4th Mont Ventoux Dénivelé Challenge(1.1) - June 14th

[Samu Cuenca]

...but still ahead of the likes of Valverde, Skjelmose and Tolhoek.

Woods still hasn't finished...

Woods was 37th and lost 13:15. Not a bad performance from that Niv guy though.

 

[Escarabajo]

EF with some stage hunters options for the Tour. JV should be happy now.

 

[search]

WTF is Skjelmose doing lately?

is there anything too unusual about his performance?

He shouldn't have raced this to begin with, just after the Giro, I'd say, same as Gall. Instead both are lined up for Route du Sud as well.

 

[Samamba]

so far it doesn't really look like Uran is peaking too early, to be honest

That's true, might be better than last year then as he was really good in Suisse but faded in the Tour.

 

[Escarabajo]

Sosa dropping directly in the bottom of Ventoux. What a meme he is.

I know Sosa sucks at 3 week races. But this is a little abnormal for him. Maybe if there was a lot of wind before the climb that did the trick for him.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

is there anything too unusual about his performance?

He shouldn't have raced this to begin with, just after the Giro, I'd say, same as Gall. Instead both are lined up for Route du Sud as well.

He was good in Provence, but i haven't seen him since, and i certainly expected more from him in the Giro. Losing over 5 minutes today against not the best climbers is below what i would expect of him.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Absolutely insane climbing time from Guerreiro.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1536714770866483201

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1536714625139580928

 

[Red Rick]

Absolutely insane climbing time from Guerreiro.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1536714770866483201

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1536714625139580928

Tailwind up to Chalet then crosswind.

They also tend to absolutely chill before they hit the climb

 

[yaco]

Laughed when Valverde pulled the pin on the early slopes of Ventoux - It's an indictment on the sport when he gets called up at short notice ( when on holidays ) chasing UCI points.

 

[Escarabajo]

So Pantani would have put 2 minutes on Guerreiro!
And Mayo even more. However that was an ITT.
Lopez last year was faster by 25"
LOL

 

[Krzysztof_O]

This shows again that comparing climbing times in different races, conditions and circumstances can be very tricky. Does anybody think Guerreiro would drop all those legends (in their prime) on Ventoux?

 

[Lequack]

Ruben Guerreiro is the next Quintana confirmed.

 

[Red Rick]

This shows again that comparing climbing times in different races, conditions and circumstances can be very tricky. Does anybody think Guerreiro would drop all those legends (in their prime) on Ventoux?

I think especially very long climbs get super tricky with the comparisons because they tend to be both rarer and have much more differences in pacing strategies. In the Tour people don't really drill the early slopes of Ventoux for the yolo. Only in 2013 it was paced aggresively in the last 15 years.

Meanwhile Vingegaard was only 24s slower despite doing Kwiatkowski pace for 55 minutes.

 

[Mayomaniac]

I think especially very long climbs get super tricky with the comparisons because they tend to be both rarer and have much more differences in pacing strategies. In the Tour people don't really drill the early slopes of Ventoux for the yolo. Only in 2013 it was paced aggresively in the last 15 years.

Meanwhile Vingegaard was only 24s slower despite doing Kwiatkowski pace for 55 minutes.

Not to mention that wind plays a huge part on the Ventoux.

 

[Red Rick]

Not to mention that wind plays a huge part on the Ventoux.

Yeah and it's generally unfavorable on the bald section of the mountain. If you convert to W/kg Ventoux climbs generally aren't very high despite often being unipuerto stages with low altitude for a climb this size. That said it's often hot.

Vaughters said Guerreiro did 5.92 W/kg today btw.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

This shows again that comparing climbing times in different races, conditions and circumstances can be very tricky. Does anybody think Guerreiro would drop all those legends (in their prime) on Ventoux?

I think we all know the answer to that question. However, it’s still too fast a time to argue that the standard was mediocre today. Yes, the wind direction after Chalet Reynard helped, but it’s still only a minute off the fastest-ever non-MTT time (Pantani 1994) and there have been 15 non-MTT ascents of the full 21.5 kilometres since (including this one), that’s enough of a sample size to incorporate a lot of different contexts.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Yeah and it's generally unfavorable on the bald section of the mountain. If you convert to W/kg Ventoux climbs generally aren't very high despite often being unipuerto stages with low altitude for a climb this size. That said it's often hot.

Vaughters said Guerreiro did 5.92 W/kg today btw.

Yeah, Ventoux in general looks like a supe unreliable one to pick for me. If the (usually unfavorable) wind isn't blowing one day you go a lot faster on the bald section with the same amount of power output.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Vaughters said Guerreiro did 5.92 W/kg today btw.

Based on power meter data or calculations? The calculation-based value I saw on Twitter was 5.98 W/kg, which would be better than all but one of Pogacar’s performances on 40+-minute efforts and therefore seems too high to me.

 

[Mayomaniac]

I think we all know the answer to that question. However, it’s still too fast a time to argue that the standard was mediocre today. Yes, the wind direction after Chalet Reynard helped, but it’s still only a minute off the fastest-ever non-MTT time (Pantani 1994) and there have been 15 non-MTT ascents of the full 21.5 kilometres since (including this one), that’s enough of a sample size to incorporate a lot of different contexts.

It has to be said that the 1994 stage finished down in Carpentras after the descent.

 

[Red Rick]

Based on power meter data or calculations? The calculation-based value I saw on Twitter was 5.98 W/kg, which would be better than all but one of Pogacar’s performances on 40+-minute efforts and therefore seems too high to me.

40+ minute climbs just aren't super common and prone to shitty sample sizes.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

It has to be said that the 1994 stage finished down in Carpentras after the descent.

True, but Ventoux was climbed almost annually during the EPO era, almost always as a MTF and two of those during the Tour, yet outside of the 1999 and 2004 MTTs Pantani’s 1994 time was untouchable.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

40+ minute climbs just aren't super common and prone to shitty sample sizes.

Then why did you bother posting Guerreiro's W/kg for a 40+-minute climb in the first place?

 

[Unterlenkerfahrend]

True, but Ventoux was climbed almost annually during the EPO era, almost always as a MTF and two of those during the Tour, yet outside of the 1999 and 2004 MTTs Pantani’s 1994 time was untouchable.

Almost annually is a bit of a push. They did it in 94, 99 (MTT), 2000, 2002, 2004 (MTT) and 2006+2007. So outside the MTTs only 94,2000 and 2002 where at the highest level. In 2000 they were not going too fast from the foot and had heavy headwind, reasonable big group stayed together until the pantani and Armstrong attack, even out of form Ullrich who had dropped 4 minutes on Hautacam lost only 30s. 2002 had not a high level outside Armstrong who didn't had to do that much.

I'd also split the term "EPO era". 90s: unlimited EPO until 97, controlled EPO (50%) until the test. 00s: Microdosing EPO and mostly BBs which varied in their effectiveness.
The overall performances were much higher at the end of the 90s than the 00s.

Anyway, this belongs in the clinic.
Overall, strong performance from Guerreiro but hard to draw too many conclusions from such one day climbing performances.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Almost annually is a bit of a push. They did it in 94, 99 (MTT), 2000, 2002, 2004 (MTT) and 2006+2007. So outside the MTTs only 94,2000 and 2002 where at the highest level. In 2000 they were not going too fast from the foot and had heavy headwind, reasonable big group stayed together until the pantani and Armstrong attack, even out of form Ullrich who had dropped 4 minutes on Hautacam lost only 30s. 2002 had not a high level outside Armstrong who didn't had to do that much.

They climbed it in both the Dauphiné and the Tour in 2000 and also in 2005, 1998 and 1996. Including MTTs, that's 11 ascents in 13 years from 1994 to 2006.

 

[Big Doopie]

Laughed when Valverde pulled the pin on the early slopes of Ventoux - It's an indictment on the sport when he gets called up at short notice ( when on holidays ) chasing UCI points.

lol. the fact that he is racing period is an indictment on the sport.