Nicolas Roche put in a huge ride yesterday at the Tour de France when he rode in the breakaway for almost the whole stage.
The Irishman had to dig deep to get in the move and when it got away and he looked around him, he knew he was in a serious group.
With him for company he had: Neilson Powless (EF Pro Cycling), Edvald Boasson Hagen (NTT), Daniel Oss (Bora-hansgrohe), Rémi Cavagna (Deceuninck-Quick Step), Greg Van Avermaet (CCC), Jesus Herrada (Cofidis) and Alexey Lutsenko (Astana).
And while Lutsenko and Powless shred the breakaway on the
penultimate climb before Lutsenko rode away solo to win, Roche was only caught
by the favourites' group with 8km to go.
It meant he was on the offensive for almost all of the
191km stage from Le Teil to the summit finish at Mont Aigoual.
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The breakaway covered almost 52km in the first hour of
racing as the peloton chased them for a period and made them work hard to
establish their lead, before the gap went out to six minutes.
The Irish cyclist, 36-years-old and weighing 71kg,
started the breakaway and that attack of his saw him generate 505 watts for
five minutes when he initially made his move that the others followed.
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As the breakaway formed and the peloton chased them for a
while, Roche averaged over 400 watts for that 20-minute period.
That's a very significant effort considering it was at
the start of the stage with so many kilometres to come and a brace of tough
climbs awaiting the riders at the end of the day.
His peak one-minute power period saw him generate 650
watts
and he did just under 600 watts for two minutes.
For one six-minute period he did 480 watts and aside from
doing just over 400 watts for 20 minutes at the start of the stage he also did
370 watts for 30 minutes.
One 60-minute period during the stage saw him generate an
average of 350 watts. And during one three-hour period, during his 4hr 40min
stage, he generated an average of 300 watts.
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