The tour is 3 weeks of sporting excellence, so I felt it necessary to spend a bit more time talking about it and in particular what I, and many others thought was the greatest time trial ever ridden. Yes, there are questions being asked but there were aspects of the ride you simply couldn’t ignore.
Vingegaard took more than a minute and a half. That means he rode 2.5 kilometres per hour faster, which is more than five percent faster!
Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar had been locked in an epic struggle for the first two weeks, before Jonas unleashed. He describes it as his great time trial ever where he rode at 20watts more than he had planned 380 against 360 watts. This is a number that Lakers athletes like Craig Wilson, Andrew Wright and James Hammond see on their 3-5minute intervals, but the big difference is Jonas is only 60kg. At 60kg that averages out at 6.33 watts per kg, which is an extraordinary number. I will have to wait a little longer to see what the averages were for the various segments, but to almost make up the 2min gap to Pogacar, who had made up the 2min gap on Rodriguez who was in third, was just crazy.
While his power numbers where impressive even more impressive was how he rode. He was fearless. My heart was in my mouth as he navigated all the corners, remaining strapped into his aerobars. His descending was just as good, hitting speeds on the descents I have never witnessed. But he simply didn’t flinch. His cadence remained super high and didn’t change through the entire ride. Post race analysis showed the corners is where he gained a lot of time on his rivals. This reminded me why we all need to spend more time riding our TT bikes around corners and in hills. We can’t just ride them on the flats, in straight lines as we simply won’t get the skill development we are after.
Unlike Pogacar he didn’t change to a road bike for the assent over the 9.3% category 2 climb, he simply stayed on his TT bike and rode. Weight becomes a major issue on climbs (for Norton the number is about 12sec for every 1kg) so if the TT bike was 2 kg heavier that may have saved a rider 20-30seconds on a climb like this one. So this ride became one for the physics major to work out which option was the way to go. But then again team Jumbo-Visma made Van Aert’s and Vingegaard’s bikes without paint to save 150grams, so this is all about attention to detail.
The beauty now for us on the outside is to ponder what happened, was Jonas on or Pogacar off. Looking at the whole tour and especially the two climbs where Pogacar popped it gets you thinking about why?
Was it the altitude that got him, had he spent enough time acclimatising in the high mountains over 2000m. Anyone who has run or ridden on such climbs will know that it takes a lot out of you, and you simply can’t perform as well as you would expect.
Maybe it was the rest day that brought him unstuck. Tadej was seen hanging out in the pool having fun, while we saw little of Vingegaard. So maybe his body just went into recovery mode.
Was it the accumulation of all the little attacks he had made over the preceding days. Pogacar seemed to be the one who was chasing every second available. Perhaps little by little this took its toll on his muscles, and he was forced to function on a reduced capacity.
Maybe it was his fractured wrist he suffered a few months prior that cost him some valuable training time.
Or was it as he commentated post ride that he had no energy. He simply could get enough food in to ride as he wanted. However, I would find this strange given the degree these teams go to, to make sure that riders are replenished. I have read past studies where they were able to show that riders were able to replace 100% of the calories, they burnt each day. So maybe he was just unwell or maybe he was just broken mentally as well as physically after the TT.
Regardless of where he finished Pogacar will go down as not only a great rider but as a great sport. He is always the first to congratulate other riders, he loves to put on a show and entertain, like he did in the final stage where he tried to break away. Hearing him speak he is a competitor who I am sure will be hungrier than ever for the 2024 edition. Next year’s race ends with a TT from Monaco to Nice, so you can bet he will be 100% ready to tackle Jonas once again. I can’t wait!