00:00How fast are the slowest riders in a professional peloton?
00:04This is one of the fastest bikes in the peloton, that's the tumble and tomorrow the Tour of
00:10Britain ride up it.
00:11So in this video I'm going to ride up it.
00:14How fast can I get up it and will it be anywhere near the slowest in the race?
00:20You see I'm not interested in whoever gets to the top of it first, whether it's Oscar
00:25Onli or Remco Ebenapol or I might look really stupid, it might be someone completely different
00:30tomorrow.
00:31But how fast do the slowest riders go up it?
00:35You know the riders who have already done their jobs, who have already sat on the front
00:39all day and led out their leaders.
00:42The ones that are sprinters and well this day isn't going to matter to them.
00:47How fast do they ride?
00:50Well we're going to find out.
01:06The tumble was arguably the hardest climb of this year's race, and it was tackled not
01:12once but twice during the Stage 5 Queen stage.
01:16The climb in the Bracken Beacon stretches for 4.67km, an average gradient of 9.1%, which means
01:25it finishes 385 vertical metres higher than it started.
01:30It was Remco Ebenapol who took the honours on the final ascent, taking the comm in the
01:35process with a time of 12 minutes and 27 seconds.
01:39In fact, the first 10 finishers beat the previous KOM, which was held since 2014 when the Tour of
01:46Britain last went up it.
01:47Clearly, these riders are different gravy, and going after one of their times would be
01:52silly.
01:53But who was the slowest rider up it?
01:56Well the answer is Paolo Fernandez of Team Anicolor TN21.
02:02But the slowest time we could find on Strava belonged to Victor Le Fay of Team Decathlon AG2R,
02:08and he did it in a time of 19 minutes and 17 seconds.
02:14He was the penultimate finisher of Stage 5 of the Tour of Britain.
02:19So can we beat him?
02:21Well, make sure you're subscribed to the channel, and let's find out.
02:28This year, the Tour of Britain took the tumble from the Abergavenny side, and it starts off
02:34as a fairly gentle incline, although you do climb a bit further from Abergavenny.
02:39So we set off, it was about 5% average, and then you hit the first hairpins, and this is
02:45where I ran out of gears.
02:48Even so, I knew that it was on these steep sections that I had to keep pushing, as this
02:52is where a lot of time is made or lost.
02:55And in some sections, it hits 12-13%.
02:59As I came out of the trees, I knew I had to dig deep, and decided to dig in.
03:04Although I probably dug in a bit too hard because as I passed the sheep at the top, I was
03:09absolutely
03:10cooked.
03:11It's at this point that the hill flattens out.
03:14It turns into about a 3-4% climb, although there are some steeper ramps.
03:18And I can't even blame it on a headwind, I was just riding slowly.
03:23It was kind of a crosswind, but as I was doing it the day before the Tour of Britain, they
03:28had a similar wind, so I definitely can't use that as an excuse.
03:32As I neared the top, the fans were out.
03:34And crossing the line, it's safe to say that I'd given it my all.
03:39So what was the result of all my sweat and tears?
03:43Well, I've got my time here on Strava, I've just uploaded my ride.
03:47And it says that I did the segment in a time of 19 minutes and 43 seconds.
03:54So how does that compare to the slowest on Tour of Britain day?
04:00Well, a lot of people rode up on Tour of Britain day, I'll tell you that.
04:03But I've weeded out the pros, and it appears that I'm still 20 seconds or so slower than
04:11the slowest time on Saturday.
04:13According to Strava, Le Fay averaged 288 watts for his effort.
04:18I say effort, I think he was probably chilling quite a bit.
04:23Although mine was actually, I held quite a few more watts.
04:27So I held just shy of 320.
04:30Now there's probably two reasons for this.
04:33Number one, I didn't start off in a peloton and that might have helped on the lower, flatter
04:38sections a little bit.
04:40And B, I don't weigh 65 kilos.
04:44That's probably the bigger one.
04:46Either way, I reckon I must have Le Fay worried because he's considering his retirement at the
04:52end of the year.
04:53Sorry, Le Fay.
04:54So, there you go.
04:55Even when a professional cyclist is feeling under the weather, or saving their legs for
05:00tomorrow, or just not bothering, they're still probably faster than you.
05:06They're certainly faster than me.
05:07If you enjoyed this type of content, then please make sure you subscribe to the channel, give
05:11this video a like, and we'll see you next time.
Comments