I Took A Tour de France Climb KOM, What Happened Next Was Ridiculous

How hard is it to get a Strava KOM on a climb that features in the Tour de France? We sent Dan to find out! The target: the Côte d’Outreau, the final climb of Stage 2 of the 2025 race!
Follow along as Dan goes all-in for a massive effort—hiding his gear in a bush to save weight and laying down nearly 500 watts—to take the crown… for a little while. Then, we dive deep into the data, comparing his power and speed directly against Tour de France stage contenders like Tadej Pogačar and Fred Wright to see exactly where the pros are on another level.

Here’s a link to Dan’s Strava ride: https://www.strava.com/activities/14973631639

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 The Challenge: Stealing a TDF KOM
01:28 Final Prep: Hiding Gear Like a Pro
01:48 The KOM Attempt: Full Gas!
03:50 Mission Accomplished… For Now
05:08 The Long Wait: Will The KOM Hold?
07:10 The Aftermath: The Pros Arrive
08:02 Why Is Dan “Only” 34th?
08:45 Data Deep Dive: Where The Time Was Lost
09:29 Amateur vs. Pro: The Pogačar Comparison

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How hard is it to take the Straa K on a climb that features in the tour to France? Well, it kind of depends on the climb. And my current weight of 75 kg to beat Tad Pagata’s time at Mont Von 2, I’d need to average close to 500 W for 47 minutes. Doable. I’m just not in that area right now. For the Murder Bratanna, which will be used on stage 7 this year, I’d have to do about 550 W for 3 minutes 47. Again, more than possible with my immense talent, but I’ve chosen a different one. The world famous Coat Dutro. Okay, you might not have heard of that climb before, but you might have done by the time you watch this video because it would have been seen to the first shots fired at this year’s Tour to France. It was the final climb on stage two into Bulonga Sir Mayare which handily is right on England’s doorstep. Now the current top of the Straa leaderboard for that climb as I record this is a man named Simon Demp. 5 years ago he romped up that climb with an average power of 376 watt giving him a time of 2 minutes 48 seconds. And I reckon I might be able to beat that. I’ve just got to hope that nobody better than me does it between now and about 20 hours time. So, I’ve reconed the climb, done a bit of a warm up, and now I’m doing my final preparations, which means doing what all stra do, hiding my belongings in a bush at the top of the climb in order to save vital weight. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to wait for a hurricane to brew up in exactly the right direction to blow me up the climb, but you can’t have everything. Here we go, then. This is the official start. and I’m gunning it like Vanderpool on a recovery ride in the saddle looking and feeling smooth, but already a bit pissed off that I’m having to use an onboard camera. It’s ruining my aerodynamics and adding unnecessary weight. I’ve just got to remember that I’m not just a Straa. I also live for the views, likes, and shares. Uh, speaking of which, make sure Okay, I’m about 30 seconds into the segment now, but obviously 40 seconds into my own effort, and I’m looking fantastic in all respects. Good power output, great definition in my quads, which I’m looking down at in awe, even though they’re my own. It’s like they’re chiseled out of some sort of mahogany that’s been painted a sort of dirty light beige color. About a minute in now, and most people be really feeling it at this point, but not me. I’m floating like a butterfly and singing like easy or whatever that saying is. Really looking good to put the current K leader firmly in his place. So, at this point, the average power is over 500 W. It might be a bit more than that, though, because most of the power meters I’ve had over the years seem to underread quite substantially. Uh, this is just over halfway up now. And because I’ve gone for a positive split pacing strategy, the power is starting to come down. Still slightly higher than my heart rate though, which is always a good sign. [Music] Uh, I’m now over the steepest bit at this point, but struggling to increase the speed. I think maybe my disc pads were rubbing a bit, but I’m still feeling confident, prepared well for this 3minute effort with an 11-hour ride just over a week ago that I’m not sure I’ve told you all about. [Music] Uh, right on to the home straight. Already starting to wonder whether some sort of scally has nabbed my belongings in that field that I hid them in, but all looking good. And that’s the top. Just a quick check. There’s no cars about to run me over. And bang, mission accomplished. Never in doubt. Uh, I actually can’t see that being broken even in the race itself. I’ve done it. Mainly cuz I got a load of extra speed at the bottom on the Straa live segments on the Wahoo. Once I got about halfway up, it stayed the same and started creeping down actually. You know that feeling when you get barbed wire in your lungs? I’ve got that. So, I know I went hard and it felt like I really faded towards the top, but uh I couldn’t have gone any harder. So, let’s see what happens next. I doubt that’ll get beaten. Okay, here are the stats for the data nerds out there. Now, so the climb took me 2 minutes 25 with an average power of 489 watt, average heart rate of 158, average speed of 20.9 km/h for the 8% gradient. I did probably start out a little bit hard. 548 watts for the first minute and then fading towards the end. So, the last minute was only 420 W. So now it’s just a case of waiting. I guess for the next 48 hours or so I’m going to be here at the tour to France picking up a load of new tech whilst constantly checking my phone for any notifications that I don’t want to receive and indeed looking to see if I need to flag anything. So a bit of a fright there. Notification came through from Straa. Lost your K, but not that K. We’re all good still. However, what I just have noticed is that I’m still a minute 11 quicker than Filippo Ghana. And even more than that in front of the likes of Thomas. So, what that is called is not a humble brag. It’s just a brag. [Music] Still got the K. Had it for almost 48 hours now. I better look at the bikes, I guess. [Music] still hasn’t been beaten. [Music] Still got it. Well, our good mate Daniel Ly was out riding the finale last week and he was just saying the road narrows as well. It’s like a wall. There’ll be teams even without the gradient who will be worried about just the width of the road. He sent me a message this morning talking to our great mate Daniel Lloyd. He said, “Uh, yeah, I’ve been been busy. I was I was out at the French coast and I um went and took the Straa K on the last climb of the day because I’m making a video about it. The time I took a tour to France Straa K.” And then what happened after? In in about 25 minutes time, you might be getting one of those emails. Uh-oh, somebody stole your K. Well, we often talk about I don’t think I will be. Thank you very much. [Music] They’re on it and it’s quite slow at the start, but probably not as slow as me. [Music] My KM was, as expected, broken. Not smashed, I wouldn’t say, but comfortably broken. So soon after they finished the stage, I got that dreaded notification from Straa. And by the time I clicked on it, I was already down to seventh. Only 1 second behind GC hopeful Ben Oconor of Jaco Alula. But since he’d lost half his skin in a serious crash the day before, he clearly wasn’t at his best. I then slipped to 12th, then 17th, then 30th as more and more riders uploaded to Straa. And so here we are 24 hours later, and I’m down to 34th overall. So 33 Tour to France riders rode up that climb faster than me. So, the rest either didn’t upload or in all likelihood just didn’t ride that hard up the climb. I’m going to go through the analytics just shortly showing where I lost my time, the sort of power the pros were doing. But first, I just want to explain why I’m still 34th and not lower. For many pro riders, their job for a stage like that is done by that point and they’re just looking to get to the finish using the minimal effort possible, saving what they can for the following day and following days. They’ve also already got 200 km in their legs by that point and it staged the previous day of course. So whilst I focused everything on one single two and a half minute effort, there was a lot more going into it for them. Even at the front of the race, they were not going flat out the whole way up that climb. For the best riders, they never did go flat out. Their average power was actually higher on the two previous climbs that day, despite those ones being longer in duration. Uh so let’s dive in then. The fastest time on that climb came from someone that wasn’t even in the front group. Barrain victorious is Fred Wright. Now, I’d imagine he was trying to bridge to the front group at that point in the race. Now, here’s the comparison to my time. So, he went into the climb a little bit quicker and was already 4 seconds ahead after 200 m. That then came down to 3 seconds. It sort of held there for the first half of the climb, which was a steadier part. But then as I was already starting to pay for my effort, contrary to what I said in my commentary earlier, the gap ballooned over 450 meters, he put 16 seconds into me. So 1 minute 23 for me, 1 minute 7 seconds for him. And that is a significant chunk over that kind of duration. What about Pagata? Well, he was 3 seconds slower than Wright, but clearly wasn’t going flat out at any point on that final climb. to the point that with 250 meters to the top, I only trailed him by 3 seconds. After that though, the speed differential was much greater. Following the attacks, he put 13 seconds into me. So, what took me 55 seconds only took him 42 as he maintained a speed around 8 km/h faster than me. Were you to ride it as a prologue or time trial etc though or target it as a straa segment like I did, the gap would obviously be much much bigger. Anyway, I hope that you found this a bit of fun. The segment was there for the taking because it had never before been used in a race. And I know there are lots of you out there who are leading or high up the leaderboard on a particular segment that then suddenly find yourselves a long way down if a race rolls through. I mean, yes, there is the advantages of closed roads and having vehicles in front of you, but ultimately these guys are just next level. I mean, I’m not as fit as I once was, but I’m certainly not unfit. I didn’t have a hope of getting close, though. Uh there’s a reason they paid the big bucks to pedal bikes because as I said, they’re the best in the world at doing it. Uh so let me know your watching, and I’ll see you for more Tour to France content very soon.