Pics of Daniel in the 2010 TDF

My great friend and business partner Gear Fisher had the awesome fortune to go and see some of the stages of the TDF this year with also great friend and business partner Dirk Friel.   They got some great 'behind the scenes' excitement with Team Radio Shack(Dirk coaches Jani Brakajovic) and also Daniel Lloyd and Chris Anker Sorenson.

Here's some cool pics of Daniel.   NOTE the Powertap rear wheel and Joule head unit.  Very cool.

I hope to have some pictures of him from the Champs-Elysees and his final power file of this years' tour up as well soon!

Stage 16 and 17- Most climbing of TDF AND Daniel's BEST 15 minutes!

Two HUGE days for Daniel and everyone in the TDF.  
The HARDEST start to a Tour De France Stage in 2010 happened on Stage 16.  The best riders averaged over 6.0 w/kg on the Peyresourde and there were only 15 guys at the top of the climb.  Daniel averaged 5.1 w/kg and that put him firmly in the main peloton of riders for the rest of the stage.

Stage 17 had Daniel's hardest 15 minutes in it!   WOW! 405 watts normalized for 15minutes!!!
The Files for download are located here:
Stage 16

Stage 17

July 20, Stage 16: Bagneres-de-Luchon - Pau 199.5km


1 Pierrick Fedrigo (Fra) Bbox Bouygues Telecom 5:31:43

2 Sandy Casar (Fra) Fran.aise des Jeux

3 Ruben Plaza Molina (Spa) Caisse d'Epargne

4 Damiano Cunego (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini

114 Daniel Lloyd (GBr) Cervelo Test Team 0:34:48
 
Daniels Comments: "I got through today without any problems. I suffered a bit on the first climb from km 0 but there were plenty behind me. From there I was in a big group and was very comfortable all the way to the finish. Thor did an awesome ride to finish 10th on one of the hardest mountain stages of the race, taking back the green jersey with it. I'd like to say that I helped him but he left me on the first climb and I never saw him again!"




Hunter's Comments: "With 14,000 feet of climbing today, this was definitely the hardest mountain stage of the tour so far. This was also the HARDEST start to a Tour De France in 2010. The riders at the front were doing over 6.0 watts per kilogram and only 15 riders were in the front group at the top of the Peyresourde climb! Daniel averaged 5.1 watts per kilogram on the climb and while that's amazing, it wasn't good enough to put him in the first couple of groups. He re-grouped with the main peloton at that point and rode easily over the rest of the climbs in the group pretty easily. "
 
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Stage 17
July 22, Stage 17: Pau - Col du Tourmalet 174km


1 Andy Schleck (Lux) Team Saxo Bank 5:03:29

2 Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Astana

3 Joaquin Rodriguez (Spa) Team Katusha 0:01:18

4 Ryder Hesjedal (Can) Garmin - Transitions 0:01:27

152 Daniel Lloyd (GBr) Cervelo Test Team 0:30:35
 
Hunter's comments: "A tough stage no matter who you are in the peloton. Daniel had a very tough section about 30 minutes into the stage. It was the hardest 15 minutes of the Tour for him with his Normalized Power at 405 watts! Very intense, with lots of attacks and hard efforts over 3 small hills. Amazing to think that the hardest 15 minutes of the Tour for Daniel came on Stage 17, but that just goes to show how after 17 stages, Daniel can still produce a very high wattage with all the fatigue in his legs.




Daniel also rode very hard, at his FTP over the Col De Marie Blanque in order to help Carlos Sastre on the other side of the climb. He averaged 365 watts for the whole climb, and 376 watts on the steepest part, which is very close to his FTP.

Once he was over the Marie Blanque climb and Carlos was safe, then Carlos attacked the peloton in a vain attempt to connect to the breakaway up the road. On the Col Du Soulour with Carlos away, Daniel rode in the groupetto up the climb and then cruised up the Tourmalet as well. Only needing to finish within the time cut was the goal today."

Stage 13, 14 and 15! Daniel Lloyd's Power files

Internet connections are tricky in France!  Doubly tricky when all you want to do is recover from hard Tour Stages!

Daniel got his files uploaded to me on the rest day, so here's the next three and I'll post up the last three days tomorrow.

Stage 13 Here
Stage 14 Here
Stage 15 Here


Enjoy !
Hunter

Stage 10, Stage 11, Stage 12!!! Daniel Lloyd- Cervelo Test Team

Hey Folks-  Sorry I haven't updated in two days.  Been busy with all kinds of exciting stuff!

Here's Daniel's files for the past three stages.  TODAY was epic.  Check it out first!
And talk about an easy day!  Check out Stage 11!

OH,  I am giving a FREE WEBINAR on Tuesday the 20th about the Tour De France!
It's going to be AWESOME.  Sign up here !


July 14, Stage 10: Chambery - Gap 179km- Bastille Day!


1 Sergio Paulinho (Por) Team Radioshack 5:10:56

2 Vasili Kiryienka (Blr) Caisse d'Epargne

3 Dries Devenyns (Bel) Quick Step 0:01:29

4 Pierre Rolland (Fra) Bbox Bouygues Telecom

42 Daniel Lloyd (GBr) Cervelo Test Team 0:14:19

Daniel's Comments: "On the profile, today looked like a hard stage. The start was hard just because of all the attacks, luckily it was a headwind. A group of 6 went away in the end, and Saxo controlled from behind. It wasn't too hard a tempo. In the end, despite a couple of long climbs. the bunch behind stayed together, so we helped Thor as much as possibe for the sprint to get the points. Only Cav and Pettachi beat him. I felt much better today, it was the first time in ages that I've been relatively comfortable. I took an Ibuprofen last night and one at breakfast, then another during the stage, so I wasn't having so much pain today."
Hunter's Comments: "A fairly straight forward day for Daniel. He just had to make sure that he stayed in the group at the beginning and then conserved energy to the end. Over the climbs the pace was easy, so Daniel wasn't stressed. All in all a pretty solid stage. "

Stage 10 here

July 15, Stage 11: Sisteron - Bourg-les-Valence 184.5km


1 Mark Cavendish (GBr) Team HTC - Columbia 4:42:29

2 Alessandro Petacchi (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini

3 Tyler Farrar (USA) Garmin - Transitions

4 Jose Joaquin Rojas Gil (Spa) Caisse d'Epargne

22 Daniel Lloyd (GBr) Cervelo Test Team
 
Daniel's Comments: "Very very easy for most of today, almost like a rest day!! A break of three went pretty much from KM 0 and the bunch didn't react at all. The gap never really went above 4 minutes, with the sprinters teams controlling from behind, so it was very easy in the bunch. There was a 5km climb in the middle of the stage but they didn't go up it too hard. The only hard part was the last 20km, where there was a chance of crosswinds. Carlos asked me to stay with him today, so I was taking him to the front and keeping him out of the wind as much as possible. I actually felt pretty strong towards the end there. It was a fast run in, 57kph for the last 22 minutes inc a few corners and roundabouts!


Hunter's Comments: "SUPER easy day today for Daniel. Probably will be the easiest day in the Tour this year. Great job in keeping Carlos in the front and out of the wind. That is a SERIOUSLY fast pace in the last 22 minutes. WoW!

A great day to save energy and rest up for tomorrow"
 Stage 11 here

July 16, Stage 12: Bourg-de-Peage - Mende 210.5km


1 Joaquin Rodriguez (Spa) Team Katusha 4:58:26

2 Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Astana

3 Alexander Vinokourov (Kaz) Astana 0:00:04

4 Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Bel) Omega Pharma-Lotto 0:00:10

152 Daniel Lloyd (GBr) Cervelo Test Team 0:10:52

Daniels' Comments: "Hardest day of the Tour so far, by far. It was on from the gun, and as far as I was concerned it didn't seem to let up until the finish! It was so hard that I didn't really get a chance to think about eating in the first half of the race, and paid for that in the end, where I didn't feel as strong. Tomorrow shouldn't be quite so hard, but you never know, it depends on the way the peloton races."


Hunter's comments: " Wow, Daniel really did have a tough day of it today. Since he was in the groups in the front he worked hard in the last climbs to stay with them, so very impressive indeed. He must have felt good today, because he finished ahead of quite a few riders today that normally he finishes with. These last climbs were not easy. He scored almost 300 TSS points for the ride today, which means that's equivalent to riding for 3 hours at your threshold power. Definitely not easy! His Normalized power was 297 watts so he also really had to keep the pressure on through the whole stage. Rest up Daniel!"


Stage 12 here

Stage 9- Hardest day in the Tour yet for Daniel

July 13, Stage 9: Morzine-Avoriaz - Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne 204.5km


1 Sandy Casar (Fra) Francaise des Jeux 5:38:10

2 Luis Leon Sanchez Gil (Spa) Caisse d'Epargne

3 Damiano Cunego (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini

4 Christophe Moreau (Fra) Caisse d'Epargne 0:00:02

164 Daniel Lloyd (GBr) Cervelo Test Team 0:34:57
 
Daniel's Comments; "Pretty tough day in the saddle today, we started on a small climb. For this reason I decided it would be best to do half an hour or so warm up, as I often feel blocked after the rest day. Thor got in the early break and banked the frist sprint, which was a great move. Next we started the Col du Colombiere, initially a nice pace was set by BMC, but then some attacks started and it started to feel much harder! I got dropped in a group, and a few groups came together on the decent to make quite a large groupetto. We went at our own pace from there to the finish and came in comfortably inside the time limit. I have to say that the Col de Madelaine was a bloody long climb - 1.5hours for us!! Another hot day too, so I'm feeling quite tired this evening.




Hunter's Comments: " Daniel is hanging tough right now and saving his energy for later stages. Unfortunately he has a bad muscle strain in his inner thigh which is not helping matters and he can't really accelerate hard. Even though he didn't make the front group over the Columbiere, he still averaged 335 Normalized Power for the climb, which isn't earth shattering, but a solid effort. The rest of the climbs he was able to ride at his endurance and tempo pace, which was great for him and best to save energy at this point.

An hour and half on the Madeleine. That's a long climb and considering that the leaders did it in about 1:10 at full gas, 1:30 is darn respectable. Even the gruppetto is hard in the TDF!



He rode 7 hours today, so a full hour longer than the winner. This is something that most people don't consider when watching the Tour on TV. The riders near the back most times end up out there longer. However, in overall scheme of things, they are riding a bit slower and conserving more energy. So you would think that Daniel used more energy than other riders, but if you compare to Chris Anker Sorenson's file of the same workout, on www.trainingpeaks.com, you'll see that he scored 358 Training Stess Score points. This is equivalent to 3.5 hours at threshold or 3 and 1/2 back to back 1 hour long time trials!



Daniel scored 328 Training Stress Score points and so he had less training stress than Chris Anker.

Chris Anker is a light guy at 64 kilos, so he didn't burn as many calories as Daniel, and this is one reason why looking at just the kilojoule expenditure in your ride can be misleading. Daniel burned 5466 kilo joules which is about 6000 kilo calories so I hope he had plenty of food in the evening.



Another day in the books for Daniel.
 
Download Daniel's Stage 9 file here

The Spoils of Winning.

Both Tomas Gil and I are still on a 'high' from his win in Tour of Venezuela.
The guy just dominated.    I know he'll get an even bigger pro contract next year.  He is without a doubt the best South America pro right now.

Again, congrats Tomas.

Tomas Gil wins Tour of Venezuela!

http://www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve/otros-deportes/ciclista-venezolano-tomas-gil-campeon-vuelta-a-venezuela/

I just have to brag a bit on my athlete Tomas Gil.   He has won the overall classification in the Tour of Venezuela.  For those of you that do not know about this Tour, it is likely the hardest Tour in South America spanning 12 days and 13 stages.  Plenty of high mountains in the Andes, time trial and hard road and circuits.  I raced and completed it in 1995, nearly getting a stage win on multiple occasions.  Easy is not this tour!     

It was Tomas' long time dream to win the overall and when he approached me back in the fall to begin coaching him, this was his main goal for the year.   He bought a power meter and started training.  Tomas is not a young guy anymore at age 32, but he is still open to learning after having been a pro now for almost 10 years.   Changing his training and being open to new ideas and using his power meter has been a real revolution for him.  

I went to Venezuela this past May for the first time since I was there in 1995 for a week long training camp in Merida, which is in the Andes.  Tomas was able to attend and we got to spend some valuable coaching 'face' time together.  I changed a little bit of the way that he was sitting on the bike, as he wasn't rolling his pelvis forward enough to access all of the gluteal muscles.  Immediately, he had a 10-15 watt increase in power without any additional heart rate increase.  It took about a month for him to completely adapt to this position, but I knew that it would help.  So many riders sit on their bikes like they are sitting in an office chair and then round their backs, when really they need to roll those hips forward and then lengthen their spines.


Everyday he rides with his power meter and looks at his TSS, his PMC and also strives to hit his wattage goals in each workout.  We have been tweaking his PMC for a while now making sure that he came into the Tour of Venezuela with just the right CTL and also TSB.   The weekend before the start of the Tour(the tour started on a wednesday),  he raced in the Elite National Time Trial championships and he won by 5 seconds.  This was his secondary goal for the year to be national time trial champion.  We worked hard on making his position as aero as we could, he trained hard on his Trek time trial bike given to him by the BikePro bike shop in Caracas and he even bought a Quarq power meter for his TT bike, so he would be able to pace using wattage in this very complicated time trial.

While the time trial win was very exciting, winning a 12 day stage race was even more.   For those of you that have done even short stage races, you know how many things have to go 'right' in order for you to win.  For a 12 day race, a lot of things have to go 'right'.    Three of those things were that Tomas put 1:30 into his main competitor  Jose Rujano (who placed 3rd OVERALL in the Giro D italia in 2008), as Rujano was the only one that could really outclimb Tomas.   We knew that he had to win or be in top 3 in the TT stage and also put as much time into Rujano as possible so that he could afford to lose a little in the mountain top stage finishes.   Download his TT file here!

Then Tomas had to minimize any time loses to Rujano and stay with him as best as he could in all the mountains.  With his FTP higher than ever entering into the Vuelta I knew that he would climb well.  His FTP was about 355-365 coming into the Vuelta and he had lost two kilos before the race, so that should help.

On the toughest Mt. stage, he lost only about 40 seconds to Rujano and he put time into his rivals and took over the Yellow Jersey.  The following day was another tough Mt. Stage and just like in the Tour De France, wearing the Yellow Jersey gives you something 'extra' (maybe watts!?).  He won the stage ahead of Rujano and put 15 more seconds into him and was now leading the Tour of Venezuela by 43 seconds.    With the Mt. stages done, and a strong team, Tomas only needed to stay upright for the overall win.

Defeated, Rujano dropped out of the race with two stages remaining and went home with his tail between his legs and now 2nd place as 1:50 behind Tomas with two relatively easy stages to finish.  

Tomas completed his dream yesterday in being crowned the Champion of the Vuelta a Venezuela. 
I am so happy for him and proud to have contributed to his wins.  Of course, like I tell all the athletes that I coach, "I am just the Bus Driver"... you have to get on the bus and then do the hard work.    Congratulations to Tomas Gil.  He is a winner.

Stage 7- First day in the Mountains!

July 10, Stage 7: Tournus - Station des Rousses 165.5km


1 Sylvain Chavanel (Fra) Quick Step 4:22:52

2 Rafael Valls Ferri (Spa) Footon-Servetto 0:00:57

3 Juan Manuel G.rate Cepa (Spa) Rabobank 0:01:27

4 Thomas Voeckler (Fra) Bbox Bouygues Telecom 0:01:40

149 Daniel Lloyd (GBr) Cervelo Test Team 0:22:17
 
Daniels comments - "Quite a grippy day today. A break of 5 went after around 10km, got up to 8 minutes, before Saxo and later Bbox started controlling from behind. We had 6 GPM's, the pace wasn't excrutiating but it was certainly a solid tempo, and the high temperatures made it feel even harder. Eventually I went into the groupetto on the 2nd last climb, having stayed with Carlos as long as possible. My legs were actually quite good. Towards the end we had to ride a little bit harder to make sure we got inside the time limit, which was only 7% on today's stage. We made it by a minute! We were in a large group so we wouldn't have been eliminated, but we would have been deducted points as a penalty which would have been a disaster for Thor, especially as Pettachi was a couple of minutes ahead.
Hunter's Comments- 6 climbs. This was a deceptively hard stage. Over 2 hours of climbing today for Daniel. The 4th climb was very hard and Daniel had to ride near his threshold for much of the climb to stay in the group and help out Carlos Sastre. Daniel's job in the Giro and also the Tour this year is to do as much as he can for Carlos before the mountains and through the mountains as much as possible. On the next to last climb, Daniel was only able to handle the first 4 minutes of the climb before turning off the turbos and riding in the last group to the end. For Daniel, to ride in the 'gruppetto', it allows him to save energy for the next stages and since he's not concerned with his overall time, he can relax a bit in the back.


Download Stage 7 file here

2 hours of NOT pedaling in a stage in the Tour..... WOW.

July 9, Stage 6: Montargis - Gueugnon 227.5km


1 Mark Cavendish (GBr) Team HTC - Columbia 5:37:42

2 Tyler Farrar (USA) Garmin - Transitions

3 Alessandro Petacchi (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini

4 Robbie McEwen (Aus) Team Katusha

40 Daniel Lloyd (GBr) Cervelo Test Team


Daniels' Comments- "Straight forward stage again, the break went almost immediately and only three riders, the bunch rode very easy for a while and then Saxo and HTC controlled it. Tempo the whole day but the roads were rolling so NP a little higher today. Felt pretty good, it was cloudy at the start so the temperature wasn't as high until the end of the stage. We sat in until the last 14km, when I started to do a bit more work to keep Thor at the front. I felt stronger than yesterday anyway.


Hunters Comments - "Another easy day for Daniel. He definitely needed it. I know he's not feeling that great right now and he needed this easy day to help his body recover and heal up for the mt. stages. Over 32% of the time was spent NOT pedaling, so nearly 2 hours of today's stage he didn't pedal! Great job Daniel-energy conservation is king in stage races!
The second longest stage in the tour, Daniel burned 3741 kilojoules, which is roughly about 3900 kilo calories, and he scored 231 TSS with an Intensity factor of .64, which confirms his ACTIVE RECOVERY day, including over 60% of the time in his active recovery zone.

Keep up the good work Daniel!
Download Stage 6 file here

Stage 5- Daniel Lloyd- Cervelo Test Team Power file

Stage 5: Epernay - Montargis 187.5km


1 Mark Cavendish (GBr) Team HTC - Columbia 4:30:50

2 Gerald Ciolek (Ger) Team Milram

3 Edvald Boasson Hagen (Nor) Sky Professional Cycling Team

158 Daniel Lloyd (GBr) Cervelo Test Team 0:01:51
 
Daniel's Comments:


"Another pretty easy day today. I wasn't feeling that great at all, I tried to give Thor a hand at the end, but just as I got up to him and Brett, I took the wrong way round a roundabout and lost all my positions again. I tried getting back up but it didn't happen, so I just sat up."



Hunter's comments:

"Tough Day for Daniel. Not feeling too great and then took the wrong way around that roundabout near the finish. Daniel is doing a phenomenal job at resting and staying attentive near the front, while at the same time staying out of the wind. Very Impressive. He's not breaking any new records with his power numbers, but he's hanging tough and being smart about what he needs to do. 3124 kJ today and only about 200 TSS points as well, with over 60% of the day spent in active recovery. The hardest part of the stage was the first 10-12 minutes as everyone was attacking to try and make it in the breakaway. After the break went, then his power dropped from 350 watts down to 200-220 watts and stayed there for nearly 2 hours.



Keep it going Daniel!

Stage 5 file is HERE

Stage 3 and Stage 4- Daniel Lloyd's -Cervelo Test team TDF power!

Daniel didn't use his PowerTap on stage 3 in the cobbles as they used a special wheelset to better handle the cobbles.  Definitely a bummer as I would have loved to see that data!  Daniel was up in the front leading up to the cobbles making sure that Thor was in the move.   Daniel estimated that his TSS for the day was about 330, so definitely a heck of an effort.

Stage 4-2010 Tour De France-Cambrai - Reims 153k

Daniel had a very easy ride today in the Tour. After the past 4 days, I know that he was glad for it. Over 60% of the ride was in his "Active Recovery" level, so a very nice day to just sit in the peloton, drink, eat and chat with his friends. He only averaged 172watts (229 Normalized) for the first 71 miles! Wow! That's easier than some of his recovery days(but longer of course).


If you look at the Quadrant Analysis graph of his data, you'll see that he spent most of his time in either Quadrant III or IV, which is very low force on the pedals, but either slow or fast pedaling. For slow pedaling, we define anything under 90rpm for Daniel as 'slow' and anything over 90rpm as 'fast'. 90rpm is Daniel's normal self-selected cadence in which he feels comfortable pedaling.
In the last 40 minutes, things really picked up and he was at the front helping to keep Husvold in contention for the sprint win. While those last 40 minutes were fast(average speed over 31mph), he wasn't at his limit and he was nice and controlled with an average wattage of 345 normalized watts.

Overall, a very predictable stage for Daniel and the rest of the riders in the peloton. After all the melee of the first three stages, I know everyone was glad for the easy day.
 
Check out the actual Power file from Stage 4 here

Tour De France Power files- Cervelo Test Team Rider- Daniel Lloyd

It's that time of the year again and we have some power files to share with you!  Daniel Lloyd of the Cervelo Test Team is one of the athletes that I coach and he has been using a power meter since 2004.  He's constantly reviewing his Performance management chart and his files.  We have been working together for 3 years now and I am proud to coach him and excited about this year's Tour.

Each day I will put up a new file from him and the description will come from the Cervelo Test Team website. http://www.cervelo.com/en_us/testteam/

The actual .wko files will be hosted below.    You'll need a copy of TrainingPeaks WKO+ software in order to view the files. You can get a free trial of WKO+ on http://home.trainingpeaks.com/wko-desktop-software/analysis-software-for-training-files.aspx

Lastly, check out the Fatigue Profiling Widget that will help you further refine your strengths and weaknesses that Andy and I have described in the 2nd edition.  http://www.peakscoachinggroup.com/ASPX/FP/FP.aspx


Now onto the files!  Download the WKO+ file below by clicking on the link.
Prologue
Stage 1
Stage 2


Hunter

How will the 2010 Tour de France compare?