goose70

When I first began watching the tour ten years ago, I was disappointed that the last stage was treated as "ceremonial." I had just begun amateur road racing and *knew* darn well that a time gap of just a few minutes could be overcome by a well-timed attack on a 50K race, much less a 110K race. A few years later, I began to appreciate just how different pro races are from amateur races. The difference between the strongest and weakest rider at the TdF is probably less than the difference between the first and fifth place rider in a Cat 3/4 race. I rode with a few pros and talked with a kid on our team who went pro. They explained that the difference between most Cat 1 and 2 riders (who I idolized as near-pros) and a true professional on a world tour team is greater than the difference between most Cat 1 and Cat 5 racers. Everything from training to resources to genetic aptitude is at such a high level that meaningful differences among pros, in terms of race placing, are really the result of miniscule differences in training, conditioning and equipment.

As others above have said, what this means on the last stage of the TdF -- a relative short and flat stage -- is that any time difference greater than about 15-seconds will be nearly impossible to overcome absent something extraordinarily bad happening. The riders are just that close in ability and skill, something that would be hard to fathom in even the most prestigious amateur races.

To put into perspective, this year's winner spent just shy of 83 hours over three weeks of the most grueling, hardest fought bike racing the planet can offer, yet the top ten were separated by only 18-minutes over that span. Even the lanterne rouge was only 5-hours behind and most folks near the bottom are there either due to injury/crashes or because team tactics put them there. These guys are incredibly well-honed machines.