Uh oh! I just stole Thibaut Pinot's KOM: how to use maths, mates and modifications to beat a WorldTour hitter

How nerdiness plus a little help from his friends turned a fourth-cat donkey into a WorldTour-level mountain goat... We went after Thibaut Pinot's Strava KOM on a 17km Alpine climb to see if we could knock him off the top spot

Tom Epton taking Pinot's KOM
(Image credit: David Lewis)

When I first saw the 2022 Tour de France route announcement I was thrilled that the race would be coming through my beautiful little town of Saint Gervais Les Bains - my favourite place on earth. 

As things transpired, I couldn’t get out there for the actual day of the race but Thibaut Pinot did a recon of the stage, taking a number of Strava KOMs (a course record on a particular GPS segment, for the uninitiated) on the way. 

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