Geraint Thomas is defending the Maglia Rosa well, being the only rider that has not lost time on a mountain stage to his rivals Joao Almeida and Primož Roglič. Thomas finished together with Roglič, while Almeida was dropped by Sepp Kuss’s acceleration on the steep Coi climb, losing 21 seconds to his main rivals.

It was another hard mountain day in the Giro with huge kilojoules before the decisive climb. The GC teams probably were saving some bullets for the next two stages which includes a very hard road stage and a mountain time trial with inhumane gradients. Brandon McNulty in the peloton spent 4121 kilojoules for 4:18h which is 14.19 kj/kg/h, a very hard day in the saddle before the steep Coi climb (5.3 km, 9.8%). Before it came the Forcella Cibana (9.7 km, 7.7%), where the peloton did 5.70 ᵉW/Kg for 28:53 min – definitely enough to hurt the legs with only a short descent before the very steep Coi.

There were doubts about Primož Roglič as he lost time on Monte Bondone to Joao Almeida and Geraint Thomas on Tuesday and was seen multiple times at the back of the group when the attacks flowed during breakaway formation earlier in the stage. INEOS or UAE did not try to pace hard to test Roglič late in the stage, which ended up being the right decision as the Slovenian was reborn from the ashes. On the steep Coi section, pure climber Sepp Kuss put up a strong performance with only Roglič and Thomas able to follow his acceleration. Joao Almeida as usual set his own tempo with the help of his teammate Jay Vine. Almeida was not far back but it was important to catch the leaders as there was a descent and small climb after Coi with more moderate gradients to the finish.

Sepp Kuss did 6.70 ᵉW/Kg for 11 minutes on the steep section and 6.38 ᵉW/Kg for 18:31 min on the whole climb, as the first part was still relatively slow with INEOS just controlling the gap to the breakaway. Regardless, the late action was enough to make big splits in the GC group that was tired after 4000 metres of elevation gain. Almeida, thanks to the pacing of Vine, lost only 6 seconds on the Coi climb itself but then nearly crashed on the descent as the Australian went too fast in a corner.

After a big drama, the Queen stage of Giro d’Italia was shortened from 199 km to 75.0 km with the exclusion of Grand St Bernard Pass prior to the Croix de Couer, making a fairly easy day for the GC riders.

The stage started right at the bottom of the mighty Croix de Couer climb (15.5 km, 8.6%). Riders knew the first hour of the race would be very hard and did warm up on turbo trainers before the stage finally started. It was not raining at the start and the weather conditions definitely were not extreme when the race began.

As the race was shortened and it started up a long climb, the breakaway formation would be decided how much w/kg a rider can push for 50 minutes. It was not an easy task as Jack Haig dropped early from the peloton and Jay Vine exploded after trying to get into the breakaway. In the end, it was formed by seven strong riders. Thibaut Pinot, Einer Augusto Rubio, Jefferson Alexander Cepeda, Valentin Paret-Peintre, Matthew Riccitello, Derek Gee and Bruno Armirail. They did the climb in 48 minutes and 2 seconds with 5.90 ᵉW/Kg. A very impressive effort by Armirail and Gee who are both way heavier than the other pure climbers, weighing above 70 kilograms.

The peloton/GC group was not far away and lost only 1:55 min on the climb and pushed 5.62 ᵉW/Kg. After that, there was a treacherous descent, the first part being wet with a bad road surface. The breakaway gained a lot of time on the technical and long descent as it was worth to risk for the stage victory while the GC group did not need to go full gas down Croix de Couer.

At the base of Crans-Montana the breakaway’s lead was over 2:30 min and it was unlikely for the GC group to catch Pinot & Co as the stage was short with low kilojoules and the riders were relatively fresh. It was neutral wind on the climb which was good for attacking riders. The stage was won by Einer Rubio who did not respond to Pinot and Cepeda’s accelerations and rode the climb more conservatively. This strategy paid off as in the last metres, as not even Pinot could follow the lightweight Colombian who took his second World Tour win in 2023 after being victorious in the UAE Tour on Jebel Jais, where he attacked from the peloton and was ignored by the big GC teams. Rubio did the climb at 35:28 min which was not much slower than the peloton.

Considering the lack of fatigue before Crans-Montana, the tempo in the GC group was extremely low for 2023 standards. INEOS had no reason to blow up the climb with Primož Roglič being the likeliest to win the w/kg test and Jumbo-Visma elected to save their bullets for another day. The pace was so slow that Lorenzo Fortunato, Hugh Carthy and Eddie Dunbar all attacked at some point of the climb and gained a good margin. Only Carthy was not caught by the GC group and gained massive six seconds over Almeida, Thomas, Roglič, Caruso, Kamna, Dunbar and Kuss.

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Carthy did 6.11 ᵉW/Kg for 34:14 min and spent way more watts than the GC riders in the draft who pushed 5.95 ᵉW/Kg for 34:20 min. The drafting effect on a 7% gradient is still significant as the riders go uphill at 22.8 km/h and it is hard to make big gaps if the fatigue is low and there is not a strong team like Jumbo-Visma fully committing with a Kuss, Gloag, Bouwman, Dennis mountain train for Roglič. The GC action in the Giro d’Italia has largely been non-existent outside of the two time trials, and today was certainly one of the most disappointing mountain stages in recent history.

Kārlis Ozols (@CyclingGraphs)

It was not the most exciting day in the Giro d’Italia first week. Surprisingly, the peloton decided to take a day off and allow one of the three breakaway riders, Davide Bais, Karel Vacek and Simone Petilli, to take a stage win on the mighty Campo Imperatore.

It was a challenging 218.3-kilometre stage with more than 4,000 metres of elevation gain. It was not perfect for high w/kg performances but the final 3.9 kilometres at an 8.26% gradient with a finish above 2000 metres of sea level was sufficient to create some differences in the GC if a team had tried, despite the headwind.

Jumbo-Visma and DSM seemed interested in controlling the break formation. In the end, it was a classical four-man television breakaway with Davide Bais, Karel Vacek, Simone Petilli and Henok Mulubrhan, with the Eritrean dropping out of the group early. After every team refused to hold even a mediocre tempo in the peloton, it was clear one of these three breakaway riders would take the first pro win of their career with DSM having no interest in bringing the group back lest Leknessund lose his jersey. After a gruelling day out front, it was Davide Bais from EOLO-Kometa who was victorious, thanks to a 4.82 ᵉW/Kg for 14:25 min performance on the steep part of the Campo Imperatore. It is the second victory at the Giro for Alberto Contador and Ivan Basso’s team after Lorenzo Fortunato’s glorious breakaway win on Monte Zoncolan at the 2021 Giro. It might be the lowest w/kg performance for a mountain-top win in recent years in World-Tour but it is still a Grand Tour win that many teams passed on, so credit to those in the breakaway today.

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The peloton was sleeping for the whole climb but upped the tempo on the steep pinch at the finish. Remco Evenepoel was first from the GC group, doing 5.85 ᵉW/Kg for 11:44 min and getting extra UCI points for Soudal-Quickstep. It was surprising to see that INEOS or Jumbo-Visma did not try to test Evenepoel on Campo Imperatore after the Belgian crashed multiple times on Stage 5 which might have affected his performance.

La Vuelta Femenina did not disappoint this weekend, with crosswind controversy on Stage 6 leading to Annemiek van Vleuten taking a healthy lead over Demi Vollering in the General Classification. Today’s final stage presented Demi Vollering with an opportunity to recover that lost time on the steep slopes of Covadonga, but despite a great performance, Van Vleuten was good enough to defend her GC lead and win La Vuelta Femenina by nine seconds.

Vollering lost the leader’s jersey on Stage 6 due to taking a natural break at the worst time, leading to a 64 second loss to Annemiek van Vleuten. It was Movistar’s home ground and they had a pre-race plan which they executed perfectly.

Stage 7 finished on the mighty Covadonga climb (8.45km, 9.29% steep part). Vollering had to gain a lot of time and it was the perfect climb for it. Liane Lippert was pulling very hard from the base for Van Vleuten even though her teammate was the race leader and did not need to gain time. After Niamh Fisher-Black finished her pull Vollering started digging hard with 10.1 km to go and only Van Vleuten, Gaia Realini and Evita Muzic remained in the leading pack.

Van Vleuten was dropped with 5.4 km to go after an acceleration on the steep ramps by Gaia Realini. Vollering remained together with Realini who is performing exceptionally well in her first year with Trek-Segafredo. The Italian climber is only 21 years old and might be the best climber in the following seasons.

After the climb levelled off with a few kilometres remaining, the gap to Van Vleuten kept increasing at a rapid rate. Realini stayed on Vollering’s after the short descent and lost 11 seconds in the final kilometre, with Vollering powering to the line to take the stage win.

The young Dutch star performed extremely well today, doing 5.35 ᵉw/kg for 31:01 min. This is only for the steep part but if the whole climb would be included with the descent then Vollering’s estimated power would be around 5.30 ᵉw/kg for 39 minutes but it is hard to calculate it accurately with the ups and downs in the final. On the power x time curve this effort is with the best in our database, while Van Vleuten is not at her 2022 Tour de France Femmes level yet.

On the first mountain top finish in La Vuelta Femenina 2023, Demi Vollering, the Queen of Ardennes was unbeaten. Even Annemiek van Vleuten could not outmatch the SD Worx superstar on the Mirador de Peñas Llanas climb despite Vollering being isolated for much of the finale.

Stage 5 ended with Mirador de Peñas Llanas. The stage itself was not the easiest one. The peloton did the Puerto Navafria (11.45 km, 5.8%) climb in the first half of the stage in 32 minutes and 31 seconds. According to Juliette Labous’ Strava profile, she pushed 265 watts (4.61 w/kg with 57.5 kg input weight). With 3:20 hours in the legs before the start of the climb, the fatigue definitely influenced the final.

Surprisingly, Trek-Segafredo were pacing the climb with Gaia Realini. The Italian has performed exceptionally well this season, shredding the GC group on Jebel Hafeet and finishing 3rd in La Fleche Wallonne. Realini was holding a high pace as in the group was her teammate Amanda Spratt however in reality Realini has already demonstrated she is the strongest climber on Trek-Segafredo. When Demi Vollering started pushing at the front of the group Spratt dropped while Realini was keeping up with the best climbers even after setting the pace.

Like on the Mur de Huy, Vollering was holding her own pace despite Annemiek van Vleuten sitting on her wheel. Vollering won all three Ardennes classics and has been on fire this season. With 450 metres to go Van Vleuten tried to drop Vollering on a very steep section, grinding hard out of the saddle, while Vollering remained seated. With 300 metres to go, Vollering started the final acceleration and dropped both Van Vleuten and Bauernfeind off her wheel.

Vollering did on the climb 5.48 ᵉw/kg for 13:25 min which is the most impressive climbing performance over 10 minutes in 2023. But that might change on Stage 7 which will finish up the mighty Lagos de Covadonga (13.3 km, 6.8%). Covadonga might suit more Van Vleuten as it is a long climb but Vollering is very strong this season. Realini also might perform better as she will surely not be pacing for Spratt who finished 15th while Realini was 5th, losing 27 seconds to Vollering.

High ᵉW/Kg performances are the norm in 2023 and Tour of the Alps is not an exception despite not being a WorldTour race. Lennard Kämna won the longest mountain top finish of the week, pushing by far the best watts in his career. It was a career day for other climbers too, many of whom are at this race preparing for the Giro d’Italia.

It was the perfect day for high level climbing performances, with cool conditions. The easy stage finished with the San Valentino climb (15.4 km, 7.5%) which was great for pushing high watts as it is regular, long and starts at a low altitude. The stage before it was not particularly hard as the peloton did 12.54 kj/kg/h for 3:30h. Most of the fatigue was accumulated on the Lago di Cei climb which topped out 38 km before the finishing mountain. The peloton did close to 6.00 ᵉw/kg on it for 23 minutes.

It was a tailwind up San Valentino which helped the breakaway. The light blue sections are straight tailwind and there was plenty of it on San Valentino. The last survivor of the day’s break, Joe Dombrowski, was caught with only 3 km to go by Lennard Kämna and Jefferson Alexander Cepeda who attacked from the GC group after the pacing of Bora-Hansgrohe. The tailwind also benefitted these attackers, as the drafting benefit is not as big as it would be in a headwind for example.

Kämna (+0:59) and Cepeda (+0:40) had lost some time in previous stages but INEOS could not afford to let the gap grow too big. With 1.8 km to go after Thomas, De Plus and Sivakov had emptied their tanks, the winner of the first two stages Tao Geoghegan Hart attacked with Haig, Carthy, Fortunato and Vlasov in the draft.

Geoghegan Hart’s efforts were not enough to catch the leading duo, with Cepeda doing all of the pacing seemingly without looking to Kämna to pull. However, as is customary for him in the last few years, the German attacked Cepeda in the last kilometre when the gradients were not steep after saving some energy in the legs drafting for several kilometres. From the GC group, Kämna’s teammate Aleksandr Vlasov passed Cepeda at the last moment to take second place but in the end, the 40-minute climb did not change much in the GC. Felix Gall after yesterday’s fall finished 66 seconds behind Cepeda and fell to 10th position in overall. It was a terrible day for Ivan Ramiro Sosa. The Colombian lost more than 3 minutes and dropped from 5th to 17th place.

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As mentioned previously all the conditions were perfect for high ᵉw/kg performances. Even the temperature was 15°C which is in the range of the perfect temperature for climbing. Cepeda was close to hitting the red generational trend-line but he missed it by a very small margin. Due to the drafting, based on our estimations, Kämna produced slightly less w/kg than Cepeda despite finishing four seconds ahead of him on the stage – the Ecuadorian produced 6.28 ᵉw/kg for 40:35 min.

20-year-old Max Poole and 21-year-old Matthew Riccitello performed exceptionally for their age and pushed 6.13 ᵉw/kg for 41:03 min. Not many U23 eligible riders in history have ever pushed that much ᵉw/kg on climbs, especially on 40-minute ones. The Tour de l’Avenir mountains stages won by Cian Uijtdebroeks in dominant fashion in the summer of 2022 were not as high as this level purely on a w/kg basis.