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news
stravaStrava times tumble after Prudential RideLondon-Surrey Classic race
Yesterday, after 20,000 cyclists had embarked on a 100-mile course through London and Surrey, and the inaugural RideLondon-Surrey Classic pro race had been won by Frenchman Arnaud Demare, hundreds, if not thousands, of people uploaded their rides to Stava. Team IG Sigma Sport’s Peter Hawkins, who finished 74th overall in the pro race, certainly did.
What’s really interesting is that Hawkins is one of a handful of professional cyclists signed up to Strava. And as we found during the Tour de France with Laurens Ten Dam, that allows us unprecedented access to just how fast and hard the pros race. We all knew that pros are fast, now we know just how fast they are with complete transparency.
And they work hard too. Hawkins averaged 162 bpm and hit a maximum heart rate of 198 bpm during the 221km race. With just 2,107m of climbing, including three ascents of Leith Hill and once up Box Hill, the pace was high with an average speed of 42.7 km/h. We can also see that he hit a top speed of 112 km/h on the Leith Hill descent. That’s closed roads for you.
Hawkins, along with a handful of other pros using Strava, have also toppled many KOMs along the route, significantly raising the level of hundreds of segments on the closed road route. No one will be troubling the top of the leaderboards on any of those roads until the 2014 edition of the race. Here's his full ride on Strava.
Did you ride yesterday and upload your ride to Strava?
David worked on the road.cc tech team from 2012-2020. Previously he was editor of Bikemagic.com and before that staff writer at RCUK. He's a seasoned cyclist of all disciplines, from road to mountain biking, touring to cyclo-cross, he only wishes he had time to ride them all. He's mildly competitive, though he'll never admit it, and is a frequent road racer but is too lazy to do really well. He currently resides in the Cotswolds, and you can now find him over on his own YouTube channel David Arthur - Just Ride Bikes.
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25 comments
Proof that a 40 year old can go faster than a young pro...
I'll expect that to reverse when he's home again.
image_93.jpg
I did the ride and got a stack of PRs, thanks to the combo of closed roads and big groups to work with. There's gonna be a PR drought now though - no chance of hitting those times again!
As noted above though, Strava has very poor accuracy for speed at any given point, or on short stretches and straight segments (i.e. anything where there's a wide margin in the possible GPS recording points). It's much better over a longer section where it can get a more accurate average. Still fun though - and I'd love to know if that 112kmh is real!
I did LEJOG last year and on my ride through Cornwall I found myself getting second on a lot of the hills. When I looked at the segment details later, I found that the KOM holder on all of them was Chris Opie, pro rider for Team UK Youth.
Never done a ride that says "You and 14,000 others rode on..." though!
I was having to put the brakes on at around 42/43 mph down Leith, and that was pretty much only from getting down in a tuck. If I'd hammered it, I'm sure I could have gone faster... but the roads were too busy for that.
I noticed the speedo on the motorbike was showing the pros at around 53/54mph.
Well, I hit 72km/h coming down Leith Hill on Sunday's ride and my Garmin is using the wheel sensor for speed so probably reasonably accurate. Luckily it wasn't too busy with other riders and I was able to follow the line of some speedy guys in front, but going through the tunnel of trees with sunglasses on was pretty dark and butt clenching quick for me so I'd hate to have been going much quicker.
+1 those top speeds are GPS nonsense. Going under an avenue of trees will cause that kind of jump. On a short wooded stretch of N1 I sometimes take, Strava regularly tells me I topped over 100kph, especially at this time of year. Not that I don't wish it was true, but I'm pretty sure I'd remember going that fast.
I hope more pro riders take up using Strava. It would give us mere mortals something to wow at plus it would help combat the doping allegations too. Would be great to see the real masters of the trade at work, then try to equal or even beat them. Would love to see Froomes or Sagans face when they get the email saying they have been beaten by a mortal!!!
Pretty sure the ToB stage last year in East Anglia was solely based on my strava segments there; went through almost all of them.
Taken me another year to get all (well... most) of the KoM's back.
Who cares
They were probably doing that 112 kph down coast hill on the run into westcott. I've hit nearly 80kph down there with open roads
I had the same high speed as max speed on the summary but couldn't find it on any other data on the segment sections. HAving gone down mountains (rather than hills) I don't believe those speeds are possible.
errrr..... I think some of those top speeds are erroneous. Speeds taken from GPS are notoriously inaccurate. Nobody could reach 107 km/h off Leith Hill - you can virtually pedal down the whole thing in the 11 sprocket!
True.
Saying that my son hit nearly 40mph down there pedalling on his youth gearing (52x17 top). Spinny.
According to my Garmin I hit 470mph recently coming down from the Col de Lauteret to Bourg de Oisans. Tunnels.
I reached 89.6 kph down Leith hill... Alu bike, Ultegra wheels, compact crank, non gps speedo. Oh, I weigh 104kg, just a couple of years off my half century age wise!...and don't belong to a club/team...The only reason I didn't push harder was the number of slower riders I had to get past...'on yer right!!' and the fact that I had never ridden it before! I'm sure for a pro it's not all that difficult to top 100kph down Leith hill...
This is the best segment to find any pro's you might want to follow http://app.strava.com/segments/4994540
It was set up purely for the Ride and Race. Its easy to find some big names, because they are all up the top
Brliannt. Can you just imagine peoples faces when they received an e-mail telling them they had just lost their segment to Peter Sagan.
you ain't getting that back lol!!
No, but I'd keep the email!
And have it framed. But will keep quiet that I had something like 5 minutes knocked off my PB
I uploaded mine to: http://app.strava.com/activities/72179654
It shows maximum speed to be 107.3km/h which I thought sounded impossible! I was *flying* at some points but can't imagine that's actually real.
You're either doping or eating too many burgers round at Albertos place!
Were you absolutely papping your bibshorts?
if you were then it's possible - 107km/hr is about 64mph so you had better have been papping yourself at that speed
I left a stain on my bibs when I hit 52mph on the trike, only because I saw the sign for a cattle grid....Being that low to the ground its scary, but I have the balance that you can't get on two wheels
I reached 89.6 kph down Leith hill... Alu bike, Ultegra wheels, compact crank, non gps speedo. Oh, I weigh 104kg, just a couple of years off my half century age wise!...and don't belong to a club/team...The only reason I didn't push harder was the number of slower riders I had to get past...'on yer right!!' and the fact that I had never ridden it before! I'm sure your reading is accurate...100kph+ is totally possible...
Quote taken from the Sustrans website this afternoon:
(Not really, but they were probably thinking it)