Chris Froome has always been a sporadic Strava user during his career.
The four-time Tour de France winner often posts insights into his early-season training regime on the social media site, but then falls silent on Strava as he approaches his main goals for the year.
But during an unprecedented 2020, both for Froome and the entire cycling world, the British Grand Tour star has opted to share his power data from the final stage of the Tour de l’Ain.
The French three-day stage race saw all three of Team Ineos’s Tour de France winners – Chris Froome, Egan Bernal, and Geraint Thomas – race together against Jumbo-Visma’s formidable cast of riders.
But the British WorldTour squad fell short when stacked up against Jumbo’s Primož Roglič, who won two stages and took the overall 18 seconds ahead of Bernal.
Froome finished 26 minutes down on the overall leaders in 41st place, with Thomas only slightly ahead in 34th.
But despite the disappointment for the team, Froome’s Strava stats from the earlier climbs in the day show he is still capable of some enormous power numbers.
The stage covered 144.5km from Saint-Vulbas and finished atop the 17.8km-long, seven per cent Grand Colombier.
Froome finished in 30th place, 12 minutes behind Roglič after burning himself out in support of team leader Bernal.
On the Montée de la Selle de Fromentel segment – a 10km-long, eight per cent climb – Froome climbed at an average speed of 18.4km/h and held a power of 390 watts for the entire 35 minutes of the climb.
That power number equates to around 5.9 watts per kilogram for Froome’s 66kg race weight.
He also topped the leaderboard on the segment, matching the time of Trek-Segafredo’s Richie Porte with 35-20.
On the Col de la Biche climb, which crested around 100km into the stage, Froome was back on the power for the 6.1km, 9.1 per cent effort.
This time he put 378w for 23 minutes to take the KoM, just one second ahead of Jumbo-Visma’s Steven Kruijswijk.
After these huge efforts, it’s no surprise Froome didn’t feature on the final climb to Grand Colombier as he took an hour to crest the ascent to the finish.
Froome still averaged 313w for the entire of the 17km climb, which closed out the race, which after his previous efforts on the previous two mountains is a big ask.
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While many are speculating about Froome’s fitness for the Tour de France later this month, these power numbers show he is still capable of some mind-blowing rides.
