kJs, wet roads, and the cream rises to the top at this year’s Men’s World Championships!

The Men’s world championships took place this past weekend in Glasgow, Scotland. Since 1995 the worlds have taken place in late September or October. Moving the worlds back to August meant that the big stars from Tour de France could carry their form and race for the honor of wearing the Rainbow bands for a year. When the race was held later in the year, we would rarely see the biggest stars all competing against each other, as it was too hard to reach a second peak of form, later in the year.

The course was point to point with local laps for the last 150 kilometers, par for the world championships. What was a bit more unusual was the technicality of the course…downtown Glasgow with almost 50 corners per lap, for 11 laps….the rain for last hour and a half did NOT help. Given the nature of the course and the lack of hard climbs on the circuit, the best teams attacked the race immediately upon hitting the circuits, with a 150kilometers to go! This made it almost impossible to stay in the race if your weren’t towards the front of the race, as the constant breaking and accelerating stretched the peloton to the breaking point immediately.

The riders at the front needed to be technically sound in the corners (not to mention the damp conditions) or pay the price of over breaking into corners and catching up on the straights, over and over again…..550 times to be exact. Lack of technical ability can be overcome with strength and savvy but not with the depth of this field, not after the Tour de France.

What was needed to win this race? The ability to absorb hundreds of accelerations and come back for more. The ability to fight for position at the front of the peloton. Incredible bike handling skills and a massive fuel tank to keep this pace up for six plus hours.

Mathiew Van der Poel was the worthy winner by over a minute and a half over Wout Van Aert, Tadej Pogacar and Mads Pederson. All of them had just raced the Tour de France. In fact, only one rider in the top 10 did not race the Tour. Many would think that you would be too exhausted after a three week race. Mentally exhausted, yes but physically, incredible. The reality is that it would be near impossible to prepare for a one day race as hard as the World Championships without the extreme work load of a race like the Tour. Nailing the fact the every incredible feat is on the heals of a massive workload, followed by rest. Everything is relative of course…but it does reiterate the basics of Consistency, Workload, Intensity and finding the balance with Recovery

Jasper Stuyven was the only rider in the front group who posted his numbers from the race and they are jaw dropping…..he finished in 6th place, 3:48 behind. What stood out to me wasn’t the amount of KJ’s (even though they are crazy) it was where he had to expend his energy to stay at the front. Over one and half hours above his threshold!? Obviously this was not at one time but accelerating over and over again out of corners and following attacks up hills. Death by one thousand paper cuts….big ones.

Now, these guys need a rest.

Jasper Stuyven

Distance-271km (168 miles)

Elevation gain 3,300meters (11,000 ft)

Time- 6’11’

Average Speed-44.2kph (27.4mph)

KJ-7,375

Average Watts-325

Weighted Power-370

Z1-(0–238 Watts) 39%

Z2-(238–325) 14%

Z3-(325–390) 11%

Z4-(390–455) 9%

Z5-(455–520) 7.7% (29min)

Z6-(520–650) 9.5% (36min) 😳

Z7-(>650) 8.9% (34min) 🫣