Abu Dhabi Tour 2016: Key Data (Stage 1 – 4)

1 Speed

Fastest Speeds recorded:

1. 71.9 km per hour (John Degenkolb, Team Giant-Alpecin, Stage 1 runner up).

2. 71.7 km per hour (Mark Cavendish, Team Dimension Data, Stage 2 winner).

3. 71.6 km per hour (Giacomo Nizzolo, Trek-Segafredo, Stage 1 winner).

[By comparison, the highest race speed recorded by a race horse over two furlongs is 70.76 km/h.

Though a horse attains those speeds for far longer of course.]

Highest Average Speed on Sprint Finish (final 500ms):

1. 66.9 km per hour (Giacomo Nizzolo, Trek-Segafredo, Stage 1 winner)

2. 66.5 km per hour (John Degenkolb, Team Giant-Alpecin, Stage 1 runner up)

Points of interest from Stage 4

Mark Cavendish’s average speed over the last 500m of the sprint finish was 61.7 km per hour and

his maximum was 70 km per hour. Giacomo Nizzolo actually went faster than Cav in the sprint

(62.4/71.2 km per hour) but didn’t have the legs to catch the British rider.

For the Stage as a whole, the final lap of the Yas Marina Circuit was the fastest one with an average

speed of 56.4 km per hour. Giacomo Nizzolo’s recorded the fastest lap, 5 min 51 seconds.

[The Abu Dhabi Tour has fast Stages. The highest recorded speed for the winner of RideLondon

(also a new World Tour race in 2017), was 65.7 km/h by Tom Boonen and winners Peter Sagan and

Fabian Cancellara recorded speeds of 64.6 and 65.9 km/h at the Tour de Suisse.]

2 Power

Highest average power output, final 500ms:

• 882 Watts (Giacomo Nizzolo, Trek-Segafredo, Stage 1 winner)

Stage 4 power surge

Michael Kolar (Tinkoff) pushed hard in the sprint finish of the Yas Marina Circuit, recording a

maximum power output of 1312 Watts and an average of 622 Watts.

[The riders are putting out huge power to win at the Abu Dhabi Tour. When Boonen won

RideLondon his power average for the last 300ms was 706 Watts.]

Power on the toughest Climb:

Nicholas Roche, who finished second on Stage 3, covered the tough climb of the Jebel Hafeet with

an average power output of 384. During the climb he pushed out a maximum of 648 watts at some

points of the 11% gradient.

[By comparison, a good amateur rider would struggle to achieve even half of such a power output

on a climb like Jebel Hafeet.]

3 Heart Rate

The riders achieve maximum heart rates of over 190 bpm. Sometimes averaging over 180 bpm for tough

sections. (Roche’s average heart rate for Jebel Hafeet was 181 bpm). Considering heart rate is lower the

fitter a person is, the riders work incredibly hard at the Abu Dhabi Tour.

This is also illustrated by Nizzolo’s stage 4 data where he averaged 181 bpm.

4 Cadence

Across the Yas Marina Circuit stage, Nizzolo recorded an average cadence of 79 rpm (94 in the sprint

finish) with a maximum of 136. He hit 120 rpm in the final run to the line.

Kolar was close with an average of 78 rpm for the stage (maximum 129 rpm) and 103/109 rpm in the

sprint finish.

[This shows the incredible range of the professionals to increase and maintain high cadence in the

sprint for the line].

Mark Cavendish, ambassador for the Abu Dhabi Tour, spoke about the technology the race has

pioneered: “It’s interesting for people to see what the pros do. They can compare it to what they

do and they can see first-hand what it is. It [a sprint] can sometimes look easy on television –

especially from a front-on view. You don’t really see the speed or the effort that’s going in. But with

real-time data, they can see the speed and put it into perspective compared to what they do on a

Sunday ride.”