This Tour de France data is good stuff! Christian Vandevelde's daily data just keeps coming into us at CyclingPeaks.com and I keep updating my Cycling Peaks Software reports (I hope you are too!).

The numbers are starting to write a story that has never been written before. This is unheard of to have acces to so much raw, downloadable data. It must be the first time in history that the public has access to this amount of Tour de France physiological data.

The story portrayed within this data is the very unique and personal story of American Christian Vandevelde of team CSC. Every Tour de France cyclist has his own limits when it comes to wattage, heart rate total workload capabilities. Christian has opened up a window into his heart, soul and personal Tour de France history for all to share. Christian is one of the best professionals America has ever produced and he is definitely top 10 US ridrs in my book. He entered the Tour after having won the Tour of Luxemburg and placing top 15 overall in the Tour of Switzerland (6th in the final Time Trial). His job is to work for the CSC team leader (which was Ivan Basso and is now American Bobby Julich) and be as fresh as possible when the mountain stages start in week two. So far so good. He has finished each stage in good position and from the looks of his files he hasn't struggled too much so far. In fact he is in a recovery mode for close to 2hrs of each day's 5-hour stages (he coasted for 90 minutes in stage 1).

My partners and I at TrainingPeaks.com and Cycling Peaks Software will keep bringing you the best in training and racing analysis tools. Believe me this isn't too hard as we love this stuff and are living our dream. Thanks for all the support.

Be sure to go get Christian and Jen Voigt's data at http://www.cyclingpeakssoftware.com/2006tourdata.asp and tune in during the stages to view live data feeds.

Go Christian!