Tour de France Poll: Hautacam climbing time

[Andre]

35:08 then.
Such a good prediction and such a horrible take.

congrats Yavor

 

[VayaVayaVaya]

What happened to the vaunted class of modern GC climbers?! Sure, Pogacar is Pogacar and put up the #2 climb all time on what I understand to be a tougher stage, but Vingegaard was about on par with Nibali, who was breathing through his nose in 2014 after two superior climbers, Froome and Contador crashed out, whereas Vingegaard was absolutely maxed out suffering like a dog in Pogacar wake. #3-5 barely beat Majka and Pinot from 2014, Vauquelin and Remco embarrassingly beaten by Peraud and Teejay van garden. Roglic sandwiched between Bardet and Bauke Mollema. Ouch. Seems like if you compiled the best riders of 2014 and 2025, it would go something like this:
1. Pogacar
—————-
Big gap
——————
2. Contador
3. Froome
4. Nibali
5. Vingegaard
6. Lipowitz
7-10. Random riders from 2014 and 2025
11. Remco
12. Roglic

Kind of wild.

Also, people love to say Indurain couldn’t climb. Indurains time in 1994 was only 14 seconds slower than Pogacar…

 

[Red Rick]

I voted on braking the record, but I reconsider.
I don't think they will drop each other and if they don't, they won't ride full gas.
35:10.

I know it sounds ridiculous, right?

Don't think any of the two boys have enough balls to go full at the bottom:
35:10

We have 2 winners.

Hilarious that bascially the slowest predictions won expecting they wouldn't go full gas from the bottom.

 

[Red Rick]

What happened to the vaunted class of modern GC climbers?! Sure, Pogacar is Pogacar and put up the #2 climb all time on what I understand to be a tougher stage, but Vingegaard was about on par with Nibali, who was breathing through his nose in 2014 after two superior climbers, Froome and Contador crashed out, whereas Vingegaard was absolutely maxed out suffering like a dog in Pogacar wake. #3-5 barely beat Majka and Pinot from 2014, Vauquelin and Remco embarrassingly beaten by Peraud and Teejay van garden. Roglic sandwiched between Bardet and Bauke Mollema. Ouch. Seems like if you compiled the best riders of 2014 and 2025, it would go something like this:

Sometimes you get these random MTFs where many riders drop absolutely shambles numbers, and that's also usually when Pogacar does best.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Sometimes you get these random MTFs where many riders drop absolutely shambles numbers, and that's also usually when Pogacar does best.

It used to be the case in cold weather but yesterday Pogi excelled in hot weather. New adaptation!

 

[Red Rick]

It used to be the case in cold weather but yesterday Pogi excelled in hot weather. New adaptation!

Only one man can stop Tadej Pogacar.

His name?

Adam Hansen.

 

[Rule #9 apostle]

1. Pogacar
—————-
Big gap
——————
2. Contador
3. Froome
4. Nibali
5. Vingegaard
6. Lipowitz
7-10. Random riders from 2014 and 2025
11. Remco
12. Roglic

Wow. Makes it very clear how random and incomparable climbing times are.

 

[Rechtschreibfehler]

What happened to the vaunted class of modern GC climbers?! Sure, Pogacar is Pogacar and put up the #2 climb all time on what I understand to be a tougher stage, but Vingegaard was about on par with Nibali, who was breathing through his nose in 2014 after two superior climbers, Froome and Contador crashed out, whereas Vingegaard was absolutely maxed out suffering like a dog in Pogacar wake. #3-5 barely beat Majka and Pinot from 2014, Vauquelin and Remco embarrassingly beaten by Peraud and Teejay van garden. Roglic sandwiched between Bardet and Bauke Mollema. Ouch. Seems like if you compiled the best riders of 2014 and 2025, it would go something like this:
1. Pogacar
—————-
Big gap
——————
2. Contador
3. Froome
4. Nibali
5. Vingegaard
6. Lipowitz
7-10. Random riders from 2014 and 2025
11. Remco
12. Roglic

Kind of wild.

Also, people love to say Indurain couldn’t climb. Indurains time in 1994 was only 14 seconds slower than Pogacar…

Just for context:
the 2014 stage was only 145km long and had an average temperature of 22C, it did go over Tourmarlet but had a much longer run in to the last and second climb. Vertical meters were near identical.
Yesterdays stage was 180k, average temperature of 30C and the first hour was ridden at like 52km/h.
Yesterdays stage was stage 12, 2014ths stage was stage 18.
There's also a huge difference in average speed: 41,65 km/h yesterday vs. 35,76 km/h in 2014.

 

[Red Rick]

Just for context:
the 2014 stage was only 145km long and had an average temperature of 22C, it did go over Tourmarlet but had a much longer run in to the last and second climb. Vertical meters were near identical.
Yesterdays stage was 180k, average temperature of 30C and the first hour was ridden at like 52km/h.
Yesterdays stage was stage 12, 2014ths stage was stage 18.
There's also a huge difference in average speed: 41,65 km/h yesterday vs. 35,76 km/h in 2014.

Soulor was done at 6W/kg.

Tourmalet was done at 5.3 W/kg.

Also the section between the descent and start of the climb was treated as a chill recovery ride in 2014.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Yeah, there's really no comparison. Full gas all day, 180 km in the heat compared to 2014 where renowned GT specialist climber Fuglsang, who was also injured, was leading Tourmalet with no real break to reel in. The amount of strain on the bodies is just a worlds apart

 

[Brullnux]

What happened to the vaunted class of modern GC climbers?! Sure, Pogacar is Pogacar and put up the #2 climb all time on what I understand to be a tougher stage, but Vingegaard was about on par with Nibali, who was breathing through his nose in 2014 after two superior climbers, Froome and Contador crashed out, whereas Vingegaard was absolutely maxed out suffering like a dog in Pogacar wake. #3-5 barely beat Majka and Pinot from 2014, Vauquelin and Remco embarrassingly beaten by Peraud and Teejay van garden. Roglic sandwiched between Bardet and Bauke Mollema. Ouch. Seems like if you compiled the best riders of 2014 and 2025, it would go something like this:
1. Pogacar
—————-
Big gap
——————
2. Contador
3. Froome
4. Nibali
5. Vingegaard
6. Lipowitz
7-10. Random riders from 2014 and 2025
11. Remco
12. Roglic

Kind of wild.

Also, people love to say Indurain couldn’t climb. Indurains time in 1994 was only 14 seconds slower than Pogacar…

There's no guarantee that Contador and Froome would have climbed faster than Nibali. Nibali in 2014 had better numbers than Froome in 2013 on climbs between 20-40 minutes, and his Hautacam performance was really excellent

 

[Red Rick]

There's no guarantee that Contador and Froome would have climbed faster than Nibali. Nibali in 2014 had better numbers than Froome in 2013 on climbs between 20-40 minutes, and his Hautacam performance was really excellent

I really prefer gaps to the competition as the main metric over numbers because the numbers get so skewed by tactics and overall race difficulty. Nibali himself was always an underperformer as well when the watts got biblical. By pure number far and away the best performance of 2014 was Quintana on Monte Grappa. Nibali's Hautacam numbers also aren't better than Froome's 2013 or 2015 numbers, but the very big caveat is simply Astana's pace was very lacklustre and Nibali did nearly the whole climb alone. Froome was also much more a flat track bully than Nibali who's performance went down more after harder stages, as evidenced by La Toussuire in 2015.

At the same time, Contador (and Froome to a lesser extent) took some very big gaps on La Farrapona and especially Ancares to a stronger field.