biker77 said:I am amazed how fast the top riders rode ventoux. The first 5km appeared to take about 6 minutes (no, not an actual statement of fact, but the km disappeared quite rapidly). I think they were told to slow down, as ventoux in 15 minutes would have raised quite a few flags.
I had a geek moment too and had a watch on them on Ventoux. From St Esteve to the top : 49 minutes. Several minutes slower than the splits from "that" Dauphine TT a few years ago.
From 15k out to 10k out : 15'25"
From 10k out to 5k out : 16'28"
Last 5k 14'44"
The pace through the trees was very high (check out the SRM traces from the Saxo domestiques on their site). That 15'25" is for about 475m vertical (albeit steep). There was a bit of tactical dithering after that when contador and schleck jr were waiting to see whether LAS and Schleck Sr could come across (they couldn't, and it all came back together - Peli caught and passed them all), then I think the wind got them higher up - it's not so steep up there.