Pogacar and Evenepoel break Strava records at Il Lombardia, but Simmons’ numbers leave everyone stunned

First, let's examine the top two men in the results. Following his fifth consecutive victory in Il Lombardia, Pogacar revealed that he significantly increased his speed on the Passo di Ganda on Saturday compared to his training session two days earlier. And then the Slovenian world champion from UAE Emirates-XRG had already smashed the 2023 record time by a minute (!).

In the race, the UAE train did it all over again, with Jay Vine in particular giving the final push and launching Pogacar, just like two days earlier. He blasted up the 9.18-kilometer Strava segment at an average gradient of 7.1 percent in 20 minutes and 57 seconds. In 2023, he completed it in 22:41 minutes, and last Thursday, in 21:38 minutes.

So another 41 seconds were shaved off the record time. Since Pogacar doesn't share his power values on Strava, number crunchers pulled out their calculators to figure out what kind of watts per kilogram Pogi rode in those 20 minutes. Kārlis Ozols of CyclingGraphs came up with about 7.22 watts per kilogram. In 2023, the Slovenian was pedaling at 6.34 watts per kilogram. Quite a change!

Evenepoel's effort on Saturday was also remarkable, especially in the descent after the Passo di Ganda. After the slight bend over the Selvino, there was a steep 10-kilometer descent with the well-known hairpin bends in Lombardy. Evenepoel crashed so hard in this region in 2020, sustaining serious injuries.

His comeback came a year ago with third place in the fifth Monument, but on Saturday, Evenepoel was even better. He hurtled downhill at an average speed of 57.5 kilometers per hour, in just under 11 minutes. That made him 10 seconds faster than Pogacar, who also took risks in the descent.

Also striking in both Pogacar and Evenepoel's Strava files is the phase after the descent of the Selvino. From there, it was pretty flat for about 15 kilometers, with only the wall of the Colle Aperto still in the deep final. Someone created the segment "Pog v Remco flat comparison," over 6.56 kilometers of flat terrain. On Saturday, Pogacar was 12 seconds faster than the best time trialist in the world.

And then there's Simmons. Because the 24-year-old American from Lidl-Trek may have just missed out on the podium, but his fourth place was perhaps worth more than Pogacar's victory. Simmons shared his impressive effort on social media on Saturday evening, as the best man launched a solo attack from the start and rode 82 kilometers to the finish.

It was only 5 kilometers below the summit of the Passo di Ganda that the world champion caught him, and where almost everyone else had fallen apart, Simmons put himself in the wheel of chasers, Evenepoel, and Michael Storer. Although he didn't keep up with them, he still managed to finish in an impressive fourth place. And Simmons had to dig incredibly deep to do so.

The numbers after the race were incredible: Normalized power (NP) of 390 watts over almost 6 hours of racing and 238 kilometers recorded, a watt per kilo of 4.93 over the whole day, a maximum wattage of 1,253, and an average speed of 40.8 kilometers, with 4,237 meters of climbing... “Last training session before Big Sugar,” Simmons wrote, referring to the Big Sugar Gravel, which starts on Sunday.

Whether we'll see him competing there after such an effort remains to be seen...