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Power Data Estimates for the climbing stages

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The only explanation i have is that everybody is at their lowest weight and best form due to last years extended season and covid realted uncertainity. The riders didnot get that much time to stuff themselves except for Thomas and everybody is keeping themselves at peak form as the races might not happen. That still is difficult to explain the stratospheric speeds every single race.
 
Tbh I I wish we had some decent references for how finishing climbs suffer after a stage like today.
We'd need some power files from top gc riders over the years. No idea if blowing the race apart on a longer climb has a bigger effect on the times on the finishing climbs. I mean, it's clear that Pantani's record on Alpe d'Huez has more to do with the fact that there wasn't a significant climb before it that year (it clearly wasn't his best season), but it's an interesting topic.
 
We'd need some power files from top gc riders over the years. No idea if blowing the race apart on a longer climb has a bigger effect on the times on the finishing climbs. I mean, it's clear that Pantani's record on Alpe d'Huez has more to do with the fact that there wasn't a significant climb before it that year (it clearly wasn't his best season), but it's an interesting topic.
We might extrapolate a little bit as well from various stages, although high mountain stage breakaways get really hard cause riders generally won't be drilling the flat super hard and the distribution of flat vs climbnig efforts changes significantly. Percentage wise I would expect the difference to be smaller on bigger climbs.

From the top of my head the most extreme example should probably be Schleck being about 3 minutes slower than the record on Galibier south on a ~23 minute climb and similar for Froome on Jafferau, but those are the most extreme causes and it's never gonna be a 15% difference here. I could see it making a difference of about 30s quite conceivably though.
 
In my opinion total amount of climbing before the final climb can be a bit overrated cause it really doesn't matter that much if they just ride slow pace on those climbs, especially in the case of cat 1/cat 2 warmup climbs with flats inbetween. Acebo 2019 for example was one of the queen stages but they did a bunch of the climbs in super slowmo and then Valverde and Roglic dropped an absolute nuke on the final hill.
 
We'd need some power files from top gc riders over the years. No idea if blowing the race apart on a longer climb has a bigger effect on the times on the finishing climbs. I mean, it's clear that Pantani's record on Alpe d'Huez has more to do with the fact that there wasn't a significant climb before it that year (it clearly wasn't his best season), but it's an interesting topic.

Only 13 seconds difference between Pantani's time in 1995 (record) and 1997. Then he was only 35 seconds off that record in 1994. Whether or not there wasn't a significant climb before isn't why he holds the three fastest times ever - also these times were set on heavier and slower bikes compared to today. Agree with Red Rick that the total amount of climbing before the final climb is overrated.
 
Not the record but very good time nevertheless.

The funny time to me are the duos of Zulle-Indurain and Zulle-Berzin. For those who had doubts about Indurain. Come on!!!


Alto de Arrate-Usartza
2021:4,4 km@9,3%---12:44---average speed 20.73 km/h(Roglic-Gaudu)
---12:50---average speed 20.57 km/h(Pogacar-Valverde-Vingegaard-A.Yates)

2020:4,4 km@9,3%---13:00---average speed 20.31 km/h(Kuss-Mas-D.Martin-Carapaz-Chaves-Grosschartner-Roglic-Carthy)
2019:4,4 km@9,3%---12:47---average speed 20.65 km/h(Fuglsang-A.Yates-I.Izagirre)
2016:4,4 km@9,3%---13:15---average speed 19.92 km/h(Contador-Henao)
2015:4,4 km@9,3%---12:48---average speed 20.63 km/h(Henao-Zakarin)
2014:4,4 km@9,3%---13:04---average speed 20.20 km/h(Wout Poels)
2013:4,4 km@9,3%---13:33---average speed 19.48 km/h(Simon Spilak)
2012:4,4 km@9,3%---12:58---average speed 20.36 km/h(Contador-Valverde-Rodriguez-Froome)
2012:4,4 km@9,3%---13:06---average speed 20.15 km/h(Horner-S.Sanchez-Rodriguez)
2011:4,4 km@9,3%---13:03---average speed 20.23 km/h(Xavier Tondo)
2010:4,4 km@9,3%---12:32---average speed 21.06 km/h(Chris Horner)
2009:4,4 km@9,3%---12:12---average speed 21.64 km/h(Alberto Contador)
2004:4,4 km@9,3%---12:42---average speed 20.79 km/h(Roberto Laiseka)
2003:4,4 km@9,3%---12:51---average speed 20.54 km/h(Pecharroman-Casagrande-Zubeldia-Beloki)
2002:4,4 km@9,3%---13:07---average speed 20.13 km/h(Joseba Beloki)
1999:4,4 km@9,3%---12:50---average speed 20.57 km/h(R.Meier-Escartin-Beltran-Laiseka)
1998:4,4 km@9,3%---12:35---average speed 20.98 km/h(Castelblanco-Riis)
1997:4,4 km@9,3%---12:40---average speed 20.84 km/h(Clavero-Escartin-Olano)
1996:4,4 km@9,3%---12:02---average speed 21.94 km/h(Zulle-Indurain)
---12:19---average speed 21.43 km/h(Petter Luttenberger)
1995:4,4 km@9,3%---11:55---average speed 22.15 km/h(Berzin-Zulle)
 
Imagine the time records of zoncolan, ventoux, alpe d' huez being beaten in the next months/year....people will go nuts.
Not sure how you can possibly compare a sub 3 minute climb with a 40 minute climb?? :confused_old: Mur de Huy requires different energy system - it is hugely anaerobic. The Alpe is purely aerobic. As far as I can research, nobody has ridden sub 40 minutes on the Alpe for years now. In 2018 Thomas was untouchable by any rival climbers after being towed from the bottom by the might of the Sky train in full flight and still only did something like 41 minutes.
 
Not sure how you can possibly compare a sub 3 minute climb with a 40 minute climb?? :confused_old: Mur de Huy requires different energy system - it is hugely anaerobic. The Alpe is purely aerobic. As far as I can research, nobody has ridden sub 40 minutes on the Alpe for years now. In 2018 Thomas was untouchable by any rival climbers after being towed from the bottom by the might of the Sky train in full flight and still only did something like 41 minutes.
I don’t think he was just using Mur de Huy as the basis for that statements...the recent surge of record-breaking ascents started last year on a number of the alpine climbs, so it would be logical to think that records may indeed be broken on these legendary climbs as well.
 
Not sure how you can possibly compare a sub 3 minute climb with a 40 minute climb?? :confused_old: Mur de Huy requires different energy system - it is hugely anaerobic. The Alpe is purely aerobic. As far as I can research, nobody has ridden sub 40 minutes on the Alpe for years now. In 2018 Thomas was untouchable by any rival climbers after being towed from the bottom by the might of the Sky train in full flight and still only did something like 41 minutes.
Peyresourde, prati di tivio,valter 2000, la planche des belles filles, etc, the records were broken, i'm not talking of mur d'huy.
 
Peyresourde, prati di tivio,valter 2000, la planche des belles filles, etc, the records were broken, i'm not talking of mur d'huy.
Mur d'huy is a bad example for the reason I stated otherwise I would not have posted. But the Alpe is always a good benchmark. Those other climbs don't count if they are not MTFs. LPDF was not ridden in the 1990s. When Roglic and Pogi climb the Alpe in sub 40 minutes I will start to pay attention. Pantani holds the record at 36'40' in 1995. That's over 1 kilometer up the mountain compared to Thomas 2018. No way would Roglic and Pogi finish 3 or 4 minutes ahead of 2018 Thomas being pulled by Sky. This isn't possible in the UCI passport world.

Top times on the Alpe:


1. 1995: 36:40 Marco Pantani 22.58 km/h
2. 1997: 36:53 Marco Pantani 22.45 km/h
3. 1994: 37:15 Marco Pantani 22.23 km/h
100. 2006: 41:13 Tadej Valjavec 20.09 km/h


Thomas and Sky in 2018 are outside the top 100. Pogi and Roglic at best 39 minutes?
 
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