Lars Boom's Stage 5 win on Strava

Yesterday's stage across the cobbles in the pouring rain was one for the hard men, and they don't come much harder than 2008 World Cyclocross champ Lars Boom. His power and bike handling skills put him to the fore yesterday and he soloed away from Vicenzo Nibali and Jakob Fuglsang on the last section of pavé to take the first Tour de France stage win of his career.

Lars has uploaded his data from the day to Strava for everyone to have a look at. Lars uses a Pioneer computer, as do the rest of the Belkin team. We'd expect him to be using their crank-mounted power meter too, but shots of Lars' bike from the day show that he wasn't running one, so there's only an estimated power figure.

What the data does show is that Boom managed 45.9km/h over the stage, completing it in 3:19:09. That's a 28.5mph average, imperial measurement fans. Over the pavé in the pissing rain. That's about 6.5km/h faster, on average, than Janier Acevedo, who rolled in last on the day. Although it's worth noting that even the stragglers managed nearly 40km/h (25mph) which is the kind of average speed most of us can only dream of on a really, really good day in the absolute best conditions.

Lars bagged a good few KOMs along the way although other segments were taken by Marcus Burghardt, Niki Terpstra, David Lopez and Ted King, among others. If you want to follow the pros along the route you can do so with the excellent Strava Flyby Viewer, which is currently in beta.

2,700 people have already given Lars kudos for his ride but he's got a long way to got to get the record for most kudos on a ride. That record rests with Niki Terpstra's 2014 Paris-Roubaix win, currently on 7,900.