When Tadej Pogacar rode away with 50 kilometres still to ride on stage 4 of the Vuelta a España, nobody in the chasing group stood up on the pedals to close the gap. Geraint Thomas has put a number on why.

“You’re not going to race him with 50k to go and he’s doing seven watts a kilo, because you know you just can’t do that,” the 2018 Tour de France winner said on his Watts Occurring podcast.

Seven watts per kilogram of body weight, held on the road toward a finish 50 kilometres away, sits well above the ceiling of the modern Grand Tour peloton. Coaching analyses of professional road racing put the sustained climbing output of the very best at roughly 6.0 to 6.4 watts per kilogram over a 30 to 40 minute mountain effort. Every W/kg above that band is not a difference in form. It is a different physiological league.

Andorra was the proof

Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates – XRG) attacked on the Collada de Beixalis, the second climb of stage 4 on 25 August, and rode the final 50 kilometres alone into Andorra la Vella. He crossed the line 2:39 clear of Jarno Widar in what ProCycling UK reported as his longest solo victory in a three-week race, his 37th Grand Tour stage win and his fifth at the Vuelta.

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Pogacar told TNT Sports afterwards:

“I never thought that I would ride like this ever, and I have such beautiful memories of Andorra.”

Rowe sees one crack

Luke Rowe, sitting alongside Thomas on the podcast, offered the only live theory the peloton has for catching Pogacar out.

“It’s not on the climbs, it’s not on sprint days. But on crosswind days, anything can happen.”

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Crosswinds neutralise power-to-weight because the front of the race splinters on positioning, speed and echelons, not on the calorie budget of the strongest climber in the world. On a summit finish, none of that applies.

Lead already past three minutes

After stage 5’s reduced bunch sprint into Roquetas de Mar, Pogacar leads Primož Roglič by 3:21, with Enric Mas third at 3:32 and Sepp Kuss fourth at 3:44. Oscar Onley, Richard Carapaz and Félix Gall complete the top seven, all inside four minutes. Jay Vine, Pogacar’s UAE team-mate, sits tenth at 4:11.

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