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On Stage 11 of the Tour de France, the peloton averaged 50.91 kph (31.63 mph) for over three hours, a new record for the fastest Tour de France stage in history. 50.91 kph wasn’t the average speed in the final hour, during break formation, or down a mountain descent. This was the average speed for the entire stage.
What is even more difficult to comprehend is that a breakaway of four almost won the stage. After leading the race at more than 50.9 kph for three hours, the breakaway was caught with only 6km to go. Of course, there was a bit of a tailwind on the stage, but it was nothing crazy. Plus, there were two categorized climbs and more than 1,100 meters of elevation gain along the route. You would think that the fastest bike races in history might have been on the flat roads of the Netherlands or the UAE, but they are actually at the Tour de France.
Pro cycling is faster than ever, and there is more than one reason why. It’s not just that the riders are stronger than ever or that the bikes are more aerodynamic. The racing is also more aggressive, and riders are risking disqualification to ride in an aero position. Yet, underneath it all, there is also the ever-increasing strength of the WorldTour peloton powering this speed.
Professional cyclists are stronger, plain and simple
Ask any rider in the peloton, and they will tell you that the level of professional cycling is increasing every year. New training methods, recovery protocols, altitude camps, and nutrition plans have riders improving year after year, and there isn’t a clear end in sight. You can see the results in power files and climbing times; pro cyclists are stronger than ever.
As the overall level of the peloton increases, so does the average speed. When every rider in the race is stronger, everyone is going to ride faster. A few years ago, the riders in the breakaway were pushing 330w for three hours. Now they are pushing 360-380w for the same duration. If the breakaway is going faster, that means the peloton needs to go even faster to catch them. It’s like two magnets being pulled towards each other, but one magnet is being thrown up the road. The leading magnet is moving faster and faster, which means the second magnet needs to keep moving quicker in order to keep up.
On Stage 8 of this year’s Tour de France, Liam Slock was the last remaining rider in the breakaway of the day. With the leadout trains bearing down on him, Slock made it inside the final 2km before finally being caught. According to Lotto Intermarché, Slock averaged 342w for the entire 178km breakaway, with an average output of 389w for the final hour. If the breakaway is pushing nearly 400w for the final hour, imagine how hard the riders need to be going on the front of the peloton to close the gap.
Equipment is faster and more aerodynamic
The equipment that pro cyclists ride on is ridiculously fast. If you’ve ever looked at a training file from a WorldTour rider doing an easy ride, you’d see that it’s not uncommon for pro cyclists to average 37 kph (23 mph) on an easy ride. That’s because their equipment is so fast and aerodynamic that they only need to push 200w to go faster than most amateurs doing a threshold interval.
Every single piece of cycling equipment has been optimized for speed. From the shape of the frame and depth of the wheels, to the helmet vents and shoe laces, everything is designed for speed. We once thought of “aerodynamics” as getting your head down and fitting in the tightest skinsuit possible. But now we are banning riders from stuffing the front of their jersey because it creates an aero advantage.
The UCI is the ultimate authority on professional cycling equipment, and every company is racing to create the fastest equipment possible that fits within UCI rules. Every year, bikes are faster and lighter than they were before. The UCI minimum weight limit keeps bikes at or above 6.8 kg, but as equipment becomes lighter, manufacturers can add aero benefits to lightweight frames.
Let’s say a bike manufacturer’s climbing frame weighs 6.3 kg. It features the lightest frame, groupset, and wheels possible, yet it remains under the UCI weight limit. So with that “budget” of 0.5 kg, manufacturers can add aerodynamic gains to the frame until they hit that 6.8 kg mark. They could create a more aero headtube and add deeper wheels that actually make the bike faster while still weighing in at the UCI minimum.
However, equipment isn’t the only thing that concerns the UCI. Recently, they’ve been putting rules on the riders themselves.
Riders are pushing the legal limits to go faster
The UCI has attempted to crack down on the “puppy paws” position in which riders drape their forearms over the tops of their handlebars, almost like they have invisible aero bars like on a TT bike. That position has been banned, but the minor version of it is still being used. Riders are putting their forearms on the curve of their handlebars between the tops and hoods in an attempt to get aero. The position is technically allowed, as long as you don’t rest your body weight on your forearms.
It’s a difficult rule to enforce because you can’t really tell how much weight a rider is putting through their forearms. This aero position is very close to the normal riding position, since the rider has their hands firmly on the hoods, with elbows bent and head low to decrease air drag. Nevertheless, every month, we’ve seen riders get warned or disqualified for using this aero position, regardless of the ambiguity that exists within the rules. It’s already happened at this year’s Tour de France, where a rider was warned mid-breakaway to change their position or get disqualified.
As speeds increase, the consequences of aerodynamic drag multiply; the faster you go, the more important it is to be aerodynamic. At speeds above 50 kph, staying aero is crucial, and that’s why riders are pushing the limits in every single race, not just in the breakaway but also in the peloton. These aero riding positions haven’t been around forever, and you can see how extreme they are in the side-on shots of riders pushing into the wind.
The most aerodynamic riders keep their forearms parallel to the ground, their head and neck low, and their elbows tucked in to maximize speed. This is not a natural cycling position. Rather, it’s one that has to be trained for thousands of hours both on and off the bike. Not only are pro cyclists practicing these positions in training, but they are also doing hours of physio work off the bike. Stretching, yoga, and core exercises help strengthen the body to the point that it can remain stable in these positions for hours at a time.
Aggression is now the primary tactic in pro cycling
Mathematically speaking, the quickest way from Point A to Point B is to go the fastest sustainable speed. On flat terrain, that means a steady speed is quickest. Doing over/unders is slower than riding at a constant speed if you want to go as fast as possible. That’s why you’ll never see riders doing 40/20s in a time trial; it’s faster to ride at a steady rate of speed.
Now expand that thinking to a 200km sprint stage at the Tour de France. The quickest way to the finish is to ride flat out the entire time. Back in the day, the early kilometers went by quickly as the breakaway formed. But once the breakaway went, the peloton’s speed would drop, and the breakaway would be put on a leash when the sprint teams sorted out whose responsibility it was to chase. Then, the peloton would speed up in the second half of the stage to catch the breakaway and win the stage.
That’s not how breakaways work anymore. They are just too fast. If the peloton gives the break a 10-minute lead, they’ll never be able to catch them before the finish line. Even during flat sprint stages, the breakaway only gets a one to two-minute leash before the peloton starts riding hard again. That keeps the average speed incredibly high because there is never a lull in either the breakaway or peloton. Both groups are pushing hard from start to finish, resulting in the highest average speed possible.
Records continue to be broken, both on the climbs and in the sprint stages. Time trials are also getting faster, and now it’s not even breaking news when a pro earns a Strava KOM. The yearly increase in speed is almost expected, and then the question becomes: where does it end?
We’ve seen other sports, such as auto racing, intentionally slow down their athletes for safety reasons. Cycling has already done that with rules such as the sock height limit and minimum bike weights. The bike industry has the technology to go faster, but the rules don’t want us to. Not yet, at least.
