Michael Woods’ day in numbers from the Stage 18 Tour de France breakaway

After breaking two ribs in a crash on Stage 11 of the Tour de France, it would not have been surprising to see Michael Woods sit back and reconfigure his goals to simply reach Paris. But that’s simply not how the Canadian rolls. On Thursday’s Stage 18, Woods rode in the breakaway like he had a few days earlier on Stage 15. While the injuries were a setback for his ambitions, a couple of broken bones didn’t stop the gritty Ottawa native from having a brilliant ride on Thursday. Woods posted his big ride on Strava and the numbers from the day are impressive for a rider 18 stages into a Grand Tour still suffering the effects of the broken bones.

Woods finished seventh behind stage winner Nairo Quintana (Movistar). The 208 km stage featured 4,700 m of elevation gain. Woods Garmin recorded a high temperature on the day at a scorching 39 C with an average at a toasty 31 C.

The 208 km stage had four categorized climbs including the mighty Col d’Izoard and famed Col du Galibier. Over the day, Woods weighted power average was 276 w. Considering the up-and-down nature of the course, the climbs were where Woods dropped the most watts. On the first climb of the day, Woods averaged 361 w for 9 min 48 sec on the Cote des Demoiselles Coiffées. Over the first 1hr 40min of the race, Woods averaged 44.5 km/h in the breakaway that swelled to 34 riders.

On the 14 km Col de Vars, Woods did a solid 38 min 45 sec effort at 267 w. Things would heat up on the Col d’Izoard where Woods averaged 300 w for nearly 44 min. by the approach of the Galibier via the Col de Lauteret, the front of the race featured Woods alongside Quintana, Romain Bardet, Damiano Caruso, Julian Bernard, Adam Yates and Lennard Kämna. By the time the race hit the Galibier proper, the group was even smaller.

Woods. A man. A myth. A legend. Made from pure iron. Not wood. @rusty_woods

— Jonathan Vaughters (@Vaughters) July 25, 2019

With a still sizable group, the pace really ramped up on the Galibier and the fatigue from the previous climbs began to take its toll. Woods averaged 288 w over 52 min 43 sec on the Galibier. That included some very hard efforts when attacks from Alexey Lutsenko (Astana) with 26 km to go and then Quintana really blew the race to pieces when he attacked 7 km from the summit. During this attacking period, Woods saw some huge spikes in power hitting a max of 710 w over a 10 minute period where he averaged 317 w.

Quintana’s race-winning move blew Woods and the others out of contention for the stage with only Bardet finishing within 2 minutes of the Colombian. Woods crossed the line 4 min 46 sec behind Quintana alongside GC contender Egan Bernal who attacked the GC group on the Galibier.

With two mountain stages before the procession into Paris, the Tour de France is still up in the air with Julian Alaphilippe holding a 1 min 30 sec gap on Bernal with defending champion Geraint Thomas a further 5 seconds back.