The Fastest Grand Tours Time Trial in History
After Chris Boardman broke the hour record for the first time, Luc Leblanc remarked that if Boardman could break it, half of the pro peloton could. In his first TdF, Boardman caught his minute-man, Leblanc, over a 7.1 km course and set the fastest ever Tour stage in the process.
Rik Verbrugghe holds the record for the fasest ever stage in a grand tour. 58.874 km/h over the 7.6 km prologue course from the 2001 Giro d'Italia. Mario Cipollini holds the fastest road stage (48.521 km/h) from the 1997 edition and Alex Zülle holds the fastest time trial stage (53.771 km/h stage 15) from the 1998 edition.
The fastest ever Vuelta a España stage is held by Rubén Plaza. Plaza won the 39 km stage 20 time trial in 2005 at a speed of 56.22 km/h. This makes it the fastest ever non-prologue stage of a Grand Tour. Igor González de Galdeano holds the record for the fastest road stage. 2001 Vuelta stage 9, 179 km @ 55.176 km/h.
- Fastest Stage
Mario Cipollini 50,355 km/h Laval - Blois (194,5 km) 1999
Pablo Lastras 49,938 km/h Bordeaux - Saint-Maixent l’Ecole (203,5 km) 2003
Johan Bruyneel 49,417 km/h Evreux - Amiens (158 km) 1993
- Fastest Time Trial longer than 20 km
Greg LeMond 54,545 km/h Versailles - Paris (24,5 km) 1989
David Millar 54,361 km/h Pornic - Nantes (49 km) 2003
- Fastest Prologue
Chris Boardman 55,152 km/h Lille - Euralille (7,2 km) 1994
Chris Boardman 54,193 km/h Dublin (5,6 km) 1998
Fabian Cancellara 53,660 km/h Londres (7,9 km) 2007
- Fastest Team Time Trial
Discovery Channel Team 57,320 km/h Tours - Blois (67,5 km) 2005
Gewiss - Ballan 54,930 km/h Mayenne - Alençon (67 km) 1995
Carrera 54,610 km/h Berlin (40,5 km) 1987
Read more about this topic: Individual Time Trial
Famous quotes containing the words fastest, grand, time, trial and/or history:
“Assassination’s the fastest way.”
—Molière [Jean Baptiste Poquelin] (1622–1673)
“The great object of Education should be commensurate with the object of life. It should be a moral one; to teach self-trust: to inspire the youthful man with an interest in himself; with a curiosity touching his own nature; to acquaint him with the resources of his mind, and to teach him that there is all his strength, and to inflame him with a piety towards the Grand Mind in which he lives. Thus would education conspire with the Divine Providence.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It is time that beats in the breast and it is time
That batters against the mind, silent and proud,
The mind that knows it is destroyed by time.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Every political system is an accumulation of habits, customs, prejudices, and principles that have survived a long process of trial and error and of ceaseless response to changing circumstances. If the system works well on the whole, it is a lucky accident—the luckiest, indeed, that can befall a society.”
—Edward C. Banfield (b. 1916)
“What has history to do with me? Mine is the first and only world! I want to report how I find the world. What others have told me about the world is a very small and incidental part of my experience. I have to judge the world, to measure things.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)