Should sprinters fear the mountain time trial time cut?
Tim Merlier spoke about being scared of the time limit in tomorrow’s climbing time trial, in this article Dieter Loos dives deeper into this topic, to see whether his fear is justified.
The first important thing to note is that the time cut for this stage is 33%, rather than the usual 25% for an individual time trial. The second key detail is the winner’s finish time, which I estimate to be somewhere between 22 and 23 minutes. It’s a tough one to predict as we rarely get clean climbing watt data from the top riders in a fully fresh state. For the sake of calculations, I’ll use 22:30 as a reference point, though there’s a decent chance that estimate is off by quite a bit.
If the winning time is 22:30, the time limit would be around 30 minutes. To win, a rider would need to average a little over 7 W/kg. To make the time cut, riders will need to sustain roughly 5 W/kg - perhaps slightly more, but not much. That translates to a power range of about 375–400 watts for a 75kg rider. That’s very manageable for strong all-rounders, but it could definitely be an issue for the pure sprinters.
Still, the Tour organisers have given everyone a better chance by setting the time limit at 33%.
Now let’s run the same calculation with a 25% time limit, just for comparison. In that case, riders would need to finish in just over 28 minutes, which requires an average output of around 5.5 W/kg. For a typical 75kg sprinter, that’s about 415 watts which is a huge difference. This is a level many riders, especially the pure sprinters, simply can’t reach. So it’s fair to say the lesser climbers in the peloton should be pretty relieved the limit is set at 33%, not 25%.
Personally, I’m a big fan of the 33% rule here. If it were 25%, stage 14 would likely see a significantly reduced peloton - that much is certain. With the extended limit, I genuinely think it’s possible for everyone to make the cut. That said, it’ll still be brutally hard for some. A few riders will need to produce the best 30-minute power of their careers just to stay in the Tour.
My advice? Go full gas. You never know what numbers those GC aliens are going to drop. Better to finish on the limit than miss it because you tried to save your legs. Don’t take unnecessary risks.
So, is Merlier’s fear of the time cut justified? Absolutely. But in my view, the rules give everyone a fair chance to stay in the race. They’ve known this stage was coming for months, so they had time to prepare. Good luck to all the riders... and especially the sprinters.
Update
ASO have increased the time limit for today’s stage to 40%. This means that instead of a time limit of 30 minutes, it’s now 31 minutes and 30 seconds, based on my expectation.
This means that riders “only” need to put out a number in the range of 4.7-4.8W/kg to finish inside the time limit. Again, based on my estimation, of course. For your average 75kg sprinter, this comes down to +-350 watts. If you’re healthy and Pog doesn’t go under 22 minutes (I don’t dare to say that this is impossible, though), all riders should really be able to finish inside the time limit.
Let's see what happens if Pog does the time trial in 21 minutes, the worst-case scenario for the sprinters. In this case, the time limit will be 29 minutes and 24 seconds, a little faster than the limit with my “normal expectation” and with the old 33% rule, about which I said that it should be doable.
So, to conclude: even in the worst-case scenario for the sprinters, if Pog goes full bananas, everyone should be able to finish within the time limit with the new 40% rule. But my advice stays the same: go full, don’t take any unnecessary risks.
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