which three riders will stand on the podium in Paris. Along the way, each man had days where everything went their way and at least one day they’d rather forget. For Landis, his great day came on Stage 17, the day right after his worst. Pereiro lost time in the Pyrenees and rocketed back up the leader board on Stage 13 to Montelimar. And for Kloden, the great day came on L’Alpe d’Huez and he’d probably rather forget Stage 17 to Morzine. But now they’re all part of Tour de France history, and tomorrow will be a celebration of another year of incredible achievement in the world’s greatest cycling race.

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At the start of Stage 13, Pereiro was nearly 29 minutes behind Landis, who was wearing the yellow jersey after a fine performance in the Pyrenees. Conventional racing wisdom says that a man who loses more than 20 minutes in one mountain range is going to lose time again in the next mountain range. Had the Spaniard only lost ten minutes in the Pyrenees, he would have been identified as a greater threat for the overall classification and the Stage 13 breakaway would have been contained or completely chased down.

Consider what happened to Levi Leipheimer. He lost more than six minutes in the Stage 7 individual time trial, but remained closely marked by the other yellow jersey contenders in the mountains. He lost enough time to make it necessary to pull off a big breakaway to get back up the leader board, but not enough to be considered a non-threat by the other contenders.

So, as odd as it may sound, it may have been fortunate that Floyd Landis cracked 11 kilometers from the summit of La Toussuire yesterday, finished ten minutes behind stage winner Michael Rasmussen, and plummeted from the yellow jersey to 11th place overall, more than eight minutes behind Pereiro. If he had held on longer and cracked five kilometers from the finish, he probably would have started Stage 17 just four minutes behind the yellow jersey, right in the heart of the top ten in the overall standings.

Instead of a total implosion, a loss of just four minutes would have been seen as a minor failure and this morning Landis would have been considered a more serious threat to the race lead. Similarly, Landis probably wouldn’t have seen his situation as desperate, nor resorted to such an extreme effort if he’d only lost a few minutes. He probably would have waited until the later climbs to launch an attack, which may not have given him sufficient time to build big enough lead.

It’s important to understand that Landis was not given a free pass today; he earned every second he clawed back from the men in the top ten. Yet, the magnitude of the deficit he had to overcome affected his motivation, tactics, and determination. There was no reason to ride conservatively at all. It didn’t matter if he cracked again because there was nothing left to lose. That freed him to go for broke on the climbs, the descents, and everything in between. And whether or not the men chasing him underestimated his strength and resolve, there was nothing they could do to contain him.

On a mountain stage with five major climbs and almost no flat roads at all, there’s only so much teammates can do for you anyway. There’s not a lot of draft to be had when you’re climbing at eight to 12 miles per hour, and teammates can’t help you at all on the long and twisting descents. For much of today’s stage, the course leveled the playing field that Landis and all of his pursuers were playing on. If this had been a flat to rolling stage, the advantage would have gone to the peloton, but in the mountains, one determined and powerful rider can hold off everyone.

And as amusing as it is to think that losing massive amounts of time could be a good tactical move, I’m sure neither Landis nor Pereiro would recommend it and neither would I. Rather, the lesson to learn from these two riders is that regardless of the deficit you find yourself in, it’s imperative to go on the offensive and continue racing. The only man who truly loses is the man who completely gives up.

The last two times the Tour de France winner came from behind to seize the yellow jersey in the final time trial it was American Greg Lemond who wore it into Paris. In 1989, he erased a 50-second deficit in just 24 kilometers to win the Tour ahead of Laurent Fignon by eight seconds. The following year, Claudio Chiappucci gained a lot of time over the Tour contenders in a Stage 1 breakaway, and LeMond chipped away at his lead for the next three weeks. Coming into the final time trial with a very slim deficit to overcome Lemond finished more than two minutes faster than the Italian and won his third and final Tour de France.

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I was watching today’s stage with Lance Armstrong and several other people, and at one point during the race, Lance and I talked a bit about the difference between racing conservatively and aggressively.

During his reign as Tour de France champion, Lance was adamant about seizing every opportunity to gain time on his rivals. The idea was to build a cushion between Lance and his nearest competitors in case he ran into problems later on in the race. A one-minute lead can turn into a three-minute deficit in just a few kilometers, and Lance and Johan Bruyneel always said they’d rather defend a lead than fight to catch up.

If you’re in the lead, you have two options. You can follow other riders, and as long as you stay with them you don’t lose any of your lead. Your other choice is to attack and build an even bigger lead. If you get into a situation where you’re behind, there’s only one option. You have to attack and drop riders who somehow gained time on you already, and there’s never any guarantee you’ll be able to do that.

The one thing that’s certain about the Tour de France is that anything can happen, to anyone, at any time. Having the yellow jersey and several minutes of time in hand gives a rider a margin of safety; losing one minute of a six-minute lead isn’t a cause for major concern. Losing one minute of a one-and-a-half-minute lead puts the yellow jersey in a stressful position and lends encouragement to the challenger.

Floyd Landis reclaimed the yellow jersey with a solid performance on a hard stage in the Alps today, and though he surged a few times at the beginning of the final ascent up L’Alpe d’Huez, he chose to follow T-Mobile’s Andreas Kloden to the summit instead of attacking to build a bigger lead.

With yellow jersey contenders Cadel Evans and Denis Menchov already behind him and losing ground, Landis didn’t need to put forth a huge effort on l’Alp d’Huez. Kloden, on the other hand, had a lot to gain by keeping the pace as high as possible all the way to the finish. While the German would love to challenge Landis for the yellow jersey, there are other priorities that have to come first. He was left behind by Evans and Menchov on the climb to Pla-de-Beret in Stage 11 and needed to make up time on them in order to claim a podium position in Paris. Today’s efforts moved him ahead of Evans in the overall classification and brought him closer to Menchov as well. If he wants to challenge for the yellow jersey, he’ll have to direct his attacks at dropping Landis over the next two days, but for now his methodical approach to moving up the leader board is paying off.

Riding conservatively has served Landis well so far in this year’s Tour, but the Phonak leader may want to put in one big effort tomorrow afternoon, on the climb to La Toussuire. Summit finishes are the best places to attack and gain big chunks of time on rivals, because once you push a rider beyond his limit on a mountain climb, the effort forces him to slow down and the time gap opens very wide very quickly. And with no descent or flat roads to allow anyone to recover, the race is over before dropped riders can retake lost ground.

One of the points that Lance and I agreed on today was that it would be wise for Landis to build on his lead tomorrow instead of waiting to secure his first Tour de France victory in the final individual time trial on Saturday. Even though Landis is a very strong time trial rider, and arguably better than any of his yellow jersey rivals, anything could happen during the time trial or the stages on Thursday or Friday. Riding conservatively is a good strategy, but it’s better when you already have a lead that’s greater than four minutes. Riding aggressively on Wednesday to build a bigger time cushion reduces the risk that any potential problems later in the week could cost Landis the victory.

Looking for the ultimate Tour de France experience? Sign up for Chris Carmichael’s daily Tour de France Newsletter and audio workouts, presented by AMD. Download free audio workouts straight to your computer or iPod, then set up your stationary trainer and get a great Tour de France-focused workout while watching the race live on television.

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The rest days during the Tour de France are a chance for riders to gather their thoughts, replenish their energy, and look forward to the racing yet to come. For the most part, riders stick to routines they have developed over years of racing. There is a rhythm to stage racing, and it’s best not to disturb it.

Since the body is accustomed to hours in the saddle, the riders go on about a three-hour ride on the rest day. While the intensity is lower than racing, it is also not merely a recovery ride. The key to racing well the day after a Tour de France rest day is to keep the body going. Riders would gladly take a day of complete rest, but they would pay a hefty price for it during Tuesday’s grueling Stage 15. Too little activity on the rest day often leads to heavy and sluggish legs the following day, and that would be a recipe for disaster when the route to the finish includes the Col d’Izoard, the Col du Lautaret, and, of course, the 21 fabled switchbacks of L’Alpe d’Huez.

I’ve received a lot of questions regarding the riders’ diets during the Tour de France, so I thought I would spend the rest day talking about nutrition. The main dietary goals during the Tour are fueling and recovery, and a rider’s diet significantly impacts his performance.

strongThe Tour de France Diet
During the Tour de France, riders consume an average of 6,000 to 7,000 calories a day, more on particularly long or hard days. Some of these calories are eaten during sit-down meals: breakfast, a pre-race meal, and dinner. The rest are consumed on the bike during the stage or through snacking in between meals. No matter the time of day, it is rare to see a Tour de France rider without either food or drink in his hand.

Riders aim to get about 70 percent of their calories from carbohydrates (CHO), 15 percent from protein, and 15 percent from fat. While endurance athletes burn a mixture of all three macronutrients for energy while riding, CHO is primary fuel for aerobic performance. When a rider is well below his lactate threshold, the energy coming from CHO and fat is somewhat balanced, but as the intensity increases and his aerobic engine can’t supply energy fast enough to meet the rising demand, the anaerobic energy system kicks in to fill the gap. Since this energy system primarily burns carbohydrate, the percentage of total energy coming from CHO increases as well.

The body can store fat very well, and even extremely lean riders have plenty of fat to use for fuel. In contrast, there is a limit to the amount of CHO you can store in muscles and in the liver: about 1,600 to 1,800 calories. Since this is only enough fuel for a few hours of riding, it is essential that riders ingest CHO during and between stages.

The importance of carbohydrate cannot be overstated. Not only is it the primary fuel source for endurance performance, it is the only fuel the brain and central nervous system can use. The brain cannot produce energy from fat or protein on its own, it can only take glucose (sugar) from the blood. This is part of the reason bonking (running low on blood sugar) is so detrimental to performance. The confusion, nausea, and disorientation that go along with bonking are more due to the brain running low on glucose than a problem with energy-starved muscles. When push comes to shove, the brain acts defensively to make sure it gets enough fuel. It forces you to slow down or stop exercising so it can use what sugar you have left to maintain your basic bodily functions.

Protein is also an important nutrient for endurance athletes. Riders derive 10-15 percent of their energy from protein, and it is also essential for tissue repair and immune system health. Since tissues are the main storage form of protein, riders have to make sure they ingest enough to prevent the body from breaking down muscle or connective tissue for energy, cellular repair, or the immune system.

What Riders Eat
It is hard work consuming upwards of 6,000 calories a day, so cyclists try to eat foods that are rich in calories and nutrients. During breakfast and dinner, they get their carbohydrates from potatoes, rice, pasta, cereal, whole grain breads, and fruits and vegetables. Protein sources include eggs, meat, chicken, and yogurt. Their fat intake is usually the result of the way their meals are prepared. Willy, the Discovery Channel team’s chef, uses monounsaturated oils when he cooks, such as olive oil, and the team consumes some butter and cheese with meals as well.

On the bike, riders eat a mixture of energy bars, gels, pastries, sandwiches, fruit, and other foods. The soigneurs prepare musette bags with small sandwiches, often ham or turkey and cheese with butter on a roll, and some directors like to save the sweeter pastries until later in races. As strange as it sounds, a sweet treat still lifts people’s spirits, even tough guys in the Tour de France.

Riders aim to ingest 250 to 350-plus calories per hour while racing. While some of this comes from the aforementioned foods, the rest comes from sports drinks. With the extremely hot weather in the Tour this year, riders are drinking between two to three bottles per hour on the bike, and it is important for about half of that fluid to be sports drink. Not only do sports drinks provide CHO, they are also an important source of electrolytes.

The central nervous system (CNS) controls every nerve impulse in the body, and needs sodium, potassium, and calcium to conduct electrical signals that contract muscles and run all bodily functions. You lose a lot of electrolytes through sweat, as evidenced by the white crusty residue on riders’ jerseys and helmet straps. (A mildly disgusting way to prove this to yourself is to lick your helmet strap. What you taste is almost entirely salt.) To prevent muscle cramps and more severe CNS consequences from losing too many electrolytes, riders try to make sure at least one of every three bottles they drink contains sports drink.

PowerBar recognized that endurance athletes need more sodium and reformulated their Endurance energy drink and PowerBar Gels to include more sodium per serving. At the same time, they also changed the mixture of sugars in these products to a 2:1 ratio of maltodextrin (glucose) and fructose. New research has shown that this mixture increases the amount of carbohydrate an athlete can take in and use, from one gram per minute to 1.3 to1.4 grams per minute. At four calories per gram, over the course of an hour this means a rider in the Tour can benefit from 312 to 336 calories of carbohydrate energy instead of only 240.

When Riders Eat
When a rider eats also influences performance. When they wake up, they have effectively undergone an eight- to ten-hour fast, so breakfast is an important start to the day. Since Tour de France stages typically begin in the late morning or early afternoon, the riders also eat a pre-race meal about three hours before the start. This meal is almost entirely carbohydrate. In between the pre-race meal and the start, riders continue grazing on bars and fruit and they are almost never without a water bottle. Riders continue eating as soon as the stage begins and take small bits of food every 10 to 15 minutes.

Immediately following the stage, riders are handed another musette bag containing more food and bottles. The big difference is that these post-stage bottles usually contain a recovery-oriented drink with a lot of carbohydrate and a little protein. The body is most efficient at replenishing CHO stores in the first 60 minutes after exercise, and a little bit of protein in the drink helps muscles absorb CHO from the bloodstream. The riders continue working on recovery in the team bus; the Discovery Channel bus, for instance, is equipped with blenders so they can make smoothies on the way back to the hotel.

A Tour Rider Travels On His Stomach
Poor nutrition or any sort of stomach problem causes serious problems for Tour de France competitors. The energy and hydration demands of the event are so huge that even a slight caloric or fluid deficit spells big trouble. Learning proper nutritional and recovery habits is part of the learning process riders go through on their way to becoming successful Tour de France riders. Younger and less experienced riders run into trouble because they get behind in their nutrition or hydration, and it is nearly impossible to catch back up. Like Napoleon said of great armies, the Tour de France marches on its stomach.

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