....said his career might eventually lead him to try to win the Tour de
France. "Who knows"? Peter Hespel, his trainer, published details of
Boonen's training recently. In one test he started riding at a power
output of 100 watts, increasing by 40 watts every eight minutes, all at
a pedal rate of 90rpm. After 90 minutes of steadily increasing effort
Boonen rode for eight minutes at 450 watts, and that was after riding
eight minutes at 420 watts.
So that's 16 minutes at an average of 440 watts, which would indicate
that Boonen's anaerobic threshold power output, the pace at which he
could ride a long time trial or climb a mountain, is in the ballpark of
that of many top riders in big race stages.
The biggest limiting factor to Boonen's stage race potential is his
weight, which is getting close to 175lbs. But Eddy Merckx had to lose
weight to move from a classics star to a tour winner, so did Lance. And
what of Miguel Indurain? He lost weight and came from almost nowhere to
win 5 Tours.
Boonen would also have to increase his anaerobic threshold power output
a little, but that is achievable with specific training, and it is
something he already thought about.
Before last year's tour they asked Boonen if he had any thoughts on
taking the yellow jersey by doing a good prologue time trial and using
his sprint to take it in the early stages.
He admitted that he had thought about it, and that he thought he had it
in him to do a good time trial, but had dismissed the idea because he
would have had to sacrifice his sprint.