We Got Mark Cavendish’s Power Data, Can We Keep Up?

Riders, fans & commentators have called it the hardest start in modern Tour history ever, but how hard really was it? Thanks to @trainingpeaks we’ve been lucky enough to gain Mark Cavendish’s entire data file from stage 2 of this year’s race! We put Hank and Conor through their paces to recreate some of the key efforts needed to survive what was an incredibly tough stage!
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[@gcn]

Do you think you could survive a Tour de France stage? Let us know 👇

[@FixedundFertig]

​@@erzhaideragreed 😅 those wattage numbers didn't look that much... until you know how those numbers feel 😂 And for 5 hours over 200 watts straight is REALLY HARD work for a "normal" Cyclist 😅 I do that for max 2 Hours ( WITHOUT intervals ^^ ) and then my legs BURN 😂

[@adiros9226]

on the couch with beer in my hand :)

[@1269Dondude]

I would get dropped, which is a shame because I have a 934 watt 15 second sprint at 5’6 65 kilos. But I only have 250 watt 60 min power. I could complete any stage eventually though 🤣

[@salamipitza]

my power output is around 2.5w per kilo

[@delivrance3961]

if it's a prologue, no problem!!!

[@Norm0770]

When talk of W/kg comes about I'm at a disadvantage by weight, at 100 kg, but it makes calculating my W/kg to two decimal places super easy!

[@ClementAllen]

Missed a prime opportunity to title this "We Got Mark Cavendish's Power Data, Do We Have Watt it Takes to Keep Up?"

[@gcn]

Bad dum Shhhh 🥁 A pun fit for Dan himself 🙌

[@John-dh1gh]

Or can we lose the Kgs to even be relevant.

[@tobiasbouma4071]

Would love to see van Aert's numbers, he's no small guy but climbing like a featherweight

[@tadziu2400]

Probably FTP close to 500

[@chrisd6736]

⁠do we know FTP for TP or JV?

[@markhumus-js7xz]

@@tadziu2400 no way, he's 78kg, that'd put his FTP at 6.4 W/kg - he'd be demolishing Pog/Kuss/Jonas on the long climbs with that. More like 450-460W.

[@tadziu2400]

@@markhumus-js7xz Jonas is holding 7W/kg for the whole climb

[@gcn]

We're not sure we want to see those numbers... it'll make us all feel bad 😂

[@cb6866]

Thanks Conor , James , and crew.......yeah , good effort !!

[@murtheblur33]

Great video! The effort of the TDF riders is incredible. The thumbnail image for this video could even be "Watt does it take?" !

[@TiagoMorbusSa]

What two pals, great ride.

[@gcn]

Riding with pals is always great fun! 🙌

[@TheJanvicgwaps]

How about get the data of Jonas's TT run cause that one was so wild

[@schaeferdev]

are you sure about the 310w threshhold? That doesn't seem right, even as a sprinter there is no way I would have expected him under 5w/kg especially considering he is one of the smaller guys

[@edgarsk]

Something clearly does not add up between screenshots and whats told, but his threshold is no way near 5w/kg

[@romeeees]

You can get his threshold out of his data @2:00 . With an IF of 0.77 and a NP of 270 W his logged FTP in this file is 350 W.

[@ellie0667]

Exactly this, the headline figure of 310 is a typo. If you then look at his NP of 270w odd for 5 hrs and use ftp of 353 then the TSS seen in training peaks tallies correctly. If his was lower, then the numbers don’t correlate correctly.

[@schaeferdev]

ah yeah I didn't look at the TP data in detail, good catch! I was super confused when they said "310w threshhold" in the video. 350w makes much more sense and would put him pretty much bang on 5w/kg :)

[@philipk4475]

Does GCN have editors who do more than add funky music and actually check stuff?

[@tonmtbcomic9066]

I just love Hanks glasses when he put them on lol

[@annabelmills6519]

It would be great to get a similar video for a tour de France femmes stage!

[@billmccaffrey1977]

Here is a Tour question/problem that needs to be addressed: So far, so called fans have directly caused two accidents and some injuries, then today a dumb ass team car almost took out the leader causing him to lose critical secs in the middle of a tough climb. Fans have made it impossible for riders to pass as they barely leave enough room for single file. I don't know how the riders keep from wanting to drive the team bus through the lot of them. It is harassment to the riders and an embarrassment to the sport.

[@peterfireflylund]

The car couldn't move because there was a stopped motorcycle right in front of it... and the place was so packed with "fans" that it was hard to solve the situation.

[@stevemawer848]

@@peterfireflylund And it was an ASO car, not a "dumb ass team car". People should use their eyes instead of their fingers.

[@KorbensBum]

Bike vault this week was an absolute enjoyable shambles.

[@davidhughson189]

What ~ putting Connors (Training Peaks, next to Marks?). ONE OF THE BEST REVIEWS!! A list of the climbs & who has the KOM’s in these particular climbs please

[@Bluesman2509]

With regards to the comments below Cav's FTP MUST be at the 350w mark, I.e. 4.9-5 wkg. That is still absolutely ballistic speed uphill compared to 99% of amateurs.

[@julendelrio]

You should have come to San Sebastian in person to film this vid. Maybe for the Klasika? 👀 you would be very welcome lads

[@PixelVibe42]

IF (Intensity Factor) of 0.71 - so those 5 hours at race pace didn't really destroy him! Amazing.

[@tobiasgreven254]

I can be wrong, but I believe intensity factor is the normalized power of the ride as a percentage of your FTP. So rides over an hour are per definition at a lower intensity factor.

[@pcdude2394]

Each of Mark Cavendish’s thigh is about the size of his torso. Nothing but pure power

[@gcn]

A true legend of the sport 🙌

[@williamsundkvist69]

Try matching jonas TT numbers

[@shamendra.sakthivel]

9:52 Is it just me or is Connor going for some Tadej tuft looks🤔🤔

[@Deepak19944]

Why are the subtitles not working anymore? Please take a look at it

[@davidhughson189]

What was Connor’s wattage on final sprint?

[@ynotnilknarf39]

Getting a puncture on tubeless, something you push to the max, yet get left to sort it so you can't complete the section, absolute comedy gold!

[@benoittheminerandgamer]

There something wrong with this DATA 5h09min at 270w NP for 2.33w/kg This is not true? That mean Mark weight is 115.88kg ( 270/2.33) is at 70kg for 1m75. Help me understand this DATA.

[@benelumbaugh8928]

Average w/kg on TrainingPeaks is taken by dividing average power by weight, not normalized power

[@alinapopescu872]

The only thing I understand is that we are roasting at 37-38 degrees Celsius 🥵 and you over there are nice and cool. 😇

[@kanraku6129]

11° when I went for a run this morning, that's not even cool it's bloody /cold/!

[@alinapopescu872]

@@kanraku6129 🥶🥶🥶 True! My goodness....

[@Gouranga552]

What happened to Hank?

[@timvanmonero2720]

i'm so confused about this 250W for an hour to be hard. in races we (the faster ones) holed 270W+ for 2-2:15 hour splits and then run a half marathon 🤷🤷 :D

[@stevemead6862]

but cavendish is on the hot sauce 1000.000%

[@destinationbikeatboxhillin8255]

Prove it

[@MrPeterfreeston]

What going on where’s the subtitles?

[@Crowey72]

Hanks headset is half the size of Connors l😂

[@gcn]

It's not all about size 😉

[@Vokunos]

well yeah... i could "survive" tour de france stages. i think i would even have an fun time... but would i also need atleast double the time ? yes haha.

[@philadams9254]

9:32 - Is mark's fitness score only 22? I find that hard to believe

[@cornishalps9870]

I'm pretty sure it's someone else's account as if you look at the 5s power it is a second best of the year/alltime which at 860w is highly unlikely considering his peak power is 1600w.

[@peterfireflylund]

"No. The end." Shortest video ever.

[@triscuitbiscuit]

Can someone fix Hank’s helmet strap please? 😅

[@yuumbaalam]

That was also my thought

[@gcn]

He just loves being different 😂

[@Gmh6477]

Considering cavendish is well past it and has been declining for a few yrs it’s scary to think what The top 5 are doing

[@imacfubu]

He won 4 stages in 2021 and had the fastest top speed in two sprints this year

[@stevemawer848]

You need a dose of reality, mate. Philipsen only beat him because Cav's gears were slipping. Yeah, well past it. Fool.

[@chrismadge7292]

310w at threshold (FTP) - that isnt right, hes going to have a bigger ftp than that

[@swites]

Yep, apparently its 350w or so which makes more sense.

[@toozydude2]

Cmon, Connor doing 289 W for 25min is easy... he is probably 80kg!

[@Tommi462]

I was also wondering if that was another mistake like the Cavendish FTP one, because that didn't sound like it would be that tough for him. I'm a relative beginner cyclist and I did 280W average for a 90min ride the other day, with the best 20min average being 309W. And I wasn't really hurting myself doing that either. Going hard, yes. Granted, I'm much heavier than Conor at around 100kg, but still. Conor's an ex-pro and I'm an ex-fatso who got off the sofa 3 years ago. Cancel Reply

[@alaefarmestatesllc]

He’s 100kg.

[@toozydude2]

@@alaefarmestatesllc actually??

[@alaefarmestatesllc]

@@toozydude2 he’s 6’8

[@alanchorley]

c'mon @gcn - a bit more accuracy with the data please. Cav's FTP stated at 310 W, yet the screenshots would allow FTP to be calculated at 350 W. So either the 310 W statement was wrong, or the displayed data was loaded onto somebody else's account with a different FTP. If that was the case the FTP needed to be set to Cav's 310 W to avoid the normalised power and TSS readings referred to being incorrect. Whilst on the subject of NP, it's not power "discounting the zero watts when you're not pedalling", it is an (unvalidated) mathematical estimate of what could have been done if a constant effort had been maintained.

[@robertwaldren6206]

Great video, but I sure wish you had closed captioning on all your videos. According to the World Health Organization, "...Currently more than 1.5 billion people (nearly 20% of the global population) live with hearing loss; 430 million of them have disabling hearing loss." I'm sure you have many viewers who would appreciate closed captioning on all of your content, whether on KZbin or GCN+. Thanks for your consideration.

[@xcskiing_universe]

310 w threshold is just ridiculously bad for being a pro. No doubt what Mark was made for: that is sprinting and not endurance. I wonder how low his absolute and relative vo2 max is as well. I believe right now it’s almost as bad as a football-player.

[@timvanmonero2720]

206W/2.33W/KG = 88KG? 👀👀❓❓⁉⁉❓❓

[@damiramilojevic9180]

ok

[@mbastos1000]

BS!!!! He increased the size of the tip to make people spend extra lubricant and buy again sooner! Thief!

[@brentgaul2760]

No no no no. Nope. Global Cycling? Stop with this Cav BS. This show is clearly a British Cycling Network. Just stop.

[@rogersimmons8788]

No.

[@douglasbooth6836]

He’s not a living legend. Nobody outside of cycling knows who he is.

[@alaefarmestatesllc]

That goes for most elite athletes. Michael Phelps/lance Armstrong are the minorities

[@Morhaw]

Apart from the fact that in the UK he’s quite well known because the BBC cream themselves over him

[@gcn]

We disagree, Mark is one of the household names that go beyond our sport.

[@douglasbooth6836]

@@gcn nobody out of cycling knows his name. Sorry.

[@douglasbooth6836]

@@alaefarmestatesllc usian bolt, Muhammad Ali? Tyson?

[@ElouanGardon]

Is this a joke?

[@Smaug1]

You guys need some new topics. Comparing yourselves (keen cyclists though you are) to TDF athletes is always going to come out with the GCN staff woefully inadequate. Check your egos. Here are two TDF-themed ideas: 1) What happens to the idiot spectators who clip riders and cause accidents in the TDF? What's the penalty? 2) Why are the spectators allowed on the road itself? (seeing as how they cause accidents EVERY year)

[@mace9770]

Is everything ok at home?

[@fabioqueiros9322]

@@mace9770clearly not

[@cschmitz]

"why are the spectators allowed on the road itself" think about how long the tour de France is distance wise and then think about how you'd possibly keep spectators off of that entire route. My guess is that it's not for a lack of desire or trying, it's just an impossible ask.

[@High_Octane]

I thought this was great, check your commenting worth…

[@tankbirdfinder6219]

Please clarify, Mark Cavendish agreed to this yes? Very simply, he owns that data, it's his, not training peaks. You did get permission? I'm confident you'd respect this basic respect requirement, but I'd like you to state it with no room for interpretation. Please.

[@kingpinuk880]

Yes they clearly hacked his data illegally and made a video about it....c'mon man

[@FoobsTon]

Why?

[@gcn]

Hi there, we can assure you that all necessary permissions were gathered before creating this video. We hope you enjoyed it! Mark is a beast... we've got a new found respect for him 🥵

[@edt6488]

@tankbirdfinder6219 And where's your apology to GCN?

[@stevemawer848]

@@edt6488 No apology needed - he just asked GCN to confirm that nothiung underhand was going on, which they have. @kingpinuk880 is the one who should apologise before he gets sued for libel.

[@SwanWillTearYouApart]

would be cool to convert this to a . fit / .zwo file based on % of Marks FTP so we could try it