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Outside Magazine, July 2005

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Tour de France
Coming Attraction (cont.)


	GEN NEXT: Get used to seeing this face. Ascendant cycling phenom Craig Lewis may be Lance's heir. (Jake Chessum)

IN THIS, HIS SECOND year of competition against the some of the planet's best riders, Lewis has made it as a bike racer, albeit one earning just $800 a month as a member of TIAA-CREF, a development team composed of riders aged 23 and younger. And while his middling 54th-place finish in this year's Tour de Georgia is a reminder that Lewis is still defined mostly by that elusive word potential, seasoned observers and participants in the pro peloton, such as Vaughters and Hincapie, say that's all he needs right now.

The reason? In physiological terms, the 20-year-old is where Lance Armstrong was at roughly the same age. In 1993, tests of a 21-year-old Armstrong after he won the World Championship road race showed him churning out 5.5 watts per kilogram of body weight over a sustained period. Last winter, when Lewis performed the same test, he pumped out 356 watts, which when broken down per kilo of body weight matches Lance's output of 12 years ago. And as Lewis matures and peaks in the next decade, he could see a 20 percent jump in power—the difference between a podium finish and ending up at the back of the pack.

Despite Vaughters's and Hincapie's excitement over Lewis's biology, both know that the key to his success is not to rush him. After all, most pros now peak in their late twenties to early thirties.

"He'll be ready to ride the Tour for the first time when he's 25 or 26," Vaughters explains. "Until then he'll probably need two years of racing in the States and a few select international competitions. Then he'll be ready to sign with a ProTour team and either sink or swim."

"Our data show that it's up to 45 watts harder just to ride at the European level," says Steve Johnson, director of athletics for USA Cycling, the governing body for cycling in the U.S. "To ride at that level, you have to be exposed to that level of competition for a long period of time. If you can get accustomed to that pace—plus the crashes and the cutthroat tactics—then you can ride anytime, anywhere, and with anybody."

If all goes as planned, Lewis will be getting a taste of Euro power in June, when he's slated to compete in the four-day Route du Sud, a brutal race through the French and Spanish Pyrenees. "A lot of the top teams will use this as a final preparation for the Tour," says Vaughters. "Just finishing it will be a big step in the right direction."

Ultimately, however, success will come down to Lewis's drive to dominate, and, according to Vaughters, he's got it. "Craig wants to win in Europe, and he knows that racing there's not going to be fun, but he doesn't care. He's going to make it anyway."

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