920 miles – or further than Land's End to John O’Groats; 54,000 feet of climbing – the same as Everesting one and a half times; and 34,000 calories.
920 miles – or further than Land's End to John O’Groats; 54,000 feet of climbing – the same as Everesting one and a half times; and 34,000 calories.
That’s what it took each Madison Genesis athlete to ride the Tour of Britain.
Everything culminated on stage seven of the race, as the team rode to reclaim the King of the Mountains jersey – and Mark McNally’s power file reveals the brutality of a day which was flat out from the start.
Out of the neutralised zone, Mark worked for six minutes at 397 watts, featuring nine spikes of power at over 1000 watts!
For Mark, things calmed down after this as the break – containing Tom Stewart – went clear.
Tom managed to draw level in the King of the Mountains competition, however, with just 33-kilometres covered and nearly 200-kilometers to race, the peloton bought Tom and the first escapees back.
This signalled the return of Mark to the front of the peloton as the race split again. He averaged 352 watts for 27 minutes – or an impressive 4.75w/kg, in an effort that featured a further six sprints of around 1000 watts.
With a favourable break established, Mark could recuperate – averaging just 150 watts for the next 50 minutes, upping that to 215 watts over the next two hours.
Reaching the second King of the Mountains point at 105 miles, Mark would go to work once more, leading out Tom. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough and Tom missed out on the single point required to go into the outright lead – but this wasn’t down to lack of effort.
Mark’s leadout featured a 370 watt effort for five minutes.
With just one sprint remaining, team manager Roger Hammond ordered the entire squad to the front of the peloton, with an aim of bringing back the breakaway and Tom having the maximum opportunity to score points on the final King of the Mountains climb of the tour.
Bringing back the three leaders took all the efforts of Matt Cronshaw, Matt Holmes, Tom Scully and Mark – whose statistics reveal a 23-minute effort at 345 watts.
Remember that this – which would be a strong performance for an amateur time-triallist – came after six days of racing in the Tour of Britain and over four hours into the seventh stage!
While the team didn’t realise their ambition of regaining the jersey for Tom, hopefully our insight shows they gave it their all and explains why there were some strained expressions on the faces of our riders when on the front of the race!
You can follow Madison Genesis riders Mark McNally, Matt Cronshaw and Tom Stewart on Strava.