A few days ago when 2019 Tour de France winner Egan Bernal posted his power data for his ascent of the Col du Galibier on stage 4 of the Tour de France two things struck home immediately: His 'numbers' were better than when he won the Tour de France on that climb back in 2019 and, while very much in the upper echelons of finishers that day - the 27-year-old Colombian came home 13th on the same time as Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) and Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease A Bike) - he was still at some distance from the absolute best.
Bernal has continued to produce similar results and performances at the 2024 Tour de France since then. Finishing 36th in the stage 7 time trial, in the main bunch of GC favourites in the gravel stage at Troyes, and 4:39 down in the Lioran stage - the three most challenging stages since then - Bernal is currently 15th in the Tour de France GC standings at 10:18.
The Pyrenees, as for everybody else, will provide an even clearer picture of his current form. In Bernal's case, what is at stake is his progress in coming back from his life-threatening crash of 2022, but there's also a more immediate comparison to be made with his Tour de France of 2023.
While the race route renders a straightforward contrast difficult - after 12 stages in 2023, the Pyrenees were already in the Tour's rearview mirror, rather than about to be tackled as in 2024 - but the difference between the Bernal of 12 months ago, already nearly 40 minutes down in GC, and this year is notable.
Ineos Grenadiers head coach Xabier Artetxe feels Bernal's progress has taken "a great leap forward" since July 2023. While Bernal's Strava data from the Col du Galibier shows more room for improvement, he's confident that physiologically Bernal will continue to close in on his optimal pre-crash condition. In some areas, as the data suggests - although there are other variables to bear in mind - the Colombian is already ahead in the game.
"What we are seeing is that he's getting back to the 'numbers' [power output data] he had from when before he crashed. But there are two things: firstly, even if he is coming back to that level - and he's getting close to it and sometimes is even better than he was in some areas - since 2019 or 2020 cycling has evolved as well."
"So in order to win, he has to do better than he was compared to back then - and we're currently moving along that road."
"In the specific case of the Galibier you have to understand the context, too. When the Tour went over that climb last week it was stage 4 and in 2019, when he made a big difference on that climb, that was stage 18. Five years ago, we had done a lot of racing in the Tour already, so the level of general fatigue was much greater and the speeds weren't so high, maybe, either.
"But even so we're really happy with how he's doing: from 2023 to 2024 he's taken a really big leap forward, and we think that Egan hasn't hit his highest level yet, either. He can still get even better."
According to Artetxe, the most notable spike in Bernal's progress started outside racing, during training last winter and it's this season that he has been reaping the benefits. Third overall in the rain-lashed, hilly O Gran Camiño in February behind Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease A Bike) and Lenny Martínez (Groupama-FDJ), his first podium finish in a stage race since 2022, was followed with third in the Volta a Catalunya, Bernal's first WorldTour podium since winning the Giro d'Italia in 2021.
What happened? "The big difference came late in 2023," Artetxe says. "The plan then was that while he was improving enormously overall, when it came to muscular development his organism still wasn't developing so well. It wasn't ready to make that corresponding step.
"But despite that, we still gave him a big block of work to tackle last season, and he raced more than 80 days in 2023, trying to improve in the mid-to-long term. He did a lot of WorldTour races, too, he did the Tour and then he did the Vuelta and although he wasn't at his best level, and although people could be thinking he was overly tired, that was actually what we wanted.
"We wanted his body to adapt to WorldTour cycling. And we knew the period of rest after the Vuelta a España was going to be really important, to allow his muscles to recover and adapt and improve."
The outcome of that big increase in race days and then a long spell of recovery, Artetxe said was a corresponding spike in his 'numbers.' In November and December of 2023, when he started training again for the new season, Bernal's power output data "was really different."
While Ineos Grenadiers were quietly very optimistic about what Bernal could now achieve, as Artetxe says, the real test was always going to be in racing. But there, too, the results confirmed what they already suspected: Bernal was moving much faster on the comeback trail than before.
Albeit without an actual win to date, strong performances in the Colombian Nationals - third overall - and the Tour Colombia - fifth - were followed by a third place overall in O Gran Camiño and seventh overall in Paris-Nice. But as Artetxe says, his third place in the Volta a Catalunya provided a really significant sense of how far Bernal had progressed.
"It's a WorldTour race, it's very mountainous and above all he was fighting against all kinds of top names for the podium, from Mikel Landa to Enric Mas to Tadej Pogačar" - who won the event outright - "and that is what really tells you where he's at. Above all in stages 5,6, and 7, he was at a really high level and that was a confirmation of what we'd seen in those earlier weeks and previous weeks."
An almost equally encouraging fourth overall in the Tour de Suisse behind Adam Yates, João Almeida and an all-powerful UAE Team Emirates has been followed by a return to the Tour de France. So after his quiet progress here in July, the million-dollar question for the future is now whether Bernal will or won't do the Vuelta a Espana, and what he can achieve there.
"We're going to wait and see how he finishes the Tour, we don't want to burn him out," Artetxe says. "But if he finishes the Tour looking good on GC, and above all knowing that he can recover well, then the Vuelta is an option that remains on the table - and very much so."
"It's probably the number 1 option for him, right now, after the Tour so if all goes well he'll do it. He's a Grand Tour rider, great recovery and we're in a period of improvement, we've taken a great leap forward very important. And although he's still lacking something to close the gap between the good riders - where he's at now - and the really good, let's see if little by little, we can do that."
