Tour de France 2012

Today Wiggins & co climbed at 1680m/h. Limits of VAM acknowledged, compare that to this graph we drew back in 2010:

I find this stuff quite interesting.

Here is what Wiggins wrote regarding climbing before the tour.

There will be no showboating on climbs. It's going to be a matter of emptying it in the last kilometre of a mountain-top finish when the guys around me are getting dropped, but I know I have done the work that will enable me to do that. My win in the Dauphiné confirmed that for me. It didn't tell me that all I have to do is turn up and I can win, but it was proof that I should be able to dig deep physically with the work I've done since last November.

In the Dauphiné, on the Col du Joux-Plane on the penultimate day, we were climbing at about 1,700 VAM. There aren't many riders out there who can go that fast, and there weren't many able to stay with us on that stage. So that gives me confidence that physically I'm in the right place at the moment. The catch, however, is that the Tour is not just about the numbers. We've got to take those numbers, the physical ability they represent, and perform day after day after day.