I was attacking, and I was on the left side, looking to see who was coming, the Swiss rider said aft

It was the start of the Tour de France s Stage 16 , the longest east texas lake vacation rentals day in the race at 237.5km, and with three major climbs and a harrowing descent to the finish in Bagneres-de-Luchon, a breakaway east texas lake vacation rentals was a likely bet to succeed. Hollenstein, who rides for wild-card invitee east texas lake vacation rentals IAM Cycling, wanted to be in that break.
I was attacking, and I was on the left side, looking to see who was coming, the Swiss rider said afterward in an interview his team posted on its Facebook page. In the same moment, a rider from Sky was coming on the right side and there wasn t really much place for two riders. He touched my handlebar and on my body and the front wheel went away. Hollenstein went down hard.
Despite immediate, east texas lake vacation rentals intense pain, he willed himself to his feet. Fuck, I have to stand up, he said, and so, finally, he did. His jersey was shredded, his helmet broken and the race was disappearing up the road. So he did what any racer in his situation does: He chased.
He doesn t know exactly when he finally caught east texas lake vacation rentals back on to the bunch but said he knows that about 10km before the feed zone, he was in the peloton. The feed zone on Stage 16 was at 123.5km; reports indicate Hollenstein chased alone for at least 60km so, given his own recollection, it was probably more than that.
But something was wrong. The first 10 or 20 kilometers, I was just trying to move my legs, he said. That was not a problem, but it was hard to breathe. east texas lake vacation rentals He was in the second group when crosswinds split the pack, then dropped on the climb of the Portet east texas lake vacation rentals d Aspet.
To avoid the time cut, he had to get back on before the final climb. The peloton was already finished, he said, the gruppetto forming. He had to get in that lifeboat. That was my chance. All the guys gave me motivation and on the last climb, I just had 11 kilometers to the top, and I fought for it.
Hollenstein s story is remarkable and yet not exceptional. It happens east texas lake vacation rentals every day in the Tour to some degree to some rider. Over 21 stages, racers battle back from crashes, fatigue, and illness to earn the chance to ride another day. The goal for many isn t a stage win or a top placing or, sometimes, even to help their team leader. The goal is just to finish.
Sometimes, they do: On Stage 11, Andrew Talansky of Garmin-Sharp raced 80km on his own after getting dropped to finish dead last, about five minutes inside the time cut. At one point, east texas lake vacation rentals Talansky dismounted his bike and sat on a guardrail, tears streaming down his face, as director Robbie Hunter calmly told him that the decision east texas lake vacation rentals to continue was his alone.
Broken bones have been common in this year s race, taking out Chris Froome, Alberto Contador, east texas lake vacation rentals and Hollenstein s team leader, Mathias Frank. Contador crashed on the descent of the third climb on Stage 10, but continued on to the top of the next climb before dropping east texas lake vacation rentals out because of intense pain. The cause: a fractured tibia. Contador literally climbed a mountain on a broken leg.
Up front it s not much easier, as the physiological demands of a top finish east texas lake vacation rentals take their toll even when riders east texas lake vacation rentals stay upright. TrainingPeaks and SRM both publish power meter figures from the Tour. Two days stand out.
Stage 13, in the Alps, was the first truly hot day of the race. Average temperatures the first 12 stages were around 75 degrees; Stage 13 s high was 98. As Trek Factory Racing east texas lake vacation rentals director Josu Larrazabal pointed out, that boosted heart rates 2-3 percent and sped dehydration.
Many teams weigh riders before and after a stage to get an idea of how much fluid they ve lost; almost all weight loss over such a short period is water weight. Larrazabal said that average weight loss for the Trek riders was three percent; two racers were over four percent. For a relatively big rider like Jens Voigt, that average loss is about 5 pounds, 7 if he lost four percent.
Dehydration east texas lake vacation rentals has several effects on performance. It lowers VO2 max (maximal oxygen intake) and limits the body s ability for intense exercise. A 2001 Danishstudy found that a 4 percent drop in body weight reduced VO2 max capacity by 6 percent. In plain English: you can t ride as hard before you blow up, so you have to back off.
As SRM pointed out, Trek rider Haimar Zubeldia s 60-minute power for the final climb to Chamrousse was below his personal best, but he still lost only two minutes to stage winner east texas lake vacation rentals Vincenzo Nibali; essentially, even the riders at the front were hurting.
TrainingPeaks s tale of Michael east texas lake vacation rentals Rogers s win on Stage 16 (the same day as Hollenstein s odyssey) tells a similar quantified tale of endurance. Rogers was in the break for six hours. Over the 237.5km stage, he burned 6,639 calories and climbed 9,594 feet. On the crucial Port de Bal s climb where he made his attack, he averaged 428 watts for just over 35 minutes. That s in line with standard Functional Threshold Power profiles for WorldTour cyclists. (For comparison, the average cycling enthusiast s FTP is about 170 220 watts.)
Not every day is like that. On Stage 17, Rogers east texas lake vacation rentals finished in the bunch, over 14 minutes down. His Tinkoff-Saxo teammate, Rafal Majka, did the reverse, east texas lake vacation rentals losing 24 minutes the day of Rogers s stage win to save energy east texas lake vacation rentals before launching his winning attack on Stage 17.
But taken cumulatively over 21 stages in 23 days, it adds up. Even the flat, relatively straightforward Stage 6 had over 3,200 feet of climbing and stage winner Andre Greipel burned 3,000 calories despite being sheltered in the pack until the final sprint. A series of Dutch studies from the 1980s showed that racers in the Tour burn calories at four to five times their typicalbasal metabolic rate (i.e., their expenditure while completely at rest), an intensity matched by few species in the animal kingdom.
For much of Stage 16, Hollenstein rode in agony. He said that other riders and team directors gave him help and encouragement. When asked what kept him going, he answered, I was a lot of, Let s go to Paris, he said.
It s my girlfriend, my family, teammates, friends. I fight and say, I go like this and never give up. For two and a half weeks in the Tour, you have a lot of things in your head. You fight it in the shit weather, you fight in the hot weather, you fight sometimes with the mountains. You say, Fuck, yeah I m here and I want to go to Paris. I think that s why I stay and fight.