Friday, July 21, 2006

Good Ol' Normal Floyd

Here's one of those good comments that sometimes get lost in blogs. This one is from my favorite source of news on the Tour de France, VeloNews:

Reactions to yesterday's stage
Once folks picked their lower jaws back up from the floor yesterday, there were a lot of words of praise out there for what Floyd Landis (AFP photo of Floyd and Bernard Hinault) did -- attacking the peloton with 150km to go and essentially soloing the entire distance.
What we found interesting was that he was producing very normal power outputs on those climbs yesterday, pushing about 350-390 watts on the big cols. Landis has a VO2 max quite close to 90, so those outputs are quite within the range of normal. What was spectacular was the fact that it came so quickly after his total shut-down on Wednesday, something which may be attributed to dehydration or simple "bonk." You could certainly see he was making a big effort to stay hydrated throughout yesterday's ride.

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