From Velonews
"The climb up the legendary Alpe d’Huez, which is normally part of a longer alpine stage, has been included at the end of this year’s counter-clockwise race as a grueling 15km (9.3 mile) trial over 21 hairpin bends.
Tour organizers on Thursday unveiled the 2004 itinerary with the major surprise the inclusion of the Alpine peak for the first time as a time trial - and just four days from the finish on the Champs Elysees on July 25."
Can Pantani’s record time for ascending this climb be beaten next year??
LA should better the time, though if he shows up like '03 he will be in big trouble next year. The course appears to be significantly tougher overall and likely to be very unforgiving to bad days. With Jan back at Telecom LA probably won’t be getting a 1 minute advantage out of the TTT next year either.
What is ‘the record’?
3700ft of altitude gain in ??? minutes?
did you watch the Vuelta? Could be very interesting.
I did watch the vuelta and was absolutely awestruck by what Heras did on that final TT.
However, the Armstrong/Ullrich competition is not nearly the mismatch that the Heras/Nozal test was. Nozal was not even close the climber that Heras was. What’s more the loss of Saiz was a huge blow to the very young and inexperienced Nozal.
Jan has shown he can climb with Lance so long as he does not have to match the acceleration. Armstrong may be able to climb L’Alpe slightly faster, but it will not be so dramatic as head to head competition.
Craig
I really met Heras vs. armstrong. It is a time trial and?? But I think Heras know’s where his bread is buttered
Heras would never do that. That team is way to professional. For Heras to do something like that would make him a serious outcast on US Postal and in the cycling world in general. Remember when Aitor Gonzalez dissed Kelme and Oscar Sevilla. That was huge. Many people were up in arms. Heras would only do such a thing if it were discussed that he was allowed to go for a stage win. That late in the race, it is likely that Armstrong may be far enough ahead to allow Heras or Beltran to try their hand at a stage win. However, with racing still left to do, more likely they will want to work hard to get time checks for Armstrong or take it easy to save themselves for the last week.
Craig
I agree, Just thinking about it and having the vuelta still in short term memory it made me think about the possibilities.
The record was set by Pantani in 1997 at 37 mins (sorry I don’t know the seconds)
AndyA
.
Wow.
6000 ft per hour at the end of a stage…
That’s easily over 450 watts average, sustained power output.