Time to ramp things up again for stage 5! After racing in Vaduz as part of the tour de Suisse Women, the peloton leaves Liechtenstein and heads towards Chur, the oldest town in Switzerland. With the riders having ridden 96km over some tough climbs already, you’ll join the action on board with Cofidis Professional Clara Koppenburg with less than 28km to go. The final climb of the day up to St Luzisteig is coming up. Be ready for plenty of attacks before you get there and a high pace once on the slopes. You have all to play for in this stage. Can you pull it off?
Remember, you have 50 hours to complete each stage. As long as it’s still today’s date anywhere on earth, you’re golden. Check out The Tour Challenge Page for details on stage open and close times.
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Yummy, this was fun. Atleast the middle part of light cruising. The last part not so. Legs pushed pedals in squares at 100+ cadance, breathing not controlled at all and don´t even talk about what happened with the ticker that jumped out to see what the hell what was going on.
Lucky for me, my body don´t feel so much strain or pain from the previous stages. It must be my wine gum consumption that has done the trick.
Tomorrow a rest day (maybe a inspiration ride) than 2 stages that will take more candy chewing than on the whole previous tour.
I have not done many of the Pro Rides and this was my first time on this one. I find it takes some concentration at the beginning to match the power numbers but I find smoothing out my cadence really helps. Still have to spin like a hamster from time to time when those big surges pop up. As to the video itself, I have ridden in this area and it is just so beautiful, with really excellent roads, so it all looked good. That moment at around 45 minutes onscreen startled me, however, but I stayed on the bike! Back to Switzerland tomorrow!
I get that this one would never have featured in a TOS but after a tough day at work and now heading out to gig, this was an ideal stage for me.
Being able to choose own cadence was welcome and main challenge was concentrating on changes in effort required.
Stage 5 is done, and after what was pretty much a rest day with Stage 4 yesterday, this one was easily manageable.
Now to get some good sleep and get ready for tomorrow… I haven’t done this one yet, but looking at the graph, it seems like it shouldn’t be harder than Stage 1 was… I just hope that long ramp in the first part isn’t done at 110 cadence
This stage average power and avg. HR were almost identical to yesterdays so today did not hurt (except that sprint at the end). Maybe yesterday’s rest stage made my legs more resilient. Definitely not feeling the same as I would if I were anticipating day six of a ToS. That felt like this
That was great. I dialed down the climb as my body still hasn’t recovered from the weekend. That crash was a bit of a shock. She was so boxed in at the end.
Not sure how i will fit in the long ride tomorrow. I have to leave for work at 715. Might have to take advantage of the legendary 50 hr day.
I also found this one a little hard to keep up with the constant changes (like 90 to 400w is a huge jump), you have to concentrate the whole way through - no time for texting or socials! The climb near the start was a good effort, the middle section mostly coasting along with the odd surge - not particularly exciting, but i watch enough racing to know most races have “cruisy” periods like this so you feel like you’re banking some energy for the finale. The end is fun, you do feel like you’re fighting for the win! Still don’t think i’d ever want to ride a real bunch sprint…
@DameLisa, @TimWatson75, I was there with you this morning. Joined RGT late thanks to internet connection issues - really need to allow more time to connect everything up!
I’ll be riding Stage 6 tomorrow morning, but will tune in to your evening session.
Still don’t think i’d ever want to ride a real bunch sprint…
My favourite part of this one was the last second, where Klara’s replaying the final bits of the race, and then has the hand signals indicating the rider going left and right, and comes out with ‘I was so scared’, and you can just feel the honest, raw emotion in her voice. Absolutely beautiful. You tend to forget that these are real people, not gods and goddesses - and this bit brings out the humanity even more than her cry of anguish going up Mont Ventoux.
I’m not a huge fan of the ProRides - especially those like the UAE one where your man gets dropped and you just limp for the last 5 minutes or so. But occasionally, they bring out a special moment.
As to the stage, a bit easy (like most of the ProRides, tbh - they’re all set at a ‘medium’ level, rather than true suffering). The initial climb was fun, but I had too much left in the tank at the end of the sprint.
As a huge pro ride fan was looking forward to Stage 5 and riding this one again.
It didn’t disappoint, a long way from the hardest pro ride it made a nice change of pace after yesterday.
One thing I’d never noticed before is that I always seem to ride the pro rides at a much higher cadence than I would have expected. On stage 4 I find the low cadence work far easier than high cadence.
I assume trying to hit the higher power targets accelerating from a lower cadence is going to be a big factor, but surprised I’ve never actually tried it. Something to work on I guess…
That was a good way to ease back into the suffering from yesterday’s brush with the Couchlandrian border. Nothing like a good group ride and being surrounded by the whir of wheels and the rush of wind on your face. What, you say I was indoors? Didn’t feel like it.
Now time to start fretting over the big one tomorrow. Let’s toss it over to our meteorologist Clubber Lang for tomorrow’s weather forecast:
Here are two cents from a newbie and novice to training/workout apps. Heads up, this post will qualify for TL;DR so feel free to skip.
I have been on Wahoo now for nearly six months. Signed up for this tour (obviously my first) since I hope to do the Giro di Sicilia in May. It’s a 60th birthday to myself and a 30 year anniversary to my first ever “tour” the inaugural Boston/NY AIDS Ride.
I have seen some bemoaning here on the name change and the course. Again, I have no history so I see with inexperienced, fresh eyes.
Some comments have pooh poohed (love saying that) the tour is just a tour through the app. Well, what would one expect? For me, I love it. Without the tour (and the training prep for it) I probably would not have ever done a Pro Ride. I literally know diddlesquat about cycling so find the Pro Rides engaging. And they now have me looking for cycling vids & info. I’m a huge football (soccer) fan. I love the World Cup because it always brings more fans to my favorite sport. Anything that brings more fans to a sport I applaud.
In the same spirit, I look forward to the RGT component of the tour in Stage 7. Not a big fan of the gamification of my training (just prefer to suffer in silence, flogging is worse when done alone for me ) Maybe I will get hooked on it like I now am on the Pro Rides.
Anyway my two cents (10 decisissimi here). The tour has been fun so far, love the interaction on the forum (The Knights have been kind, patient, and generous with my (and others) myriad questions. And it is all for a good cause. We all can resume to our regularly scheduled programming, er training, after.
gig, this was an ideal stage for me.
) Maybe I will get hooked on it like I now am on the Pro Rides.