With a flat stage before Mont Ventoux, it was expected to have some fireworks and huge climbing performances with Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar battling at the start of the third week.
For the second mountain stage in a row, UAE Emirates could not control the breakaway and let a huge group get away and fight for the victory, with Tadej Pogačar not able to contest for a stage victory to get closer to Mark Cavendish’s stage win record. The breakaway had a massive gap, with Thymen Arensman, Ben Healy, Santiago Buitrago, Enric Mas, Ilan Van Wilder, Valentin Paret-Peintre, and other strong riders fighting for the stage win, with Paret-Peintre outsprinting Healy as he did with Adam Yates on Jabal Al Akhdhar earlier this year.
Oscar Onley spent 2610 kilojoules for 3:10h at 14.04 kj/kg/h before Ventoux in a GC group. Despite being a flat stage, it was not Jebel Hafeet easy, as there were winds and break formation, but for Tour de France standards, it was an easy day. Jonas Vingegaard and Visma | Lease a Bike tried to test Pogačar’s legs with the Dane attacking early in the climb with around 9 km to go. Vingegaard attacked closer to the top after Victor Campenaerts paced as a satellite rider from the breakaway, but Pogačar stayed on his wheel. Later, Pogačar tested Vingegaard’s legs but was not successful.
Despite an inconsistent pace and multiple attacks, the Mont Ventoux record was destroyed. Vingegaard did Ventoux with 6.52 ᵉW/Kg for 54:32 min. Pogačar was two seconds faster with 6.44 ᵉW/Kg as he did not spend that much time in the wind. It was an exceptional performance and the best long climbing performance ever. Similar to the mountain time trial on stage 13, Primož Roglič performed at a high level on an easy road stage with 6.35 ᵉW/Kg for 55:38 min, with his teammate Florian Lipowitz finishing close and improving his podium positions in GC. Even Lipowitz and Roglič were faster than the previous Mont Ventoux record, which was owned by Iban Mayo, who did it in 6.35 ᵉW/Kg for 55:51 min in the Critérium du Dauphiné ITT in 2004, while the fastest road race effort was by Marco Pantani in 1994 when he did it in 57:33 min with 6.16 ᵉW/Kg.
What is the exact reason the Stage 13 ITT results are not published? Those would be extremely interesting. Perhaps too interesting?
I suspect it’s because it would be too complicated to work out with the different TT set ups but I could be wrong.
They’ve estimated TTs in the past quite accurately. If they wanted they could easily put error bars. There’s clearly something more going on here. Perhaps Visma influence as we see with LR
+1
Hate to break it to you but the TT effort is on the graph.
As they’re big fan of Evenepoel especially the guy doing the calculations and always claimed he’s the 3rd best climber in the world (lol) (they even predicted him to be the 2nd best one in front of Pogacar for the 2023 season), and best ITT rider (ok, but not ITTs with climbs), they probably don’t want to show they were wrong by showing low numbers for him compared to its rivals…
Remco has put up the third best climbing watts in the 21st century. Being off form for 3 days doesn’t make that false.
Pogacar was on a road bike, so not a complicated TT set up to calculate….
Great, thanks for the comment!!
Pogi didn’t even run bar tape during the TT. He had a few straps of electrical tape in his main hand positions. Just to toss out how different the setups were. Pogi had jersey sleeves covering his shoes, but not aero booties.
Historic. Not historical.
Historical means “happened a long time ago, or at least some time ago, but certainly not today.”
Historic means “will be remembered for a long time.”
Harrumph!
freakin amazing
For the next climbing stages, would it be possible to put the 2024 Plateau de Beille, Pla D’Adet and Isola 2000 performances for reference?
It would be interesting to see where they stand compared to last year’s craziness. It seems the watts are a bit down this year, other than this Ventoux stage?
It’s better than plateau de beille 2024???
I don’t think those numbers add up…Onley did the Ventoux yesterday at 6,048 wkg based on his strava power data and weight. Pogacar was 1:30 faster – and based on others on that climb yesterday, who share their powers and weight (Vauquelin, Onley, Johanessen, Healey) – 1:20 difference in time ment something like 0.16-0.17 w/kg difference. Pogy at 1:30 faster (and hiding behind Jonas) could mean something like 0.18 w/kg difference from Onley – which seems more like 6.23 W/kg – very realistic number for such long effort.
The numbers are estimated and corrected for e.g. altitude and weight. There’s an article here that explains it. That’s why both numbers can be plausible at the same time.
I wondered the same, since Onleys power is directly measured, it must be quite close to the true power. He put out 373 W on the Ventoux segment. That is indeed 6.048 W/kg if you used his listed weight of 62 kg.
However, riders lose weight due to water loss during the stage! So if you take the calculated value of 6.27 W/kg, his weight would be 59.5 kg – and he would have lost 2.5 kg due to water loss and possibly other weight loss during the Tour. That seems quite plausible to me..
I don’t think so. Such large dehydration would lead to quite high power loss, and they prevent it as much as possible these days…He might be lighter though – that’s true. But still. far from 6.5 W/kg. But yes – if you translate it to power at sea level, then plausible….