TDF 2012 - The Pros

Training peaks did a summary of the pros figures from this year's tour here

2012 Stats


Summary of some key stats below, going to show how big the difference is between my performance and that of the pros.



 

(W/kg 
Brajkovic  1 hour 5.90    3 hour 4.98
Eisel         1 hour 4.73    3 hour 4.09
Sorenson 1 hour 5.51    3 hour 4.70

For comparison my stats for the same were

1 hour 270W  3.6W/kg Highest TSS 238


Total load was around 300 TSS per day. Interestingly this compares very closely to the TSS of my events, Tour of Wessex each day was around 310TSS and an major sportive like Marmotte is 400+

End of the Tour

Well it's all over and what a great trip it's been.

History was made in the tour itself, with Bradley Wiggins pulling on the yellow jersey, Chris Froome coming second and Mark Cavendish winning 3 stages including the final one in Paris.

  









My tour went remarkably well too. The TSS chart above shows 3 weeks of solid work and I felt a lot better too. I also lost 2.5kg.

Power went up a lot at the same time. Mean max shows better power from 3 mins onwards. Probably best was the final TT where I  pushed 270W for an hour.

Virtual Tour - 6D TV

Just finished stage 11 so over half way and one of the hardest stages done. 

It's going remarkably well, better than I expected. It's tough though, which sort of adds to the fun, sort of like 6-D TV, I get the added dimensions of sweat, exhaustion and pain. 

Managed to ride all the stages except the prologue, most just the last couple of hours but stages 8 and 11 did the whole thing from start to finish. Both were hilly, stage 11 the hardest yet with 4 climbs all ones I know well, Madeline, Croix de Fer, Mollard and Toissure.  Last 3 were same as the 2006 route and I was surprised how much of it I could remember.

TSS above gives some idea of the workload, pretty high overall.

 Power levels pretty good too. Meanmax graph shows lots of PBs set from 2 minutes onwards. Especially pleased with the first HC climb, 50 minutes at 262W, which was pretty much my target power back in 2009.  

However yesterdays ride was a bit of an eye opener, did first climb fine but failed half way up the second. So still a ways to go power wise.

 

Who Killed Nanna Birk Larsen- Alternate storyline

Looking to get some sort of closure for frustration of the last couple of episodes of The Killing I thought I'd put together an alternate (and imo more coherent) story line. Here it is.

Backstory

• Leon killed Mette. This was a crime of passion, committed in the woods (same as those where Nanna flees)  in a fit of jealous rage when Mette tells him its over while they are on a walk together.
• Leon is distraught  after the murder and plans to give himself up to the police but talks to Vagn first.
• Vagn talks him out of confessing and helps him dispose of Mette's body.
• In the process Vagn takes the black heart necklace (unbeknownst to Leon)
• Vagn makes sexual advances towards Nanna in her early adolescence.  Nanna resists and Vagn desists when he realises how much he is risking.
• Nanna tells no-one of Vagns advances but does refer indirectly to them in an essay she writes at 16.
• Nanna treats Vagn differently following the event but this coincides with  teenage angst and becoming more distant from the rest of the family as well so it's not noticed. 

The murder:

• Nanna does not use Leon's taxi but the one in front of him on the taxi rank. 
• Leon recognises her, follows the taxi and calls Vagn when he finds out where she is, asking Vagn if he knows whats going on.
• Vagn comes to the flat and rings the entrance bell. Nanna doesn't let him into the flat and they have a heated argument that flares when Nanna screams she will tell Theis about Vagns advances.
• This flips Vagn.  He puts on gloves and convinces/blackmails Leon to help him get into the flat.
• Leon impersonates a police officer. He rings the bell and tells Nanna he has a report she is being assaulted and must see her to verify all is OK. 
• Nanna doesn't recogise Leon, since he only works occasionally for her father, isn't in company clothes and she doesn't have much to with his workers anyway. Leon uses his taxi id as fake police id.
• This exchange starts outside the building and is heard by a passer by.
• Leon gets Nanna to open the door, Vagn pushes past him and Leon immediately leaves.
• Vagn beats Nanna up in the flat but does not rape her there. His main concern at this stage is to keep her quiet. He ties her up and takes her, in Hartmanns car,  to one of Birk Larsen's unused warehouses.
• Vagn meets Leon the next day when they need to do the office move, saying nothing about what has happened.  
• The guy at the place they are moving meets them both and they start the job. The office guy goes to the new location to sort things out. Vagn tells says he will be organising things at the old office while Leon will do the transport and help at the new one.
• He needs to get back to Nanna but the office move is a 2 man job. So Leon gets his brother to come and help him, so Vagn can leave.
• Leon's brother is long distance truck driver, not a businessman.
• Vagn goes to Nanna and works himself up into more of a rage as she continues to resist/accuse him. This triggers the rapes and he blames her this predicament and the hurt she is causing to her family. He can't bring himself to kill her directly though, so he ties her up in Hartmanns car.
• He drives this car to the office to sign off the work as completed. 
• He then  copies the way he and Leon disposed of Mette's body causing Nanna's death. 
• He places the black heart necklace in Nannas hand as insurance in case the body is ever discovered.

 Changes to The Killing series.

• Vagn is questioned as a possible suspect right at the start.  Leon also appears and is questioned as routine along with all the other employees.  He and Leon alibi each other, neither mentioning  Leon's brother (who no-one has seen apart from them)
• The office guy confirms the move took place and mentions how pleased he was by it since it was a big job even for 2 people.
• The taxi driver comes forward to say he had Nanna as a passenger as in the series.
• The passer by who saw Leon getting entry to the flat comes forward. This gives a false lead into the police service and gives scope for red herrings including those of tampering with Nannas phone.
• For most of the series Vagn is ruled out as a suspect. Leon is never even considered as a possible suspect.
• Leon starts to become of interest once Lund starts investigating Mette's disappearance. Circumstantial evidence (working for the removal firm, fitting a rough description of Mette's boyfriend) leads to Lund wanting to question him to get some more information.
• The chance meeting of Leon+Lund at Vagn's flat never happens. 
• Instead Lund goes to Leon's in connection with Mette's disappearance. 
• Leon is close to the edge already, combination of knowing the likely truth about Nanna, his role in that and the continuing guilt about Mette.
• He doesn't crack when Lund sees him but she can sense something is wrong, but this overlaps with the news that Mette's body has been found.
• When Lund leaves Leon goes on the run.
• Option: Lund returns to Leon's flat and searches it. Well hidden, she finds a picture of Mette, Leon has kept since he loved her despite killing her.
• Evidence is now pointing towards Leon as Mette's killer which leads Lund to suspect he may also be involved with Nanna. 
• The passer by who saw the "policeman" at the flat picks out Leon's picture as the person he saw.
• Lund questions Vagn again about the office move. He confirms Leon was there but says he left towards the end leaving Vagn to finish up and get signoff from the office manager. The timing seems to make it possible for Leon to get back and rape/dispose of Nanna.
• Leon phones Lund, close to breakdown. Admits of being responsible saying "I killed her" and is obviously cracking up. He claims others are also guilty but won't say who.
• Leon also phones Vagn. Though he tells him he won't give him away it's clear to Vagn that Leon is a danger. He knows where Leon is likely to be.
• Leon returns to the place where he murdered Mette (and Nanna fled so the woods in the opening sequence every episode) and commits suicide. 
• He leaves a note but Vagn finds him first and takes it.
• The case now looks closed. Leon admitted to killing Mette, was seen at the flat, had time to commit the crime and killed himself where she died. His claims others are involved are put down to him being in denial.  The necklace is seen as final proof he is some sort of serial killer.
• Only Lund has concerns. Leon killed Mette but if he also killed Nanna why did he keep saying "I killed her" not "killed them" and why no suicide note. 
• Leon's brother comes on the scene. He has been trucking abroad, tracked down and informed of his brother's death. He mentions he had been helping out with the office move on the day of Nannas death.
• Lund challenges Vagn about Leon's brother asking why he didn't mention it. Vagn says Leon probably needed some help his end, that's all. He didn't mention it and that would make sense if it meant he could get away quicker to deal with Nanna.
• The creepy teacher who had Nanna's essay (about the affair with a married man) during the early part of the series now comes forward. He says he has been researching more essays in connection with language development and had found Nanna's.  (It hadn't been noticed before since her teacher at the time had left) 
• He simply says he thinks the essay may be of interest. Lund take it but then gets interupted by Leon's brother who mentions that Leon had a storage locker that he used since his flat was small.
• Lund decides to check this and brings along Meyer>> events leading to Meyer's death.(Storage contents could be:Leon had a diary where he wrote up everything about Mette's killing including Vagn's role. Also mentioned there he was glad Mette would always have the necklace he had given her so he could not have put it with Nanna).
• Lund now knows someone else is involved but is arrested herself.
• She still has the essay and reads it while awaiting questioning.  This rings warning bells that someone in the family may have tried to abuse Nanna. She calls Pernille who is obviously upset but also sufficiently aware there may be some truth in Lund's suspicions. She mentions that Nanna had some old essay books  from around the time that were not in her room as they had been tidied away and boxed up with othe family junk/momentos. These have just been and moved to the new house already.
• Following Bengts intervention and her freedom on parole Lund goes to the new house. She meets Vagn there and has her "Sara 84" moment with him. 
• It's clear Vagn knows she knows. But this knowledge pushes him into acceptance its only a matter of time before everything comes out.  His only choice now is how this will go down.

 

From here could segue with show end but I prefer:

• Vagn threatens Lund and asks for her phone/car keys. Lund is worried but recognises this means he doesn't necessarily intend direct harm as in this case he could just take the phone anyway. She hands over the phone and Vagn leaves, locking her in.
• Lund breaks down the door but in the meantime Vagn has gone to Larsens birthday party. 
• Lund goes to nearby house and uses phone to call Pernille and warn her, literally at the same time Vagn drives off with Theis. 
• Pernille drives to new house to meet up with Lund, Lund calls police but they are still more concerned with tracking her down now they know Bengt's forgery.
• Lund and Pernille catch up with Vagn and Theis as per the show. 
• Theis kills Vagn. 
• The police arrive shortly after. The series ends leaves unresolved what happens to Theis, it depends on Lund's word, she could tell the truth but also could say it was a matter of self defence following a struggle. 

The Killing (warning massive spoiler alert)

Off topic. Just finished watching first series of "The Killing".  It was utterly brilliant and had me hooked right from the start. Amazing how quickly I didn't even notice it was in Danish.

But...(WARNING MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT)

The series is 20 hours long. For around 18 of those hours the plotting is pretty perfect, false lead follows on false lead each one ratcheting up the tension. I can only recall a few times I thought it went wrong

• Nanna's phone being tampered with. Made little sense at the time and even less when we learn it was done at the behest of Jens. Jens is a fourth rate politician of little power or influence. Its hard to see why a senior policeman with 36 years experience would risk his career for him. 

• when Hartmann sacks Morten when he thinks he was the source of leaks, the option someone else had used his laptop was way more obvious and Morten would have been far more forceful about this as an explanation. Makes even less sense when you find out later Morten was the only one to know about Hartmann's suicide attempt and you the final last minutes reveal of Morten's ruthlessness.
• Olav going to Bremer when he is under pressure. Why go to Bremer, presumably he was talking to Jens on the phone? Closely linked Jens killing Olav, bit extreme a reaction?? Jens committing suicide by cop also a bit extreme but guess borderline credible.

But  very sadly it all went horribly wrong at the end, when you find out Vagn is the killer. This revealed a huge number of holes in the previously pristine script. In no particular order as they occur to me are:

• Standard procedure in all such cases is to suspect the nearest and dearest, since more often than not they did the killing. Vagn would have been a prime suspect from the start, his alibi and all the questions about his background would have come up much earlier. 
• Vagn cancelled a major job to be able to commit the crime. The customer was very upset by this (as we found out later).  99/100 the customer would be on the phone next working day to complain to the boss (and even if not his lie would have been picked up by the police questioning him as above.) 
• Contrary to earlier suggestions Vagn was not a serial killer. In the end the killing was an unpremeditated crime of passion.  So the earlier clues about the killing seem unlikley:
• > Cutting the fingernails. Possible I suppose
• >Using a condom for all the rapes. Highly unlikely especially for the first one. 
• > For Mette's killing Vagn wrapped the body in his own company's material. Not exactly a sign of the most intelligent killer in the world.
• Evidence from the flat showed Nanna resisted her killer. Yet Vagn showed no signs of being in a fight immediately after
• The fight in the flat was intense. Yet Vagn left no trace, no blood, no finger prints. 
• How did the black necklace get into Nanna's hand?
• How did the video rental card/bloodied clothing get dropped?
• Leon either knew Vagn was the killer or would have had a very strong suspicion he did. How/why did he keep quiet about this?
• If he wanted to cover it up why did he go to the police with the evidence he had picked Nanna up, especially since it put him in the position of being forced to lie about the fact he worked for Theis part time?
• All employees would have been suspects. Leon would have been known and already questioned. 
• Why did Leon flee and stay fleeing?  He phoned his brother and Lund while doing so. All he needed to do tell either of them he had told Vagn about Nanna.
• How did Leon die? Suicide makes no sense, he wasn't the killer. If Vagn killed him how did he find him?
• Why did Vagn tell Theis and Pernille about Nanna's passport?
• Why did Vagn keep the sweatshirt with Sara 84? If he was so obsessive about cleaning Nannas fingernails he would have destroyed all the clothes he was wearing while killing a policeman. 
• Why did Vagn take Nanna to the new house? Through his job Vagn would have known of lots of other much safer locations. Taking her to the house was reckless in terms of the risk of leaving evidence behind and alerting/being seen by neighbours. It also shows a degree of callousness towards the rest of the family that doesn't ring true.
• Why did Amir wait so long to tell his story?

 And on the political storyline

• After it becomes clear Morten tried to cover up for Hartmann not Rie why does Hartmann just accept this? He had no compunction sacking Morten for a much more trivial offence just a few days earlier.
• Even if Hartmann rolls over why expect Rie to? She has shown herself to consistently be a shrewd operator with a hard streak. Moreover she has a very powerful father.  Would she just accept being accused of a serious crime that she did not commit?

Virtual Tour

The 2012 TDF has started, with the amazing situation of a Brit being favourite to win.

As a sort of homage to my 2006 ride and to avoid the July summer (wet wet wet) I thought I'd try riding a virtual tour. Idea is simple, watch the ITV4 coverage and pretend to be a tour rider. 

So far its gone pretty well, managed 3 days so far. Will be interesting once they hit the mountains and I'm not looking forward to the 2 time trial stages.