Thursday’s ascent up Monte Etna provided the first summit finish for the contenders to show themselves, and it featured some pretty exciting racing. Simon Yates took the Maglia Rosa while finishing side-by-side with teammate and talented climber Estaban Chavez, who had started the climb as part of the day’s early breakaway. Yates was the only contender to sneak out of the group of favorites, putting in a searing attack in the last few kilometers to take 26 seconds over the next group, containing the likes of Thibaut Pinot, Tom Dumoulin and Chris Froome. Rohan Dennis, who had previously been in the Maglia Rosa, did his best to limit the damage, before eventually conceding over a minute on the stage.

With Etna done and dusted, a viable Strava segment for the climb finally surfaced, and we can provide an analysis given that many riders from yesterday’s stage have uploaded their results, highlight by Pinot who took the KOM with a time of 34:51. Results across all attempts with a power meter and a rider self inputting a mass are shown in the figure blow.

The fit to the data is remarkably good, and so now the fun begins. We know that the group of favorites started the segment at more or less the same time, though differences in placement at the beginning and end of the segment can lead to modulations of a few seconds, in regards to Strava segment times. The equation obtained for estimating power-to-mass from time on the climb from fitting to the data, is given by:

<power>/mass = (14888 W/kg*s)/(time in seconds) + (1.05431 W/kg)

Combining this equation Strava times and the official results on the stage, we can infer the following results. Note that the rider masses were obtained from (in order) their Strava profiles, procyclingstats.com, or via Google searching.

Place	Name	Stage time	Strava Etna time	Est. Etna time	Est. <p>/m (W/kg)	mass (kg)	Est. <p> (W)
2	Simon Yates	4:16:11		34:25	6.06	59.65	360
3	Thibaut Pinot	+26"	34:51		5.97	65	388
4	George Bennett	s.t.		34:52	5.97	58	346
5	Domenico Pozzivivo	s.t.		34:52	5.97	53	316
6	Miguel Angel Lopez	s.t.		34:53	5.96	65	388
8	Tom Dumoulin	s.t.		34:53	5.96	71	423
9	Fabio Aru	s.t.		34:54	5.96	66	393
10	Chris Froome	s.t.		34:54	5.96	68	405
12	Ben O’Connor	+43"	35:00	35:06	5.92	66	391
16	Michael Woods	+57"	35:20		5.87	63	370
21	Rohan Dennis	+1'04"		35:27	5.85	71	415

Discussion

Overall, these results look pretty reasonable. Yates had an incredible performance of 6.06 W/kg, which is consistent with a clean performance of this caliber of athlete. His estimated raw power of 360 W, based on a self described mass of 131.5 lbs, is pretty good considering his diminuitive stature. The others finishing in the pack come in about 5.97 W/kg, which feels about right, considering that the two main favorites, Dumoulin and Froome, have appeared to in peak shape this Spring. Dumoulin’s mass is a bit harder to find, but I’d guess he’s about 71 kg, putting his power output at 423 W, and Froome at a noted race weight of 68 Kg, at 405 W. Froome’s performance is fairly consistent with other power outputs we’ve seen from him: 414 W on the final climb of Stage 10 of the 2015 Tour de France, and expectedly lower given that he doesn’t appear to be in top form. More than anything, Froome appears to be missing that top end speed used to attack rivals, and he’s just using his massive engine to hang on right now. This makes sense given his plan to try to race into form during the final week of the Giro, and try to hold form into the Tour de France.

Of these riders, only two (O’Connor & Woods) recorded their power performances on Strava, and they’re a bit lower than those given here, however I have reason to suspect it’s a problem with their power meters. For example, analyzing Wood’s effort on the segment reveals that there was as 30” period at the end of the climb that he didn’t record any cadence or power, which is more or less impossible when going uphill. It was likely a malfunction with his Vector pedals, or perhaps well known helicopter interference. If his 335W could be believed, it would correspend to a 5.3 W/kg performance, which would put him into the strong amateur racer bucket, of which he’s way beyond.

Thus far, Yates is looking like a serious challenger. He’s really come into this race in great form, and this may be when we see him ascend from fringe contender to favorite in future races. It would be surprising if he doesn’t manage to put time into Dumoulin and Froome during the coming climbs, notably Zoncolan, for which raw power means far less than power-to-mass, though he’ll have to hope to put in enough to fend them off in the time trial.

Stay tuned! This weekend holds two great climbing stages, and I’ll post analysis shortly after the conclusion of each stage.