Photo ©: Ryan Staab

Stage 5 of the Nature Valley Grand Prix challenged riders to a 92 mile road race with 83 miles of open road through the Minnesota countryside and 4 2.3-mile finishing circuits. Each time through the circuit, riders had to haul themselves up Mankato's Main Street hill, a .3 mile pitch averaging a 14% grade. In previous years, it was both hard-driving cross winds on the open road and the hill in the finishing circuits that pulled apart the field. This year was no different, but all the riders on the ISCorp team were able to stick with the main group coming into Mankato's finishing circuits. However, staying with the leaders became more difficult on the Main Street climb. We'll take a look at the riders' power data to find out how much damage a .3 mile climb can do.

First, let's take a look at finishing times and placings:

 1 - Rory Sutherland (Team Healthnet Presented by Maxxis): 3.30.19
 9 - Matthew Busche (IS Corp Cycling Team): 0.26
33 - Steve Scholzen (IS Corp Cycling Team): 1.40
60 - Jordan Roessingh (IS Corp Cycling Team): 3.06
61 - Kip Spaude (IS Corp Cycling Team): 3.06

Rory Sutherland from Team Healthnet Presented by Maxxis took the stage win, while Matthew Busche of ISCorp finished an impressive 26 seconds behind him giving Busche a top-ten finish for the day. Scholzen finished one minute and forty seconds down while Roessingh and Spaude finished together mid-field three minutes and six seconds back.

To see how much of this time was left on the hill, we disected the graphs from each rider to find out how much time he spent on each individual climb. Locating the hill in the power files was easy because that was the point on the graph where the riders' speed and cadence decreased, and their torque and power went up simultaneously. If we take the equation power = torque x angular velocity, in order for power to increase, either torque or speed needs to increase. With the steepness of the hill, the rider's speed went down, so their torque had to go up to maintain a high power output.

For example:

By zooming in on each hill from each rider's power file in the PowerAgent software, we get the following values:

BUSCHE:	Climb 1	Climb 2	Climb 3	Climb 4
Distance (mi.)	0.3	0.3	0.3	0.3
Rider Weight	155	155	155	155
Time	1:19	1:24	1:18	1:26
Avg Power	563	490	527	523
Peak Power	763	776	667	802
Avg Speed	13.57	12.65	13.73	12.77

Total time: 6:48

SCHOLZEN:	Climb 1	Climb 2	Climb 3	Climb 4
Distance (mi.)	0.3	0.3	0.3	0.3
Rider Weight	155	155	155	155
Time	1:31	1:36	1:41	1:43
Avg Power	461	432	402	419
Peak Power	657	555	528	528
Avg Speed	12.04	11.41	11.19	10.68

Total time: 8:08

ROESSINGH:	Climb 1	Climb 2	Climb 3	Climb 4
Distance (mi.)	0.3	0.3	0.3	0.3
Rider Weight	155	155	155	155
Time	1:37	1:51	1:56	2:00
Avg Power	423	380	374	357
Peak Power	655	560	599	512
Avg Speed	11.11	10.01	9.55	9.25

Total time: 9:15

Over the 1.2 miles of climbing within the 9.2 mile circuit, Busche spent six minutes and forty-eight seconds climbing the hill four times. Scholzen spent eight minutes and eight seconds, whereas Roessingh spent nine minutes and fifteen seconds on the hills. Busche climbed the hills on the finishing circuits one minute and twenty seconds faster than Scholzen and two minutes and twenty-six seconds faster than Roessingh and Spaude. That is a sizeable chunk of the time these riders lost on the overall course over the whole 9.2 miles.

This data illustrates the fact that there isn't much of a draft on a 14% grade hill. This is where it becomes every rider for himself, and power-to-weight ratio really comes into play.