Tadej Pogacar shares interesting detail about Col du Galibier attack at Tour de France: "I wanted to go earlier on the climb"

Tadej Pogacar is deep into the off-season, and whilst in the UAE he attended several events sponsored by MyWoosh. This included a podcast appearance where he talked in more extend regarding a few interesting topics, one of them being how he won time on Jonas Vingegaard at the Tour de France's first mountain stage.

In conversation with the 'Inside the Ride' podcast, Pogacar provides insight into the first mountain stage of this year's Tour de France where UAE Team Emirates worked hard with all it's climbers to set up an attack from the Slovenian. It was a day marked by Juan Ayuso's positioning in the GC group, and the extended commentary that surged from those events.

"My original plan, I wanted to go earlier on the climb but then I attacked only 1 kilometer from the top so the gaps were not as big as I hoped. Even to get a 10 or 20 second gap I knew I had to go all out, but for everyone is the same," he says. He gained only a few seconds on Jonas Vingegaard there, but going downhill he extended it tenfold. "Everyone has to go all out, the more you're tired the slower you go on the descent - Maybe you don't have the same capabilities of taking the good lines, you don't see clear well if you're super tired".

Pogacar proved to be an excellent descender, another big skill in his list of world-class on-the-bike attributes. He went on to win the Tour de France, climbing at a level above the rest. He benefits from a full-time availability to train towards his very best performance, but he also provided insight into how to improve for those who do not have the same benefit.

The podcast hosts asked the Slovenian how he would advise a rider who has three to five hours of training per week. His response was interesting: "For sure I would split those hours into three or four days of training and I would keep short intensities, but really high - maybe some explosive stuff, some VO2 max, because if you don't have a lot of time this is how you can gain as much as possible"

"Next day you recover, second day you go again, and maybe to spice things up I would sometimes here and there I would go for some challenge like FTP test or something just to keep it fun".