Cyclingnews has a good analysis of Pogacar’s climb up Peyresourde 2 days ago (stage 8):
https://www.cyclingnews.com/…-col-de-peyresourde/
He only weighs 66 kilos.
First part of the climb he was following Tom Dumoulin’s wheel, then attacked at 880W and settled into the last 10+ min 447W @ 6.77W per kilo
This is the fastest ascent of all time, including beating Iban Mayo + Vino in 2003. Part of the reason for the fast time was the work Dumoulin did to bacially put the hammer down for the first half.
Slight correction. His winning attack of 450 watts lasted 10 minutes.
The 6.5 w / kg was over the whole climb was the 24 minute effort and was 429 watts.
For those curious, here are historical times. Some of the VAM calculations are making this all quite interesting. We haven’t seen this kind of skywalking for a while.
In the original link Cyclingnews’ article mentions the record time partially being a result of Dumoulin’s leadout in the first half when Pogecar could ride slightly lower wattage following wheels, in comparison to Mayo vs Vino climb when they were purportedly trying to destroy each other. Not saying that this VAM from 2 days ago from th entire group had no outside assistance (it’s all those riders going pretty fast as several beat Vino + Mayo, so if several are enhanced sufficiently it all helps each other), but there was some drafting/wheel following on this group climb vs 2003. I don’t remember the Peyseroude stage in 2003.
Here is a wikipedia entry from 2003’s stage. It looks like Vino gapped Lance and Ullrich and put 40 seconds on them before the finish. At the end of the stage Vino was in 3rd, 18 seconds down on Lance and 3 seconds down on Ullrich:
Stage 14edit]
20 July 2003 — Saint-Gironsto Loudenvielle-le-Louron, 191.5 km (119.0 mi)
The second day in the Pyrenees, the 191.5 km stage had two category two climbs and four category one climbs spaced throughout the route. The toughest climbs were the Col de la Core at 67 km, Col de Menté at 118.5 km, the Col du Portillon at 156 km and the final climb and descent of the Col de Peyresourde at 180 km. The route included the second category Col de Portet d’Aspet, where Fabio Casartelli was mortally injured in 1995.
Just 162 riders started the stage. There was a very early break of seventeen riders, including Richard Virenque, Gilberto Simoni, Jakob Piil and Manuel Beltran. The group steadily increased their lead over the US Postal led peloton in the early part of the race. By the first category two climb they were over nine minutes clear, by the Col de la Core over twelve minutes. When the deficit hit almost fifteen minutes the teams of USP and Euskaltel joined together at the front of the peloton, later they were joined by Telekom and then Bianchi. By the Col du Portet d’Aspet the lead was reduced to around eleven minutes and on the Col de Menté the leading 17 were showing signs of fatigue and began to drop riders, a group of twelve being led by Virenque over the summit.
The tour then entered Spain for a few kilometres before the climb of the Col du Portillon, where the leading group broke up with a trio of Dufaux, Simoni and Virenque leading the peloton by seven minutes over the summit. The trio remained ahead up the Col de Peyresourde as the field behind them split under repeated attacks, while Armstrong stuck close to Ullrich Vinokourov broke away. Dufaux, Simoni and Virenque kept their lead; they were joined by Peron and fought out the finish, Simoni winning the sprint. Vinokourov led in two others was 41 seconds down and Armstrong and Ullrich came in 1’ 24" later.
