Want to know how hard Paris-Roubaix is? Ever wondered how much power it actually takes to ride across the cobbles at race pace? Connor Swift has done us a solid and uploaded his full file to Strava, including that all-important power data. Wout van Aert, Michal Kwiatkowski, Kasper Asgreen and plenty others all uploaded their rides, just without the juicy details. Come on, guys, give the people what they want...
Swift's activity shows what we already knew. Sunday was a brutal day out. The Brit was on the bike for just shy of six and a half hours and averaged 300w...even as a well-built rouleur, that's got to be some pretty impressive power to weight. Strava estimates he burned 5,114 calories in the miserable conditions. Good luck recouping that when you're soaked through and can't go back to the team car as it's still two minutes behind. Best hope you spot your soigneurs.
On the Arenberg, Swift rattled across the stones for 4:06 at 33kph. Nobody in the race managed to crack the segment top ten because of the unfavourable weather, race winner Sonny Colbrelli and teammates Fred Wright and Heinrich Haussler went 40 seconds quicker than Swift during their dry Friday recon.
> The bikes that won Paris-Roubaix - Tubeless, disc and aero for Colbrelli and Deignan
On the next five-star sector, Mons-en-Pévèle, the pros went two minutes slower than the best dry times of the last ten years. It was a similar story at Carrefour de l'Arbe where Swift's time was a full minute slower on the 2km sector than his PB...
After 260km of hell, the Arkéa–Samsic rider still managed to hold 340w around the famous velodrome to beat reigning champion Philippe Gilbert to 28th place, and earn a historic Strava suffer score of 466. Chapeau.