Uh oh! I just stole Thibaut Pinot’s KOM: how to use maths, mates and modifications to beat a WorldTour hitter
When I first saw the 2022 Tour de France route announcement, I was thrilled that the race would pass through my beautiful little town of Saint Gervais Les Bains – my favorite place on earth.
As it turned out, I wasn’t able to get out on the actual day of the race, but Thibaut Pinot scouted the stage and took a bunch of Strava with him (opens in new tab)KOMs (a course record on a specific GPS segment, for the uninitiated) en route.
One of these was a particularly vigorous 17km stretch from Saint Gervais Les Bains to Megève and up the Altiport climb – a climb won by Magnus Cort (opens in new tab) and which was also used in 2020 as a Dauphiné finish. However, they took to the slopes at every bike race. A lot of us can’t because the runway is obviously dangerous when it’s open.
Pinot pulled into the parking lot, the “official” destination of the climb. I’m guessing he wasn’t flat out, but he drove up there in a team car and a teammate – so obviously it was a relatively serious reconnaissance mission.
Those who know me will be aware of my occasional self-confidence, and I’ve usually looked at his performance (16mph for 11 miles with 4% drag) and thought, “I can do that.” And so the idea of riding a WorldTour KOM on a Cat One climb (according to Strava’s segment categorization algorithm, anyway) was born.
The segment
Name: Le nérey a cote 2000
Length: 17.34 km
Incline: 3.8%
Sorry if it didn’t work out: the day before I rode 169 km with 3,360 meters in altitude and am significantly weaker than Pinot
(Image credit: Tom Epton)
The team
(Image credit: David Lewis)
I wasn’t arrogant enough to think that this KOM could be taken alone. Pinot had help available (and an extra 1.5w/kg), so I figured I should probably hire a top-notch team of experts. Unfortunately the pundits were busy so I ended up with my buddies Josh, Harry, Dav and Marcus.
Josh and Dav were on bottles and cameras, Marcus was the driver and Harry paced up and down the flatter sections for me. We avoided using the car for aero assist as that felt unfair but luckily for me Harry offers a similar pull zone to a Peugeot Traveler and has a good amount of watts to offer on the side making him a perfect teammate power.
We tried to keep the car out of the way, but there were times when it offered some draft and it would be remiss to pretend it didn’t provide assistance. We justified this by saying many Tour de France KOMs are moto assisted – much more obvious than ours. To be perfectly honest, Marcus drives so slowly that we would have struggled to get the required 16.6mph average anyway if we were using him as a motorpace.
(Image credit: David Lewis)
The technique
A special attempt requires special equipment! Since the climb is very sluggish, we decided to focus almost exclusively on aerodynamics. Starting with the bike, on the road I ride a Kinesis Aithein with a mechanical Shimano Ultegra group (opens in new tab). Given that the effort has some flat sections and faster sections of the climb, we stuck with my usual 11-28 cassette and 53-39 chainrings.
The main changes I made to my bike were removing my Fizik Arione R5 and replacing it with my time trial saddle (a Fabric Tri Flat Elite) as it made holding an aero position more comfortable and was a bit lighter .
The final aerodynamic feature of this bike is that my handlebars are only 36cm wide! This makes it a little easier to tuck myself into an aerodynamic ball—to get nice and tight to hide from the wind.
I, too, adorned myself with aerodynamic clothing. The French Alps in late summer have a reputation for being quite warm so I armed myself with some gear to try and cope.
I used the street version of the Endura Aeroswitch helmet in combination with the Endura Gabbro 2 sunglasses. Choosing an aero helmet (opens in new tab) makes sense as the actual speed requirements were high with sections over 40 km/h. The sunglasses were chosen because they look beautiful. The weight disadvantage versus my other helmet options was only a few grams, so we went with the aero option.
In addition to the helmet, we used a NoPinz Subzero Flow suit for this trial (opens in new tab). This was perfect for the heat as the mix of “ultra breathable” and aerodynamic fabrics meant I was both fast and cool. Paired with the white Flow socks from NoPinz (opens in new tab)our setup was fast and looking good.
The pace plan
When you’re trying to bag a KOM, two things are your friend. First the weather forecast. Trying to do this in a block headwind would be completely pointless! Second, mathematical modeling (opens in new tab). We used Best Bike Split (opens in new tab) Estimate how many watts we need and how to distribute them over the climb.
When riding a climb with variable inclines, it’s generally faster to ride the steep sections harder and the flat sections a little easier. This is because drag increases exponentially with speed, but drag due to gravity stays about the same during exertion (although it actually decreases somewhat due to changes in gravitational potential on ascent, although this is not measurable). This means as you climb steeper inclines more slowly, less of your energy (of which you have a fixed amount over any duration) is wasted through air resistance, meaning you can use it to propel yourself up! The overall result of this is simple: aero on the flat spots, harsh on the steep spots.
Those of you who have used Best Bike Split’s race planner will know that it spits out a series of intervals that you follow throughout your race, time trial, stupid KOM attempt, or whatever else you’re trying to follow. This works well for some people, but I prefer a slightly old-fashioned approach as it’s just annoying to have my Wahoo beeping me when I’m full throttle, busy dribbling, and insane from the effort and altitude. If the slope is 3% or less, I would use 320W instead; On a 3-5% incline I would run 340W and in the corner where it becomes a real climb I would just flat out. For context, I’m somewhere between 72kg and 74kg, but I didn’t actually have a scale where I stayed. Absolute W/kg are less important anyway with such flat drag.
The KOM required about 330w for 40 minutes which was touch and go with a big ride in my legs the day before and the final part of the 1200m climb! I couldn’t afford a bad day.
We had our energy plan and we were ready to go – but as the saying goes… Everyone has a plan until they get slapped in the face.
The attempt itself
(Image credit: David Lewis)
Ok, so nobody slapped me in the face, but the attempt didn’t go perfectly.
We left for the experiment at 12:01 p.m., picking the hottest time of the day for no reason. The two-minute warm-up was a descent from our accommodation into town, and then it was time to hit the road. The segment itself was a step up. The first 8 km have an average of 3%, then there are 1.3 km with -1% and after that the real climb begins. However, the actual steep part of the climb is also divided into two different sectors. About 4km at 5% to start the climb, a 400m mini false flat descent at -2% with a final kick to the line at 5% again. Not too steep and not constantly changing grades – the perfect climb for a slightly taller (compared to Pinot) rider like me.
We used Harry to speed up the flatter sections and the descent sections within the climb. He cranked 400w while I sat on his bike. In the first section of the climb we managed an average speed of 28 km/h. The minor hiccup was the road works which we didn’t notice halfway up although a well timed green light saved the day here!
After the construction site, it was time for the first flat section through Megève. Harry jumped out of the car, got on his bike and got to work. His turns were so powerful that I didn’t really recover – we just went faster! Across the city, along this flat section, Harry pulled me along at 42.3 km/h. Then it was time to pass the roundabout and start the actual climb.
At this point we were 20 minutes into the trial at an average speed of 18 miles per hour and an average gradient of 3%. Some quick calculations from the team car showed that for the last 20 minutes of exertion to get the KOM I would need an average of around 340w. Aside from the 325W averaged up to that point, I wasn’t confident.
Harry broke free and I launched myself up the first steep section. The next 10 minutes were pretty uncomfortable, but I managed 360W. As I walked through the plateau I was glad to see Harry up the road waiting for me. I got on his bike and he went back to work. With Harry in the lead and a slight incline, I managed two minutes of recovery at 170W – just what I needed before rounding the hairpin that marked the start of the second ramp.
But trouble was around the corner.
Half an hour into my exertion, 1,000m above sea level and feeling like breathing through a straw, we arrive at the hairpin only to see a truck take a three-point turn across the entire road. He pulls up, we squeeze through a small gap, but in the chaos I forgot to shift, so I chain my chain a 9% ramp in my big ring halfway down the block. Not wanting to risk dropping my chain, I get out of the saddle and pedal as hard as I can for 30 seconds until it flattens out from a nearly standing start due to the truck. A close thing.
Now we had 3 km to go and about nine and a half minutes to do it – a 5% incline. I started as hard as I could and managed 15 mph. That meant we had driven from Megève at an average of 349W, 355W normalized to 23.7km/h. We ended up taking about 90 seconds off Thibaut’s KOM.
What the actual point of this exercise is is something I’ve thought about a lot since then, but what’s most on my mind is how good WorldTour climbers actually are. With a skinsuit, I needed a full throttle effort (opens in new tab)and a buddy accelerating me 3% faster than a guy who didn’t win a stage of the Tour this year, in winter gear, at the end of a 200km reconnaissance ride that’s not flat out…
Pinot is a monster, like all men and women who ride the WorldTour. I suspect if he were so inclined Thibaut could take the KOM back, but I think he has bigger things to worry about – like his pet goat.