Strava reveals just how fast the pros have ridden the stage 19 climbs

More Strava stats for the pros to put us in our place

The peloton climbs the Col du Tourmalet on stage sixteen of the 2012 Tour de France

A couple of weeks ago, we looked at the Strava stats showing how fast the pros had ridden the cobbles, in advance of stage nine of the Tour de France to Roubaix. Once the Tour had passed, there was quite a shake up in the leader boards.

Well Strava has more figures for the key climbs of stage 19 too, showing the average times for the pros and for all attempts, once again showing how fast the pros ride.

First big climb: the Col d’Aspin. Here, the KOM is Sébastien Reichenbach, riding for Groupama-FDJ. He covered the 12km in 29-50 at 23.9kph. Strava reckons the average for all pros is over 18kph, against 11.5kph for all comers.

Then on to the Col du Tourmalet where the KOM is Robert Gesink of LottoNL-Jumbo. It shows just how big this climb is that Gesink’s time over the 17.3km is 51-26, riding at 370 watts and 20kph. One second slower is Laurens Ten Dam of Sunweb and there’s a posse of big name pro climbers not far behind on this iconic climb.

According to Strava, the average speed up the climb for all pros is just under 17kph, with the average time for all attempts at 9.8kph.

Finally, the KOM for the 7.3km Strava segment covering the Col du Soulor is 22-24, held by Mikel Bizkarra. Bizkarra rides for the Euskadi Basque Country-Murias Pro Continental team, so the climb is likely to be in his back yard. That represents an average speed of 19.4kph and the average for all pros publishing their times on Strava is 14.2kph. The average for all riders on the climb is just 9kph.

It will be interesting to see how the numbers will stack up today when the Tour riders post their stats. They’re tackling the climbs on a 200km stage after almost three weeks of racing and with the time trial finale coming up on Saturday.

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Paul Norman

Paul started writing for Cycling Weekly in 2015, covering cycling tech, new bikes and product testing. Since then, he’s reviewed hundreds of bikes and thousands of other pieces of cycling equipment for the magazine and the Cycling Weekly website.

He’s been cycling for a lot longer than that though and his travels by bike have taken him all around Europe and to California. He’s been riding gravel since before gravel bikes existed too, riding a cyclocross bike through the Chilterns and along the South Downs.