“The Battle for Sa Calobra” – How long can I ride at Tom Pidcock’s KOM pace?

There is no doubt, I loved tackling Sa Calobra again. Even more so when a champ like Tom Pidcock is the rider you have to chase down at the top of the Strava Leaderboard! So much fun and very inspiring!

Thanks to eltoromediadotcom for the drone footage!

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A little about Ed….
Ed is an elite cyclist, 2019 British Hill Climb Champion and former Under 23 British RR Champion. He has raced as a Continental level Professional Rider for one of the most successful British cycling teams in Japan, Korea, Australia, Canada, Azerbaijan to name a few. He is also a public speaker, coach, and founded the on/offline cycling community, Backpedal. At the start of 2021, the Discord community began, and plonked many of Ed’s viewers in to a 550+ strong group of people that had many things in common. Not least wanting to explore the world and pedal their bikes faster!

Ed coaches lots of cyclists in the online community too! If you are interested, email [laverackcoaching@yahoo.com] for information on the 1-2-1 coaching package and training plans, of which there are many and flexible options to suit everyone!

Ed now prioritises having fun with my hard earned fitness and knowledge in the sport. Showcasing that maybe there is an alternative to racing for teams when you can race for yourself and your community of followers and brands. This YouTube channel is a docu-series highlighting what it’s like to be a cyclist in today’s competitive age of sport.
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this is sacal robra one of the world’s most popular cycling climbs when Tom Pitcock smashed my straa k 2 years [Music] ago you guys asked when I was coming back [Music] [Music] hello welcome to the video it’s the afternoon slash evening before I ride out to Sacra I’m right in the sea just treating my legs to some salty it’s like epom salt in it know they say like salt bath is good for you so I’m like I wonder if that works for the sea okay I’ve robbed Charlie in to help me film this section cuz fin it difficult to multitask and I’m under pressure because I’ve got like 12 hours until we head to Sacra give you a summary of everything before we head out there tomorrow because this is slightly different to the video from two years ago when when um when we took the km and that video blew up essentially 50,000 views I think it’s the most watched video on this channel possibly so if you’re new and you haven’t seen that then there’s your chance to subscribe but also go back and watch that video so I want to talk about the big elephant Tom’s pitcock shaped elephant in the room you know you always have that mate who you want to beat like to the cafe you always have like you know that person on the STA leader board ahead of you where you think you know that’s the person I want to beat next you know that that their name is on my on my fridge door and I open it and I see it every single day that’s not the case with Tom pitcock so as longwinded way of saying I I firmly believe that I would be here anyway if it wasn’t for like Tom all right like there’s this passion inside of me I want to get I want to be faster I want to keep improving and this is the stars have aligned and the training I’ve been putting in recently has led me to where we are now where I’ve been able to get myself in a shape where I think I can go faster on saoba which I know sounds nuts because my personal best is 24 minutes 36 seconds you Tom pidcock’s Done 2246 so that’s 1 minute 50 seconds faster than me but that’s almost irrelevant like you know I think I could go faster and I’m going to try and go faster it doesn’t matter if you’re going for a sub 30 minute or sub 45 minute or some 1 hour I feel like we’re all in a similar boat we’re just trying to go faster in some way shape or form that could could be by 10 seconds or it could be my by like four or 5 minutes I’d really like to go under 24 minutes so that’s like 35 36 second like PB which is obviously quite large I’ve had maybe five messages directly from quite decent bike riders who have said like this is a pretty cool thing if you want any help if you need a lead out if you want to hire a M bike if you want to do all these things to go faster just say and as much as I appreciate that I do want to see just how fast I can go into my own steam if the stars align tomorrow and we have good conditions and I feel good and I perform well maybe we we’ll do something a bit fun and wacky and try something like that but for now it’s man Mano me versus me but also you know having Tom in the background is pretty big motivation and it’s very rare I think that you’ll end up in a situation where someone like Tom Pitcock is the rider in front of you uh that you’re having to try and beat effectively so I’ve been crunching the numbers I want to give a shout out to Ben uh over mywi sock.com who’s helped me pick the best day to do it the conditions taking in consideration the conditions very difficult cuz we’re only here for like four or five days but he’s done his best and we think tomorrow even though the wind direction is a bit weird it’s the lightest wind like conditions so light wind conditions is probably better than having stronger wind but not quite a reliable Direction um we had a roaring headwind today didn’t we so we oh the wind’s been ridiculous last couple days actually strong it’s been it has been quite very wind s down a little bit tomorrow that’s going to be beneficial it might be the only chance but so let’s head out to the bike and just do a very quick bike check we have the factor O2 V the latest edition disc full durus throughout wax chain Continental Grand Prix 5000 TTI tires and tubless uh I have saddle bag which is obviously going to come off and hopefully leave with somebody um I’m going to be running my GoPro up front I know I know weight and things don’t worry I obviously need the footage to a certain extent that’s why we need a motorbike we need someone to follow us up with the camera maybe I should have contacted the people at the event and then they could have like followed me up with the camera how cool would that have been that would have been cool right next time we’re doing that I’ve got the waho bolt version two up front which will be tracking my every second I am rocking my usual 4i Precision 3 plus power meter left-sided only and the 2833 Black Ink wheel set which essentially is a climbing wheel set but um also has some Arrow advantages um in terms of gearing it’s a 5236 chain ring 1130 cassette many of you know the climb is 9 1/2 km at about 7% 7 and 1 12% um so there will be some sections will probably be in the Big Chain ring but majority of the time small ring and I would say halfway down the cassette for an optimally comfortable Cadence of around you know 85 RPM is probably somewhere in that range that’s essentially it [Music] [Music] [Music] oh thank get [Music] oh [Music] [Music] oh oh [Music] night right moment of truth folks done the effort we’ve got back and only one thing left to do now and that’s to see how how we did I’ve already had one or two messages from people saying hurry up upload the ride I want to see it while it’s uploading actually um I want to say like I was actually very surprised to see like a fair few people at the top of sack lobra um yesterday turns out there was like some fire or something like couple hundred meters from the top I was getting a little bit worried that they like shut the road or something but thankfully it was all good um but yeah the guys at the top for those of you that weren’t able to wait there because there was a swarm of bees around of all things and a couple of guys sacrificed themselves and got stung just to to get the the video of me coming over the top so thank you um it is greatly appreciated we all know this feeling right that feeling of anticipation you can share that anticipation with me oh yes what a PR what a PR the time to beat was 2436 my personal best I did 24 80.3 km an hour faster 10 watt more so 388 wat average 28 23.3 km an hour and yeah it actually bumps me up a little bit further in second place second position it was uh the Gap to Anon in third was only 4 seconds and now it’s 22 seconds so I’m really chuffed to that I thought if I could get closer to 24 minutes then yeah I would be well ched but totally awesome I actually set some PRS not just on the full segment but on the last 6 kilometers of sacorra I’ve improved my time the last kilometer of Sacra I’ve also improved my time and that can only mean that I pierced it pretty well because of The Descent and I was a little bit cold at the bottom I thought I’m just going to ride it to numbers and then I’ll I’ll try and increase the power at the end where it’s the steepest section and in the end I think that made the difference I was so 388 Watts at I think I’m about 61 kg so that’s close to 6.4 watts per kilo wow actually that last that last half of sackal lobra is where I pretty much gained all of my time I nearly went 1 km an hour faster 30 seconds faster and 16 Watts more so I obviously didn’t set off as hard and I didn’t I was I probably actually lost a couple of seconds in that first few kilometers during the effort itself I felt in control which is kind of what you want to be able to feel you only want to feel like you’re really giving it like everything you’ve got in that last couple of maybe five six seven minutes when you want to feel like you’re on the Ragged Edge my power is fairly even throughout but I definitely finished stronger than I started and you know that worked out really well in the end because the speed was a lot higher at the bottom than it was at the top to be honest I couldn’t have asked much more for myself today so I couldn’t be happier that’s it next up we are heading off to the Grand Fondo Von 2 in a couple of weeks time I hope you can stick around for that one guys that could be an incredible experience I may even get a chance to have a stab at Monon 2 to sh Renard or maybe all the way to the top who knows but if you’re new to the Channel Please Subscribe big thank you to everyone who came out to support today filming photos morale those that came to to say hello at the end I appreciate you all thank you so much for watching and I’ll see you next time