300 watts for six hours? How to pull off a memorable Tour de France win — Romain Bardet and Frank van den Broek upload stage one heroics to Strava

Romain Bardet and Frank van den Broek were the toast of the cycling world last night, the dsm-firmenich duo pulling off a stupendous escape to finally put the French rider into the yellow jersey for the first time, this his 11th and final Tour de France. 

Just as the rest of us mere mortals and weekend warriors would, what did Bardet and Van den Broek do as soon as the podium celebrations and pesky interviews were out the way? Upload their rides to Strava, of course. That's where the similarities between us and them end unfortunately, the activities showing the quite incomprehensible power, speed and suffering required to pull off one of the Tour's most memorable stage wins in recent times on one of its most brutal opening stages ever.

Vous ne verrez rien de plus beau aujourd'hui... 💛#TDF2024 pic.twitter.com/bamYEsTMW0

— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) June 29, 2024

And while almost all top-level pros now opt out of uploading their power data (how dare they) and many have stopped uploading to Strava at all (I'm looking at you Mathieu van der Poel and Tom Pidcock), everyone's new favourite rider, 23-year-old Van den Broek, has shared it all from his monster 190km escape. Spoiler alert: it's bloomin' hard to do what he did...

In the main break of the day over the Apennines in searing heat, Van den Broek was able to continue on when his team leader jumped across with just over 50km to go, the pair forming a formidable two-up team time trial to dramatically hold off the charging group behind — a stage win for the ages, the yellow jersey and some incredible pictures that are almost certainly already being printed and framed at dsm HQ. 

Van den Broek's mega day out was almost six hours in duration, the Dutch youngster completing the 220km stage with a brutal 3,600m of ascent at a mind-boggling average speed of 38.6km/h, his max 88km/h coming on the descent of the Côte de Barbotto.

You almost certainly don't need numbers to tell you it was a leg-shreddingly hard day on the bike, although with Van den Broek's power data readily available it would be rude not to give it a shout out.

While he averaged 258w that also includes the leisurely 16km neutral roll-out from Florence that even you or I could keep up with. The Dutchman averaged 270w for the stage proper, a normalised power of 322w, that being an estimate of the power he could have maintained for the same work load had his effort been steady and not subject to periods of no pedalling, descents, tight bends etc.

After five hours of racing and joined by Bardet, Van den Broek was still able to smash out a normalised power of 340w for the final 50km. He got through 5,336 kJ, Strava estimating he burned in excess of 5,000 calories in the heat that peaked north of 40°C according to his Wahoo Elemnt Bolt.

Unsurprisingly, Van den Broek and Bardet also hoovered up the KOMs, the dsm duo sitting atop the leaderboard for numerous segments on the run to Rimini. It's a tough one, isn't it? What will Romain be more pleased with this morning? Yellow jersey or Strava KOMs? 

The double ramp into San Marino, for example, where the pair stretched their advantage over the rapidly reducing peloton, gaining crucial seconds that would prove vital with the gap closing later on.

Strava estimates Van den Broek earned himself 33 beers with his calorie-burning performance, although (champagne aside) that might have to wait until Nice in three weeks. One thing that is for certain — Bardet would gladly pay for every single one. 

Elsewhere on Strava following stage one, plenty were bemoaning the heat. I've never seen so many 'Hot Face' emojis in one place. Jasper Stuyven, presumably due to being in his thirties, preferred to communicate the old fashioned way — with words — and was straight to the point... "Baking and roasting."

> Mark Cavendish in trouble on first stage of Tour de France, as British rider dropped early and vomiting on bike

More of the same today I'm afraid, Jasper. The peloton will tackle the 199km stage to Bologna with more heat and sun on the cards. Leaving Cesenatico there will be plenty of Marco Pantani tributes on the roadside today, the riders following on from yesterday's suffering with six more categorised climbs, albeit shorter (but steeper) than on the opening stage.

The route finishes with two ascents of the double digit gradients of the San Luca climb from Giro dell'Emilia, inevitably renamed the Côte de San Luca for one day only, before a descent into town. Who will be earning their Strava kudos today?