Belgian KOM Hunting

myWindsock has gone on tour. This week, we are in Belgium (in fact, I’m here over the entirety of Christmas thanks to the wonderful sport of cyclocross) and as we all know – Belgians love a bit of windy cycling. I thought this would be a good chance to use myWindsock to try and take a segment or two while I’m out here and write a mini guide as to how I’m going to try and take a Belgian segment.

I have found a segment on my first ride here – which I carried out on the day of writing this blog.

The segment – Sint Martinus

With 6,374 Strava entries and the fact that it’s been used in World Tour races I thought this nice 1.32km ramp with an average gradient of 2.5% might be a nice climb to have a go at. I did a 2 minute effort on this climb today (with unfavourable wind conditions) and managed to squeeze out a little over 500W for this period. The KOM is 1:53 and it’s a high speed climb with an average of around 42kph. 

The segment in question, which I had a little bit of a go at already but without much prior planning and stopping before the end. The question is what to do in order to take the KOM…

How does the segment break down?

The gradient is pretty steady but after 450m there’s a steeper pitch and another at 600m. This is where we have to go extra hard in order to retain the speed in the effort. Checking with a myWindsock forecast pacing this section harder can save us a couple of seconds but aerodynamics is important and standing up out the saddle and just stomping should be avoided here.
Here we have the gradient as a function of time for a KOM effort. You can see the steep increase around the middle which maps to the “where power matters most” plot. That said, the gradient instantaneously peaks just under 7% so it’s not a steep climb and the steep section in the middle should be viewed as an exercise in “speed maintenance” rather than the top. One thing that’s vital if I’m going to get the KOM here is that I’ll need to hit that section at around 45kph to stand a chance.

The required wImpact and setting up a segment Windsock

Through the research required to write this, it’s become clear to me that I need some wind assistance. On a neutral day I’m barely cracking the 2 minute barrier for this segment but myWindsock has me covered so I’ve set up a segment windsock. If you want to learn how to do this, check out our guide here. I’ve set the sensitivity to high, as it seems the prevailing wind direction on that hill is headwind so any opportunity I’ll want to be aware of.

Even with a pretty generous power target and a wImpact of -3.4% I’m in trouble here. I’ll need a lead-out…

It seems the chances of my Belgian KOM are low, keep your eye on the myWindsock socials and blog for an update when I’ve had a couple of attempts at the segment.

To snipe some Strava segments of your own – check out myWindsock and sign up here.