The pros do NOT ride steady watts on hilly courses. Why do you keep repeating that? It is far slower to hold steady watts than to hold more on the ups and less on the downs, for the same tager NP. I guarantee you that no pro in the top 20 will hold steady watts on this course. Wurf has made fun of triathletes for this before.
On the slow ups, every extra watt does more for your speed since the proportion or aero drag is low. Conversely, most of the watts you push on a fast descent are lost to aero drag. You should shoot for a NP on this course that is close to your flat course AP, while investing watts on the uphills.
And yes that downhill “happens” but every pro on BwB so far said there it is flat enough that they will have to push power. Soft pedaling will lose you time in that section.
They have 20 plus km of up hill in 40 km of road one section is 16 km up I believe. They will hold that steady just like a flat course. Unless they pass.
There is no recovery at the top you ride another 60 plus km pedaling before the downhill. If you want to run well you better not surge of the 16 km climb.
Some guys will risk for sure but will others chase?
Sebi said they’ll average 400W on the uphills. Cam says if you ride steady, you’re losing minutes.
Let’s see on Strava, but it’s safe to say no one in the top 10 will hold steady power.
Sebi was only talking about Magnus, guessing he will need/ do at 80 kg would be 5 watts per kg . Lange and Weiss at 5 watts per kg at 300-330 watts.
The reason all the bigger guys are talking about one climb etc is they know at any race they do 4 watts per kg for 180 km and lead off the bike but Lange , Mignon , Leon Weiss etc do 4.5 watts per kg and lose time and can still run there 2:30-2;40 run splits But on this course the big guys need to over watt and then will they be able to still run, the smaller guys will be doing the exact same bike effort as always.
I can guarantee no one in contention for the top placings will ride the same power on the climbs as on the flats.
To add to this, there are long periods of zero watts unlike Hawaii where there are almost zero periods of zero watts. The long zero watt periods should allow anyone to bike a bit higher on the climbs (wattage) than they would on a completely flat race. Overall active pedaling time for Nice should be less than in Kona even though overall bike time will be longer, so pedaling time should be rideable at higher watts.