Tour Down Under - Stage 3 & 4 Highlights

I read a few articles today, and it seems that I am yet again impressed by the power of professional cyclists. The tour has mainly been a series of bunch sprints even with some climbing involved that separated the field all over the road.

In regards to the power I mentioned above. I am a pretty average (if not below average) cyclist in the world of novice but competitive amateur riders, and I took a power test with a new coach in November. I averaged around 340 watts for 13 minutes and was maxed out. I was seeing stars and was about to barf at the effort. 13 minutes mind you. Then I read this article today about Lance and his "training being on track". In stage 3, he "glanced down and saw that for the first 2 hours he averaged 340 watts"...and was working very hard to stay with the lead group. Holy Cow...there is no comparison between elite cyclists and the rest of human kind.

A quick highlight reel with a couple of interviews:


A 7 minute highlight with the Versus commentators:


Tour Down Under -- Stage 4

Kinduva uneventful stage so I put some really short highlights in... The announcer's comments that this years Tour Down Under was too difficult (unfair) for the sprinters is a bit silly because every single stage has ended with a bunch sprint. In order to catch back up with the race days, here are the Stage 4 Highlights.

Maybe tomorrow will be something amazing.

I, on the other hand, am going to wait until the rain stops and go ride for a few hours this afternoon, and imagine that I am fast.