Can We Steal Tadej Pogačar s Favourite KOM

The Col de Rates, the most famous climb in Spain's Costa Blanca. Why? Well, Jonas Vingegaard secured a pro contract by getting the KOM on it, and more recently, Tadej Pogačar, the world's best rider, took it off him by romping up this climb at an average speed of over 32 kilometres an hour. That's 20 miles an hour uphill. The question is, can we take that crown off him The Col de Rates is not the longest climb in the world, 5.5 kilometres, and it's not the steepest either, 6.5%. Although its stats aren't especially eye-watering or that impressive, it's one of the most popular climbs in the world. Why? Because of its location. Each winter, almost every top-level professional team descends on Spain's Costa Blanca, a combination of decent weather, an abundance of hotels looking for winter business, and a huge choice of beautiful training roads make it the ideal destination for those all-important winter miles. The Col de Rates offers pros and amateurs alike the opportunity to do specific intervals, test themselves, and it's easily accessible with a good surface and nice steady gradients. The question you might be asking yourselves is, why are we here? Well, we are here to compare ourselves to Team UAE-Emirates XRG and to compare our secret weapon, Andrew Feather, to Taddei Pogacar. It's not going to be much of a cliffhanger, but it should be quite interesting to see how close or how far away we get. When I say we, I don't just mean me, Ollie, and Andrew Feather. No, we wrote in some extra help, a further eight GCN presenters from Spain, Italy, France, and Germany. Together, we are the guerrilla troupe. In order to beat UAE and Pogacar, though, we're going to have to all be on the same page. So, on the morning of the effort, Ollie and I delivered a strategy briefing and motivational speech to the team. Okay, guys, we've got a big day ahead of us. Everything in your life, all your training has led to this one point. We're going to be taking on the KOM of the Col de Rates, currently held by Taddei Pogacar. In case you haven't heard of him, he's pretty good. He's pretty good, yes. Now, it's worth noting that when Jonas Vindegaard took the KOM on this climb a few years ago, he got the attention and the contract with Jumbo-Visma, as they were at the time. A few years later, he won the Tour de France twice. So, if we play our card right on this climb today, we could get Feather a contract with a second-rate Conti team, and he could get a free jersey and bib shorts. Correct. So, this is the plan. We're going to follow the proven formula. We're going to ride in one single long pace line, all doing as long a turn as we can, peeling off one by one, and thus delivering Feather to the top of the climb in record time. Exactly. So, GCN's performance division have been crunching the numbers. They've worked out the most efficient order for us to be in. You can see it on the screen right now. Make sure you learn it before we get to the climb. Now, in terms of the power that you need to do for us to get this KOM, we reckon about seven watts per kilo each. If we do that, we should get in under the record of 11 minutes and 57 seconds. And all we need to do to beat that record is average 32.3 kilometers per hour. Uphill. Easy. Right. Let's do this, guys. We're the Wolf Pack. No, we're not. No, we're the Gorilla Troop. Let's go. Later that day, full of confidence and with a clear plan of attack, we arrived at the foot of the Coelhorates. Everyone concentrated on their own pivotal role. After 100 meters, we were already flying. Unfortunately, though, some of us were flying faster than others. Despite all the information delivered very clearly in the team briefing that morning, the plan was quickly unraveling. We were working less like a team and more like a collection of individuals that didn't particularly like each other. Before you could even say, you're out of has-beens and have no hope. Feather was on his own and still facing a further 5Ks of climbing. Understandably, he sat up. I'm not going to beat around the bush. That was pretty disappointing. We had a good start, but then after 900 meters, we'd all been dropped. Quite frankly, not good enough. Not good enough. Absolutely, it's not. Clearly, people haven't been training as hard as they should have been over the wind. I did my job, then the rest of you just went and f***ed it up. Don't worry too much. We've got another opportunity because we've come up with plan B. Plan B is as follows. Rather than what we did last time, we're going to get Giorgio to do a lead-in. Then we're going to stagger ourselves at 600-meter intervals up the climb and then take turns as Feather gets to us. Thus, delivering him in record speed up the rat test. Exactly. The performance division have been crunching the numbers again. For each of the 600 meters we do, we just need to average 7 watts per kilo. Obviously, we're going to have to get ourselves up to speed before Feather gets up to us and then hold that steady power for him. If we do that, we'll get under the 11 minutes and 57 seconds. He'll get his free jersey and bib shorts. We only have to average 7 watts per kilo for about a minute each. Even Al-Am can do that. Right. Are we all ready? We're the wolf pack. We're not the wolf pack. We're the guerrilla troop. Let's go. For f***'s sake. As we said in the meeting, staggered start. Giorgio does the first stint, then we go to Bernat. Then I'll be on the third stint. We go 600 meters each. I'll be at 1.2 Ks, then 1.8, then 2.4, et cetera. Andrew is still warming up for his effort. We can start getting ourselves into position now. I've got your live location so we can all see where Andrew's coming. All right. Let's go. Guerrilla troop. With our new genius plan in place, we set off for effort number two. Giorgio set off at the perfect tempo and just as the gradient started to bite, he handed Feather to Bernat. Unfortunately, Bernat had not measured 600 meters very accurately and had started his effort too early. I'm pretty nervous about doing a decent job, Brad, I've got to say. I've just got to hold around 500 watts for a minute. That meant he also died from his effort too early, meaning that Feather had to go past him while staring at him in disdain. Eventually, Feather made it up to the most experienced rider in the team, me. Fortunately for me, Lauren also hadn't measured 600 meters very accurately and so we were up to him very quickly. Next up, Max from GCN En France, who was starting from 2.4 Ks into the climb. At this point, Feather was starting to feel the pace, so it was important that we rode as smoothly as possible and avoid any sudden surges. Beautiful. I can do it. OK, you're going to do it. I'm sure. Seemingly incapable of any surges, Alain of GCN Italia reached his limit just short of reaching Sébast. Despite picnic personnel trying to disrupt our flow, we pressed on with Oli as the top of the climb neared. With Oli's job done, just two presenters remained, Patrick of Germany, and then finally, Louis of France, who took Feather all the way to the top. Get out of there. How was it? Horrible. Cold, wet. It's just really hard. It sort of puts us way down, but puts how good they are in perspective. I was probably two or three minutes away from the KOM. But, yes. Did you see on your watch how far down it was going on feel? I wasn't really looking, I was just sort of going on feel. But my feet are actually staked, so it's quite hard, they felt quite heavy. But I suppose what I consider really impressive is, from my personal perspective, is that the professionals are able to do that all year round. They're just able to keep that such high level of fitness. Whereas for someone like myself, where the season's really, really short, it's only five or six weeks. So today, I'm probably at my unfittest. It's good to know that even Andrew Feather has to consult the big book of cycling excuses from time to time. I do, I do. You're doing pretty well. How did you get on? I think I averaged around 420, 415. Right. So, but probably two or three minutes away from the KOM. Way off your best, then. Way, way off my best. So I think, in hill-climbing season, maybe 440, 450. So maybe 30, 35 watts, 40 watts down. But I'm in the middle of winter, so I'm giving you my excuses now. But good fun, good fun, good fun. Cheers, thank you for inviting me. I've got some work to do for the rest of the year. Well, there you go. Andrew Feather is, well, not in his best form. I think, being January, he's quite a bit heavier than his lightest, and his power numbers are considerably down on what he's capable of in peak condition. He's only human, after all. And I'm not sure whether or not our efforts to help him were that or more of a hindrance. That said, he still did 14 minutes, 46 seconds, which is a really good time, averaging 416 watts, which his current weight works out at about 5.9 watts per kilo and 26.1 kilometers an hour. That's really good and was good enough for, well, joint 500th place out of 104,000 people that have been up the Col de Rates, which I think goes to show just how ridiculously competitive this Strava segment is, but also how outrageous Taddei Pogacar's time is, because he's a full two kilometers an hour faster than second place. I guess all that remains is, well, for us to try Plan C and see if we can beat Pogacar. But if you want to see that, well, you're going to have to like and subscribe. Love you. Bye.