tour de france riders max heart rate

What Is the Tour de France Average Speed?

We examine the average speed and other metrics of the world’s best cyclists. How would you stack up?

Gear-obsessed editors choose every product we review. We may earn commission if you buy from a link. How we test gear.

We all know that the pro cyclists that race in the men’s Tour de France are the best in the world. We also know that they’re fast— really fast. Have you ever wondered about the Tour de France average speed, though, and how you’d fare against a pro? Well, now you can see for yourself.

Average Time Trial Speed

A Tour pro’s ability to produce more power for longer means that he would complete a 30K time trial about 20 minutes faster than the average rider. In other words, he’s really hammering.

Average Rider: 19 to 20 mph

Tour Pro: 29 to 31 mph

Average Speed on Flat Terrain

Even on flat land, a pro’s average speed in the Tour de France needs to be way up there in order to stay in the race. In fact, it’s usually about double that of an average rider.

Average Rider: 17 to 18 mph

Tour Pro: 25 to 28 mph

Maximum Sprint Power

Sprinters generate incredible amounts of power in the final 15-second dash for the line. A rider like Mark Cavendish might hit 1,500 watts at the end of a flat field sprint.

Average Rider: 600 to 800 watts

Tour Pro: 1,200 to 1,400 watts

Average Speed Over Cobblestones

The Tour de France often features at least one section of cobblestones , known locally as pavé (though sometimes that’s exchanged for a stretch of gravel) . On a tough section, pros can average an incredible 22 to 24 mph.

Average Rider: 14 to 16 mph

Tour Pro: 22 to 24 mph

Average Resting Heart Rate

Team EF Education-EasyPost utilized WHOOP straps during the 2020 Tour to collect detailed biometric data on the athletes 24/7 over the course of the entire 21-stage race, with remarkable results. The data showed an average resting heart rate of 42 beats per minute for the team before the start of the Tour, and 40 bpm after the first rest day. And in other jaw-dropping heart rate stats, team cyclist Neilson Powless spent 38 percent of Stage 8 that year in the 90- to 100-percent zone for his max heart rate .

Average Rider : 60 to 100 bmp

Tour Pro : ~40 bmp

Sandwiches Consumed

Soigneurs (all-purpose team assistants) make lunches for everyone on the team, including the staff. With about 12 to 15 staffers supporting a given team’s nine riders in France, that’s a lot of bread and a lot of sandwiches consumed over the course of three weeks.

Average Rider: 1 to 3 sandwiches

Tour Pro: ~30 sandwiches

Daily Bottles of Drink Mix Guzzled

Depending on conditions, you might mix one or two bottles during one of your ride. A Tour de France soigneur might mix between 40 and 120 bottles for the team on each stage, which means an individual rider may throw back up to a dozen bottles or more.

Average Rider: 1 to 2

Tour Pro: 4 to 13

How Long it Takes to Climb the Col du Tourmalet

A pro climber will probably average about 350 to 375 watts on the climb up the Col du Tourmalet , one of the most famous climbs not just in the Tour, but in the entire cycling world. An ordinary rider would generate closer to 175 to 200—which means the Tour’s top climbers could ascend the Col nearly twice during your trip to the top.

Average Rider: 115 minutes

Tour Pro: 60 minutes

Bikes at Your Disposal

Depending on the rider and the team’s bike sponsor, most pros come to the Tour with an aero road bike for flatter stages, a climbing bike for the mountains, and a time-trial bike—not to mention spares. A general classification contender like Tadej Pogačar might have two or three of each.

Average Rider: 1 to 2 bikes

Tour Pro: 4 to 5 bikes

Since getting hooked on pro cycling while watching Lance Armstrong win the 1993 U.S. Pro Championship in Philadelphia, longtime Bicycling contributor Whit Yost has raced on Belgian cobbles, helped build a European pro team, and piloted that team from Malaysia to Mont Ventoux as an assistant director sportif. These days, he lives with his wife and son in Pennsylvania, spending his days serving as an assistant middle school principal and his nights playing Dungeons & Dragons.

.css-1t6om3g:before{width:1.75rem;height:1.75rem;margin:0 0.625rem -0.125rem 0;content:'';display:inline-block;-webkit-background-size:1.25rem;background-size:1.25rem;background-color:#F8D811;color:#000;background-repeat:no-repeat;-webkit-background-position:center;background-position:center;}.loaded .css-1t6om3g:before{background-image:url(/_assets/design-tokens/bicycling/static/images/chevron-design-element.c42d609.svg);} Cycling Tips

Mountain Biking vs Road Cycling: How They Compare

When to Cut Your Ride Short

4 Ways to Increase Your VO2 Max

10 Mountain Biking Tips to Perfect Your Riding

All About Critical Power

The Best Century Rides Across the U.S.

How to Conquer Long Slow Distance Training

Indoor vs Outdoor Cycling: How They Compare

How to Enjoy Group Rides

Tips for Your First Century Ride

Change Your Breathing to Improve Your Performance

What riding a Grand Tour does to a professional cyclist’s mind and body

A Grand Tour can take a toll on your body

© Denis Klero/Red Bull Content Pool

Noticeable changes in physical appearance

This is what a day competing in the tour de france is like, severe energy depletion and muscle breakdown.

Stocking up on mid-stage snacks

© Ydwer van der Heide / Red Bull Content Pool

With the muscles, if you don’t fuel them enough you will lose muscle. That’s why protein is very important Nico Bruijnen

What do Tour de France riders eat?

Intense physical fatigue.

Breaks are few and far between

© Masha Berliner / Red Bull Content Pool

The fatigue setting in at the end of the stage

© Pavel Sukhorukov / Red Bull Content Pool

Reduced endurance abilities

Cyclists vitals need to be monitored closely

7 things endurance cyclists should do to stay comfortable

Immunity levels take a hit.

Post-stage recovery

Mental drain

That feeling when you finish the Grand Tour!

10 tips for climbing insanely steep hills

How hard is the Tour de France?

We look at power, calories, recovery data, speed and more to compare a Tour de France rider's efforts to those of an everyday cyclist

Watching the Tour de France from the comfort of your own home, many of us have questioned if it'd be possible to ride the race ourselves. The world's best cyclists at peak fitness can make it look almost too easy at times, which could lead to a skewed perception of how hard the Tour de France actually is. 

Obviously, deep down, we are all aware that the race is light-years away from a Sunday coffee ride with your local cycling club, otherwise, we’d all be lining up at the start. But when you watch the likes of Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) powering up an Alp, it’s hard not to feel inspired. 

It's not a huge logical leap to then wonder how we might compare, and whether we could keep up with the pro peloton. Any cyclist who is familiar with power numbers such as watts per kilo, FTP , etc, will likely have wondered at some point how their numbers would stack up when compared with Wout Van Aert and co. 

The question on all our lips is: exactly how hard is the Tour de France? Spoiler alert: it’s hard. Very hard. Of course it’s hard, it’s the Tour de France, arguably the pinnacle of any pro rider’s career. What we really want to know is 'how hard?' 

Over the course of this article, we will try to quantify just that: how hard the pros work during the three-week race and compare that, roughly speaking, with the efforts we mere mortals are capable of.

To provide you with meaningful answers, we dived into race road books from the last few editions of the race, dug through the power files of some of the riders to try and fathom their efforts, along with taking a look at their recovery files to gauge the relative strain that their bodies endure. Then, we gathered data from the general public – ‘normal’ cyclists such as you and I – in an attempt to gain some perspective on the difference. 

 The terrain 

At its close, the riders in the 2021 Tour de France covered 3,414 kilometres (2,121 miles) – not including the riding they did on the two rest days. The 2022 edition of the race was actually ever so slightly shorter with a total of 3,328km (2067 miles) of racing. 

Get The Leadout Newsletter

The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!

Put plainly, if you were to get in a car in New York and head west, that'd get you as far as Salt Lake City. If you were to get onto a plane in London, you could get to Paris and back again five times. If you were in Australia you'd make it from Melbourne right over to Perth on the western coast.

Throughout this distance, riders face a whole host of climbs, from small hills to enormous mountain passes. For the 2023 edition this year, riders will cover 3,404km (2,115 miles) including ascents of the Puy de Dôme and the Grand Colombier in the Pyrenees.

According to data published to Strava by Tour debutant Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers), in the 17 stages leading up to his impressive Stage 18 victory atop Alpe D'Huez last year, he had ascended a total of 43,110m. That's almost five times the height of Mount Everest. 

In addition, while it's easy and obvious to focus on the difficulty of going uphill, there's a level of difficulty involved in coming down the other side too. 

For us average Janes and Joes, coming downhill might seem like the easy part – you can often stop pedalling and simply let gravity do the work – but let's not forget these riders are in a race so will be sprinting out of corners and pushing the limits of physics to go as quickly as possible, which in itself takes an enormous amount of mental energy and focus. 

As an example of this, according to that same data from Pidock, the maximum speed he hit during Stage 18 of last year's Tour was 62.7mph (100.91km/h). Stage 18 will long be remembered in particular for the jaw-dropping descent of the Col Du Galibier that Pidcock executed on the way to a solo win atop Alpe D'Huez. Although he actually clocked his maximum speed later on in the stage on the descent of the Croix de Fer / Glandon. He also hit a huge maximum cadence of 200rpm during the stage. Descending like this takes a large amount of skill and concentration, it is hard to begin to imagine the amount of focus this requires and the cognitive load it creates. 

The training

The Tour de France is ridden by the world's best road cyclists, all of whom are full-time professionals that ride for around 20 to 30 hours per week. But wait, before you quit your nine-to-five job and start cycling all day, know that these riders aren't just riding their bike for fun, they are completing highly tailored structured training programs designed by some of the best physiologists and coaches in the world. 

Sadly, even if we did have that expertise at our disposal, most of us still couldn't quit the day job, because professional cyclists are also blessed with the right mix of genetic potential that enables them to respond to such a high training stimulus and recover quickly enough to go again the next day, day after day, week after week. 

To try and quantify this, we reached out to TrainerRoad – a popular training-based indoor cycling app turned all-around training platform that boasts a dataset of over a million users – to get a sense of the amount of structured training that the 'average' cyclist tackles. 

According to TrainerRoad's data, an average 'beginner cyclist' performs 3.53 hours of structured training per week, split at 3.61 hours for men and 3.06 hours for women. While 'experienced cyclists' perform 6.43 hours per week (6.5 hours for men, 5.46 for women). 

What this means is that your average beginner is performing just 10% of the training hours of a Tour de France cyclist. 

The time cut

To complete the Tour de France, you cannot simply commit to finishing the route, you'll need to do so within the constraints of a time cut on each stage. 

According to rule 2.6.032 of the UCI rulebook, exactly what that time cut will be is defined as follows: 

"The finishing deadline shall be set in the specific regulations for each race in according with the characteristics of the stage.

“In exceptional cases only, unpredictable and of force majeure [unforeseeable circumstances], the commissaires panel may extend the finishing time limits after consultation with the organisers."

So in layman's terms, the organisers will decide the time cut based on the difficulty of the stage. We won't go into the details of how they then calculate it, but depending on the difficulty of the stage and the pace of the fastest rider, it will usually be the winner's time plus anything between 4% and 18%.

To turn that into an example, if a stage took the winner exactly four hours to complete, the time cut would be anywhere between 9m36s and 43m12s later. 

It was a hotly discussed topic last year, with sprinter Fabio Jakobsen fighting on every mountain stage, and in particular on Stage 17, where he pushed himself to the very limit to make the time cut by a mere 15 seconds. 

This essentially means that to complete the Tour de France, you need to not only finish the route, you need to be able to do so within a percentage of the winner's time, which leads us nicely onto speed. 

In trying to work out how hard the Tour de France actually is, you will need to know what speed you'll need to be able to ride in order to keep up. The 2022 edition of the Tour was the fastest in the race's history. The average speed of winner Jonas Vingegaard for the 21-stage race set a new record at 42.03km/h (26.12mph)

Combining every edition of the Tour since 2007, the average pace of the winner has been 40.07km/h (24.89mph). Anyone who has ridden a local time trial will know that it's difficult to maintain this pace for 10 miles, let alone the 2000-plus miles covered in the Tour. 

However, of course, anyone who's ridden in a group will also know that there's an enormous benefit from being in the draft. That is, of course, until the road points up and gravity does its best to slow you down. 

After Ben O'Connor's victory into Tignes on stage 9 of the 2021 Tour, we analysed his performance and saw just how strong the AG2R Citroën rider had to be to win a stage of the Tour de France. The final climb on this stage was Montée de Tignes, which is 31.1km long with an average gradient of 4.1%. This climb took O'Connor 1 hour and 12 minutes, during which he rode at an average speed of 26kph (16.15mph), naturally taking the Strava KOM along the way.

But even if you're not vying for a win, and you're simply trying to make it to the finish line within the time cut, you'll still need to maintain a very high pace. In 2020, Roger Kluge finished at the very bottom of the GC standings, at 6:07:02 behind Tadej Pogačar's winning time of 87:20:13. With that, Kluge still maintained an average speed of 39.09km/h (24.29mph).

A commonly used and widely understood assessment of a rider's ability is FTP, or Functional Threshold Power, which is said to be the maximum amount of power that a rider can sustain for an hour. It is often tested with a sustained 20-minute effort, with the average power from this effort multiplied by 0.95.

Measured in watts, this can be quoted in an absolute figure, or in 'watts per kilogram' where the absolute figure is divided by the rider's weight. So for example, a 75kg rider with an absolute FTP of 300 watts would have a weight-adjusted FTP of 4w/kg. 

In our analysis of O'Connor's data, we calculated his absolute FTP to be 395 watts, and according to ProCyclingStats, his weight is 67kg, meaning he boasts an FTP of 5.89w/kg.

Similarly, during the 2020 Tour, we analysed the power file of Tadej Pogačar after his record-breaking ascent of the Col de Peyresourde and calculated his FTP to be 410 watts, or 6.2w/kg. 

To compare this to an average cyclist, we went back to TrainerRoad, who supplied the average FTP of its entire database.

• Male beginners, the average FTP sits at 214 watts (2.81w/kg)
• Experienced male cyclists, the average jumps to 271 watts (3.75w/kg)
• Female beginners, the average FTP sits at 146 watts (2.45w/kg)
• Experienced female cyclists, the average jumps to 189 watts (3.25w/kg)
• All beginner cyclists combined, the average FTP sits at 204 watts (2.75w/kg)
• All experienced cyclists combined, the average FTP sits at 266 watts (3.72w/kg)

That means Pogacar's 410w FTP is more than 50% better than the average experienced cyclist (266w), and more than double that of the average beginner cyclist (204w). Of course, beyond this simple metric, there are a lot of other factors at play too. Not least fatigue resistance, which is the ability to output the same high power numbers at the end of a long day or at the end of three weeks of back-to-back racing. 

For his ascent of Montée de Tignes in 2021, O'Connor needed to put out an average of 345 watts (5.1w/kg) for the 1h12 duration, on a day where, in total, he averaged 311 watts (4.6w/kg) for over 4.5 hours. 

And for Pogačar's ascent of the Col de Peyresourde in 2020, which came on stage 8, he averaged 429 watts (6.7w/kg) for 24h08 at the end of a four-hour stage that included three mountains. 

For a reference of just how good this is, anyone who's spent time racing on Zwift may be familiar with the five Zwift Power categories (A+, A, B, C and D). A+ is the highest here, and to get yourself into this category, you'll need an FTP of 4.6 W/kg.  

To maintain all this effort, a rider needs to eat. A lot. 

Going back to Tom Pidcock and adding up his calorie expenditure up to stage 18 during last year's race, the Brit had burnt a total of 59,609 calories. That's the equivalent of about 232 McDonald's Big Macs. 

So how hard is it for the professional riders?

By now we have a pretty good idea of just how hard the Tour de France is, but these are professional athletes, they're the best road racing cyclists in the world and this is their job. So while it might be an impossible task for us mere mortals to even consider getting round, surely it's just another day at the office for them. Not exactly. 

To quantify this, we reached out to Whoop , sponsor to EF Education-EasyPost , and makers of a wearable wrist strap that uses an optical heart rate sensor to continuously monitor heart rate and heart rate variability to quantify various metrics. 

For those interested in how this works, Dr Stephanie Shell, a Senior Physiologist specialising in recovery at the Australian Institute of Sport explained the science a little more as part of our Whoop 3.0 review but put simply, it uses these metrics to allocate a 'strain' and 'recovery' score. Both are calculated using proprietary Whoop algorithms, and strain is scored out of 21, while recovery is scored as a percentage out of 100. 

Whoop duly shared data for a number of its riders on various stages in the 2021 race. The most complete of these datasets is for time trialling specialist Stefan Bissegger. 

Looking at his data, we're able to see how these algorithms rate the difficulty of Bissegger's days in comparison to his own baseline, thus quantifying how hard the days must be for Bissegger himself. 

The data here is threefold, covering strain, recovery, and sleep performance data. 

Across the nine stages for which we have data, Bissegger didn't have a day with a strain score below 17.4, with all of stages 9 to 13 scoring above 20 out of 21. This suggests that even for him, racing the Tour de France put his body through extreme strain. 

Alongside this, his recovery ranged widely. His lowest score was 30%, with his highest being 81%. 

All in all, it's safe to conclude that the Tour de France is truly brutal in its difficulty. It's well in excess of the capabilities of the general public and still beyond the reach of experienced, trained cyclists. Even for many of the professional athletes who start the Tour de France, actually finishing it is an altogether different proposal, and each year, dozens of riders miss the time cut. 

For those who do make it to Paris, it's still right at the upper limits of their capability and that's what makes it such a thrilling sport for us viewers to consume. 

Thank you for reading 5 articles in the past 30 days*

Join now for unlimited access

Enjoy your first month for just £1 / $1 / €1

*Read any 5 articles for free in each 30-day period, this automatically resets

After your trial you will be billed £4.99 $7.99 €5.99 per month, cancel anytime. Or sign up for one year for just £49 $79 €59

Try your first month for just £1 / $1 / €1

Josh is Associate Editor of Cyclingnews – leading our content on the best bikes, kit and the latest breaking tech stories from the pro peloton. He has been with us since the summer of 2019 and throughout that time he's covered everything from buyer's guides and deals to the latest tech news and reviews. 

On the bike, Josh has been riding and racing for over 15 years. He started out racing cross country in his teens back when 26-inch wheels and triple chainsets were still mainstream, but he found favour in road racing in his early 20s, racing at a local and national level for Somerset-based Team Tor 2000. These days he rides indoors for convenience and fitness, and outdoors for fun on road, gravel, 'cross and cross-country bikes, the latter usually with his two dogs in tow.

This new GPS computer from smartwatch brand Coros could flip the market on its head

Best bike panniers 2024: From commuting and touring to grocery getting

Less than 1% battery life used in a three-hour ride: New Coros Dura computer is a gamechanger

Most Popular

Your cart is empty

Pros vs amateurs: exploring the difference in physical performance

In order to ride a Grand Tour riders have to be at their peak physical performance, but how big is the gap between a Tour de France athlete and an average cyclist?

Words: India Paine

The Tour de France is widely regarded as the ultimate test of endurance. Over the course of 21 days, riders cover more than 3,500 kilometres, conquering over 50,000 metres of elevation. There are athletes, and then there are Tour de France athletes. 

Merely watching them on television, you can sense their exceptional fitness as they effortlessly tackle steep mountain passes with gradients reaching double digits. Of course, they dedicate countless hours to training and have teams of professionals meticulously measuring and preparing every aspect of performance. There is no room for error in cycling, as even slight differences can significantly impact a rider's success in the Tour de France. But how much fitter are they compared to your average cyclist? 

To answer this question, the sports scientists at the Porsche Human Performance Centre needed a volunteer from the Rouleur team. Stepping up to the challenge, I made my way to their HQ located at the Silverstone race circuit to meet sports scientists Jack Wilson and Tristen Reed, who were prepared to subject me to three gruelling tests to determine how I stacked up against the pros. 

Test one: VO2 Max

A VO2 max test is a rigorous exercise test conduction on a treadmill or stationary bike while connected to a machine that analyses a person's expired air. The test measures the amount of oxygen utilised during exercise and determines the maximum amount of oxygen a person can consume during physical activity. Simply, the higher your VO2 max, the bigger your engine. 

A person's VO2 max does depend on sex, weight and height, and the average sedentary male has a VO2 max of 35 to 40 ml/kg/min and females have a range of 27 to 30 ml/kg/min. The score will be higher for your average cyclist as they are training their aerobic fitness, and this will improve further if they are training particularly hard. 

In my case, I underwent the VO2 max test using a stationary bike. I was equipped with an oxygen mask and a heart rate monitor, both connected to a computer which would measure my oxygen levels. Once set up, I was instructed to start pedalling. As the minutes pass, I was asked to increase my cadence as the resistance on the bike intensified. During the test, I also had to rate my perceived exertion level (RPE). 

After eight and a half minutes, I reached my peak performance and could no longer sustain the set cadence – this marked my time to exhaustion. In total, my VO2 max score was measured at 55 ml/kg/min. According to Garmin's website , this score falls within the "superior" range for a 27-year-old woman. However, Wilson and Reed presented some statistics that toppled my "superior" status.

They revealed that the expected VO2 max range for a Tour de France rider in the men's peloton is between 70 and 85. Notably, the yellow jersey favourite, Tadej Pogačar, boasts a remarkable VO2 max of 89.4. It's safe to say I would never stand a chance racing against him! Then comparing myself to the women's peloton, though, I'm not as far off. The average VO2 max for Tour de France Femmes riders falls between 60 and 70. Maybe a chance in the grupetto ? 

Test two: peak power output 

After completing one test, it was time for the next: peak power output. This test measures the maximum amount of power an individual can generate within a given time frame and provides insights into anaerobic performance. 

The test involved a six-second effort on a Wattbike repeated three times, with a few minutes of rest inbetween. It's worth noting that the six seconds had to be initiated from a static position without pedalling. The overall results revealed a peak power output of 754 watts at a cadence of 121. Considering my weight at 66kg, this translates to 11.4 watts per kilogram (w/kg). 

According to Cycling Analytics , the average watts for a male in a five-second sprint is around 930 watts or 12.14w/kg. Whereas for women, the average watts in a five-second sprint is slightly lower at 632 or 10.03w/kg. 

So, how does that compare to what the pros can produce? Well, it pales in comparison to their staggering numbers. Wilson and Reed shared some metrics indicating that male riders can reach between 1,600 and 1,800 watts during a five-second sprint at the end of a race, and up to 1,900 watts if they are not fatigued.

The female riders also exhibit impressive strength, achieving between 1,000 and 1,200 watts in a sprint. Sprint queen Lorena Wiebes, for example, celebrated a victory on the iconic Champs-Élysées during the 2022 Tour de France Femmes. She recorded an astonishing 1,211 watts as she crossed the finish line, putting her into the race's first yellow jersey. 

Test three: heat chamber 

The Tour de France can be scorchingly hot, especially as it takes place during the peak of the French summer. Temperatures can reach up to 40 degrees Celsius, which significantly impacts the performance of many riders. To demonstrate this effect, my third and final test of the day involved spending 30 minutes in a heat chamber set to 40 degrees, while pedalling on a static bike. The objective of the test was to observe how my body adapted to the heat. 

Before entering the chamber, my core body temperature was recorded at 36.9 degrees Celsius. Throughout the heat chamber test, my  temperature and heart rate was monitored every five minutes, and even after five minutes of cycling, my body temperature had jumped to 38.1 degrees Celsius, accompanied by a heart rate of 174 beats per minute. 

As time went on, I started sweating profusely and contemplated how much more I would perspire during one of the Tour's gruelling mountain stages in 40-degree heat. Keeping in mind that during this test, I only had to maintain around 130 watts on a stationary bike, not battle it out for a stage win. 

By the end of the 30-minute session, my core body temperature had soared to 39.9 degrees Celsius, while my heart rate matched this intensity at 198 beats per minute. Comparing this to my VO2 max test, where my heart rate at the point of exhaustion was 196 beats per minute, it became evident just how much riding in the heat can put a strain on the body. 

The overall stats achieved by the Tour de France riders are extraordinary. From the VO2 max test to the gruelling task of riding in such high temperatures and the peak power output assessment, it's evident that the elite riders competing in the Tour de France possess remarkable levels of fitness, endurance, and power.

Their VO2 max scores far exceeded the average cyclist, showcasing their superior aerobic capacity. The intense heat of the race also takes a toll on their bodies, pushing them to their limits. Moreover, the jaw-dropping peak power outputs achieved by the pros highlight their explosive strength and anaerobic performance capabilities. It is clear that the Tour de France athletes operate on an entirely different level, exemplifying the pinnacle of endurance sport.

Learn more about the Porsche Human Performance Centre and Precision Fuel and Hydration . 

Team Cars | Service Des Courses - Organic Unisex T-shirt

Rouleur Team Cars Bone China Mugs

Rouleur ELITE Jet Water Bottle Bidon - 550ml

Rouleur Logo Organic Unisex T-Shirt - Black/White

Rouleur Logo Organic Unisex T-Shirt – White

Team Cars | Campagnolo - Organic Cotton Unisex T-Shirt

Rouleur Logo - Organic Sweatshirt - Unisex - Burgundy

Team Cars | Peugeot - Organic Cotton Unisex T-Shirt

Colours of the Peloton - Short Sleeve Base Layer - Men's

Rouleur Logo Organic Unisex T-Shirt – Tonal Grey

Team Cars | Raleigh - Organic Cotton Unisex T-Shirt

Rouleur Logo Organic Sweatshirt - Unisex - Grey

Coppi - Rouleur Notebook

Rouleur Logo - Organic Sweatshirt - Unisex - French Navy

Rouleur Logo - Organic Jogger Pants - Unisex - French Navy

Rouleur Logo - Organic Hooded Sweatshirt - Unisex - Heather Blue

Rouleur x Kaweco Rollerball Pen - Black + Gold foil logo

Allez - Organic Cotton Unisex T-Shirt

Tours Issue - Rouleur Tote Bag

Dai! - Organic Cotton Unisex T-Shirt

True Grit - Rouleur Notebook

Rouleur Water Bottle Bidon - Ride Fast, Read Slow - Cream + Green

Rouleur Water Bottle Bidon - Green + Pink

Rouleur Embroidered Organic Cotton Unisex T-Shirt - Natural Cotton + Green

Rouleur x Kaweco Rollerball Pen - Brass + Black etched logo

!Vamos! - Organic Cotton Unisex T-Shirt

Colours of the Peloton - Short Sleeve Jersey - Women's

Rouleur Logo Women's T-Shirt - Navy

Rouleur x Kaweco Aluminium Rollerball Pen - Silver + Engraved logo

Tours Issue - Rouleur Notebook

Rigoberto Uran’s power output for stage nine of the Tour de France analysed

Uran’s stage winning power data analysed by Training Peaks

• Sign up to our newsletter Newsletter

Rigoberto Uran wins stage nine of the 2017 Tour de France (Sunada)

Stage nine was the most dramatic of this year’s Tour de France . The descent off the Mont du Chat ended Richie Porte’s Tour, took down Dan Martin and broke Rigoberto Uran’s rear mech, leaving him with a single 53/11 gear on the run in to the finish.

Uran won the stage in a photo finish with Warren Barguil and, unusually for a GC rider, shared his power data on Training Peaks, which has published an analysis of the data.

Over the five hours plus stage, covering 181km and over 4000m of climbing Uran averaged 35.4kph and 219 watts power output.

The final climb of the Mont du Chat was 8km long at an average 10 per cent. Uran’s average power output was 343w with a heart rate of 173bpm, for an average speed of 16.3kph over the 29.5 minute climb.

>>> Power meters: everything you need to know

Uran climbed the first 5.4km of the Mont du Chat with the thinning GC group in 19.5 minutes at an average 332w. When Fabio Aru put in an attack in the last 3km, Uran upped his power output to 378w for over eight minutes to keep up, with a peak of 666w. His cadence averaged 81rpm in a 39/30 gear ratio.

On the wet descent where Porte crashed, Uran’s average speed was 59.2kph with a maximum of 84.3kph.

Get The Leadout Newsletter

The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!

Once on the flat, with his bent rear mech preventing shifting, Uran’s cadence dropped to 70rpm. He still put out 339w for over four minutes. In the last kilometre, he averaged 463w for 35 seconds to take him to the 550m to go mark.

With 440m to the line, Jakob Fuglsang attacked. At this point, Uran’s power peaked at 1189w to follow Fuglsang’s wheel, keeping up 1025w for 210m at 83rpm and 50kph. Over the last 150m to the line, he averaged 816w and 56kph.

With Uran’s 63kg weight, his average power-to-weight ratio was 3.8w/kg, 5.4w/kg on the climb of the Mont du Chat and peaked at over 18w/kg in the finale.

Thank you for reading 20 articles this month* Join now for unlimited access

Enjoy your first month for just £1 / $1 / €1

*Read 5 free articles per month without a subscription

Join now for unlimited access

Try first month for just £1 / $1 / €1

Paul started writing for Cycling Weekly in 2015, covering cycling tech, new bikes and product testing. Since then, he’s reviewed hundreds of bikes and thousands of other pieces of cycling equipment for the magazine and the Cycling Weekly website.

He’s been cycling for a lot longer than that though and his travels by bike have taken him all around Europe and to California. He’s been riding gravel since before gravel bikes existed too, riding a cyclocross bike through the Chilterns and along the South Downs.

The UAE Team Emirates teammates took their fourth consecutive one-two finish of the race on the final stage

By Joseph Lycett Published 16 June 24

The SD Worx-Protime rider takes back-to-back stage wins in Villars-sur-Ollon and extends her overall lead

Colombian announces at Tour Colombia that he will call time on his career at end of year after 19 years in pro peloton

By Tom Thewlis Published 12 February 24

Swiss rouleur beats world time trial champion Filippo Ganna by seven seconds

By Adam Becket Published 22 February 22

One of the peloton's busiest riders is also the WorldTour's ninth youngest

By Chris Marshall-Bell Published 4 February 22

The Munga is a 1,000km mountain bike race across the desert of South Africa

By Tim Bonville-Ginn Published 24 November 21

The American company joins multiple other male team sponsors that are investing into the women's side of the sport

By Tim Bonville-Ginn Published 4 November 21

The 25-year-old Brit suffered the disappointment of being dropped from the WorldTour in 2018, but he’s back next year

By Alex Ballinger Published 26 October 21

The Swiss rider beat some of the world's best time triallists including Stefan Küng and Remco Evenepoel

By Tim Bonville-Ginn Published 31 August 21

Cort in form, Roglič touches tarmac again, and a new name emerges - the biggest moments from the day

By Stephen Puddicombe Published 26 August 21

Useful links

• Tour de France
• Giro d'Italia
• Vuelta a España

Buyer's Guides

• Best road bikes
• Best gravel bikes
• Best smart turbo trainers
• Best cycling computers
• Editor's Choice
• Bike Reviews
• Component Reviews
• Clothing Reviews
• Contact Future's experts
• Terms and conditions
• Privacy policy
• Cookies policy
• Advertise with us

Cycling Weekly is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site . © Future Publishing Limited Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA. All rights reserved. England and Wales company registration number 2008885.

TOUR DE FRANCE

Don't miss a moment with our daily Tour de France newsletter.

Powered by Outside

Tour de France

The power numbers at this year’s tour de france are the highest in the modern era of cycling, in this column, we dive into the power numbers of the world’s best riders at the tour de france..

Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members! >","name":"in-content-cta","type":"link"}}'>Download the app .

We are only nine stages into the Tour de France, and five mountainous stages have already blown the GC to shreds. After countless attacks, breakaways, satellite riders, bonus seconds, and mountain top finishes, only 17 seconds separate Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar in the fight for the yellow jersey.

Read also: Power Analysis: Tour de France – Pogačar, Vingegaard, and Victor Lafay

Two of those stages flipped the original script, which saw 2022 Tour de France winner Vingegaard take over a minute on Pogačar on stage 5 to Laruns. We are in for a show in the next two weeks of racing, which includes the Grand Colombier, Col de Joux Plane, and Col de la Loze.

The power numbers from this year’s Tour de France are the highest in the modern era of cycling. 7w/kg for 20 minutes is the new standard for GC contenders, and many of these performances come after 3500 kJs of work, at 1000-2000 meters above sea level, and in 30+°C (86+°F) temperatures.

Unlike 2022, Vingegaard didn’t wait long to play his cards and attack Pogačar. Stage 5 from Pau to Laruns included the Col du Soudet (15.2km at 7%), Col d’Ichere (4.2km at 6.2%), and the Col de Marie Blanque (7.8km at 8.4%) whose final 4.8km average 10.5%.

A massive breakaway stayed away for the stage win while Jumbo-Visma laid the battleground for Vingegaard. When the Dane launched off Sepp Kuss’ wheel, Pogačar didn’t even respond. Vingegaard did one of the best climbing performances of his career on the steepest slopes of the Col de Marie Blanque, pushing nearly 7w/kg for over 20 minutes. The reigning Tour Champion continued pushing over the top of the climb to the finish line in Laruns where he took one minute and four seconds on Pogačar.

While we don’t have Vingegaard’s power data, we can make an educated guess based on other riders’ power data and times on the Col de Marie Blanque. In 2020, a 21-year-old Pogačar climbed the Col de Marie Blanque over a minute and a half slower than Vingegaard’s 2023 time, but still won stage 9 of the 2020 Tour ahead of Primož Roglič and Marc Hirschi.

Pogačar – Col de Marie Blanque in the 2020 Tour de France Time: 24:28 Average Power: 428w (6.4w/kg) Final 2.5km: 9:23 at 458w (6.9w/kg)

Vingegaard (2023): 22’ 56” at ~6.9w/kg

Many wrote off the 2023 Tour after Vingegaard’s stage 5 performance, citing Pogačar’s ongoing wrist recovery as the reason for his subpar performance. But the Slovenian struck back less than 24 hours later on the Cauterets-Cambasque (final 5.3km at 7.5%).

Before Pogačar’s winning attack, Jumbo-Visma had blown the race apart 40km earlier on the Col du Tourmalet (17km at 7.4%). Long, high-altitude climbs are typically Pogačar’s weakness, and Jumbo-Visma thought they might be able to crack the Slovenian for the second day in a row.

Vingegaard launched off of Kuss’ wheel again with 4.7km to the top of the Tourmalet, but Pogačar stayed glued to his wheel. Both riders did ~6.8w/kg for over 13 minutes, but neither rider cracked on the legendary climb. The final 4.8km of the Tourmalet climbs from 1700m to 2100m, so these power numbers are even more impressive when you consider the high altitude.

The closest rider to Vingegaard and Pogačar with power data was Steff Cras, who pushed nearly 6w/kg for 15 minutes but still lost two minutes to the leading pair.

Pogačar – Final 4.7km of the Tourmalet Time: 13:19 Estimated Average Power: ~449w (6.8w/kg)

Steff Cras: 15’ 19” at 360w (5.6w/kg)

After a long descent and rolling uphill, the final slopes of the Cote de Cauterets began. Vingegaard attacked on the 10% section of the climb and continued to pace with Pogačar in his wheel. But to almost everyone’s surprise, Pogačar attacked and dropped Vingegaard, soaring to the stage win and taking 28 seconds back on the defending Tour champion.

This result was shocking because Vingegaard clearly wasn’t at his best when you look at the power data. Pogačar did roughly 6.7w/kg for 13 minutes on the Cote de Cauterets, while Vingegaard only managed 6.6w/kg.

Michał Kwiatkowski had been caught from the breakaway, and he was the only rider who could stay in the wheels of Vingegaard and Pogačar for the first part of the Cote de Cauterets. The former world champion was pushing 6.5w/kg in the draft before finally succumbing to the ferocious pace.

Kwiatkowski – Cote de Cauterets Time: 16:22 Average Power: 342w (5.2w/kg) First 1.3km with Vingegaard and Pogačar: 4’ at 430w (6.5w/kg)

Pogačar : 13:00 at ~6.7w/kg Vingegaard: 13:24 at ~6.6w/kg

Just 24 hours previous, Vingegaard pushed ~6.9w/kg for nearly 23 minutes on the Col de Marie Blanque. Thus, the Cote de Cauterets was a disappointing performance. This could be a sign of Vingegaard’s inconsistency. Or perhaps he peaked too early in this year’s Tour de France. The next 12 stages will reveal the answer.

The last test before the Tour’s first rest day was the Puy du Dôme (final 4.5km at 11.5%), a ridiculously steep climb to the top of a dormant volcano outside Clermont-Ferrand. Mike Woods won the stage from the breakaway after overcoming a 2-minute deficit to Matteo Jorgenson in the final 4km. The Canadian pushed nearly 6w/kg for 15 minutes after more than 3800 kJs of work in the break.

14 minutes later, the GC group hit the steepest slopes of the Puy du Dôme, and Jumbo-Visma lined it out for the yellow jersey wearer, Vingegaard. However, neither Vingegaard nor Pogačar seemed confident in their legs when the pace slowed after Sepp Kuss’ final pull. Pogačar waited until 1.3km to go to launch his attack, going out of the saddle for nearly 30 seconds and gapping Vingegaard.

The Dane stayed strong, and Pogačar’s gap didn’t waver until the final 200 meters. Vingegaard only ceded eight seconds to Pogačar by the line, which meant that he took a 17-second GC lead into the Tour’s first rest day.

Woods was two minutes and five seconds slower than Pogačar in the final 4.5km of the Puy du Dôme, despite pushing nearly 6w/kg.

Woods – Puy du Dôme (final 4.3km) Time: 16:51 Average Power: 369w (5.9w/kg)

Pogačar: 14:46 at ~6.9w/kg Vingegaard : 14:54 at ~6.8w/kg

After the first nine stages of the Tour, a handful of bonus seconds and meters separates Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar. Most of the mountain stages have been won and lost in 15-20 minute performances, and Vingegaard’s effort up the Col de Marie Blanque remains the biggest outlier (22’ 56” at ~6.9w/kg).

We know that Vingegaard and Pogačar can do 6.9w/kg for 15 minutes at the end of a five-hour Tour de France stage. But can they do it stage after stage, week after week, for 12 more days? Heat and high altitude have a history of causing cracks in Pogačar, whereas Vingegaard has already shown a bit of inconsistency on consecutive mountain stages. The 2023 Tour de France Champion is anyone’s guess.

*** Power Analysis data courtesy of Strava

Strava sauce extension

Tadej Pogačar 

Michał Kwiatkowski

Popular on Velo

What’s it like to be an American cyclist living in France? Watch to get professional road cyclist Joe Dombrowski’s view.

Related content from the Outside Network

One way south, mountain bikers react to their first taste of non-alcoholic craft beer, video review: bmc urs 01 two gravel bike, kiel reijnen vuelta video diary: the painful decision to abandon.

• Training and Health
• How To…
• Live Streaming

You versus a Tour de France cyclist: Why power measurement is important?

Power is the rate at which energy is used (energy over time) and is measured in watts.

In cycling, energy is expressed in terms of work. It’s a constant snapshot of your work rate at any given moment. It’s the building block from which all power-based training flows.

A watt is a watt, whether on a bike or powering your home. So when Marcel Kittel unleashes 1,900 watts in a sprint, he could essentially power two houses at normal consumption level. Another comparison: 1 horsepower is 746 watts.

For decades, cyclists measured their performance by looking at miles per hour or heart rate. In the 1990s, elite cyclists switched to measuring their power output in watts. Since the late 1980s, companies including SRM, Powertap and Ergomo have made these devices, which measure the deflection of the crank arm using minuscule gauges or in some cases employ a specialized wheel hub.

A handlebar computer displays and stores the data. Whereas an average cyclist can produce 100 watts, a pro cyclist can average 400 watts over the final hour of a Tour de France stage.

Training intensity is the toughest variable to measure. Speed is a poor measure, as it relates more to terrain and wind. Heart rates provide a rough gauge, but they vary in response to temperature, humidity, altitude, hydration, fatigue, caffeine intake and exercise duration.

Energy delivered to the pedals and measured in watts measures the intensity of your work. Measuring power allows you to monitor your training, characterize your practice course, assess your aerodynamic sleekness and drag, and assist in pacing.

Wattage figures measure the work of applying energy to the pedals but not the total physiological energy expended to perform the task. Cyclists are about 21 to 24 percent efficient in converting chemical energy to mechanical energy during cycling, so a cyclist riding at 250 watts is expending metabolic energy at a rate of nearly 1,000 watts, or 1 horsepower.

The advantage of power monitoring is that “watts don’t lie,” writes Selene Yeager in “Every Woman’s Guide to Cycling.” Wattage figures stay exact, unlike heart rate. If you ride your standard circuit and average 160 watts where before you only managed 125, you have gotten stronger, she indicates.

To measure your wattage, you warm up and ride for 20 minutes at the highest power you can maintain. You reduce that number by 5 percent to arrive at your lactate threshold power, which is the wattage you can maintain for about an hour. With your coach, you then set up training zones of varying duration and watts.

RELATED ARTICLES MORE FROM AUTHOR

Cyclists live longer, a new study suggests

What you need to know about calories as a cyclist

Lower back pain on the bike – what should you do?

Mathieu van der Poel’s insane Strade Bianche power data revealed

Vitamin and mineral supplements could do more harm than good, says new study

3 training rides to do every week if you want to be faster

Leave a reply cancel reply.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

EDITOR PICKS

2024 Tour de Suisse LIVE STREAM

2024 Criterium du Dauphine LIVE STREAM

2024 Giro d’Italia LIVE STREAM

Popular posts.

Giro d’Italia, Milan-San Remo under threat of cancellation due to coronavirus

2020 UAE Tour LIVE STREAM

Ewan storms to victory on stage 2 of UAE Tour

Popular category.

• Results 1805
• Grand Tours 1567
• Tour de France 707
• POPULAR THIS WEEK 616
• Live Streaming 577
• Giro d'Italia 548
• Interviews 382

The Tour de France, also possible for mortals? A comparison of a recreational and a World Tour cyclist

Affiliations.

• 1 Faculty of Sport Sciences, Universidad Europea de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
• 2 Faculty of Sport Sciences, Human Performance and Sports Science Laboratory, University of Murcia, Murcia, Spain.
• 3 Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, United States.
• 4 Integrative Vascular Biology Laboratory, Department of Integrative Physiology, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, United States.
• 5 Physical Activity and Health Research Group ('PaHerg'), Research Institute of Hospital 12 de Octubre (imas12), Madrid, Spain.
• 6 Department of Systems Biology, University of Alcalá, Madrid, Spain.
• PMID: 38174376
• DOI: 10.1152/japplphysiol.00798.2023

Cycling Grand Tours are arguably the epitome of strenuous endurance exercise, and they have been reported to represent the ceiling of sustained energy expenditure for humans. It remains unknown, however, if an average recreational athlete could endure such an event. Through the analysis of power output (PO), we compared data from the 2023 Tour de France (21 stages, total distance = 3,405 km, elevation gain = 51,815 m) in a recreational (male, age = 58 yr; height = 191 cm; body mass = 96.1 kg; estimated maximum oxygen uptake = 45.4 mL·kg -1 ·min -1 ) and a sex-matched professional (World-Tour) cyclist (28 yr; 180 cm; 67.0 kg; 80.5 mL·kg -1 ·min -1 ). The recreational and professional cyclist completed the event in 191 and 87 h, respectively (average PO of 1.50 and 3.45 W·kg -1 ), with the latter spending a greater proportion of time in high-intensity zones. The recreational cyclist showed an estimated total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) of 35.9 MJ [or 8,580 kcal, or ∼4.3× his daily basal metabolic rate (BMR)], whereas lower absolute values were estimated for the professional cyclist (29.7 MJ, 7,098 kcal, ∼3.8× his BMR). Despite such high TDEE values, both individuals lost minimal body mass during the event (0-2 kg). The present report therefore suggests that, partly due to differences in exercise intensity and duration, not only professional cyclists but also recreational athletes can reach currently known ceilings of TDEE for humans. NEW & NOTEWORTHY This case report indicates that a recreationally trained 58-year-old man can reach similar or even higher values of energy expenditure (∼4 times their basal metabolic rate) than professional cyclists, who are likely near the ceiling of sustained energy expenditure for humans. This was possible owing to a total longer exercise time coupled with a lower absolute and relative intensity in the recreational athlete.

Keywords: cycling; endurance; energy expenditure; exercise.

Publication types

• Case Reports
• Middle Aged
• Oxygen Consumption*
• Physical Endurance*

Grants and funding

• CD21/00138/MEC | Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII)

Join WHOOP and bundle a free band or accessory.

How Strenuous is the Tour de France? Plus Other Biometric Data Insights

WHOOP tracked pro cyclists’ heart rates, sleep, strain, and HRV during the Tour de France.

Tour de France Cycling Data: Strain, Resting Heart Rate, HRV, Sleep & More

“The Tour de France is arguably the pinnacle of endurance sport performance. WHOOP has allowed us to quantify both the strain and daily recovery of some of the fittest athletes in the world, and the numbers are impressive,” said Kevin Sprouse, Head of Medicine for EF Pro Cycling . The EF squad finished 4th out of 22 teams at the 2020 Tour de France, and was the top team overall for 7 of the race’s 21 stages. Below we’ll share many of the insights gained from monitoring these athletes’ physiological data while competing in one of the most grueling events in sports.

3 Weeks of All-Out Strain

WHOOP quantifies the strain (cardiovascular load) your body takes on each day on a 0-21 scale. Through the Tour’s 21 stages (which spanned just 23 days total with only a pair of days off), the EF riders posted average day strains of 20 or more 13 times . Additionally, on other days they averaged 19.5, 19.4, 19.2, 18.8 and 18.0 (see graphic below). To put that into perspective, WHOOP classifies anything above 18 as an “all-out” effort , meaning the EF athletes basically pushed themselves to the limit nearly every time they got on the bike, for 3 weeks straight. It’s also important to note that the WHOOP strain metric is highly individualized--so if an elite athlete and an average athlete do the same thing, the activity will almost certainly cause less strain for the better athlete. Considering that the EF riders are among the most physically fit humans on the planet (with the ability to take on significantly more cardiovascular load than the average person), the fact that they still put up strains in the 20s on a regular basis is somewhat mind-boggling.

THE AVERAGE DAILY WHOOP STRAIN AND RECOVERY FOR EF RIDERS DURING THE 2020 TOUR DE FRANCE.

Phenomenal resting heart rate and hrv.

Curious just how fit the EF team is? On the day the Tour began, the team members’ average resting heart rate was 42 beats per minute (the American Heart Association says that anything between 60 and 100 bpm is normal to push the standard amount of oxygen through your bloodstream), and their average heart rate variability was 139 milliseconds (the average HRV for all WHOOP members is 64 ms ). As the Tour progressed, it naturally took a toll on these impressive metrics. After the first week, the team’s average RHR had risen to 51 bpm, and its average HRV had dropped to 73 ms. However, it took just one day of rest for these numbers to bounce back. Following the riders’ day off prior to Stage 10, the EF team’s average RHR and HRV were actually better than they were before the race began, at 40 bpm and 152 ms, respectively. The team also averaged a 90% WHOOP recovery (a measure of the body’s readiness to take on strain) after the first rest day, better than the 73% on the morning of Stage 1.

Incredible Recovery

It’d be natural to assume that day after day of all-out strain would significantly hurt the team’s recovery each morning, but that was not the case with the EF riders. “I’ve seen lots of 20.7 [strains],” said Sprouse, “rarely is it lower than 20. What’s just as amazing is the fact that recovery scores tend to be good as well, often 55% and higher. That is a huge testament to the amazing staff we have supporting these guys at the Tour. From the finish line to bedtime, everything is set up to encourage recovery so that they can perform again the following day.” In fact, over the entire 23-day Tour, the team’s average daily recovery never dipped into the red (33% and below). Amazingly, it even stayed in the green (67% and higher) 4 times following stages where the average strain was 20+ (see above).

Pushing Heart Rate to the Limits

Another indication of just how hard these riders pushed themselves is the amount of time they spent at close to their max heart rate . For example, in Stage 8, Neilson Powless was on the bike for a little more than 4 hours. His average heart rate was 165 bpm, and he spent 51% of the time at 80-90% of his max heart rate. Amazingly, he was in the 90-100% of max heart rate zone for 38% of the stage, or 1 hour and 35 minutes .

The Power of Sleep

After crushing themselves on the road all day, effective sleep is obviously an essential aspect of recovery. Powless, in particular, was spectacular at this. The team averaged just shy of 8 hours per night during the Tour, however Powless regularly got about half an hour more than his teammates did. On the night of the race’s second rest day (between Stages 15 and 16), Powless got just over 9 hours of sleep. He also spent 5:51 (a whopping 64% of his time asleep) in what we call the “restorative stages” of sleep ( REM and deep sleep ). People usually only spend about 40-45% of their sleep time in these stages when the body repairs itself. Similarly, following the first rest day, Powless slept for 7:59 and spent 5:02 in REM and deep sleep (63%). This helped him achieve a 92% recovery the next morning.   Photo Credits: Getty Images, Jered and Ashley Gruber