“I’ve never seen something like this”: Is Tadej Pogačar’s “bonkers” 81km solo Strade Bianche victory modern cycling’s greatest ride?

“Bonkers… absurd”. It doesn’t happen too often, but Eurosport’s British champion-turned-ever effervescent commentator Adam Blythe was lost for words.

Because, just like the showers that turned Tuscany’s famous white roads an earthy brown during the previous 15 minutes, with 81km to go of this year’s expanded version of Strade Bianche, Tadej Pogačar changed the complexion of the race in an instant, charging clear of an elite group, never to be seen again, for what must surely be remembered as one of the great solo rides of recent years.

Not that we should have been surprised, of course.

The Slovenian superstar – making his 2024 road race debut – even told reporters this morning in Siena that he was planning to attack on the Monte Sante Marie, one of Strade Bianche’s key gravel sectors, now located over 80 leg-burning kilometres from the finish thanks to the race organisers’ ambition to cement that much-debated ‘monument’ claim by dragging their event beyond the 200km line with an additional finishing circuit.

And that’s exactly what happened. With the lead group already thinned down thanks to the unusually inclement weather and tough racing, Pogačar’s UAE Team Emirates’ teammate Tim Wellens hit the front, ominously, as the rain pounded the riders.

🏁76 KM

🇸🇮@TamauPogi
-- 41"

🇧🇪@maximvangils
-- 1'03"

🇲🇽@ISAACDELTOROx1
🇪🇺🇫🇷@LAPORTEChristop
🇧🇪@Tim_Wellens
🇮🇪@_BHealyyy#StradeBianche pic.twitter.com/zOSxfGuzxQ

— Strade Bianche (@StradeBianche) March 2, 2024

Then, just 134km into his season, Pogačar stood on the pedals and was gone. Behind, Visma-Lease a Bike’s Sepp Kuss, the lone representative of the thorn in the Slovenian’s side for the past two years, slumped back into his saddle, as the hitherto attacking Quinn Simmons wrestled with his bike.

As Pogačar crested that first steep slope, there was daylight. Within two kilometres, the gap had creeped out to 30 seconds. Four kilometres into his solo raid, the 25-year-old had a minute on a group including defending champion Tom Pidcock. By the time he exited the Sante Marie gravel sector where he made his move, the gap was almost two minutes.

Forlorn attacks – ostensibly for second place – by the plucky and unlucky Maxim Van Gils and Ben Healy aside, the stop-start nature of the groups behind meant the gap, and the race, was heading in one direction only for the remaining 80km.

In the land of Coppi, it was Pogačar, un uomo è solo al commando.

🌊Moses split the Sea, @TamauPogi split Le Tolfe @UAETeamEmirates | #StradeBianche pic.twitter.com/1Lw1WpKnJJ

— Strade Bianche (@StradeBianche) March 2, 2024

In Siena, the Slovenian was serene, soaking in his second Strade Bianche win and the adulation of the crowds gathered in the medieval city almost three minutes – enough time to raise the bike high above his head and possibly enjoy an espresso – before the in-form Toms Skujiņš and Van Gils arrived, ahead of Pidcock a minute later.

In the Eurosport commentary box, a rider once tasked with containing Pogačar’s attacking instincts, former Visma-Lease a Bike rider Nathan Van Hooydonck, was left scratching his head.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen something like this before,” the Dutchman, who was forced to retire last autumn following a cardiac arrhythmia diagnosis, said in the aftermath of the UAE Team Emirates rider’s race-winning move.

“When he said he was going to attack with 80km to go, I assumed it would be an attack with a few teammates to take the group down to 15, 20 riders. But to go solo here, it must mean he’s super motivated and already in really good shape. Because these riders in the second group, they’re among the best 20 riders in the world.

“He attacked with 80km to go and 14km later, he has a time gap of two minutes and 16 seconds, it’s crazy. I’ve never seen something like this in a one-day race… For the people at home, it’s hard to understand what’s going on.”

“I’ve not seen this in cycling to this extent,” concurred Blythe. “It’s happened before, but those attacks never came to anything. He’s on another planet right now.”

Modern cycling’s greatest solo ride?

It may prove difficult for fans and rivals to comprehend, but Pogačar’s crushing victory at Strade Bianche today arguably stands as the epitome of the Slovenian and others’ attempts to redefine the tactical landscape of professional cycling in recent years.

While cycling’s post-war folklore was built on the long-range attacking exploits of Coppi, Bartali, and Merckx, by the mid-2010s those tactics appeared confined to grainy newsreels and the magazine collections of Italian component connoisseurs.

Marginal gains, and the defensive trains of Armstrong and Froome, were de rigueur. Flamboyant do-or-die moves were strictly for French breakaway artists, and associated with potential maximal losses, so vehemently discouraged by chin-stroking directors.

Then, as we all know, along came Covid and its uncertainties, and the ripping up of the stagnant rule book (though moves in that direction were certainly being made before the pause in racing in 2020, especially in the women’s peloton).

The sport’s biggest stars, Pogačar, Remco Evenepoel, Mathieu van der Poel, Annemiek van Vleuten, threw caution to the wind, and began attacking earlier and earlier.

Which brings us to today’s mammoth, suspense-killing ride – where does it stand in the modern era’s hierarchy of long-range epics?

Well, rather ironically, Pogačar’s attack today came on the same sector as his race-winning move in 2022, and that of Pidcock last year. But those solo raids took place on the old Strade Bianche course, and a further 30km down the road.

Philippe Gilbert’s comeback 2017 Tour of Flanders win was secured via a epic 55km solo ride, a similar distance mastered alone by compatriot Tom Boonen at the 2012 Paris-Roubaix.

Evenepoel, meanwhile, won a Pog-less Liège-Bastogne-Liège last season with a 30km attack, after soloing for 25km to take the rainbow jersey the previous year. Pogačar’s second Tour de France win was, of course, almost entirely cemented with an early 30km solo attack in the Alps.

(SWPix.com)

But while the Slovenian’s exploits today have prompted the usual hyperbolic questions, they fade in comparison to at least one modern pioneer of the long-range epic: Annemiek van Vleuten.

The Dutch legend secured her Tour de France Femmes title in 2022 by dropping Demi Vollering in the Vosges with 62km and three mountains to ride, and pulled off what surely must still be – regardless of what a boy with frosted tips accomplished today – the greatest solo ride of the 21st century: that jaw-dropping, era-defining 105km lone attack in Yorkshire to win her first world road race title in 2019.

So, today’s Strade Bianche may have witnessed the second-greatest solo ride of pro cycling’s past few decades. Which for Pogačar isn’t too shabby at all.