Motorbike Magic (and Math)

I love a breakaway win. I really do.
Four guys rolling away on a flat Giro stage, everyone in the peloton thinking “yeah, yeah, we’ll catch them later”, and then suddenly later becomes too late. Beautiful. Proper cyclismo.

Today in Milan: Fredrik Dversnes, Mirco Maestri, Martin Marcellusi and Mattia Bais somehow stayed ahead of the entire peloton. Fantastic, but also: what the fuck.

The official stage average was already 51.063 km/h, apparently the second-fastest Giro road stage ever. And in the twisty(!) Milan laps, the break was still doing absolutely stupid numbers. I checked Dversnes’ Strava file (I wish he would be on Grassdune, maybe later, Fredrik 😉). Around 52 km/h over the last 70 km on the local circuit, and roughly 53 km/h for the final lap.
That is not “nice breakaway tempo”.
That is team time trial territory.
For context: I checked modern Vuelta TTTs from 2002 to 2025. The winning teams averaged 54.254 km/h across 17 TTTs. The last five averaged 53.977 km/h, must be said that includes the rainy Barcelona one.

So yes, today four guys on road bikes, in stage 15 of a Grand Tour, after already racing most of a stage, were riding very close to what recent Vuelta team time trial winners have done on TT bikes.
That must at least raise an eyebrow.

Then the aero math.
At 53 km/h, a very tucked road-bike position, say CdA 0.22, needs roughly:
- 420 watts just to push air
- 45 watts rolling resistance
- around 480 watts at the pedals after drivetrain losses
If your CdA is very good, say 0.20, it is still around 440 watts. If it is 0.25, you are closer to 540 watts.
Of course, they were rotating. But still, I find it hard to believe there was someone on the front doing 450-500 watts all the time. Let alone if you also need to compensate for braking and accelerating out of corners.

When four riders are doing TTT-speed deep into a flat Giro stage and the whole peloton cannot bring them back, it is not insane that people start looking at the motorbikes.
“Dversnes had the best answer afterwards: “The only motorbikes in the race were the guys in the breakaway.””

Does that mean the break did not deserve it?
No.
They rode like absolute machines. The peloton couldn’t close it, and yes, they probably had some motorbike benefit too. Sprint teams gambled and lost. I am fully here for that.
But the numbers do make the “motorbike rumours” a lot easier to understand.
Because if four guys ride like a stage-winning TTT squad, there are basically three options:
They were ridiculously strong.
The peloton underestimated the Milan circuit.
The motos helped more than they should.

Let’s say it was some combination of all three.