Quarq has released details of Michal Kwiatkowski’s World Championship winning ride – tracked by his power meter – which show the strength and stamina needed to take on the planet’s best road riders and win. Here are some of the highlights.
310W – Kwiatkowski’s normalised power, an averaged power figure taking into account the peaks and troughs of climbing and descending, throughout the 253km ride.
403W – Based on his Intensity Factor of 0.77 for the race the Polish rider’s functional threshold power (FTP) – the max power sustainable for an hour – is about 403 watts.
148 bpm – Despite riding at a normalised power of 306 watts for the first six hours, 20 minutes of the race, Kwiatkowski’s heart rate averaged only 148 beats per minute.
436W – The power Kwiatkowski averaged for the 34 seconds – 6.43 watts for each of his 68kg – as he began his race-winning move to bridge to the leaders, including a burst up to 928 watts and a drop in cadence to 83 rpm.
501W – Kwiatkowski’s NP for his three-minute attack off the front of the breakaway group, pushing his heart rate up to 179BPM and peaking at 706 watts. His peak one-minute power during the race was 552 watts.
59.9 km/h – Kwiatkowski’s average speed over the final 1.7km of racing, compared to 38.8km/h as an average for the whole race. He put out an average of 415 watts at a cadence of 102 rpm.
Quarq Power Coach, Gord Fraser, said of Kwiatkowski’s ride: “Cycling has always been an unpredictable sport. Though at times, tactics and audacity can take a back seat to conservative racing lately. While these numbers paint what it takes statistically to net one of the biggest prizes in the sport – the coveted rainbow jersey, it's refreshing to see within this Quarq file that this victory was accomplished by a willingness to go all or nothing with a late breakaway.”
Check out the full Quarq file on Training Peaks here.