myWindsock exists in a “post social media” world and the blogs are dying. In order to reach a wider audience, we are adapting and overcoming… into podcast form. The plan is to release one episode a week with (and without) guests on a range of topics, some related to myWindsock directly and others more broadly in cycling and endurance sports.
This podcast will be available on YouTube for the episodes we film, as well as clipped up on our Instagram and you’ll be able to listen on all major podcast platforms.
The episodes will vary in length but probably won’t be much longer than 60 minutes so will be great turbo fodder or something for you to listen to on the bus…
The first of two individual time trials in the 2024 Tour de France will occur on stage 7, spanning 25.3 km from Nuits-Saint-Georges to Gevrey-Chambertin. Nearly two-thirds of the route navigates forest roads before reaching the heart of the vineyards.
The contenders
This is the first of two individual time trials, and it’s the flattest, favouring pure time trial specialists. Expect to see these experts high up in the stage rankings. World champion Remco Evenepoel (Soudal–Quick-Step) has likely targeted this stage due to his time trial prowess. Currently sitting second in the General Classification (GC), Evenepoel aims to reduce the gap between him and the leader. His recent form suggests a strong performance on stage seven. We took a look at who might perform the best between Pogacar and Remco here.
Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), holds a 45-second advantage over the Belgian in the GC. Pogačar, a formidable time trialist, showcased his abilities during the Giro d’Italia in May, winning one time trial and placing second behind TT specialist Filippo Ganna.
Olympic time trial champion Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) also seeks to leverage his time trial skills to close the gap on Pogačar. However, he will need to demonstrate improved form compared to his earlier performances in the race.
Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) are also strong time trialists. Vingegaard excels in Grand Tours, while Ayuso has shown consistent time trial performance early in his career. Although neither is expected to win the stage, they should maintain their positions relative to the other contenders.
Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) is a strong contender for the stage victory despite his inconsistent form. He is aiming for stage wins throughout these three weeks and will seize any opportunity to do so. Another potential stage winner is Stefan Bissegger (EF Education-EasyPost), who finished second in the Swiss National Championships, an event of similar length.
The Swiss ITT national champion, Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ), will also be competing in this stage. Additionally, Bruno Armirail (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team), Søren Wærenskjold (Uno-X Mobility), and Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) are also in contention for a strong performance in the first individual time trial.
How fast will they ride?
Using some “good GC time trial” numbers, we can see the winning speed will be around 50kph – probably slightly above.
The TT is net tailwind, with the bulk of the climbing being done at “high pace” my prediction is Remco Evenepoel to take the victory today with a very slim margin over Pogacar.
The 111th edition of the Tour de France will kick off tomorrow on June the 29th, marking several historic firsts. For the first time, the race will start in Italy and visit the home city of Gino Bartali. Additionally, this opening stage will be the toughest in recent memory, featuring 3,600 meters of climbing.
Starting in Florence, the riders will head west towards the Adriatic Sea, tackling a series of hills in Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna that will serve as the first test for the overall contenders. The route includes the Col de Valico Tre Faggi, Côte des Forche, Côte de Carnaio, Côte de Barbotto, and Côte de San Leo. The most challenging segment will be the final climb into San Marino (7.1 km at 4.8%), located 26 kilometers before the finish line in Rimini.
The wind forecast for this stage is interesting with a lot of cross tailwind early on. It’s possible the mountains of San Marino will provide shelter but there may be splits on cross tail sections. The force breakdown parlours is roughly evenly split between gravity and air in providing the majority of the resistance. This is a stage suited to a breakaway but on day one of a grand tour, anything goes.
The wind will hit the riders from all directions with a cross tail majority. This will be a tough opening stage even without the elevation!
Rimini, located by the Adriatic Sea and serving as a gateway to the flat Po Valley, may lack the star power of the renowned Florentine cyclist Gino Bartali. Despite its sprint-friendly terrain, evidenced by Arnaud Démare’s Giro stage win there four years ago, it’s likely that a rider with a skill set more akin to Giro and Tour champion Bartali, rather than the French sprinter, will emerge victorious on Saturday afternoon. Might be a day for Fred Wright? We can only hope…
Enjoy your Track Pass ride on the historic, silky smooth, Oulton Park tarmac.
Then, the tension builds, for an “all out”, lung busting, Hot Lap competition.
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For competitive cyclists, every second counts. Achieving peak performance on race day involves more than just rigorous training and top-notch equipment; it also requires a keen understanding of environmental conditions. This is where MyWindsock comes into play. By providing detailed weather and environmental data, MyWindsock equips cyclists with the information needed to strategise effectively and gain a competitive edge. In this guide, we’ll explore how to leverage MyWindsock for optimal race day performance.
The first step is to load your route into a myWindsock forecast!
1. Pre-Race Planning: Analysing the Route
Begin your race day optimisation by thoroughly analysing the race route using MyWindsock. Input your route via Strava, RideWithGPS or just upload the GPX file straight into Windsock to get a comprehensive overview of the environmental factors that will impact your ride:
– Wind Direction and Speed: Identify sections of the route where you’ll face headwinds, tailwinds, or crosswinds. Tailwinds can help you conserve energy, while headwinds require more effort.
– Elevation Changes: Pay attention to where the climbs and descents are. Plan your energy expenditure accordingly, conserving energy for challenging climbs and capitalising on descents.
– Weather Conditions: Check the weather forecast for race day. Temperature, humidity, and potential precipitation can all affect your performance and equipment choices.
2. Strategising Your Effort
Once you have a clear understanding of the route and conditions, use this data to plan your effort:
– Pacing: Adjust your pacing strategy based on wind and elevation data. For instance, push harder during climbs but work out just how hard you can go without blowing up using W’ Balance.
The critical power model informs myWindsock’s W’ Balance feature.
– Drafting: In windy conditions, drafting behind other cyclists can significantly reduce your energy expenditure. Use MyWindsock’s wind data to identify the best times and places to draft as well as checking wind direction data for cross-tailwind sections where drafting can be hardest.
– Equipment Choices: Tailor your equipment to the conditions. For example, choose aerodynamic gear for windy days and tires with better grip if rain is expected.
3. Race Day Execution
On race day, keep MyWindsock’s insights in mind as you execute your plan:
– Stay Flexible: While having a plan is crucial, be prepared to adjust based on real-time conditions. If the wind changes direction or intensity, modify your strategy accordingly.
4. Post-Race Analysis
After the race, use MyWindsock to review your performance:
– Compare Data: Analyse how actual conditions compared to forecasts and how well you adhered to your planned strategy.
– Identify Improvements: Look for areas where you can improve. For example, did you lose time in headwind sections? Did you push too hard on climbs?
– Refine Future Strategies: Use insights from your post-race analysis to refine your strategies for future races. Continuous learning and adaptation are key to gaining a competitive edge.
By leveraging MyWindsock’s comprehensive weather and environmental data, you can optimise your race day strategy to enhance performance and gain a competitive edge. From pre-race planning and effort strategizing to real-time execution and post-race analysis, MyWindsock provides the tools needed to maximise your potential. Embrace the data, refine your strategies, and watch as your race day results improve. Happy racing!
Is it possible to save minutes just by pacing optimally? Without getting fitter or more aero? Let’s take a look…
Two laps of this Strava segment are in question today – the aim is to try and get two laps done in as close to 2 hours for 300W as possible with an 85kg rider who is moderately aero (with a cda of 0.24). Let’s see what we get when we plug the course into myWindsock.
We start out with a time of 2 hours and 10 minutes for a normalised power of 210W. Now we can take a look at the power-time relation for this run.
Here is our flat power curve, the spikes are just to get moving again on the steep gradients at the bottom of the descents. The climbs and descents are the main reason for pacing being so important with there being around 1000m of elevation in the whole TT. Let’s take a look at the breakdown of that elevation to come up with some pacing rules…
The majority of the climbing on this course is at less than 3 percent, the sort of climb you might go up in the big ring. At this point it’s important to remember to invest more energy into steeper sections where the rider will be moving slowest – the best plot to look at this is “Where Power Matters Most”.
The orange bars represent areas on the course where the return on investment of energy is greatest – you’ll notice that these are pretty much all on climbs where gravity is the main source of resistance vs air resistance. This is because speed increases more at lower speeds (so your speed might double for double the power, rather than increasing one or two percent if you double the power at high speed). Let’s take a look at the resistive force breakdown on this loop…
We want to invest “over” our average pace in 33.7 percent of the ride – when we are fighting gravity. As here, we get more return on energy investment.
The aim – get as close to 40kph as we can…
39.7kph was as good as I could get without getting more aerodynamic. I actually reduced aerodynamics allowing for sitting up on the ascents. This was a achieved with the following power profile…
For this, we set a hard cap on power at 350W, dropped it down to zero watts when descending and riding the flats at just under 300W. The result is a two minute time saving for an average power that’s 10W lower, aerodynamics being around one percent slower and for a normalised power that’s 3W lower. So, the result of pacing more effectively is a two minute saving at a lower power and being less aerodynamic.
Pacing your efforts is much easier with myWindsock. It’s the only place you can virtually test pacing strategies without having to ride them on the road. Pacing can make a bigger difference than anything, especially on rolling and sporting time trial or triathlon courses. It’s not just for solo efforts though, myWindsock can also help you spot the best place in a road race to attack! Sign up here.
In recent weeks we’ve seen two of the current crop of elite GC talent put on amazing time trials, Pogacar in the Giro and Remco in the Dauphine. The really interesting thing about this is that both riders beat “TT specialists” – Tarling was bettered by Remco Evenepoel while Ganna was beaten by Pogacar on stage 7 at the Giro. Both of these efforts were over rolling courses too and relatively long (more than half an hour) which gives us quite a rare opportunity to compare two relatively comparable time trials that took place in different countries.
What happened at the Giro – a reminder:
Tadej Pogačar of UAE Team Emirates stormed to an impressive victory on stage 7 of the Giro d’Italia back in May, dominating the 40.6km individual time trial from Foligno to Perugia. His stellar performance not only extended his lead in the maglia rosa but also brought him closer to clinching the overall victory.
Filippo Ganna from Ineos Grenadiers initially set the pace with the fastest times at both intermediate checkpoints, hinting at a potential victory for him. However, as Pogačar tackled the final climb towards the finish line, the suspense escalated as Ganna’s substantial lead began to dwindle. By the finish, Pogacar took the victory.
What happened at the Dauphine – another reminder:
On stage 4 of the Critérium du Dauphiné, the European time trial champion, Josh Tarling of Ineos Grenadiers, delivered a scorching performance but fell short of surpassing the unstoppable Remco Evenepoel from Soudal Quick-Step. Despite Tarling’s impressive run, Evenepoel, the reigning time trial world champion, seized the lead with a remarkable time of 41:49 over the 34.4km course, ending Tarling’s reign in the hot seat.
Tarling set the early benchmark, finishing just 17 seconds behind Evenepoel in second place, while Primož Roglič of Bora-Hansgrohe secured the third spot, trailing the winner by 39 seconds.
The competition remained tense through the first two time checks, with Evenepoel and Tarling neck and neck within a few seconds of each other. However, it was the Belgian rider who made a decisive push for victory in the final kilometres, securing his dominance on the stage.
Who was better?
On the fifth of July, the first of two Tour de France TTs will take place over a 25.3km course with 300m of elevation gain and the course will likely take the riders around 30 minutes – so relatively similar to the TTs we are comparing in terms of energy systems used by the athletes. The way we will decide whose TT was better is to back calculate the riders watts and cda based on their performances and what information is available and input these performances onto the course for the Tour de France stage 7 TT on July the 5th. On the surface, Remco Evenepoel’s TT looks streaks ahead of Pogacar’s – however, I have Pogacar’s performance as around 5% “better” in terms of power output for the estimated cda (however, all of these are estimated as neither rider publishes their power and, as a result of this, 5% is within the margin of error).
What will happen at the tour?
The TT suits both riders, it’s quite long and rolling. If we plug in our estimates from the TTs that we’ve seen from both riders so far this year, we get 29:25 for Remco Evenepoel and 29:26 for Pogacar with a margin of error of roughly ±30s for each rider (under predicted conditions) though we will revisit these predictions with a more accurate weather forecast in the days before the TT.
During the grand tours, myWindsock is the place to be for TT predictions. We will provide predictions for the entire race and specifically, the two TTs for the GC top 10 as well as TT favourites.
We often neglect to highlight our own features here at myWindsock and one thing that we don’t talk about enough is our trends dashboard, what these charts mean and how to use it.
Temperature over time
This plot shows you how the average temperature of your weekly riding changes over time, as well as the range of temperatures that you’re riding in. You can spot that, for me, April and May were months where it was tricky to get my layers right!
Head wind vs Tail wind
Some weeks just feel like you’re riding against the wind all the time but, according to this graph, it’s only half the time… Reassuring to know I don’t have constant headwinds though.
The average wind speed plot
Interestingly, you’ll notice as the temperature began to swing more wildly for me in April and May, the wind died down a little. My average wind peaked in December (I was in Belgium for most of December, so that doesn’t come as too much of a surprise for me).
Cumulative “Feels Like” Elevation
This plot shows how my feels like elevation has been increasing since I started back training again. It basically just adds each week onto the last and you can see the culmination of the work that you’ve done against the wind and gravity.
Can you spot when I went to altitude?
As you go up, air pressure and density both drop. This change is pretty marked. In early April I went to Andorra and have been staying up at 2100m above sea level. You can see the impact this had on air pressure, density and the range of temperatures that I faced!
For insights like these into the weather you train in, or to get ready for your next race, sign up to myWindsock here.
Taylor Knibb is a professional cyclist and triathlete from America. She has recently qualified for the Olympics for triathlon, which most people expected, but then won the USA national TT championships to punch her ticket to Paris for the TT as well – which less people expected, including Knibb herself who said, “I’m in shock and so is my whole team. We just wanted to go out, give a good effort, and see — hopefully improving on last year. But it just all came together.” She beat a double world TT champion in order to win, so she wasn’t racing any Mickey Mouse field. This isn’t the first time a triathlete has dabbled in time trialing in recent years, with Canadian Paula Findlay racing in Stirling at the UCI World Championships in 2023.
The nice thing about the USA National TT championships is all the riders take on the same course which means we have a larger pool of riders to pick from when calculating power numbers to figure out if Knibb can win in Paris. She also managed to top 20 the men’s race, which in a country as big as the USA, is quite impressive.
The course suited Knibb, a rider not known for her technical prowess, out and back along the river that runs through Charleston. The Paris Olympic TT is the polar opposite of this with many turns on a course that will be hard to recon (as Paris is a rather busy city). The technical aspects of the Paris time trial course will favor more skilled riders. However, a notable feature is the long, straight 5km stretch at the end, which will allow Knibb to make up any time lost in the corners. In this section, raw power and aerodynamics (watts/cda) will be crucial.
Can Taylor Knibb actually win in Paris? Three Olympic time trial gold medals have been won by American women in the past – all of which were Kirsten Armstrong, and there’s been a few others winning silver and bronze along the way. There’s most definitely pedigree and it should tell us that USAC aren’t sending her as a publicity stunt.
Figuring out whether Knibb can win in Paris is a question of working out how fast she could ride the course based on what she did at the USAC national championships then working out how fast the women’s winner of the Paris TT might go – a slightly more difficult task.
Estimating Knibb’s numbers
Triathlete Taylor Knibb (Boulder, Colo.; Trek Factory Racing) secured the National Title in her second-ever Time Trial National Championship, finishing with a time of 41:54.69. Fixing this time, we’ve had a look at the various different combinations of power and cda required to achieve this time.
It’s likely that Taylor Knibb’s performance lies somewhere along (or close to) this orange line – exactly where is hard to say without access to her power meter but either way, her performance was very impressive.
Is it enough to win in Paris?
There’s likely gains to be found in Knibb’s set up when it comes to aerodynamics. Purely because she has not been time trialing long – she has great sponsors and a manager who understands what it takes to win an Olympic gold medal (her manager’s wife is Gwen Jorgenson, winner of the triathlon in Rio). The woman’s TT is likely to be around a 40 minute effort in Paris – not dissimilar from the USA national championships. There are around 15 corners in the TT route in Paris and Knibb will have to improve technically between now and then to be in with a chance of winning.
Stage 14 is a flat TT this time round – no hill for Pogacar to ruin Ganna’s day!
The second individual time trial culminates against the stunning backdrop of the southern tip of Lago di Garda. Spanning 31.2 kilometres, the trial kicks off in Castiglione delle Stiviere, renowned as the birthplace of the International Red Cross. Following this challenging stage, the contenders vying for the top spots will likely require some TLC for their weary legs, making this segment pivotal in determining the overall classification.
The first TT featured a category 4 climb at the end, which you can read about here. In the first individual time trial of the 2024 Giro d’Italia, Tadej Pogačar from UAE Team Emirates delivered an impressive performance. He surged up the category 4 climb at the conclusion of the 40.6km route from Foligno to Perugia, seizing the stage victory.
Filippo Ganna of Ineos Grenadiers, who had held the lead for much of the day, expressed disbelief as Pogačar turned a 44-second gap at the foot of the climb into a 17-second triumph. Adding to Ineos’ success, Magnus Sheffield secured third place on the stage, finishing 49 seconds behind the leader.
How important is pacing?
By taking a look at the “Where Power Matters Most” graph we can see that, although the profile is fairly simple, we have a lot of those orange bars and you’ll notice some are quite dark. This means that the effort for this TT will be relatively stochastic and that pacing is important. Smooth pacing vs riding the hills in a punchy fashion, with all other things equal, is about 40s slower so teams will have a pacing strategy.
The flip side of this is the physiological penalty for riding the small climb from kilometre three to kilometre six too hard and losing time in the second half of the race. It’s likely we will see a number of impressive time splits at check one, which sits 7.8km into the course. The second split is 23.2km in – is likely to be relatively final.
How much do conditions change during the day?
We’ve seen, over the last few years, conditions in Giro TTs change quite a bit over the course of the day.
The course profile suits some Ganna flavoured redemption but with his ramp time being 14:35 and the GC guys heading off later – if it’s close then Pogacar could be in with a shout with a slight assistance from the weather. That said, there’s not a huge deal of difference between the fastest and slowest point of the day.
If you want to check out the TT loop for the Giro TT – have a look here.
UK Time Trial Events
