Rigoberto Uran’s power output for stage nine of the Tour de France analysed

Stage nine was the most dramatic of this year’s Tour de France. The descent off the Mont du Chat ended Richie Porte’s Tour, took down Dan Martin and broke Rigoberto Uran’s rear mech, leaving him with a single 53/11 gear on the run in to the finish.

Uran won the stage in a photo finish with Warren Barguil and, unusually for a GC rider, shared his power data on Training Peaks, which has published an analysis of the data.

Over the five hours plus stage, covering 181km and over 4000m of climbing Uran averaged 35.4kph and 219 watts power output.

The final climb of the Mont du Chat was 8km long at an average 10 per cent. Uran’s average power output was 343w with a heart rate of 173bpm, for an average speed of 16.3kph over the 29.5 minute climb.

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Uran climbed the first 5.4km of the Mont du Chat with the thinning GC group in 19.5 minutes at an average 332w. When Fabio Aru put in an attack in the last 3km, Uran upped his power output to 378w for over eight minutes to keep up, with a peak of 666w. His cadence averaged 81rpm in a 39/30 gear ratio.

On the wet descent where Porte crashed, Uran’s average speed was 59.2kph with a maximum of 84.3kph.

Once on the flat, with his bent rear mech preventing shifting, Uran’s cadence dropped to 70rpm. He still put out 339w for over four minutes. In the last kilometre, he averaged 463w for 35 seconds to take him to the 550m to go mark.

With 440m to the line, Jakob Fuglsang attacked. At this point, Uran’s power peaked at 1189w to follow Fuglsang’s wheel, keeping up 1025w for 210m at 83rpm and 50kph. Over the last 150m to the line, he averaged 816w and 56kph.

With Uran’s 63kg weight, his average power-to-weight ratio was 3.8w/kg, 5.4w/kg on the climb of the Mont du Chat and peaked at over 18w/kg in the finale.