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Looking at the data behind the nail-biting final 10km of Milan San-Remo

The power numbers were impressive as riders climbed and descended the Poggio

Photo by: Twitter/Trek-Segafredo
March 21, 2021
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While many were predicting a Mathieu van der Poel win at this weekend’s Milan-San Remo, Trek-Segafredo’s Jasper Stuyven attacked at the bottom of the Poggio and managed to hold off a number of late charges, finishing first across the line and winning his first Monument. The 306km race takes a lot out of the riders, but there were still some impressive data to be found in the last 10km of the race.

RELATED: Jasper Stuyven’s late attack wins Milan-San Remo

The Poggio

Milan-San Remo’s iconic final climb, the Poggio di San Remo is often a decisive point in the race. The 4km climb has a 3.7 per cent average gradient. The Poggio’s proximity to the end of the race means positioning to the top of the climb will often be indicative of who will cross the line first (following a fast and winding 7km descent).

This year, Ineos Grenadiers’ time trial World Champion Filippo Ganna imposed a powerful pace up the climb, which dampened many would-be attacks. The 82kg cyclist averaged 552W for the first kilometre of the climb, moving at an average of 36.2km/h on the winding segment, which punches up to 6 per cent gradient.

Alaphilippe (who didn’t post his data) finally attacked near the summit, but Wout Van Aert grabbed his wheel—van der Poel and Caleb Ewan were able to catch on as well. Van Aert, last year’s winner, finished the climb in 5:43, one second slower than his effort last year.

Going down

Alaphilippe’s attack created a group of 11 for the winding Poggio descent. Tom Pidcock led Van Aert, Ewan, van der Poel and Alaphilippe. He took the technical descent at 49.2km/h, averaging 257W for the segment.

With 3km to go, Stuyven made a dig and immediately got a gap, the others hesitating. Team DSM’s Søren Kragh Andersen caught Stuyven, who let Kragh Anderson lead for 500-metres and then opened up the sprint. Van der Poel, Van Aert and Ewan made a late dash, but they couldn’t catch Stuyven, who named his Strava ride “Tutto o niente” (“all or nothing”). He averaged 515W for the 2.5km attack, with a max power of 1,545W.

In the end, the top five were:
1) Jasper Stuyven (Belgium/Trek-Segafredo)
2) Caleb Ewan (Australia/Lotto-Soudal)
3) Wout Van Aert (Belgium/Jumbo-Visma)
4) Peter Sagan (Slovakia/Bora-Hansgrohe)
5) Mathieu van der Poel (Netherlands/Alpecin-Fenix)

For the 306km ride, van der Poel put down a weighted average power of 293W, averaging 44.9 km /h for almost seven hours of riding. While he got the KOM on the Poggio up and down segment, he says the attack by Stuyven was well timed and he doesn’t think he could have responded to it. “I think that Jasper chose the right moment and was strong enough to hold it until the finish line. That makes him the deserved winner today,” the Dutch rider said.