Hunter Allen's Comments: HOT day today in the Tour. 42C or 107F! That's a hot day by anyone's standards. Adam's standard pattern and orders from the Team Director were again in place today. Cover all the early breaks, then be there in the end for Mark if needed. Adam's first hour was at a NP of 350, and was spent covering a lot of attacks. After that hour, it was a lazy ride to the final climb of the day, the Col de l'Orme. In those last 35 minutes of the stage, Adam averaged 399 Watts Normalized and was right below and at his FTP for much of that time. He made it over the short 4-5 minute climb with the main group(some chasing on the downhill), and then rode at the front, presumably for Gerard Ciolek and Kim Kirchen. Gerard is a great sprinter in his own right and with Cavendish not making the front split, he had a chance to go for the stage win. Great to see Adam give it his all for his teammates yet again. His last 10minutes of effort looks similar to previous stages with a NP of 449 watts and HR at 164. Plenty of kJ's burned today at 4033, even though he spent 40% of his stage in the active recovery zone... kiloCalories are about 10% over that, so he burned around 4400 calories today. I can imagine that he's a bit tired of eating all the time by now, but with another big stage coming tomorrow, re-fueling will be important.
