GRAVITY DEFYING

Little sleep will be had within the budget hotels of Valence on the evening of Tuesday 6 July. The world’s best riders will have enjoyed a relatively straightforward stage 10 of the 108th Tour de France. A sprinter will have won. Caleb Ewan, Sam Bennett, Arnaud Démare – take your pick. Turbo cool-down, protein intake, compression socks, shower, massage, evening meal and then rest. Or try to. For the following day sees La Grande Boucle’s first ever double ascent of Mont Ventoux. After 122km, the peloton will tackle the Giant of Provence from Sault, a grinding 24.3km ascent at five per cent gradient. Around 55km later, it’s the classic climb from Bedoin, a sharper 8.8 per cent average over 15.7km. Same mountain, two very different profiles. Whose star will rise? Whose will flicker and fade? Time will tell. Or you can predict by delving into the world of modelling climbing performance.

FORCES OF NATURE

“There are three forces acting against a cyclist when climbing,” says Elliot Lipski, coach at Team Qhubeka-Assos. “They are wind resistance, road friction and gravity. The more power you can generate relative to these forces, the faster you will go.”

Simple. Thus far. But knowing how a rider’s physiological profile will react to the course profile requires a deeper understanding of the forces at play. How beyond the romantic brutality of Ventoux, it’s the physical forces that had Eddy Merckx