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Sorry but you didn't follow the Giro 2018. He was toying with Tom and Froome


By far the best performance of his entire career after years of being a 2nd tier GC rider. How odd...

#Race & StageDateClimb timePower (W/kg)ScoreΔ
1Giro ’25 #20 – Colle delle Finestre31 May 20250 : 58 : 586.1095+6
2Giro ’21 #19 – Alpe di Mera28 May 20210 : 28 : 356.4887+1
3Tirreno ’21 #4 – Prati di Tivo13 Mar 20210 : 36 : 046.4186−3
4Tirreno ’20 #5 – Sassotetto11 Sep 20200 : 27 : 456.3683+2
5Vuelta ’18 #19 – Alto de la Rabassa14 Sep 20180 : 41 : 236.1083+1
6Giro ’25 #16 – Passo Santa Barbara27 May 20250 : 36 : 016.1183+4
7Vuelta ’22 #8 – Collau Fancuaya27 Aug 20220 : 27 : 306.4583−1
8Giro ’21 #17 – Sega di Ala26 May 20210 : 37 : 476.1183+3
9Giro ’18 #14 – Monte Zoncolan19 May 20180 : 39 : 426.0583+4
10Klasikoa ’22 – Erlaitz30 Jul 20220 : 12 : 156.9983+2
 
So finally we have some record breaking performance since the last Tour.

I think we all know what happened in the night before - the similar treatment as we've seen last year on PdB but on the lower scale. Del Toro and Carapaz were almost as fast as the previous climbing record during the Giro stage 20 and they get spanked by 1:30.
 
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So finally we have some record breaking performance since the last Tour.

I think we all know what happened in the night before - the similar treatment as we've seen last year on PdB but on the lower scale. Del Toro and Carapaz were almost as fast as the previous climbing record during the Giro stage 20 and they get spanked by 1:30.
Complete shame! I honestly enjoyed the humanity being shown in this Giro and then this was the way to end it. Landis-style.
 
Froome dropped all the other GC riders on that climb. Like. I don't understand how it is possible. He's not even been good on climbs this entire Giro.
He hasn't been good on short explosive efforts, which was nearly every climb this Giro. On stage 16 he was the first to attack but his attack was a bit soft and he couldn't get any seperation, and then he wound up slowly grinding Del Toro off his wheel.

I get everyone is prone to overreacing right now, but if we assume Del Toro and Carapaz' main advantage was explosiveness and not aerobic fitness, Del Toro and Carapaz fried themselves more with their stupid attack at the beginning and stop-start nature of climb, and the idea that Finestre tends to get oversized gaps because of how long it is, how hard it is and because people blow up on that climb, I think the whole picture isn't that crazy.
 
He hasn't been good on short explosive efforts, which was nearly every climb this Giro. On stage 16 he was the first to attack but his attack was a bit soft and he couldn't get any seperation, and then he wound up slowly grinding Del Toro off his wheel.

I get everyone is prone to overreacing right now, but if we assume Del Toro and Carapaz' main advantage was explosiveness and not aerobic fitness, Del Toro and Carapaz fried themselves more with their stupid attack at the beginning and stop-start nature of climb, and the idea that Finestre tends to get oversized gaps because of how long it is, how hard it is and because people blow up on that climb, I think the whole picture isn't that crazy.
You're right, I'll take some deep breaths. I thought we were talking about WvA though? He has been poor on the climbs. Yates beat froomie by 5+ min, wout about equal to froomie...
 
You're right, I'll take some deep breaths. I thought we were talking about WvA though? He has been poor on the climbs. Yates beat froomie by 5+ min, wout about equal to froomie...
In tl;dr (okay I failed the tl;dr bit)

- Froome's time was like 2 minutes slower than the Giro record
- Going 2 minutes faster than 2011 or 2015 happens on most climbs
- Finestre is a rare climb, so there's no particular reason to believe the current Giro record was particularly fast
- Finestre is a really long climb, which means pacing strategy matters a lot, and it's not like Rujano, who had the current Giro record, was the best climber in the 2011 Giro. If anything Rujano having that Giro record speaks a lot to the importance of pacing, because he attacked early and did a very consistent effort.
- Pablo Torres went like 1 minute slower than today? And while that was a meme length stage and a MTF, I don't think going 1 minute faster on a 1 hour climb than an 18 year old in Tour de l'Avenir is particularly outragous. And with this I would highlight the stage had been very easy before Finestre
- As for Van Aert - there's like 3 things I would point to. The first is that the break was large and the stage as a whole before Finestre was really easy, which helps a lot. Often with riders like that you see they suffer most from repeated climbs rather than one big steady climb
- Kiriyenka basically did the same time as the GC group in 2011, winning from a breakaway on a 240km stage, so it's not exactly unprecedented to lose not that much time to the GC group. In fact, he barely lost time to the GC group that year.
- Van Aert has shown before that on a 60 minute climb he can defend a lead to a GC group from a breakaway. On the Ventoux IIRC he only lost 4 minutes, and this is actually where gradient is not a bad thing because gradient limits drafting in a a larger group behind. Also Ventoux is infamous for headwind on the top 3rd of the climb, and theoretically, as a much heavier rider, the gravel should relatively favor Van Aert over Froome

I don't think for Van Aert today is too different from his previous breakaway escapades in the high mountains, and depending on his exact climbing time, I think he's done considerably crazier ones.
 
In sports I am of the opinion that if you win because of money it doesn't matter if you do it clinically or with better equipment, it's still just because the money. What I do care about is how a team treats their riders, be it physically or mentally.

The only thing sad if there's no harm done to the doped riders is riders like Bardet who is possibly riding cleaner than most are having to retire because of the arms race.