Pogačar's Alpe d'Huez record-breaking numbers say a lot, but Ayuso's time perhaps says even more

Alpe d'Huez did not disappoint—that much is clear after Stage 19 of the Tour de France. Tadej Pogačar won, breaking a record that had stood for 31 years. The numbers speak for themselves, even though this wasn’t even Pogi’s best performance on a bike. The climb time posted by a less-than-sharp Juan Ayuso also says a lot.

Half an hour after his victory, he still hadn’t been told, but Thijs Zonneveld informed Pogacar in the mixed zone that he had broken Marco Pantani’s climbing record. With a stoic expression, the Slovenian indicated that he was indeed pleased about it.

Not everyone seems to agree on exactly how long it took Pogacar to climb Alpe d'Huez. 35:26, 35:27, 35:28... The most commonly cited time is 35 minutes and 27 seconds, although the official segment on Strava lists 32 minutes and 26 seconds. That segment, however, is slightly shorter than the total ascent of the “Dutch mountain.”

All right, so 35 minutes and 27 seconds. That means the Slovenian was, in any case, more than a minute faster than Pantani, who took 36:50 minutes to complete the course in 1995 (more than 30 years ago!). To break that record, Pogi obviously had to put out some serious watts.

Domestique made an estimate. For the entire climb, which would have taken 35 minutes and 27 seconds, the English-language publication estimates the power output at 6.9 watts per kilogram of body weight. For the average amateur cyclist, these are staggering figures, of course. For the Strava segment of 32 minutes and 26 seconds, the estimate is even higher at 7 watts per kilogram.

Numbers that leave people speechless—yet for Pogacar, this isn’t even his all-time best performance. Take, for example, the Plateau de Beille in the 2024 Tour de France. Back then, Pogacar’s power output was also estimated at 7 watts per kilogram, but that was sustained for 40 minutes. On top of that, that stage was 185 kilometers long, whereas Friday’s was “only” 128 kilometers.

Also in the top eleven of the Alpe d'Huez climb times after Friday’s stage: Remco Evenepoel (7), Isaac Del Toro (9), Mattias Skjelmose (10), and Paul Seixas (11). Evenepoel was 2.29 behind Pogacar and thus completed the climb in 37.56 minutes; Del Toro did so in 38.08 minutes, and Skjelmose and Seixas both finished in 38.12 minutes.

And what about Juan Ayuso, who had a bad day and ultimately crossed the finish line in seventeenth place, 6 minutes and 26 seconds behind winner Pogacar? He clocked a time of 41 minutes and 52 seconds. Not great, you might think, but it’s striking that this is the same time Tom Pidcock posted in 2022. The Brit, then still riding for INEOS Grenadiers, won that stage with that time. It says a lot about how much faster things are these days.