The New York Times has discovered a way for amateur cyclists to compete against the world's elite in the Tour de France. In Watch Amateurs Race Against the Tour de France's Top Climbers the newspaper has used Strava data to compare how amateur cyclists have performed on certain mountain stages in the Tour de France when compared to the fastest Tour de France cyclists (who posted their rides to Strava).
Using a number of animated maps the Times has created some lovely illustrations of the huge gap between amateur and elite cyclists. By comparing the progress of both amateur and professional cyclists on the same map (even though the rides were undertaken on different days) it is possible to make a direct comparison between the amateurs and professionals (although I don't imagine many people are going to be too surprised by the resulting maps).
Most of us don't have easy access to the locations used in the Tour de France. Instead you could use Strava (or any interactive map) to map out a cycle route of the same length as a Tour de France stage (the Times article gives the lengths of each stage that they have mapped). You could then compare the times you achieve cycling over the same distance to those achieved by the professionals in the Tour de France (you could even cheat a little by creating a route with hardly any climbs).
Sepp Kuss completed the Puy de Dôme (Stage 9), which is 2.8 miles, in 16.40 minutes. According to this Average Speed Calculator that is an average of 10.08 mph. Apparently Google Maps estimates cycling journey times by using an average of 10 mph. So you might even be able to beat Sepp Kuss if you cycle on a flat or downhill route. Martin Catherineau, that amateur cyclist used in the Times article, completed the Puy de Dôme in 41 minutes, 58 seconds.
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