Short Run vs Long Run

The Tour de France runs for 21 days across roughly 3,400 kilometres. Eight-man teams, 22 of them, set off from a different French town in early July and grind through the Alps, the Pyrenees and a handful of brutal time trials before reaching the Champs-Elysées. Anything that happens on a single day matters less than the total. Stage one is its own decision. A team can throw everything at winning that single day. Send the sprinter to the front, burn every domistique pulling in the wind, blast across the line, lift the trophy, sleep well, and watch every rider wake up the next morning with depleted legs. The team has won the day. They may have lost the next 10 days that follow. Recovery time is real. Glycogen does not refill on demand. This is why the great general classification teams race differently.