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Tour de france 2021

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• Start date Jun 4, 2021

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Tour de France 2021

Tour de France 2021 Trainer & Cheats

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How Do the Tour de France Riders Train?

Coaches, experts, and team staffers share how riders prepare for one of the most physically grueling events in the world.

“The team can only have a goal or execute on a strategy if each athlete they bring to the Tour is as fit as they possibly can be with the most positive attitude,” says exercise physiologist Allen Lim, Ph.D., who has coached several WorldTour riders including Tejay van Garderen of EF Education First. “This means that in order for an athlete to be truly selfless at the Tour for their team, they must be very selfish in their training and preparation.”

From a team perspective, that preparation happens almost as soon as the prior year’s Tour is over. “We start working on the Tour de France plan and selection at the end of September,” says Aike Visbeek, Team Sunweb’s former Tour de France coach. “We make an outline of how we want to set up the season, and then later on in October or November when the route is announced, we fine-tune the selection and our plans.”

The entire year is then mapped out, race-by-race for each rider based on what the rider’s role, responsibilities, and capabilities are. It’s then up to their personal coach to devise a training plan that prepares them to “peak” or perform optimally at two, three, maybe four goal races the following year—including the Tour de France.

“Peaking for a three-week race is really hard,” says Lim. “Every athlete, depending on their own past experience, goals, and physiology takes a different approach. There’s no one-size-fits-all protocol. It’s as much science as it is art.”

However, this year pro cyclists have been forced to take a different approach to their Tour de France training due to the coronavirus pandemic. With that said, here’s a high-level overview of what’s involved in preparing for one of the most physically grueling events in the world—both during a typical year and this year.

7 Months Out: Build a Base

Most riders start easing back into training mid-November or early December. “December is generally a fairly big volume-building month, as is January,” says Ben Day, Mitchelton-Scott Cycling Team’s high-performance coach. “A standard ‘work week’ would be anywhere from 20 hours to 31 hours. So they spend a lot of time out there on the bike, but we keep the intensity low. The focus is on creating aerobic proficiency and reinforcing the body’s ability to burn fat as fuel.”

Because the demands on WorldTour riders are so great in terms of race length, Day finds that putting a lot of emphasis on building a strong aerobic foundation early in the season makes athletes more resilient and better able to maintain their form. “You can predict their peak quite a lot better,” says Day, “And then when they do peak, they don’t lose it as quickly.”

In addition to developing an aerobic base, many riders will also incorporate strength and flexibility work into their training schedule two to three times a week.

“We try and do this year-round,” says Lim. “Unless you have a routine you can do throughout the year, it’s not worth doing a short block in the off-season and not doing it in-season. So we rely mostly on bodyweight exercise, physical therapy routines to help with muscle imbalances, core work, yoga, stretching, and body work.”

5 Months Out: Crank Up the Intensity

If riders weren’t racing in January, their training starts firing on all cylinders in February and March as racing begins in earnest. “We’ll step up the intensity to a slightly higher level, with a bit more tempo, sub-threshold, and threshold work ,” says Day.

Think of threshold as the hardest effort you can sustain for an hour. “We want to build up a lot of fitness below that level,” says Day. “Once we start working above that level, we’re now working on very specific race intensities. We don’t dive into those for too long because we need to keep some bullets for the races.”

That’s especially important because potential Tour riders will be racing longer stage races that last six to 10 days. “Sometimes, we train right into a stage race to better simulate what a grand tour might look like, or we’ll continue training after that race,” says Lim. “It all depends on how the rider feels and on whether or not they’re still healthy and strong enough to handle the training load.”

As racing begins, riders will also use this time to dial in their nutrition on and off the bike. “Riders who are participating in the Tour de France peak with their body weight like they do with their training sessions,” says Stephanie Scheirlynck, dietitian for Team Trek-Segafredo. “It’s about finding a balance between getting them fit in time but not negatively affecting their training. It’s something that we are working on weeks and months before the Tour.”

3 Months Out: Shift to Race-Specific Training

Starting around April, riders move into more of a race-specific training phase, during which they’re no longer building aerobic fitness so much as managing fatigue and high-intensity efforts. Any strength work that they were doing goes into more of a maintenance phase. The focus during this training block is on getting results and preparing for the Tour.

“Most riders peak at least once before the Tour, whether it’s in April for the Ardennes Classics or the Giro D’Italia in May,” says Day. “They have one peak early on, then there’s a little bit of recovery phase before we move into that next phase of Tour de France preparation.”

Using races as training is a necessity when preparing for a race like the Tour. “It’s such a monster that you will never complete that task in preparation in any kind of simulated way before it,” says Neal Henderson, who has coached Rohan Dennis of Team Ineos, since 2013. “You will never put in a training load that’s bigger than any of the race weeks and especially not three of them in a row.”

In addition to races, one of the ways teams build in additional training blocks is through team camps. “They’re typically between five and 10 days,” says Henderson. And these days, things are much more structured than they used to be.

“Six, seven years ago, a lot of the training camps were a little bit looser,” says Henderson. “Now you know the training schedule for the day and what the expectations are. And the support from the team and staff is greater. The role of these camps has definitely increased in the past few years.”

Day agrees. By his estimate, out of the 12 months of the year, Mitchelton-Scott Cycling holds around eight mini camps. “It means fewer race days, but more specific control of our riders training and preparation.”

Altitude training often plays a part at these camps, as does team time trial training. At an EF Education First Pro Cycling team camp Lim organized last year in Andorra, retired professional cyclist Tim Johnson paced riders preparing for the Tour (including EF’s Tejay van Garderen, Mike Woods, Simon Clarke, and CCC’s Joey Rosskopf) by riding an e-bike to create real race simulations in the mountains. “It was a way to specifically simulate what it’s like to be drug up the steepest and hardest climbs of the Tour by Team Ineos,” says Lim.

How each rider approaches a training camp depends on his role on the team and his specialty. For example, a climber would opt to spend more time in the mountains doing lots of long, steady climbs, while the rest of his team might choose a different destination to work on high-intensity speedwork.

[Want to fly up hills? Climb! gives you the workouts and mental strategies to conquer your nearest peak.]

Regardless of whether riders are racing right up until the Tour or attending a team camp, the biggest peak of their training will typically occur anywhere from three to six weeks prior to the start of the Tour. “Generally there is a recovery after that,” says Henderson “And then just a little bit of a kind of taper or sharpening going into the race.”

But this year, there were hardly any races for training. As spring races were being canceled due to coronavirus concerns, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) finally announced on April 15 that all WorldTour events were suspended until August 1. That turned the usual training timeline on its head and left teams facing months of uncertainty.

“Now you don’t have a specific date you’re working for, so that was really hard,” says Peter Schep, head of performance for EF Education First. “Even if they’ve done some races, there’s a lack of racing compared to the normal approach.” Once the UCI unveiled the revised race calendar , teams were still left with deciding how to best train their riders without months of racing and with little ability to hold standard training camps because of health concerns.

“In early April, May, June we worked on 10- to 20-minute efforts because that’s still the endurance period,” Schep says. He also focused on finding individualized ways to challenge his team, while keeping the training enjoyable during such a difficult time.

“We have been trying to challenge them in different ways, depending on how they feel about it themselves,” Schep says. “Now I gave them way more freedom… More freedom to get them fresh in mind and try to enjoy cycling. During coronavirus you need to enjoy cycling in a different way.” Without anyone to compete against (except virtually), he had riders focus on beating their personal bests, with some using Training Peaks to do so.

Once coronavirus restrictions began to lift in different parts of the world, EF Education First organized small, personalized training camps for those who live near each other. They emphasized hard, hilly rides as a replacement for the intensity of racing, which also tied in training at altitude. They’ve also focused on adapting to riding in the heat . From July onward, Schep says they began stricter training to get back into race rhythm again.

Though he thinks they’ve managed well so far, Schep says it’s still been “really difficult.” Typically, the Tour de France would take place during a WorldTour cyclist’s “second cycle” of racing in the season. This year, the Tour is happening during the riders’ first cycle.

1 Week Out: Taper

In general, most riders will have completed their last long ride the weekend before the Tour, and then they start to dial it back by tapering.

“They go from riding five to six hours a day to riding about an hour or so or just taking the whole day off,” says Lim. “That said, the week before that, we’re already shortening the training blocks to only two or three days with ample rest in between. So in some ways, the taper is really starting two weeks out despite the fact that on the hard days of training, the training is really hard.”

The week of the Tour, they might do a short speed workout on Tuesday or Wednesday behind a scooter. “That sort of simulates what it feels like to be in the pack,” says Day. “So like a little burst of power and really picking up the pedaling cadence as well. It’s important that we keep the body activated and open and everything functioning well without adding any fatigue into the system. So the sessions will be shorter, but we’ll still keep some intensity in there.”

Later in the week, the riders may have a team time trial session. “They’ll get out there, and they’ll ride two to three hours on the time trial bikes,” says Day. “Make sure everything’s dialed in and do some hard efforts at race pace.”

On Friday, some will do 60 to 90 minutes of active recovery with some openers—two- to five- minute efforts during which the riders progressively pick up the intensity—or a couple of sprints.

This year, cyclists are going into the Tour de France with only a few weeks of racing under their belt since the season restarted on August 1. But as in a normal year, Schep says his team will focus mostly on recovery the week before the Tour. They’ll also do some Tour-specific training, including a time trial session.

And then the race starts on Saturday, and you hope everything comes together. But there are no guarantees.

“There’s no right way to do this,” says Lim. “Every person and every situation is different. When training for a grand tour, the best-case scenario never happens. But bad luck creates opportunity—that’s what the Tour de France is all about.”

And Then There’s La Course

The men aren’t the only riders training all year to race at the Tour, but you wouldn’t know it looking at the schedule. La Course by Tour de France, the women’s stage of the Tour, is back for another year but still only as a one-day race. What’s worse, in a normal year it takes place immediately after one of the most important races on the women’s calendar, the Giro Rosa , severely limiting teams’ ability to prioritize it.

“La Course is obviously a very important race for us because it’s organized by the ASO, it runs parallel to the Tour, and it has the widest reach among media analyzers,” says Ronny Lauke, team manager and sports director for Canyon-SRAM Racing. “But it’s also only four days after Giro Rosa. Both are highlights, so we try to peak for Giro and then the idea is basically to carry the strength and form from Giro to La Course and perform there as well at the highest level.”

Day, who also coaches Ruth Winder, last year’s U.S. women’s road race national champion, agrees. “I wouldn't say there are too many people that peak solely for La Course versus Giro Rosa. A lot of riders focus on nationals, Giro Rosa, and then La Course takes care of itself.”

“It’s basically recover and reload the best you can and then go at it,” says Henderson, who coached Evelyn Stevens to her 2016 Giro Rosa stage win.

It’s not ideal, but it’s doable. “The riders build up so much fatigue throughout the year, they’re pretty used to racing under that sort of a load,” says Day. “It’s only if somebody really finishes the Giro Rosa on their knees or maybe like a little bit sick or something like that, that they wouldn’t recover in that four day period.”

This year, the coronavirus pandemic has also flipped women’s pro cycling on its head: La Course will instead take place before the Giro Rosa.

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Tour de France Guide

Energy management

Energy is very important. You must try to save maximum energy until the last kilometre of the stage to gain an advantage over the other riders.

Your riders' energy is represented by two gauges:

The attack gauge decreases when your rider attacks. Once empty, the rider can no longer attack. To refill the attack gauge, your rider must ride at low speeds or consume a red feed.

The maximum level of the attack gauge decreases depending on the maximum amount of the energy gauge. If the energy gauge is full, the attack gauge can fill to its maximum. If the energy gauge is empty, the maximum level of the attack gauge is reduced by 20%.

The energy gauge decreases when your rider gives a lot of effort. It increases when your rider is at low speed, or by consuming a blue feed. The maximum level of the energy gauge decreases over the stage, as freshness decreases as a result of the kilometres travelled.

If the 2 gauges are empty, the rider shall experience a breakdown, i.e. his effort shall be limited for a few seconds but that will make him lose a lot of time.

Protecting yourself from the wind

The coloured trail that is visible around the speedometer is an indicator of drag. The more that trail is visible, the greater the air resistance to the forward motion of your rider, and the faster he tires. Conversely, if the trail is hardly visible, it means that your rider is well protected and is not impacted by the wind. The stronger the wind, the more important it is to protect your rider, so avoiding that he wastes too much energy, especially in the zones exposed to the wind.

You can also see how much wind your rider is subject to via the airflows at his elbows. If they are visible, your rider is facing a lot of wind and has little to no protection. To increase your protection, ask a team member to come and protect the rider.

In the diagram on the left, the wind comes from the left hand side, and so to take shelter it is necessary that the opponents or teammates place themselves to the left of your rider (in yellow). This diagonal formation is called “fan”. The more headwind there is, the more the fan resembles a vertical line (middle diagram). If the wind comes from the right (right hand diagram), the shape is reversed. Ideally, try to always have at least 5 cyclists between your rider and the wind.

Performing relays

Performing a relay consists of setting the pace at the head of a group for a short time. The rider is thus not protected from the wind and is exhausted more than his opponents who are positioned behind him. The chain of relays allows for the effort to be shared between the riders.

Follow a rider to the head of the group (diagram 1 and 2). When he moves off, it’s time for your rider to set the pace (diagram 3). When you think you have relayed enough, replace your rider behind the others (diagram 4) and follow them until you come back to the lead.

If you are in the peloton, there are situations in which your team should set the pace of the peloton, this is what we call “Bearing the weight of the race.” Your team should set the pace of the peloton when:

If your team does not participate, the breakaways have a greater chance of fighting for victory because the other teams will perform fewer relays.

As a breakaway, you must systematically take relays to “keep the breakaway alive,” otherwise the other riders will take the offensive to get rid of your rider who shall be considered a “racoon”. This may be a strategy to adopt to disorganise a breakaway or force your opponents to attack near the end.

Nonetheless, there are situations in which these rules change:

Managing the gap

Managing the gap between the peloton and a breakaway is mainly done on the flat and valley stages, where the group may express itself most easily. In the mountains, it is often difficult to have a team made up of enough efficient climbers to set a pace for the entire duration of a stage. This remains possible, but not easy.

It is necessary to give the instruction “Relay” to several riders so that they may share the effort. In order to not take risks, it is best not to allow more than a minute’s lead per 10 kilometres (“Chapatte” rule, named in homage to the journalist Robert Chapatte, who pronounced this rule, often verified in the course of the race: “So that a breakaway rider may impose himself, he needs at least 1 minute of a lead at 10 kilometres from the finish to succeed in resisting the return of the peloton). For example, at 50km from the finish, the gap should be within 5 minutes to have a chance of catching up with the breakaway on a flat stage. Be careful however, the more riders there are in the breakaway the more difficult it is to catch up with them.

Placing an attack at the right moment is important because an attack consumes a lot of energy and it is preferable to not waste the effort.

To increase the efficiency of the attacks, it is better to gain momentum in advance. The perfect scenario is to accelerate to the head of the group and unleash your attack the moment you arrive alongside the rider in 2nd or 3rd place.

At the start of the stage, if you wish to “take” the early breakaway, it is preferable to follow other riders who attack. On the one hand, staying on their tracks, your rider saves a little bit of energy. On the other hand, if the platoon reacts to this attack, your rider may counter-attack to try and break away. Finally, it is preferable to break away as a group, rather than alone, because this allows for the recovery of more energy, the facilitation of protection against the wind and a higher chance of resisting the return of the peloton. Be careful, though, the peloton very rarely lets large groups go.

At the end of the stage, if you think your rider has enough of a lead on the peloton to resist alone, he may attack to release his teammates in the breakaway. It is thus advisable to observe the profile in order to take advantage of the difficulties to make the difference. If the last kilometres are flat, please note that a lead of more than one minute at 10 kilometres from the finish is needed to have a chance of making a move. If there are difficulties, the lead should be more significant still.

Mountain Stage

If you wish to attack the lead during a mountain stage, it is preferable that your rider is in the top 10 riders when he is 1km from the summit. At around 600 metres from the summit, start to attack progressively and wait for the last 300 metres before the summit to launch an all-out attack. Of course, attributes in valleys, mountains and acceleration play an important role in getting ahead on the climbing stages.

Bunch sprint

To succeed in a bunch sprint, the placement of the rider is essential. At 10km from the finish, your sprinter should be in the first positions of the peloton, in the region of 20th place so as to not suffer too much from the wind. At 5km from the finish, your sprinter should be around 10th place. Ideally, he is positioned on the tracks of another very good sprinter and his red gauge is still full. From this point on, it is necessary to try and not lose places and avoid riders who fall behind.

A little before the last kilometre, you may begin your sprint. Do not sprint straight away at the bottom. Try to stay on the tracks of the other sprinters to take advantage of the wind-protection. At around 600m from the line, give all that you have to overtake everyone. The moment to give your all depends on the characteristics of your sprinter and the energy he has left.

Descending a pass

The descent constitutes a dangerous exercise in which the most minor mistake may lead to a fall. When the path is green, your rider may pass without braking. When it is red, it is absolutely necessary to brake, otherwise a fall is inevitable. When it is orange, it is possible to pass but the path of the rider should be perfect. If you are in the peloton and visibility is limited, it is possible to use the Follow mode.

Negotiating the bends requires 3 stages:

Managing a time trial

In order to know how to manage your effort, you should look at the recommended effort indicator. The latter will display the effort to be made depending on the route, in order to produce a good time for the rider being controlled. Please note that this indicator is not displayed in the highest levels of difficulty. You will have to count on your experience of the game.

In time trials by team, the rules of the individual time trial remain important. To achieve a good time, it is essential to know one’s team well and to have the best time trial specialists take longer relays than the weaker riders.

The time of the team is calculated on the 4th rider to pass the finish line. It is important to finish with the leader placed among the first 4.

Trainer Cheat Mode for Tour De France 2021

• Developer: Cyanide
• Publisher: Nacon
• Genre: Racing
• Release: Jun 3, 2021
• Platform: PC
• ESRB: Everyone

Trainer Cheat Mode

There are no integrated Cheats for Tour de France 2021. But you can download a "Trainer" for this game that will include in your typical cheat functions to the game. The train will include the old-school cheats that you can use on Tour de France:

Including a Trainer to this game will permit you to use the following cheats.

• Cheat: Unlimited Energy Meter
• Cheat: Unlimited Attack Meter
• Cheat: Unlimited Stamina Meter
• Cheat: Game Speed
• Cheat: Edit Pro Team Funds

For Tour De France 2021 we have:

• Total 1 Code
• No Passwords, Submit One!
• Total 1 Unlockable
• Total 2 Hints or Secrets
• No Glitches, Submit One!
• No Easter Eggs, Submit One!

Please Submit a Problem for any incomplete, non-working or fake code listed above. If you know other secrets, hints, glitches or level guides, then please Submit your Stuff and share your insights with other players.

Stuck in this game? Ask a question below and let other gamers answer your question or view answers to previously asked questions. If you think you are an expert then please try to help others with their questions.

Tour De France 2021 - Announcement Trailer

• Added on: Apr 22, 2021

Tour De France 2021 - Gameplay Video

• Added on: Jun 10, 2021

Tour de France 2020 (+1 Trainer) [Cheat Happens]

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Tour de France

Rebuilding cav: how mark cavendish returned to the top of the tour de france, trainer vasilis anastopoulos reconfigured cavendish's training and helped rebuild the confidence that saw the manxman land victory number 31..

Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members! >","name":"in-content-cta","type":"link"}}'>Download the app .

What does it take to Mark Cavendish win Tour de France stages again?

Focus on his sprint and make him happy. At least, that’s according to Deceuninck-Quick-Step coach, Vasilis Anastopoulos.

Cavendish wound back the clocks with his first Tour de France stage win since 2016 with his powerful kick into Fougères on Tuesday, completing a turnaround few believed was possible. But Anastopoulos was one of a minority.

• Cavendish: ‘I’ve given my life to the Tour de France’
• Analysis: Can Cavendish win another Tour stage?

The Greek trainer sensed the old ‘Cav’ wasn’t far away almost as soon as he started working with the Manxman at the turn of the year.

“As soon as we met I realized that this man is not done yet, that there’s so much more in him. I am not talking just physically, I’m talking about his mindset and his passion,” Anastopoulos told VeloNews on Wednesday morning.

Love my job! #TirrenoAdriatico pic.twitter.com/dczUwSLWg6 — Vasilis Anastopoulos (@vanasto) September 12, 2020

Many factors were attributed to how Cavendish had returned to winning ways ahead of his late call-up for this year’s Tour. The return to old allies Deceuninck-Quick-Step and Specialized bikes, and the unstoppable leadout of Michael Mørkøv were among them. But Anastopoulos was rarely mentioned.

Also read: Belgian bromance, sponsor stoke, brings Cavendish back to ‘Wolfpack’

Perhaps that’s because of his almost blinding obvious approach to Cavendish’s training. Since hooking up with Cavendish during the winter, Anastopoulos’ sole focus had been about the sprint.

“Every trainer has his own philosophy. But what I saw is that in previous teams they were trying to make Cav a better athlete, to increase his endurance and his ability to go to the sprints, surviving the climbs,” he said. “What I focused on was his sprinting.”

“I know that Cav is a sprinter. To me, it doesn’t matter if he’s going to drop on a climb after 3ks, 2ks or 4ks. For me, all the emphasis was sprinting.”

Six months of relentlessly sprint-focused training paid off Tuesday. The Manxman went without the limousine ride typically provided by Mørkøv and outkicked Nacer Bouhanni with a muscling sprint reminiscent of his former poise and raw power.

https://twitter.com/LeTour/status/1409896690308587528

A happy sprinter is a fast sprinter

After long bouts of both physical and mental illness and several seasons in the shadows, Cavendish’s tearful victory speech Tuesday was the final part of a journey that began with Anastopoulos and his team.

Anastopolous points to the pair’s close relationship and Cavendish’s return to the warm embrace of his former team as fundamental to the remarkable turnaround.

The 45-year-old said he and Cavendish “clicked” as soon as they met and realized they used to race each other on the track. A shared outlook and ambition followed automatically.

“Whatever I thought, Cav thought already,” Anastopoulos said. “We thought exactly the same things and were on the same page and same line from the first moment. That was really crucial to our training relationship, the coach and athlete relationship. And then we just started working together to make Cav the sprinter he was in the past.”

Anastopolous knew what he needed to do to get Cavendish back to his best – focus on his sprints again. Tough sessions on the road and the velodrome soon started to deliver, and the trainer sensed something special could be on the way.

Rebuilding Cavendish’s confidence and momentum was equally important as rediscovering his winning kick. Anastopoulos believes rebuilding “castle Cav” required a lot of different blocks.

“I can’t say I built his confidence – I was a part of a team that built his confidence. He came back to the team and almost everybody was the same since 2015 when he left,” he said.

“We tried to give him the best materials, and the material that he wanted, and that made him confident. And we knew for him to be happy was important. I was a small part of the puzzle.”

Proud to be a member of this family, Chapeau!!! https://t.co/i53gUD6gcz — Vasilis Anastopoulos (@vanasto) June 29, 2021

Piecing together the Cavendish puzzle

Cavendish rejoined Quick-Step this winter with the ambition to refind his love of cycling. At the time, the results were secondary.

A reunion with long-time ally Patrick Lefevere and the all-racing approach of the Belgian team was enough to set the mojo back ablaze. Before everyone knew it, he won four stages at the Tour of Turkey.

A knee injury for Sam Bennett and the breakdown of relationships between the Irishman and his boss were the unlikely final parts required to rebuild one of the most prolific Tour de France sprinters as Cavendish got a late call-up for France.

“Yesterday we saw all the pieces of the puzzle come together – it comes with so many coincidences,” Anastopoulos said. “He was not supposed to do the Tour of Belgium and then Sam got sick and Cav was a late call. He flew from London to Belgium at 10 o’clock in the morning the day of the first stage.

“And then he didn’t know he would do the Tour de France, but we insisted that he went to Italy to prepare himself to do the Tour de France. In my mind, I was sure that he should be ready for the Tour in case he got a call from the team.”

Cavendish had the dedication and belief to leave his family for a “what-if” training camp that Anastopoulos believed many would have turned down.

“I insisted he should be prepared as if he was going to the Tour because we never know what would happen. What Mark did that week to me was the epitome of professionalism. He was so professional,” Anastopoulos said.

“Yesterday was the reward of the work he’s doing in the last year. That’s why everybody got emotional – it was like the comeback of someone who was not there.”

‘We can expect some more’

It all sounds like a fairy tale right? Well, it could be a story that’s not yet finished.

Now that the pressure is off and the momentum has been tipped, Anastopoulos is confident there are more wins to come.

“We saw yesterday the legs are there. I don’t see any reason why he won’t win one or two more stages – there’s no stress anymore,” he said.

“The dream scenario was for him to be at the start of the Tour de France. Winning a stage again was something fantastic, so now he has nothing to lose, only to gain. We can expect some more. “

Anastopolous spoke with Cavendish on Tuesday night, and they’ve earmarked stage 6 into Châteauroux – where Cavendish scored his first of 31 Tour de France trophies 13 years ago – on Friday as a sprint with ‘Cav’ written all over it.

It would make for a fitting way to complete Cavendish’s circular Tour de France success story.

https://twitter.com/deceuninck_qst/status/1409944466975346689

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\n\n \n \n\n \n\n \n \n\n \n \n >\", \"path\": \"https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/gravel\/gravel-racing\/garmin-gravel-worlds\/\", \"listing_type\": \"recirc\", \"location\": \"list\", \"title\": \"garmin gravel worlds announces $30k pro prize purse and dfl party for the last finisher\"}}\u0027>\n garmin gravel worlds announces $30k pro prize purse and dfl party for the last finisher\n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n "}]' > >", "name": "footer-menu", "type": "link"}}'>advertise >", "name": "footer-menu", "type": "link"}}'>privacy policy >", "name": "footer-menu", "type": "link"}}'>contact >", "name": "footer-menu", "type": "link"}}'>careers >", "name": "footer-menu", "type": "link"}}'>terms of use >", "name": "footer-menu", "type": "link"}}'>site map >", "name": "footer-menu", "type": "link"}}'>my newsletters manage cookie preferences privacy request healthy living.

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Tour de France 2021 PS5

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• 1 - 2 players

Tour de France 2021 PS4

Global player ratings.

New features: -All 21 stages of the 2021 route faithfully reproduced - A redesigned My Tour mode with more customisation options - More realistic peloton behaviour - Revamped objective system - A new recovery mechanic - Official brands (Lazer, Specialized, Vision, Rudy project, Corima, HJC, Canyon, POC, Merida) - Updated database (riders, ratings) Play as your own rider or manage your team In Pro Team mode you lead a team that must prove itself to reach the top of the Pro Cycling team rankings. Your team starts at the bottom, but you may be invited to take part in the major races if the organisers see that your results are good enough. You can create and gradually level up your own rider in Pro Leader mode as you strive to become the next cycling legend to compete with the likes of Primoz Roglic, Tedej Pogacar and others. You can choose from four different profiles: climber, sprinter, puncher and versatile. Your choice will be crucial if your aim is to win a Grand Tour or be a specialist in the Classics! Create your own Tour My Tour mode has been redesigned to offer you more freedom. With the new interface it is now easier to customise your "My Tour" (rest days, stages, teams). You can now choose the list of participating teams and national teams. Choose from 89 stages to create your race. Enjoy a wide range of content The game includes the 19 World Tour teams and their jerseys as well as the teams Alpecin-Fenix, B&B Hotels P/B KTM, Team Arkéa - Samsic and Total Direct Energie. There are also many official races (Paris-Roubaix, Paris-Nice, LBL, etc.) More realistic peloton We have redesigned the actions of riders in the peloton to recreate the behaviour found in real races: -Favourites ride closer to each other - The yellow jersey is better placed at the front of the peloton -Pursuit of the early breakaway is more realistic with fewer teams getting involved, which gives the leader's team the upper hand, just like in real life - Teams that want to catch the breakaway but don't attack or that reduce the peloton in the race on the flat now have consistent behaviour Revamped objectives Before the start of each stage, you can now set the objective for each rider thanks to a new "Select Rider" page, which includes all the information you need to make a choice (ranking, role, race-day condition). Your choice obviously influences the behaviour and decisions of riders during the race. A new recovery mechanic Our aim is to offer better visibility of change in condition and to give more importance to riders that recover well in the Grand Tours. Recovery between stages and races is crucial for the success of your riders. In Tour de France 2021 , we have developed a recovery profile based on the recovery rating. The lower the rating, the more the recovery profile penalises the race-day condition.

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Inside the Decision-Making of a Tour de France Team

Israel Start-Up Nation’s physiologist Paulo Saldhana explains the data—and the feelings—that determine who attacks when in a cycling race

Heading out the door? Read this article on the Outside app available now on iOS devices for members! >","name":"in-content-cta","type":"link"}}'>Download the app .

The most gripping moments of this year’s Tour de France, for me, came during the rain-soaked final climb of the eighth stage, on the first day in the Alps. Mike Woods , the injury-prone Canadian sub-four-minute miler who took up cycling as a form of cross-training in his 20s (and whose running exploits I covered for his hometown newspaper, the Ottawa Citizen , nearly two decades ago), had launched an all-out bid for a stage win.

Woods crossed the penultimate Cat 1 climb, the Col de Romme, more than a minute ahead of his rivals. But the final ascent, the Col de la Colombière, involved nearly five miles of climbing at an average grade of 8.5 percent—and little by little, Woods’s margin began to melt away. If he made it to the top with a lead, there was a good chance he’d hold on to the stage win. But it soon became clear that it would be a matter of seconds either way. Had he attacked too soon, or not soon enough? Too hard, or not hard enough? Or had he, as I desperately hoped, gotten it just right?

A few days after the Tour wrapped up, I had a chance to chat with Paulo Saldanha, Woods’s long-time coach and the performance director for his team, Israel Start-Up Nation, about how these race-altering decisions are made in the heat of a Tour stage. I first met Paulo in the mid-1990s when he was an ex-pro triathlete pursuing a masters degree in exercise physiology at McGill University (where we both trained with the cross-country team). He had just founded PowerWatts , an early example of the data-focused, tech-enabled approach that now dominates cycling. The tools and data streams he has available these days are beyond anything he could have imagined back then—but, as he told me, that doesn’t mean that race performances are ever fully predictable. Here are a few highlights from our conversation.

Everyone Has a Plan, But…

I had a mental image of some sort of Dr. Evil-esque control room with lots of screens and real-time data and so on, where the big decisions about tactics are issued. In reality, the Tour imposes strict limits on the data that can be transmitted and received during the race. Pro cycling’s governing body, the Union Cycliste Internationale, even tried to ban two-way radio communication a decade ago, but eventually backed off in the face of opposition from cyclists and teams.

That means the team directors can communicate with their riders, but they can’t micromanage every move. “People have this misconception that all things are planned,” Saldanha says. “It’s such a chaotic sport that the best riders are able to live within this context of chaos, and able to sniff out subjectively, based on their experience, when might be the best time to go. A guy like Dan Martin has a great nose for that. And it’s very rider-dependent. A guy like Mike who started in the sport late is still developing that sense.”

Still, the team does meticulous preparation before each stage, developing preferred strategies and back-up plans. They produce a heat map that breaks the race down into a dozen or more individual segments, color-coding each segment with the ideal approach for each rider. Green means “conservative,” when you’re sitting in the peloton saving energy. Yellow means “switch on,” for example if it’s a stretch where the domestiques have to watch for other teams’ breaks. Red is for “attention,” if there’s a narrow course where positioning is crucial or a stage-defining climb. Blue is for “bonus,” after the support riders’ formal duties are done for the day and they can ride however they want.

Included alongside the heat map are individual notes about strategy at different stages of the race: for example, everything in stage 15 revolved around giving Martin a shot at the stage win and helping Woods chase the polka-dot king-of-the-mountain jersey. “What we’d like to do often falls victim to the thousand variables that come into play when the race actually goes on,” Saldanha admits. “I’d say we probably have a 30 to 40 percent hit rate on being able to follow through on the strategy.”

The Cyclist as Player-Coach

Once the race starts, the riders are on their own. Even radio contact can be sketchy if they get too far up the road from the team car, so the goal is to give the riders enough information on their bikes that they can function as player-coaches if needed. Saldanha and his team worked with Hammerhead to develop a module for their Karoo 2 bike computers that essentially substitutes for what the directeur sportif, a cycling team’s on-the-ground boss, would normally be yelling into a rider’s earpiece during an important climb: what the gradient is on every stretch of the ascent, how it changes around the next corner, how much farther you have to go to the top.

This CLIMBER module, which is similar to Garmin’s ClimbPro feature, was rushed out for this year’s Tour, and also made available to the general public at the same time. (See DC Rainmaker’s review for a deeper dive into its features.) It was then updated several times during the Tour itself, based on feedback from the riders, to optimize the details.

“A guy like Mike can take that tool and say, OK, I know that my sweet spot is, let’s say, 4 to 12 minutes at anything above 12 percent, where the other guys have to stand up,” Saldanha says. “And if it’s not a headwind, that’s a perfect storm of opportunity for success for Mike. So we use it to actually look for those opportunities live within a race.”

And Saldanha has further dreams for what the bike computer might show in the future. “I’d like to put in a visual of your anaerobic reserve battery, with our own algorithm that is rider-dependent and shows how much of your anaerobic reserve you’ve burnt in the climb, and at this rate how much are you going to burn by the top of the climb.”

That’s a really powerful idea, because anaerobic reserve (what I refer to as W’ in this article ) is a great predictor of whether you’re going to crack on a climb. Any time you’re riding above your sustainable critical power , you’re depleting this battery; any time you drop back below critical power, the battery starts to recharge. Hit zero, and your pace will drop off a cliff. The fundamental challenge facing Woods on the Col de la Colombière was to judge his effort perfectly to exhaust his anaerobic battery right at the summit, then let it recharge on the descent.

The Trouble With Data

A big part of the fun of watching Woods on the Colombière was that I didn’t know if he’d judged his battery levels correctly. And neither did he! As he inched painfully up the climb, both victory and defeat remained plausible to rider and spectator alike. But would it be as fun if, by granting Woods a real-time readout of his own physiological state, you stripped that uncertainty away?

Saldanha gave me a peek at some of the vast troves of data the team crunches before and after races, using the files uploaded from each rider’s power meter and heart-rate monitor, as well as other data sources like continuous glucose monitors , pulse oximeters, and so on. For every stage of the Tour, for example, they estimate the caloric demands for each rider within a narrow range, then use the power data after the race to check their prediction, which is accurate 91 percent of the time. For stage 11, which featured two climbs of Mont Ventoux, the forecast for German powerhouse André Greipel, by far the biggest man on the team, was 5,816 calories. He ended up burning 6,080, a reminder that by some measures sprinters have to work harder than anyone in the mountains .

As well as the objective data, they collect lots of subjective data too. After every race, all the athletes, mechanics, and directors give themselves and each other five-point ratings in categories like fitness, health, race IQ, attitude, and equipment. If a pattern of low ratings shows up, that flags a problem to be addressed.

The list of things you can measure and graph and analyze these days is unending—which means Saldanha has to hold himself back: “We have to be careful how much data we collect on these guys. They’re not robots, you know?” And the same restraint applies to what he tells the riders. “It’s easy for me to see so much value in this that I overinform the riders of things they don’t need to know,” he says. “I’ve had to learn to sometimes look at this and be very content with saying nothing. Because they don’t need to know anything, there’s nothing to worry about, they’re good.”

As for the bigger philosophical question of what the onslaught of big data means for the sport, Saldanha recognizes the risks. “I like the way the Tour de France was raced this year. Although we could see Pogačar was head-and-shoulders above, there were elements of unpredictability, breakaways where you thought, Wow, why aren’t they chasing this down?” As a physiologist, he’s hungry for more and better data to help his athletes get the best out of themselves. But as a spectator, he enjoys the question marks, the surprises—and perhaps even the mistakes.

Woods didn’t make it. Belgium’s Dylan Teuns roared past him shortly before the summit, followed by two other riders. But Woods hung tough during the descent, and rallied during the final kilometer to get a spot on the podium with a third-place finish. “I can’t be disappointed, though,” he said after the race . “I raced to win. And sometimes when you race to win, you’re going to lose.”

For more Sweat Science, join me on Twitter and Facebook , sign up for the email newsletter , and check out my book Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance .

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• Jul 24, 2021

Believable performance? Dr Iñigo San-Millán on 2021 Tour De France winner Tadej Pogačar

Updated: Jul 27, 2021

Tadej Pogačar on the winner's podium at the 2021 Tour de France who also went on to win a bronze medal in the Toyko Olympics.

There was an interesting interview with UAE team coach Dr Iñigo San-Millán in the Tour de France highlights on ITV4 on 9th July at 7 pm asking him a few interesting questions. You can view this interview on ITV4 catch-up hub @ 1.5mins from the start at:- https://www.itv.com/hub/tour-de-france/1a7000a0315

I’m sure, like me, you have been watching the Tour de France this year 2021 and seen Tadej Pogačar so far ahead of his opposition and asking yourself many questions. Number one, is he taking, or has he taken illegal performance-enhancing products to enhance his training or completion performance?

He was so dominant in the tour this year: and with cycling’s Tour background, we are always asking ourselves that question, “can we believe it”?

If you don’t have the time then, some of the key take-home messages of the interview and the UAE team coach are:-

· That the UAE team are using metabolomics research for their riders. This research area is not new and has been around for decades. This increased knowledge of lactate-associated metabolic traits could improve multiple aspects of individualised training, nutrition, overtraining, injury prevention, and rehabilitation. More below.

· Iñigo San-Millán suggests that maybe other riders have not got the form of previous years as the measured power outputs of Tadej Pogačar have not increased exceptionally. He suggests that It’s a case that the performance level of the opposition is poor this year, hence the large gap between first and other podium places.

· UAE team use simple established blood lactate testing to target training gains and obtain performance benefits; see more information and a podcast as below.

UAE team coach Iñigo San-Millán, who has been Pogacar coach for a few years now. I have been following Iñigo San-Millán research areas over the last five years as his research, is closely aligned with my research interests on my MSc. Sports Nutrition course.

Just a little background on the Iñigo San-Millán, back in his day he was a Spanish professional cyclist from the Basque area. In his own words, he “was not successful enough to make a good living in cycling” and decided to get out to follow his passion for sports science and went into academia. He is now a world-renowned research scientist into mitochondria for cancer prevention, treatment, type-1 and type-2 diabetes, but also endurance performance.

Consequently, For many of these reasons, I respect him and REALLY hope he has no associations with illegal performance-enhancing products. Consequently, I think he may have too much at stake with his academic reputation to dabble into the dark side of the sport.

Iñigo San-Millán is a massive advocate of zone-2 rides; at each riders correct intensity; found by blood lactate testing. He has written many research articles on this very subject of mitochondrial and blood capillary density building for performance improvements using blood lactate markers.

UAE team are using metabolomics for performance improvements in their riders

Various studies into Metabolomics and metabolic adaptations to exercise training in humans have been ongoing for decades. While early studies observed elevated activities and levels of glycolytic and electron transport chain proteins in response to endurance training ( Gollnick et al., 1973 ; Holloszy et al., 1977 )

So this is nothing new, but more recent work has explained the molecular mechanisms of such adaptations [reviewed in Hawley et al. (2018) , Hackney (2019) ]

The area of metabolomics has developed enormously in the last decade in many areas of scientific research as a sports training aid to precisely measure metabolic pathways at the cellular and systematic level (D’Alessandro, 2019). Furthermore, understanding of physiological responses to exercise has led to significant advancements in the field of sports physiology over the past decade ( Sakaguchi et al., 2019 ) .

This increased knowledge of lactate-associated metabolic traits could improve multiple aspects of individualised training, nutrition, overtraining, injury prevention, and rehabilitation.

Metabolomics Research Paper

You can read this full research paper on “Metabolomics of Endurance Capacity in World Tour Professional Cyclists.”

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2020.00578/full?fbclid=IwAR0dPtrukon8IjKbOKDbuoegkuAtFLegNeoQdvDHQggPzKoO5_IXeFYMiVk

The UAE, team coach Iñigo San-Millán research paper on Pro tour cyclists who took 21-international-level World Tour professional male cyclists and performed a graded exercise test. The results separated the riders into two groups on either side of a performance cutoff value based on the blood lactate concentration at an exercise intensity of 5.0 W kg–1. Using the performance cutoff lactate levels below the group average of 5 mmol L–1 were classified as the Gold group, while cyclists above the average were organised in the Silver group

The top 50 significant metabolites were identified and investigated further. The 2020 World-Tour cycling season started two weeks after Iñigo San-Millán testing was performed. Many cyclists in the Gold group ended up winning or reaching the podium in the first few races of the season, while riders in the Silver group did not show a significant level of performance at the beginning of the year. These results highlight the use of the metabolomics platform by the UAE, team as a powerful tool to monitor training status and predict athletic performance.

The training status of an individual cyclist can be determined in large part based on the power output (measured in watts per kilogram, W kg–1) at which lactate is produced more rapidly than it is consumed and begins to accumulate, also referred to as the lactate threshold ( Brooks, 1985 ).

Lactate clearance capacity is enhanced through increased mitochondrial biogenesis ( Little et al., 2010 )

These investigations have explored the effects of exercise intensity and workout duration on metabolism and metabolic adaptations to chronic training in male and female populations over a range of training statuses (though female populations have been underrepresented in studies to date).

The use of whole blood lactate measurements taken during the graded exercise test allowed Iñigo San-Millán to analyse metabolic states of individuals respective to lactate levels at the Performance Cutoff. One advantage of this approach is that it highlighted unique metabolic characteristics between two distinct groups classified based on the amount of lactate produced at a specific power output.

As the measurements of blood lactate accumulation during a short, graded exercise test can discriminate performance in different groups of cyclists ( San-Millán et al., 2009 )

These results indicate that metabolomic measurements at baseline and during graded exercise testing may serve to expand the predictive qualities of lactate measurement alone.

Glycolysis has long been known as a principal energy-generating pathway in tissues due to its high rates of ATP generation under anaerobic conditions. Increased glycolytic markers have also been identified in plasma during exercise ( Jacobs et al., 2014 ). While lactate production as a function of output has been shown to discriminate cyclists of differing training status ( San-Millán et al., 2009 ) all cyclists reached a point of exhaustion just prior to whole blood sampling for metabolomics.

These measurements complemented and expanded upon the utility of lactate clearance capacity, which has served as a gold standard to monitor athletic training status. While this study design focused on differences in cyclist oxidative capacity, additional studies can be designed to emphasise the contribution of alternative purely anaerobic energy systems that are needed for very high-intensity cycling and sprinting.

UAE team are using established blood lactate testing to target training gains and obtain performance benefits,

What is Blood Lactate testing?

Blood lactate testing gives an understanding of your body’s physiology, which in turn allows for the training prescription to be scientifically focused on achieving your goals and objectives faster and more effectively. Furthermore, this is a technique I use on my own coached riders to prescribe their training more effectively. For more information, see this other blog article on my site Lab Testing Service

​ For cyclists, this involves various testing protocols that are carried out on a turbo trainer or out on the roads, in conjunction with testing a series of pinpricks of blood from the rider’s finger or earlobe. Lactate levels in these drops of blood are measured using a portable blood lactate tester to give instant results, which can then be plotted against power and heart rate to provide a deep understanding of how an athlete is fuelling their effort at different intensities. A chart of mine below illustrates how different cyclists behave under testing.

A great podcast on this subject and how it relates to Zone-2 training.

For a detailed dive into this subject, listen to how Dr. Iñigo San Millán describes this testing and the whole subject about maximising the aerobic energy system for performance improvements and greatly enhancing the anaerobic high-speed glycolytic energy system.

Try to make time to listen to this podcast, 23rd December 2019, it’s a long one, and you may need to listen over a couple of sessions.

In this episode, Dr. Iñigo San Millán, Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, explains the crucial role of mitochondrial function in everything from metabolic health to elite exercise performance.

He is interviewed by Dr Peter Attia MD another one of my performance, health and longevity gurus. His content in itself is exceptional; that’s how much I rate it.

This is a great podcast listen https://peterattiamd.com/inigosanmillan/

Dr. Iñigo San Millán

Beyond Weight Loss: How Resistant Starch Can Revolutionise Your Metabolic Health

Nutrition, Performance and sports psychology in a Podcast.

Tour de France 2021 - Speculation and Gossip

You can learn more about what is and what isn’t effective on internet bodybuilding forums than you can reading VeloNews.

And who can forget the recent peer reviewed study that showed no advantage whatsoever attributable to EPO usage? I’d be pretty reluctant to make absolute claims about what does and doesn’t work.