August 3, 2025 • 40 mins
Welcome to the Tour de France Femmes Podcast, from the producers of "The Time-Crunched Cyclist Podcast"
CTS publishes daily Tour de France Femmes podcasts with Coaches Adam Pulford and Renee Eastman. They recap the stages, but the unique aspect of these podcasts will be coaching insights about how athletes prepare for the demands showcased in that day's stage.
STAGE 9 PODCAST OVERVIEW
Stage 9 of the 2025 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift was the finale of the entire race, and Coaches Renee Eastman and Adam Pulford recap the action from the stage as well as highlights from the week. They also showcase several athletes who had breakout performances or MVP rides, and discuss Alison Jackson's race day data from yesterday's Queen Stage.
ASK A QUESTION FOR A FUTURE PODCAST
Co-Host: Renee Eastman
Renee Eastman is a CTS Premier Level Coach and has been coaching with the company for more than 20 years. She has been a professional bike fitter for 15 years and was one of the first fitters to use the Retül bike fit system. She has a master's degree in exercise science, has worked for USA Cycling, and is a 6-time Masters National Champion.
Renee Eastman bio: https://trainright.com/coaches/renee-eastman/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/renee.eastman/
HOST
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the final day of the special edition
episodes of the Tour de FranceFemme AVEC Zwift.
Here on the Time Crunch CyclistPodcast, I'm your host, coach
Adam Pulford, and with me heretoday, as well as all week, is
my co-host, rene Eastman.
Hi, rene.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Adam, great to see you again.
Good morning everybody.
Hold on to your hats.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Hold on to the hat.
I don't even have a hat today,which is astonishing.
But wow, what a stage and nospoiler alerts here.
But before we get into thestage recap, let's visit the
correction corner here withRenee, because what's cool is
what we're doing.
We're putting everything outthere.
What's cool is what we're doingand we're putting everything
(00:46):
out there, and it's so fast thatwe don't always have the time
to fact check each other.
But also we're learning as wego.
So, renee, what did we learnfrom yesterday in the past
couple stages?
What should we be corrected on?
Speaker 2 (00:56):
I was totally wrong yesterday about the first French
winner of the Tour de France in40 years when I said that about
PFP taking the jersey yesterday.
Cathy Marcel, of course, wonthe women's tour in 1990.
But in all fairness, there wasno press about it.
It wasn't on TV.
(01:17):
Of course, I know the historyof women's cycling.
I started racing in 1990.
But at that point the onlyperson we were talking about was
Greg LeMond, who won in 1990.
Anyway, I apologize.
I'm embarrassed that I saidthat incorrectly.
I also wanted to update alittle tidbit.
(01:39):
You said I'd been listening tothe Wheel Talk podcast.
If you guys want the RiderDiary stuff, a lot more
interviews than just the podiumwinners, it's a pretty good show
.
Sarah Gigante does the RiderDiary nearly every day on that
and she actually said the teamplan yesterday was not for Kim
(02:00):
to work for Sarah.
Kim chose to do that on her ownand Sarah was just like almost
in tears, like my team is soawesome and Kim sacrificed the
Jersey for me.
Anyway, I just thought I'dcorrect myself on that, because
I assumed it was the team plan.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah, I assume that as well.
That's a great littlecorrection corner.
Well, renee, anything else toadd in on the stuff that we
missed and the stuff that we'relearning?
Speaker 2 (02:30):
I'm sure there is, but let's move on to the stage.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
It's true.
Okay, let's move on to thestage.
I think for me, I mean,yesterday's stage was probably
my favorite.
I was waiting for something tooccur, which finally did today.
But again, no spoilers.
Take the reins, tell us whathappened.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Well, we're teasing this big time because this race
did not disappoint.
It was the final stage in theAlps 124 kilometers, 2,800
meters of climbing American,that is 77 miles, 9,000 feet.
So tough, not as tough asyesterday, but way tougher than
(03:14):
I expected.
The big climb of the day was inthe middle, the Jouppon, and
then it finished with kind of along uphill drag, much more of a
climb than I thought it wasgoing to be.
My when to watch tip for theday from kilometer zero.
We get coverage from the startin this race, lights off from
the start.
I, my text to Adam was just arow of fire emojis, because it
(03:36):
was, it was, it was lit.
Um, now moving on to the stage.
Just, you know, kind of the aswe were getting rolling out,
chloe Dygart did not start Ifanybody saw on the socials her
at the finish line.
She had an incredibly awesomeand rough day.
(04:01):
She was last finisher to makethe time cut something like 15
seconds.
And it's not that Chloe had abad day.
Chloe was drilling it, goinginto the base of the climb.
She was with the front group atthe base of the climb and lost
45 minutes on that climb.
(04:22):
Chloe had a really big injury.
A few years ago she sliced herquad open going for the win at
the World Time ChildChampionships.
It still bothers her to thisday.
She was clutching her leg.
It's pretty dramatic.
In fact, we saw a lot of tearsat the end of yesterday tears of
(04:42):
joy, tears of fatigue.
And you know, I think it's nicethat the women can show emotion
.
And you know, the thing thatgets me as well is that like
they're not crying because therace is too hard, they're crying
because they go all in.
Like Chloe, all in full send,emptied her tank at the bottom
(05:04):
of the climb and just barelymade it to the top.
So you know, go women's racing,full send.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Full send.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah, all right.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
There was a quote today at the end of the stage by
someone that said now I justcan't move anymore, so it's hard
but also I think that wasPauline.
Yeah, yeah, exactly, but like I, said, commitment has
consequences, and they're bothbeautiful consequences.
And, oh my God, what justhappened to me?
(05:35):
Why did I make that choice?
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Consequences yeah, and in part the women's races
are shorter A lot of stages inthe three four-hour range, so
they're intense.
More full gas, less long.
Let the brake roll off a littlebit, more full gas and then
this race.
Nine stages instead of 21,.
(05:58):
No off days.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah, so the IFs and the relative TSSs could be
higher, right, more animatedracing, because there's just,
you know, it's shorter, there'sless stages.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
So could be, in theory, more exciting.
From the flag drop green jersey, lorena Wiebes is off the front
, followed soon by anothercouple attacks from SDWorks.
At one point, like the firstbreak was three SDWorks and I
forgot who else you know,somebody from Little Trek, I
(06:38):
think, and it was just going andgoing and going.
It's clear from what was goingon sd works they wanted
something to happen and they didanna vanderbring and got off
the front.
Uh, just before the first climbum, and started building up a
gap, um, she was out theresomething like 60 kilometers and
(07:03):
so all that action at the front.
Over the first climb that wasabout 30 kilometers in, there
were 15 people left in the race.
Most of the GC leaders wereeither isolated or had one
teammate and we were like gameon Because the group briefly
(07:26):
came back together like thepeloton, briefly came back to
the leaders at the after thedescent off the first climb.
But it's, it exploded as soon asthey hit the big climb the day,
the jupon um.
At the base of the jupppon,unfortunately, kerbal and Cassia
had a little slide out on acorner.
(07:48):
Cassia got up right away.
Zip Zap got right back to thepack, kerbal did not.
I think it was just that fewmore seconds that she was on the
ground.
So she was in for a chase todayand it was just they weren't
going that fast.
I think Kerbal's front wheeljust hit the white paint and she
(08:14):
slipped out.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Yeah, it looked like a slip out.
Yeah, and one of Kerbal'steammates went down as well.
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah, and her teammate did a lot of work to
help limit the losses.
But we'll get to the endresults here pretty soon.
By the top of the Jouplan,vanderbregen still off the front
by a little bit under a minutein front of the group, and it
was a pretty select group ofvery few people left at at the
(08:44):
top of the jupon pauline demi,cassia rolchek, the uae rider
from uae gigante and, uh, theonly one with a teammate was, uh
, juliet laboose and oh, uh ye,fisher black.
Uh, she was also in the group.
(09:04):
She had a great ride today.
As expected, cassia Demme wentto the front and put pressure on
Gigante.
No big surprise there.
We expected that.
I just expected it to be moreteamwork rather than just
individuals.
There was, you know, I did notexpect it to be what is it?
(09:28):
Five or seven people left atthe front of the race at that
time.
So Gigante was under pressureon the descent.
She did lose some time.
It was a.
The end of the descent was like10% grade.
She was keeping them in sightuntil it got to the really fast.
So she was behind the group.
Vanderbregen was still a littlebit ahead, but they brought
(09:52):
Vanderbregen back by the timethey hit the final categorized
climb of the day, vanderbregenout the back pretty quick of
that group.
She still held on to prettydecent placing but she didn't
hold on to that GC group at all.
So we've got the group with theGC favorites Gigante chasing
(10:17):
behind, everybody else waybehind.
That was an unfortunate part ofthe coverage.
We didn't really get to see toomuch of what was going on beyond
the top group.
There.
They would show Shara and thenthey would show Demi and PFP's
group and stuff.
After that, you know, they justkind of stayed status quo.
(10:41):
Juliet Laboue, teammate of theday, was just pulling at the
front.
She did a lot of work for demi.
Um, they just kind of markedeach other until about six
kilometers to go it.
The final drag was much moreclimbing than I had expected it
(11:01):
to be.
It looked like a reallyannoying climb, not 8% grade
like oh, we're climbing, butjust enough climb to be like, oh
, this is hard.
Anyway, demi does a little bitof a dig, pfp counters, sails
(11:23):
away in front of the groupthrough a sea of cheers,
screaming Pauline, pauline,pauline, and gets to ride solo
to the wind last six kilometers.
Winds in yellow.
Adam was right.
Once again, it was his pick.
He predicted that she wouldshow her stuff on the on the
(11:48):
finish line today and she did um, I mean she's she's a killer.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Like like yellow's not good enough.
It's kind of like tate, like inthe the last circuits, like
they're bike racers, they justwant to go for it and yeah, and
that move was perfectly timedtoo.
Like demi did a dig, everybodylooked at each other and
pauline's like here we go yeah,absolutely so.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Um, in in the small group behind it was uh demi, uh,
cassia and fisher blacksprinting it out.
Uh, demi in second, cass,Cassian.
Third, Fisher Black in fourth,Warchek, then LeBou and then,
(12:30):
you know, Sarah did a fantasticjob all day long.
She did get dropped from thefront group but she chased on
her own for the last 40K, whichwould have put her in seventh on
the stage and, I think, seventhoverall, sixth overall for the
(12:53):
final.
So you know that was great.
So you know the GC shakeups are.
Let me I got to get my notes.
Pauline no surprise that sheheld on to the yellow jersey.
Demi moved up to second.
(13:15):
Kasia moved up to third.
So that podium no surprise.
Three strongest ladies in therace.
Very deserving podium.
Dominika Wolczak, from UAE,moved up to fourth.
Nia Fisher-Black moved up tofifth.
Adam, two days ago she wassitting in 22nd spot.
(13:39):
She crashed on, I believe,stage three.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
I was going to say she had a bad crash early on,
right?
Speaker 2 (13:46):
it wasn't bad, it was mistimed she crashed I believe
on a descent.
She was riding a shimano neutralbike on the descent and just
looked like squirrely as all getout.
She had a poor bike fit thatday.
Um, the bike was like way toobig for her and she was going
all over the place.
Anyway, she's a ride of the dayfor me.
(14:08):
Last two days she was third.
Yesterday she rides for LittleTrek.
We haven't talked about her toomuch but she used to ride on
Demi's and Kepecky's SD Worksteam.
She went over to Little Trek tobe the GC leader.
She came into this race as theGC leader and she's clearly very
(14:31):
, very strong, finished up withthe elite of the elite.
Today Just had a bad start ofthe race, my bad luck of the day
, kerbal.
She never got back after thatcrash.
She slipped down to eighth inGC, so that's a little sad for
(14:52):
that.
Before we, you know, jump offthe race coverage, though I got
a little complaint Because Ithink Sarah did such an awesome
job and if you follow the sportyou know how hard that she has
(15:15):
worked on her descending andshe's getting so much hate on
the socials about it and we'vetalked about it as uh, the same
way we talk about everybody'sstrengths and limiters.
Like Cassie, is not as good aclimber as Demi.
Just traditionally PFP wasn'tas good of a climber as Demi.
Before the summer she worked onit and PFP is at the top of her
(15:43):
game.
She's been a pro for a longtime, champion.
She knows how to do it.
Sarah is 24 years old.
She had lost most of last yeardue to injury and iliac artery
surgery.
She before this year was neverthought of as a GT contender.
She was thought of as a climberonly and she has worked on her
(16:09):
descending.
And I'm going to criticizePeacock for bringing in Phil
because unfortunately Phil, asgreat as he is and legendary as
he is, he doesn't follow women'sracing and he said today she
should really get a coach andwork on her descending.
Well, guess what she has?
And if you listen to her riderdiaries, she reconned every
(16:33):
single descent.
She did a multiple times.
She has hired a coach.
She was getting coaching on theroad from her teammate the
other day.
So you know, applaud her forhow far she's come already in
what she's done.
You know she finished second atthe zero this year.
Um and and or is it third?
(16:57):
She's on the podium and wonboth mountain stages and she's
turning into a GC threat.
Her gap on descending is it'sgotten so much better.
So that's just like stop theinternet hate, stop the
commentary hate.
You know, just being able tolike appreciate people's
(17:19):
strengths and limiters, andthat's what we're.
That's why we're talking aboutit, because it is a strategy.
Point Demi, in in Cassia today,I saw them chit chatting at the
back of the group right beforethey went over the top of the
shoe plan Cause they are likelet's rip, let's work together
and we can both move up on thepodium.
(17:40):
And that strategy, just likeSarah's a better climber than
they let's work together and wecan both move up on the podium.
And that strategy, just likeSarah's a better climber than
they are.
So her strategy yesterday isI'm going to get as much time as
I can today because you know sothat's why we talk about
Sarah's descending.
It's the same way that we talkabout other people's.
You know strengths and limiters.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
And I think too.
I mean I made mention, you know, when Kim crashed.
Let's get ahead of the socialmedia shaming.
I mean there is this podcast,goes out on social media.
There's just like you know,work is done in a remote based
setting and we spread the wordon social media, so it's going
to be there.
But I mean the shaming, thehate, like use these stories,
(18:23):
use this information to launchyourself into learning more
about somebody.
And Renee and I were talking.
There's a lot of comments aboutlike biomechanics, right, bike
fits and weird fits, and Paulinelooks like a mountain biker,
bow legged or what I mean, allthis crap.
And it's like well, clearly itworked for her.
So maybe you just learn moreabout like where that comes from
(18:46):
, like the history.
Why would she look like amountain biker?
Oh, she is a mountain biker.
Oh, she's the world champion,malta times over oh, she's
Olympic champion.
So it's like observe, don'tjudge.
It's like people watching.
People watching is fantastic.
You can just sit there and wow,this is fascinating, right, but
in the way people move, I thinkfor me it's like I'll watch
(19:07):
somebody ride here.
Maybe the world doesn't know asmuch about the women's peloton,
all this kind of stuff.
Probably a combination of allthis, but just check yourself,
(19:28):
that's all.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
All right.
Wrapping up on the race asexpected, no change in the
points jersey.
Weebis wins.
That that's fantastic.
For her First time she's doneit.
She deserves it.
She is the best sprinter in thewomen's peloton.
Shabby retained the mountainsjersey.
(19:51):
I'm pretty sure Ninkavikaretained the white.
At the recording the resultsaren't updated and I'm simul-ly
viewing my screens Squibbin'ssuper combative for the race.
So that means most aggressiverider for the race.
(20:11):
So that's awesome.
So we talk a lot about you knowthe best.
We've talked a lot about PFPand Cassia and you know all the
stars, and rightly so, becausethey're awesome.
So I wanted to just like pullout a name that I hadn't talked
(20:32):
about yet of a rider who I thinkis awesome and like hey, watch
this rider because we didn'ttalk about her all week.
Hey, watch this rider becausewe didn't talk about her all
week.
Imogen Wolfe from Team VismaLisa Bike.
She is a British pro, she is 19years old and she's a key
(20:54):
lead-out rider for Marion Voss.
She is fast, she is skilled andin a couple years, when Voss
retires, I expect the team to beleaving her out.
I mean, can you imagine havingVoss behind you as you're trying
to lead her out, her coachingand guiding you.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Best coach on the bike right there yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
So that's my unsung hero of the race.
You have one, Adam.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
I do, yeah, and I had something planned for our
unsung heroes and I tried to uh,queued up with AJ and I was
chatting with her.
She was on the team bus tryingnot to scrape the like city
walls as they were coming intowhere.
Wherever they stayed, and theygot it.
Everybody had a um, a longtransport last night and they
didn't get into like 11.
So as I was texting her, I waslike could you get a video with
(21:44):
one of your Swan ears, thehelpers of your team, Because
they're the unsung heroes.
You know, the stars are theriders, Sure, Uh, you know
they're out there, we'rewatching them.
But like what it takes to getthe rider to the finish or to
the finish line, but also to thestart line every day and
cooking for them, massaging,getting bottles prepped and all
(22:06):
this kind of stuff.
The unsung heroes, uh, the Swanyears.
They do such incredible work ina lot of these riders They'll
sorry, A lot of the riders willwork with Swan years over and
over, and Swan years will maybego from team to team, but if
you're lucky enough, you get towork with swan years for years
and that's a special thing.
And so to all the swan yearsout there the unsung heroes,
(22:29):
because the work that you do isthankless to the fans and in the
media coverage, but the riders.
You can't replace a swanier.
It's hard.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
That's a great choice , Adam.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
So, anyway, uh, because of the late night and
because of the start andeverything, uh, aj did not get
the video with a swanier, um,but maybe that'll be later on
something else that we do.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
So, as we, you know, wrap up our thoughts, thoughts
on the on the race and thesummary here pfp winning in
france.
You know she was, I called herthe darling of france day one,
and boy is she now awesome.
Just you know, the, the countryis electric.
Now it's, it's.
(23:17):
And I was thinking, we knowVoss is the GOAT, right, but
what is PFP If you can winacross cyclocross mountain bike
gravel, win the Olympics andthen, in the same year, win
(23:38):
Paris-Roubaix and the Tour deFrance?
Not even Polka Char can do that.
I think she's the apex predatorof the peloton Comes in strikes
for her kill, goes back to herlair rests and recovers for her
next execution, because shedoesn't like.
(24:01):
When she comes, she comes fullon, but, like this year, she
hadn't raced since spring.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
She was quietly plotting her working training,
plotting yeah, and I mean, youknow, chatting amongst us, uh,
coaches and friends and things,when pauline said that she was
going to do, uh, do the tour defrance, she wanted to win it.
Uh had a good friend.
I was like she'll win it andhe's like no way.
And he's, you know, mountainbiker and kind of knows her as a
(24:29):
mountain biker.
Um, but just knowing herhistory and I'm like how focused
she is like yeah, so yeah, apexpredator, probably.
I've I've said for years aswell that she's my spirit animal
, so uh just channel your innerPauline and I ask, uh.
I ask um, uh, my juniors, whenI'm working with them, it's like
(24:50):
who do you picture yourselfwhen you're descending or
climbing, or something like this?
And you know a lot.
A lot of the boys say Tade,some of the girls, uh, you know
it used to be, um, be MarianaVoss or something like this, but
now it's, I think it is on theroad.
Anyway it's going to be Pauline.
I think Back to Pauline Because, again, she has been dominant
and she's only 33.
Mariana Voss is 38.
(25:12):
So of 260 wins that MarianaVoss has, I don't know where
Pauline's at on that, but youknow she's got five years to
keep on winning and doing herthing.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
but or one and done, or one and done.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Who knows, maybe that's what.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
I do Win the Olympics last year, win the Tour de
France this year, like what'sleft?
I mean, she could, yeah, shecould.
And anyway, one of the thingsthat I do after the stages and
you do because you texted me inour editor, ruddy, right after
the stage, as soon as you saw itoh, it's Allie's train peak
(25:53):
stuff from yesterday.
We nerd out on those numbersand like, wow, look at that.
So I think our listeners do too.
So, um, let's talk about thequeen stage a little bit, and a
little bit about, like, how bigof a day it was for alley yeah,
yeah, yeah, queen stage.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
So this is, uh, two stages ago and um big stage, big
stage for anybody, and I thinktoo you got to realize the
groupetto can sometimes be onthe Tour de France after a stage
like this, depending on howfast the GC riders are going.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
And a quick reminder for everybody who didn't listen
yesterday or is not payingattention to the race.
It was a 70-odd mile race with11,000 feet of climbing.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Yeah, which is a lot.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Yeah, that's a lot.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Which is a lot.
So in that way I mean you kindof for a rider like AJ again not
a GC contender team captain,support rider on stages.
Stage like this is she mighthave a couple duties very early
on to position a rider and thenafter that it's like get to the
finish right so you can do yourjob the next day.
So huge day for a rider likeher.
(27:02):
Tss on the day was around 322.
The kilojoule expenditure was3,375 and absolutely huge day.
She was right around threeWatts per kilo for the entire
stage, which I think it was wasthree and a half hours or four
hours.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
It was four, 45.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Oh sorry, yeah, yeah, the win.
The winners were right aroundfour four, four, yeah, but I
mean three Watts per kilo foralmost five hours, man, and you
know massive day and I wastexting with her afterwards and
lots of jokes still in, you knowgood spirits and things like
(27:50):
this.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Uh, but those are some huge numbers.
On eight days deep, your besthour effort was around three
watts per kilo.
You would be a pretty goodweekend warrior, recreational or
somewhat serious cyclist,capable of doing like a six-hour
(28:13):
century, I'd say.
So that's that century riderriding as hard as they can for
four hours and 45 minutes, whichyou can't do.
But just to try to put it incontext, like you can't do that.
And she wasn't, you know, atthe front either.
(28:33):
So there was a Speaking ofAli's Killajules 3000,.
I saw a clip on the reels.
I sent it to you.
Allie was not going as hard onthe climb because she was in the
group pedo as everybody else.
Somebody handed her a baguette.
(28:55):
She's, like you know, ridingwith the baguette and yucking up
the crowd.
I thought it was pretty funny.
But speaking of the final climb,I did, I nerded out a little
bit.
I went into Strava.
I looked up some stuff on thefinal climb from yesterday.
So this is the Col de Madeleine.
(29:16):
It was about 18 kilometers long, 8% grade, really tough climb.
Sarah Gigante does have the qomon it.
She finished second yesterday.
Um, pauline did not upload herstrava.
She doesn't upload her strava.
Um, no, none of the ladies Isearched actually have power
(29:41):
data.
They only have kind of like theestimated power data.
But I nerded out, I got intocalculations.
Vam is vertical ascent metersper hour.
It's just how many meters ofelevation you gain per hour.
You can do some math to try tofigure out how many watts per
kilo somebody does to achieve acertain VAM on a certain grade.
(30:06):
We're not going to go into thatright now because that is way
too nerdy.
But at Sarah's 102 approximately, that would have put her, I
estimate, around 4.6 watts perkilo.
We don't know Sarah's weightexactly.
(30:30):
We don't know PFP's weightexactly.
They are similar height, 5'5".
They can't be that fardifferent in weight.
So I then estimated Pauline was145 ahead that she would have
had to done around 4.75 wattsper kilo to do that.
And in watts for these ladiesyou know again, these are
(30:54):
estimates because I don't knowtheir weights you know probably
around 230, 240 for Sarah, maybearound 250 for Pauline.
Now, now I know there's somemaster guy out there that's like
(31:16):
yeah, I got my FTP at over 200or whatever.
Like I said, I don't know howmuch these ladies weigh, but it
cannot be over like 52 kilos,like 115 pounds.
So kind of put that intoperspective because watts per
unit of weight matter.
(31:36):
Think of it as like a big18-wheeler truck.
That truck is really heavy andit takes a ton of horsepower or
a ton of watts to move that.
So the heavier the object, themore horsepower, the more watts
you need to move it.
If you are light like my littleFord Focus, you don't need much
(31:57):
horsepower to move it forward.
So the numbers don't sound asimpressive as when we talk about
the guys who have FTPs at 450watts.
But just to put it inperspective, they're very small
people compared to men.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Yeah, that's it, and I think you just have to check
yourself what sounds impressive,what doesn't right.
Big numbers oh, everybody lovesbig numbers, but it's all
relative and I'd say the topwomen are usually around five
watts per kilo for longer climbs, 5.5 for shorter climbs.
And that's massive, absolutelymassive.
And if you run the numbers onyour power to weight back home
(32:40):
for a 20-minute hill climb,multiply it by 5.5, and then
you'll come up with the relative, uh, perceived, effort of what
that would be for you.
So right.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Um, I wanted to put the put the times into
perspective too for everybody.
Um little fun fact sarah isalso now fourth overall men and
women.
You're probably a couple ofprofessional men ahead of her on
strava on the the Madeline.
Yeah, on the Madeline fromyesterday.
And you know what could theaverage guy do?
(33:14):
Let's take a Masters racer.
Let's say a pretty good Mastersracer four watts per kilo.
Four watts per kilo, if youwant to put it into like some
context.
You could potentially winMasters Nationals with four
watts per kilo.
I did um, you could um it wouldhave to be a little higher, I
(33:35):
think but, yes, okay, fair for awoman, for a woman, um,
leadville, you could potentiallyfinish sub nine, so let's say
it's very serious.
Masters racer, um, you probablywould have been about 10
minutes, 15 minutes behind, um,considering, uh, we plopped you
at the bottom of the climb,fresh and you just went for it.
(33:58):
Because these numbers, the 4.6,4.75, you got to keep in mind
there's, they are on stage eight, fatigue.
This climb was at the end of an11,000-foot climbing day
fatigue and it actually went upto altitude a little bit.
You know, 5,000 feet, you losewhat?
5%, 7% power at altitude.
(34:22):
But I'm just giving you guys arun and start.
We're going to let you go fresh, run and start.
We're going to let you go fresh.
That six-hour century rider,three watt per kilo, you would
have been about 30 minutes, 35minutes behind Sarah and Pauline
yesterday, pokachar, fresh,maybe about 15 minutes ahead of
(34:47):
them.
The men, definitely.
You know higher Pogacharsreported threshold around 6.6
watts per kilo.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
That's pretty high.
Yeah, that's pretty high, yeah.
And I think, like again havingthese conversations of the time,
the duration, the power toweight ratio, to put the
impressiveness in context,because they are flying, even
though maybe they're pushing 280going up some of these hills,
(35:19):
relatively speaking, it's amassive effort and most people
listening to this podcast wouldget dropped self-included.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
One last fun fact before we wrap on this, because
I was in my Strava deep diveyesterday and we know how fast
Kim LaCourte ripped that descentwhen she caught the group the
other day she was 30 secondsbehind the leaders at the top of
a climb and she caught up thatby the finish.
(35:49):
She does have the Strava QOMfor that segment, tied with
Marie Lanais.
I just thought that was funnybecause I we knew that she would
have had to have been thefastest on this end to, to, to
catch up.
And just for all the the peoplecomplaining about Sarah
(36:10):
Gigante's descending she's top10 on the Strava for the descent
.
Like, okay, she's not, she'snot Cassia, but you can't, you
probably can't keep up with her.
Well, some people can, but youknow what I mean.
Like she's still very good yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
That's good.
That's good to point out.
I'm glad you pointed that outon the on that downhill segment,
yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
So, Adam, this is it.
We have been, uh on a missionthis week.
It's been a lot of fun, Um.
I hope the listeners haveenjoyed what we we've done.
I've certainly enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
This is what I'm interested in Women's racing and
nerding out on coaching stuffyou for like, like putting the
effort toward it, um and it whoknows where it goes from here.
But I think here's the other uh, uh, relatable and maybe like
coaching tip through all of thisduring this time, like, like I
mentioned, family in town, uh,still writing programs, coaching
(37:22):
people, and I've got aninternational trip coming up and
if, if I were to knoweverything and in the lack of
time going into this, I wouldhave probably said no but to to
go through the what's that Isaid.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
I'm glad you didn't.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Because I I like literally, uh, haven't been this
busy in in quite some time.
In in, uh, you know I've beendoing like 75 minute rides and
feeling good about that at likeevery other day, like extremely
time crunch for me right now.
So for those like scraping onsix to eight hours a week and
you're feeling like totally, uh,oh my gosh, I'm all over the
(37:57):
place Like I, I totally feel you, that's going to.
That was me last week, thiscoming week and I might ride
next week.
(38:22):
Adam, I haven't ridden sincelast Sunday following along with
it Like it's.
I think we we did somethingpretty special this week and it
was all Renee's idea.
I just kind of showed up andand helped where I could and and
uh, yeah, thank you all forlistening, thank you for tuning
in and, if you want to hear thisagain, we will get to better
organized and do something intothe future or maybe something
(38:43):
with other races.
Uh, just you know, let us know.
Train rightcom backslash podcast.
Click on ask a trainingquestion.
You can submit a comment.
We had a comment there fromPeter a couple of days ago.
I didn't mention this.
He said thanks for talkingabout tart cherry juice and how
the implications of taking itversus not taking it and
everything like that.
So the feedback is awesome.
Keep it coming, put it in thecomment section, call Renee, let
(39:08):
her know what's up.
But yeah, thank you all forlistening and being a part of
this, because it's a wild trip.
It's a wild ride, it's a lot ofwork, but I'm glad we did it.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Yeah, and if we got a few more fans interested in
women's racing, then I'veachieved my goal.
And, on the other hand, if someof you out there who are
already fans of women's racinglearned a little coaching
knowledge, all the better.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
That is it All right, renee, we will leave it there
with an excellent mic drop fromyou and to our audience members.
You'll hear more of the TimeCrunch Cyclists coming back into
your feeds starting next week.
So if you had all you can haveof me and Renee talking about
women's bike racing, don't worry, we'll get into the intervals
(39:57):
and the physiology and the otherstuff that we talk about there
starting next week again.
So thanks again to everybodyand thank you, Renee.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Ciao.
Welcome to the final day of the special edition
episodes of the Tour de FranceFemme AVEC Zwift.
Here on the Time Crunch CyclistPodcast, I'm your host, coach
Adam Pulford, and with me heretoday, as well as all week, is
my co-host, rene Eastman.
Hi, rene.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Adam, great to see you again.
Good morning everybody.
Hold on to your hats.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Hold on to the hat.
I don't even have a hat today,which is astonishing.
But wow, what a stage and nospoiler alerts here.
But before we get into thestage recap, let's visit the
correction corner here withRenee, because what's cool is
what we're doing.
We're putting everything outthere.
What's cool is what we're doingand we're putting everything
(00:46):
out there, and it's so fast thatwe don't always have the time
to fact check each other.
But also we're learning as wego.
So, renee, what did we learnfrom yesterday in the past
couple stages?
What should we be corrected on?
Speaker 2 (00:56):
I was totally wrong yesterday about the first French
winner of the Tour de France in40 years when I said that about
PFP taking the jersey yesterday.
Cathy Marcel, of course, wonthe women's tour in 1990.
But in all fairness, there wasno press about it.
It wasn't on TV.
(01:17):
Of course, I know the historyof women's cycling.
I started racing in 1990.
But at that point the onlyperson we were talking about was
Greg LeMond, who won in 1990.
Anyway, I apologize.
I'm embarrassed that I saidthat incorrectly.
I also wanted to update alittle tidbit.
(01:39):
You said I'd been listening tothe Wheel Talk podcast.
If you guys want the RiderDiary stuff, a lot more
interviews than just the podiumwinners, it's a pretty good show
.
Sarah Gigante does the RiderDiary nearly every day on that
and she actually said the teamplan yesterday was not for Kim
(02:00):
to work for Sarah.
Kim chose to do that on her ownand Sarah was just like almost
in tears, like my team is soawesome and Kim sacrificed the
Jersey for me.
Anyway, I just thought I'dcorrect myself on that, because
I assumed it was the team plan.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah, I assume that as well.
That's a great littlecorrection corner.
Well, renee, anything else toadd in on the stuff that we
missed and the stuff that we'relearning?
Speaker 2 (02:30):
I'm sure there is, but let's move on to the stage.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
It's true.
Okay, let's move on to thestage.
I think for me, I mean,yesterday's stage was probably
my favorite.
I was waiting for something tooccur, which finally did today.
But again, no spoilers.
Take the reins, tell us whathappened.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Well, we're teasing this big time because this race
did not disappoint.
It was the final stage in theAlps 124 kilometers, 2,800
meters of climbing American,that is 77 miles, 9,000 feet.
So tough, not as tough asyesterday, but way tougher than
(03:14):
I expected.
The big climb of the day was inthe middle, the Jouppon, and
then it finished with kind of along uphill drag, much more of a
climb than I thought it wasgoing to be.
My when to watch tip for theday from kilometer zero.
We get coverage from the startin this race, lights off from
the start.
I, my text to Adam was just arow of fire emojis, because it
(03:36):
was, it was, it was lit.
Um, now moving on to the stage.
Just, you know, kind of the aswe were getting rolling out,
chloe Dygart did not start Ifanybody saw on the socials her
at the finish line.
She had an incredibly awesomeand rough day.
(04:01):
She was last finisher to makethe time cut something like 15
seconds.
And it's not that Chloe had abad day.
Chloe was drilling it, goinginto the base of the climb.
She was with the front group atthe base of the climb and lost
45 minutes on that climb.
(04:22):
Chloe had a really big injury.
A few years ago she sliced herquad open going for the win at
the World Time ChildChampionships.
It still bothers her to thisday.
She was clutching her leg.
It's pretty dramatic.
In fact, we saw a lot of tearsat the end of yesterday tears of
(04:42):
joy, tears of fatigue.
And you know, I think it's nicethat the women can show emotion
.
And you know, the thing thatgets me as well is that like
they're not crying because therace is too hard, they're crying
because they go all in.
Like Chloe, all in full send,emptied her tank at the bottom
(05:04):
of the climb and just barelymade it to the top.
So you know, go women's racing,full send.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Full send.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah, all right.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
There was a quote today at the end of the stage by
someone that said now I justcan't move anymore, so it's hard
but also I think that wasPauline.
Yeah, yeah, exactly, but like I, said, commitment has
consequences, and they're bothbeautiful consequences.
And, oh my God, what justhappened to me?
(05:35):
Why did I make that choice?
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Consequences yeah, and in part the women's races
are shorter A lot of stages inthe three four-hour range, so
they're intense.
More full gas, less long.
Let the brake roll off a littlebit, more full gas and then
this race.
Nine stages instead of 21,.
(05:58):
No off days.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah, so the IFs and the relative TSSs could be
higher, right, more animatedracing, because there's just,
you know, it's shorter, there'sless stages.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
So could be, in theory, more exciting.
From the flag drop green jersey, lorena Wiebes is off the front
, followed soon by anothercouple attacks from SDWorks.
At one point, like the firstbreak was three SDWorks and I
forgot who else you know,somebody from Little Trek, I
(06:38):
think, and it was just going andgoing and going.
It's clear from what was goingon sd works they wanted
something to happen and they didanna vanderbring and got off
the front.
Uh, just before the first climbum, and started building up a
gap, um, she was out theresomething like 60 kilometers and
(07:03):
so all that action at the front.
Over the first climb that wasabout 30 kilometers in, there
were 15 people left in the race.
Most of the GC leaders wereeither isolated or had one
teammate and we were like gameon Because the group briefly
(07:26):
came back together like thepeloton, briefly came back to
the leaders at the after thedescent off the first climb.
But it's, it exploded as soon asthey hit the big climb the day,
the jupon um.
At the base of the jupppon,unfortunately, kerbal and Cassia
had a little slide out on acorner.
(07:48):
Cassia got up right away.
Zip Zap got right back to thepack, kerbal did not.
I think it was just that fewmore seconds that she was on the
ground.
So she was in for a chase todayand it was just they weren't
going that fast.
I think Kerbal's front wheeljust hit the white paint and she
(08:14):
slipped out.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Yeah, it looked like a slip out.
Yeah, and one of Kerbal'steammates went down as well.
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah, and her teammate did a lot of work to
help limit the losses.
But we'll get to the endresults here pretty soon.
By the top of the Jouplan,vanderbregen still off the front
by a little bit under a minutein front of the group, and it
was a pretty select group ofvery few people left at at the
(08:44):
top of the jupon pauline demi,cassia rolchek, the uae rider
from uae gigante and, uh, theonly one with a teammate was, uh
, juliet laboose and oh, uh ye,fisher black.
Uh, she was also in the group.
(09:04):
She had a great ride today.
As expected, cassia Demme wentto the front and put pressure on
Gigante.
No big surprise there.
We expected that.
I just expected it to be moreteamwork rather than just
individuals.
There was, you know, I did notexpect it to be what is it?
(09:28):
Five or seven people left atthe front of the race at that
time.
So Gigante was under pressureon the descent.
She did lose some time.
It was a.
The end of the descent was like10% grade.
She was keeping them in sightuntil it got to the really fast.
So she was behind the group.
Vanderbregen was still a littlebit ahead, but they brought
(09:52):
Vanderbregen back by the timethey hit the final categorized
climb of the day, vanderbregenout the back pretty quick of
that group.
She still held on to prettydecent placing but she didn't
hold on to that GC group at all.
So we've got the group with theGC favorites Gigante chasing
(10:17):
behind, everybody else waybehind.
That was an unfortunate part ofthe coverage.
We didn't really get to see toomuch of what was going on beyond
the top group.
There.
They would show Shara and thenthey would show Demi and PFP's
group and stuff.
After that, you know, they justkind of stayed status quo.
(10:41):
Juliet Laboue, teammate of theday, was just pulling at the
front.
She did a lot of work for demi.
Um, they just kind of markedeach other until about six
kilometers to go it.
The final drag was much moreclimbing than I had expected it
(11:01):
to be.
It looked like a reallyannoying climb, not 8% grade
like oh, we're climbing, butjust enough climb to be like, oh
, this is hard.
Anyway, demi does a little bitof a dig, pfp counters, sails
(11:23):
away in front of the groupthrough a sea of cheers,
screaming Pauline, pauline,pauline, and gets to ride solo
to the wind last six kilometers.
Winds in yellow.
Adam was right.
Once again, it was his pick.
He predicted that she wouldshow her stuff on the on the
(11:48):
finish line today and she did um, I mean she's she's a killer.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Like like yellow's not good enough.
It's kind of like tate, like inthe the last circuits, like
they're bike racers, they justwant to go for it and yeah, and
that move was perfectly timedtoo.
Like demi did a dig, everybodylooked at each other and
pauline's like here we go yeah,absolutely so.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Um, in in the small group behind it was uh demi, uh,
cassia and fisher blacksprinting it out.
Uh, demi in second, cass,Cassian.
Third, Fisher Black in fourth,Warchek, then LeBou and then,
(12:30):
you know, Sarah did a fantasticjob all day long.
She did get dropped from thefront group but she chased on
her own for the last 40K, whichwould have put her in seventh on
the stage and, I think, seventhoverall, sixth overall for the
(12:53):
final.
So you know that was great.
So you know the GC shakeups are.
Let me I got to get my notes.
Pauline no surprise that sheheld on to the yellow jersey.
Demi moved up to second.
(13:15):
Kasia moved up to third.
So that podium no surprise.
Three strongest ladies in therace.
Very deserving podium.
Dominika Wolczak, from UAE,moved up to fourth.
Nia Fisher-Black moved up tofifth.
Adam, two days ago she wassitting in 22nd spot.
(13:39):
She crashed on, I believe,stage three.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
I was going to say she had a bad crash early on,
right?
Speaker 2 (13:46):
it wasn't bad, it was mistimed she crashed I believe
on a descent.
She was riding a shimano neutralbike on the descent and just
looked like squirrely as all getout.
She had a poor bike fit thatday.
Um, the bike was like way toobig for her and she was going
all over the place.
Anyway, she's a ride of the dayfor me.
(14:08):
Last two days she was third.
Yesterday she rides for LittleTrek.
We haven't talked about her toomuch but she used to ride on
Demi's and Kepecky's SD Worksteam.
She went over to Little Trek tobe the GC leader.
She came into this race as theGC leader and she's clearly very
(14:31):
, very strong, finished up withthe elite of the elite.
Today Just had a bad start ofthe race, my bad luck of the day
, kerbal.
She never got back after thatcrash.
She slipped down to eighth inGC, so that's a little sad for
(14:52):
that.
Before we, you know, jump offthe race coverage, though I got
a little complaint Because Ithink Sarah did such an awesome
job and if you follow the sportyou know how hard that she has
(15:15):
worked on her descending andshe's getting so much hate on
the socials about it and we'vetalked about it as uh, the same
way we talk about everybody'sstrengths and limiters.
Like Cassie, is not as good aclimber as Demi.
Just traditionally PFP wasn'tas good of a climber as Demi.
Before the summer she worked onit and PFP is at the top of her
(15:43):
game.
She's been a pro for a longtime, champion.
She knows how to do it.
Sarah is 24 years old.
She had lost most of last yeardue to injury and iliac artery
surgery.
She before this year was neverthought of as a GT contender.
She was thought of as a climberonly and she has worked on her
(16:09):
descending.
And I'm going to criticizePeacock for bringing in Phil
because unfortunately Phil, asgreat as he is and legendary as
he is, he doesn't follow women'sracing and he said today she
should really get a coach andwork on her descending.
Well, guess what she has?
And if you listen to her riderdiaries, she reconned every
(16:33):
single descent.
She did a multiple times.
She has hired a coach.
She was getting coaching on theroad from her teammate the
other day.
So you know, applaud her forhow far she's come already in
what she's done.
You know she finished second atthe zero this year.
Um and and or is it third?
(16:57):
She's on the podium and wonboth mountain stages and she's
turning into a GC threat.
Her gap on descending is it'sgotten so much better.
So that's just like stop theinternet hate, stop the
commentary hate.
You know, just being able tolike appreciate people's
(17:19):
strengths and limiters, andthat's what we're.
That's why we're talking aboutit, because it is a strategy.
Point Demi, in in Cassia today,I saw them chit chatting at the
back of the group right beforethey went over the top of the
shoe plan Cause they are likelet's rip, let's work together
and we can both move up on thepodium.
(17:40):
And that strategy, just likeSarah's a better climber than
they let's work together and wecan both move up on the podium.
And that strategy, just likeSarah's a better climber than
they are.
So her strategy yesterday isI'm going to get as much time as
I can today because you know sothat's why we talk about
Sarah's descending.
It's the same way that we talkabout other people's.
You know strengths and limiters.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
And I think too.
I mean I made mention, you know, when Kim crashed.
Let's get ahead of the socialmedia shaming.
I mean there is this podcast,goes out on social media.
There's just like you know,work is done in a remote based
setting and we spread the wordon social media, so it's going
to be there.
But I mean the shaming, thehate, like use these stories,
(18:23):
use this information to launchyourself into learning more
about somebody.
And Renee and I were talking.
There's a lot of comments aboutlike biomechanics, right, bike
fits and weird fits, and Paulinelooks like a mountain biker,
bow legged or what I mean, allthis crap.
And it's like well, clearly itworked for her.
So maybe you just learn moreabout like where that comes from
(18:46):
, like the history.
Why would she look like amountain biker?
Oh, she is a mountain biker.
Oh, she's the world champion,malta times over oh, she's
Olympic champion.
So it's like observe, don'tjudge.
It's like people watching.
People watching is fantastic.
You can just sit there and wow,this is fascinating, right, but
in the way people move, I thinkfor me it's like I'll watch
(19:07):
somebody ride here.
Maybe the world doesn't know asmuch about the women's peloton,
all this kind of stuff.
Probably a combination of allthis, but just check yourself,
(19:28):
that's all.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
All right.
Wrapping up on the race asexpected, no change in the
points jersey.
Weebis wins.
That that's fantastic.
For her First time she's doneit.
She deserves it.
She is the best sprinter in thewomen's peloton.
Shabby retained the mountainsjersey.
(19:51):
I'm pretty sure Ninkavikaretained the white.
At the recording the resultsaren't updated and I'm simul-ly
viewing my screens Squibbin'ssuper combative for the race.
So that means most aggressiverider for the race.
(20:11):
So that's awesome.
So we talk a lot about you knowthe best.
We've talked a lot about PFPand Cassia and you know all the
stars, and rightly so, becausethey're awesome.
So I wanted to just like pullout a name that I hadn't talked
(20:32):
about yet of a rider who I thinkis awesome and like hey, watch
this rider because we didn'ttalk about her all week.
Hey, watch this rider becausewe didn't talk about her all
week.
Imogen Wolfe from Team VismaLisa Bike.
She is a British pro, she is 19years old and she's a key
(20:54):
lead-out rider for Marion Voss.
She is fast, she is skilled andin a couple years, when Voss
retires, I expect the team to beleaving her out.
I mean, can you imagine havingVoss behind you as you're trying
to lead her out, her coachingand guiding you.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Best coach on the bike right there yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
So that's my unsung hero of the race.
You have one, Adam.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
I do, yeah, and I had something planned for our
unsung heroes and I tried to uh,queued up with AJ and I was
chatting with her.
She was on the team bus tryingnot to scrape the like city
walls as they were coming intowhere.
Wherever they stayed, and theygot it.
Everybody had a um, a longtransport last night and they
didn't get into like 11.
So as I was texting her, I waslike could you get a video with
(21:44):
one of your Swan ears, thehelpers of your team, Because
they're the unsung heroes.
You know, the stars are theriders, Sure, Uh, you know
they're out there, we'rewatching them.
But like what it takes to getthe rider to the finish or to
the finish line, but also to thestart line every day and
cooking for them, massaging,getting bottles prepped and all
(22:06):
this kind of stuff.
The unsung heroes, uh, the Swanyears.
They do such incredible work ina lot of these riders They'll
sorry, A lot of the riders willwork with Swan years over and
over, and Swan years will maybego from team to team, but if
you're lucky enough, you get towork with swan years for years
and that's a special thing.
And so to all the swan yearsout there the unsung heroes,
(22:29):
because the work that you do isthankless to the fans and in the
media coverage, but the riders.
You can't replace a swanier.
It's hard.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
That's a great choice , Adam.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
So, anyway, uh, because of the late night and
because of the start andeverything, uh, aj did not get
the video with a swanier, um,but maybe that'll be later on
something else that we do.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
So, as we, you know, wrap up our thoughts, thoughts
on the on the race and thesummary here pfp winning in
france.
You know she was, I called herthe darling of france day one,
and boy is she now awesome.
Just you know, the, the countryis electric.
Now it's, it's.
(23:17):
And I was thinking, we knowVoss is the GOAT, right, but
what is PFP If you can winacross cyclocross mountain bike
gravel, win the Olympics andthen, in the same year, win
(23:38):
Paris-Roubaix and the Tour deFrance?
Not even Polka Char can do that.
I think she's the apex predatorof the peloton Comes in strikes
for her kill, goes back to herlair rests and recovers for her
next execution, because shedoesn't like.
(24:01):
When she comes, she comes fullon, but, like this year, she
hadn't raced since spring.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
She was quietly plotting her working training,
plotting yeah, and I mean, youknow, chatting amongst us, uh,
coaches and friends and things,when pauline said that she was
going to do, uh, do the tour defrance, she wanted to win it.
Uh had a good friend.
I was like she'll win it andhe's like no way.
And he's, you know, mountainbiker and kind of knows her as a
(24:29):
mountain biker.
Um, but just knowing herhistory and I'm like how focused
she is like yeah, so yeah, apexpredator, probably.
I've I've said for years aswell that she's my spirit animal
, so uh just channel your innerPauline and I ask, uh.
I ask um, uh, my juniors, whenI'm working with them, it's like
(24:50):
who do you picture yourselfwhen you're descending or
climbing, or something like this?
And you know a lot.
A lot of the boys say Tade,some of the girls, uh, you know
it used to be, um, be MarianaVoss or something like this, but
now it's, I think it is on theroad.
Anyway it's going to be Pauline.
I think Back to Pauline Because, again, she has been dominant
and she's only 33.
Mariana Voss is 38.
(25:12):
So of 260 wins that MarianaVoss has, I don't know where
Pauline's at on that, but youknow she's got five years to
keep on winning and doing herthing.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
but or one and done, or one and done.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Who knows, maybe that's what.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
I do Win the Olympics last year, win the Tour de
France this year, like what'sleft?
I mean, she could, yeah, shecould.
And anyway, one of the thingsthat I do after the stages and
you do because you texted me inour editor, ruddy, right after
the stage, as soon as you saw itoh, it's Allie's train peak
(25:53):
stuff from yesterday.
We nerd out on those numbersand like, wow, look at that.
So I think our listeners do too.
So, um, let's talk about thequeen stage a little bit, and a
little bit about, like, how bigof a day it was for alley yeah,
yeah, yeah, queen stage.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
So this is, uh, two stages ago and um big stage, big
stage for anybody, and I thinktoo you got to realize the
groupetto can sometimes be onthe Tour de France after a stage
like this, depending on howfast the GC riders are going.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
And a quick reminder for everybody who didn't listen
yesterday or is not payingattention to the race.
It was a 70-odd mile race with11,000 feet of climbing.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Yeah, which is a lot.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Yeah, that's a lot.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Which is a lot.
So in that way I mean you kindof for a rider like AJ again not
a GC contender team captain,support rider on stages.
Stage like this is she mighthave a couple duties very early
on to position a rider and thenafter that it's like get to the
finish right so you can do yourjob the next day.
So huge day for a rider likeher.
(27:02):
Tss on the day was around 322.
The kilojoule expenditure was3,375 and absolutely huge day.
She was right around threeWatts per kilo for the entire
stage, which I think it was wasthree and a half hours or four
hours.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
It was four, 45.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Oh sorry, yeah, yeah, the win.
The winners were right aroundfour four, four, yeah, but I
mean three Watts per kilo foralmost five hours, man, and you
know massive day and I wastexting with her afterwards and
lots of jokes still in, you knowgood spirits and things like
(27:50):
this.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Uh, but those are some huge numbers.
On eight days deep, your besthour effort was around three
watts per kilo.
You would be a pretty goodweekend warrior, recreational or
somewhat serious cyclist,capable of doing like a six-hour
(28:13):
century, I'd say.
So that's that century riderriding as hard as they can for
four hours and 45 minutes, whichyou can't do.
But just to try to put it incontext, like you can't do that.
And she wasn't, you know, atthe front either.
(28:33):
So there was a Speaking ofAli's Killajules 3000,.
I saw a clip on the reels.
I sent it to you.
Allie was not going as hard onthe climb because she was in the
group pedo as everybody else.
Somebody handed her a baguette.
(28:55):
She's, like you know, ridingwith the baguette and yucking up
the crowd.
I thought it was pretty funny.
But speaking of the final climb,I did, I nerded out a little
bit.
I went into Strava.
I looked up some stuff on thefinal climb from yesterday.
So this is the Col de Madeleine.
(29:16):
It was about 18 kilometers long, 8% grade, really tough climb.
Sarah Gigante does have the qomon it.
She finished second yesterday.
Um, pauline did not upload herstrava.
She doesn't upload her strava.
Um, no, none of the ladies Isearched actually have power
(29:41):
data.
They only have kind of like theestimated power data.
But I nerded out, I got intocalculations.
Vam is vertical ascent metersper hour.
It's just how many meters ofelevation you gain per hour.
You can do some math to try tofigure out how many watts per
kilo somebody does to achieve acertain VAM on a certain grade.
(30:06):
We're not going to go into thatright now because that is way
too nerdy.
But at Sarah's 102 approximately, that would have put her, I
estimate, around 4.6 watts perkilo.
We don't know Sarah's weightexactly.
(30:30):
We don't know PFP's weightexactly.
They are similar height, 5'5".
They can't be that fardifferent in weight.
So I then estimated Pauline was145 ahead that she would have
had to done around 4.75 wattsper kilo to do that.
And in watts for these ladiesyou know again, these are
(30:54):
estimates because I don't knowtheir weights you know probably
around 230, 240 for Sarah, maybearound 250 for Pauline.
Now, now I know there's somemaster guy out there that's like
(31:16):
yeah, I got my FTP at over 200or whatever.
Like I said, I don't know howmuch these ladies weigh, but it
cannot be over like 52 kilos,like 115 pounds.
So kind of put that intoperspective because watts per
unit of weight matter.
(31:36):
Think of it as like a big18-wheeler truck.
That truck is really heavy andit takes a ton of horsepower or
a ton of watts to move that.
So the heavier the object, themore horsepower, the more watts
you need to move it.
If you are light like my littleFord Focus, you don't need much
(31:57):
horsepower to move it forward.
So the numbers don't sound asimpressive as when we talk about
the guys who have FTPs at 450watts.
But just to put it inperspective, they're very small
people compared to men.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Yeah, that's it, and I think you just have to check
yourself what sounds impressive,what doesn't right.
Big numbers oh, everybody lovesbig numbers, but it's all
relative and I'd say the topwomen are usually around five
watts per kilo for longer climbs, 5.5 for shorter climbs.
And that's massive, absolutelymassive.
And if you run the numbers onyour power to weight back home
(32:40):
for a 20-minute hill climb,multiply it by 5.5, and then
you'll come up with the relative, uh, perceived, effort of what
that would be for you.
So right.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Um, I wanted to put the put the times into
perspective too for everybody.
Um little fun fact sarah isalso now fourth overall men and
women.
You're probably a couple ofprofessional men ahead of her on
strava on the the Madeline.
Yeah, on the Madeline fromyesterday.
And you know what could theaverage guy do?
(33:14):
Let's take a Masters racer.
Let's say a pretty good Mastersracer four watts per kilo.
Four watts per kilo, if youwant to put it into like some
context.
You could potentially winMasters Nationals with four
watts per kilo.
I did um, you could um it wouldhave to be a little higher, I
(33:35):
think but, yes, okay, fair for awoman, for a woman, um,
leadville, you could potentiallyfinish sub nine, so let's say
it's very serious.
Masters racer, um, you probablywould have been about 10
minutes, 15 minutes behind, um,considering, uh, we plopped you
at the bottom of the climb,fresh and you just went for it.
(33:58):
Because these numbers, the 4.6,4.75, you got to keep in mind
there's, they are on stage eight, fatigue.
This climb was at the end of an11,000-foot climbing day
fatigue and it actually went upto altitude a little bit.
You know, 5,000 feet, you losewhat?
5%, 7% power at altitude.
(34:22):
But I'm just giving you guys arun and start.
We're going to let you go fresh, run and start.
We're going to let you go fresh.
That six-hour century rider,three watt per kilo, you would
have been about 30 minutes, 35minutes behind Sarah and Pauline
yesterday, pokachar, fresh,maybe about 15 minutes ahead of
(34:47):
them.
The men, definitely.
You know higher Pogacharsreported threshold around 6.6
watts per kilo.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
That's pretty high.
Yeah, that's pretty high, yeah.
And I think, like again havingthese conversations of the time,
the duration, the power toweight ratio, to put the
impressiveness in context,because they are flying, even
though maybe they're pushing 280going up some of these hills,
(35:19):
relatively speaking, it's amassive effort and most people
listening to this podcast wouldget dropped self-included.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
One last fun fact before we wrap on this, because
I was in my Strava deep diveyesterday and we know how fast
Kim LaCourte ripped that descentwhen she caught the group the
other day she was 30 secondsbehind the leaders at the top of
a climb and she caught up thatby the finish.
(35:49):
She does have the Strava QOMfor that segment, tied with
Marie Lanais.
I just thought that was funnybecause I we knew that she would
have had to have been thefastest on this end to, to, to
catch up.
And just for all the the peoplecomplaining about Sarah
(36:10):
Gigante's descending she's top10 on the Strava for the descent
.
Like, okay, she's not, she'snot Cassia, but you can't, you
probably can't keep up with her.
Well, some people can, but youknow what I mean.
Like she's still very good yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
That's good.
That's good to point out.
I'm glad you pointed that outon the on that downhill segment,
yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
So, Adam, this is it.
We have been, uh on a missionthis week.
It's been a lot of fun, Um.
I hope the listeners haveenjoyed what we we've done.
I've certainly enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
This is what I'm interested in Women's racing and
nerding out on coaching stuffyou for like, like putting the
effort toward it, um and it whoknows where it goes from here.
But I think here's the other uh, uh, relatable and maybe like
coaching tip through all of thisduring this time, like, like I
mentioned, family in town, uh,still writing programs, coaching
(37:22):
people, and I've got aninternational trip coming up and
if, if I were to knoweverything and in the lack of
time going into this, I wouldhave probably said no but to to
go through the what's that Isaid.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
I'm glad you didn't.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Because I I like literally, uh, haven't been this
busy in in quite some time.
In in, uh, you know I've beendoing like 75 minute rides and
feeling good about that at likeevery other day, like extremely
time crunch for me right now.
So for those like scraping onsix to eight hours a week and
you're feeling like totally, uh,oh my gosh, I'm all over the
(37:57):
place Like I, I totally feel you, that's going to.
That was me last week, thiscoming week and I might ride
next week.
(38:22):
Adam, I haven't ridden sincelast Sunday following along with
it Like it's.
I think we we did somethingpretty special this week and it
was all Renee's idea.
I just kind of showed up andand helped where I could and and
uh, yeah, thank you all forlistening, thank you for tuning
in and, if you want to hear thisagain, we will get to better
organized and do something intothe future or maybe something
(38:43):
with other races.
Uh, just you know, let us know.
Train rightcom backslash podcast.
Click on ask a trainingquestion.
You can submit a comment.
We had a comment there fromPeter a couple of days ago.
I didn't mention this.
He said thanks for talkingabout tart cherry juice and how
the implications of taking itversus not taking it and
everything like that.
So the feedback is awesome.
Keep it coming, put it in thecomment section, call Renee, let
(39:08):
her know what's up.
But yeah, thank you all forlistening and being a part of
this, because it's a wild trip.
It's a wild ride, it's a lot ofwork, but I'm glad we did it.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Yeah, and if we got a few more fans interested in
women's racing, then I'veachieved my goal.
And, on the other hand, if someof you out there who are
already fans of women's racinglearned a little coaching
knowledge, all the better.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
That is it All right, renee, we will leave it there
with an excellent mic drop fromyou and to our audience members.
You'll hear more of the TimeCrunch Cyclists coming back into
your feeds starting next week.
So if you had all you can haveof me and Renee talking about
women's bike racing, don't worry, we'll get into the intervals
(39:57):
and the physiology and the otherstuff that we talk about there
starting next week again.
So thanks again to everybodyand thank you, Renee.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Ciao.
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