Watch Amateurs Race Against the Tour de France’s Top Climbers (Sort Of)

Amateur athletes rarely get a chance to measure themselves against professionals. But with cycling, many pros and amateurs do the same thing after a ride — they upload it to an app called Strava, where anyone can see and track their speed and location.

While they are not technically racing together (and with good reason), the data does allow us to see just how much faster the pros are than the rest of us.

Below, we present a virtual race of sorts, in which we take some of this year’s fastest Tour de France cyclists who posted their rides to Strava and pit them against a few hundred amateurs who rode over the same climbs in the Pyrenees or Alps and posted their results online.

In each case, we gave the amateurs a healthy head start.

Col du Tourmalet (Stage 6)

This year’s Stage 6 of the Tour featured the Col du Tourmalet, which has been a part of more than 80 Tours since 1910. Climbs on the Tour are rated Category 1, 2, 3 and 4 depending on their severity. The climb lasted around 10 miles with an average grade of over 7 percent, one of a handful of climbs rated “hors catégorie,” or “beyond categorization.”

Tadej Pogacar of Slovenia, a two-time Tour champion and the eventual stage winner, completed the climb in 41 minutes 43 seconds, becoming the fastest person among more than 53,000 entries in Strava’s data to do so. On average, it takes an amateur cyclist more than twice that long.

Rich Bower, a 40-year-old school administrator in Oxfordshire, England, gave the Tourmalet a shot in 2022. He completed the climb in 91 minutes — nowhere near Pogacar’s time, but still faster than half of all amateurs in Strava’s data.

Bower described the climb as “absolutely brutal,” but said he was happy to complete the climb without dismounting his bike to rest.

“Started to feel pain in different places like my hands, which you normally wouldn’t,” he said. “Going down stairs the next day — pretty hard.”

Puy de Dôme (Stage 9)

The Puy de Dôme climb, a steep but relatively short ride up a volcanic mountain in central France, was included in the Tour for the first time since 1988. First introduced in 1952, it was raced 13 times until its narrow roads made it challenging to host the growing logistical infrastructure of the Tour. It is closed to cycling most of the year.

The top time for the climb in this year’s Tour among those who posted to Strava was by Sepp Kuss, an American and a mountain specialist, at 16 minutes 40 seconds.

In comparison, Martin Catherineau, a 22-year-old student from Lyon who says he is trying to complete a list of the best cycling routes in Europe, finished the same section in 41 minutes 58 seconds. He registered online a month in advance to reserve a spot for a ride.

“It was the most steep climbing I’ve ever done,” he said.

Col du Platzerwasel (Stage 20)

The Col du Platzerwasel climb, which passes through the Vosges mountains in Eastern France, was part of Stage 20 on Saturday. Although it’s only about 4.3 miles, it has an average incline of over 8 percent.

The median time of the nearly 21,000 rides posted to Strava for the Col du Platzerwasel was 42 minutes. One of those riders was Christophe Schmitt, a 36-year-old newspaper journalist from Mulhouse, France, who completed the route in June in 44 minutes 23 seconds. Felix Gall of Austria had the fastest time, at just over 19 minutes.

Mr. Schmitt said he has biked the Col du Platzerwasel around 10 times. He lives close enough that he can take a short train ride close to the start. Early on Saturday, he decided to cycle the route one more time; he completed the entirety of Stage 20 before the roads were shut down for the Tour stage later that day.