The Ludicrous Power of Oier Lazkano

The Basque rider for Movistar is mashing some un-Godly watts this winter. He does not post all of his rides on Strava, but this week he did a session that absolutely blew my mind. I have never seen a professional cyclist push these numbers, let alone at his weight (similarly to what I wrote about De Lie, we have limited access to the very best riders’ training, so I may be off-base here in assuming that even a rider like Mathieu van der Poel would barely be able to do the session Lazkano did on Wednesday).

But let’s back up and get to know the man behind the pedals. Lazkano is 24 years old. He is the winner of six races in his career, but most famously he finished second in the 2023 Dwars door Vlaanderen after his morning breakaway was caught and Christophe Laporte soloed to victory.

It is extremely unusual for an early breakaway, once caught, to get a top result, especially in a brutal Classic like Dwars. His numbers from that race backed up the result and his unusual method for achieving it, but we will get to that too.

Lazkano is the Spanish national road race champion, and in my view, Movistar’s best shot at scoring a lot of UCI points in 2024, but more importantly, actually winning big races. He needs to ride a real program (including the Tour de France) and figure out how to peak properly for the biggest races.

So what exactly did Lazkano do in Dwars door Vlaanderen in order to finish second after his early breakaway was caught? Well, in short, he averaged 355 watts for 4 hours, 6 minutes, and 29 seconds (as with Jorgensen in E3, this number includes coasting, sitting in wheels, etc. If he really wanted to smash a high wattage for four hours, a cobbled classic would not be the best environment). That’s about the wattage I could have held for 8 minutes in my best form. Of course, Lazkano is significantly heavier than I was as a rider, but Dwars is not known for having the hardest climbs. It is a mini Ronde van Vlaanderen, but it is far “easier” in terms of route profile. So my lighter weight would not have been nearly (laughably not even in the same universe), enough to offset Lazkano’s massive engine on the flat and shallow climbs for even 20 minutes. We could dig into the power file far more, or we could just say that Lazkano is stronger than any rider I have ever seen who shares their power data.

But after skipping out on a Dwars power analysis, let’s go deep into the power file he shared Strava from a training ride on Wednesday, January 24th, which inspired this piece. Lazkano started his ride at 11:54 AM from his hometown of Vitoria-Gasteiz and headed north into some Basque mountains (this is misleading as Vitoria-Gasteiz is actually on a plateau, I digress). The total ride time was a hair over 4 hours with a distance of 77 miles, for an average speed of 18.9 miles per hour (just over 30 kilometers per hour). His average power was 230 watts and he burnt 3,588 kilojoules. But that does not tell the story of the ride at all. Lazkano cruised around for about 70 minutes at an average power of 234 watts, but that includes 5 sprints of 10ish seconds around 1,200-1,300 watts. Those are not peak sprint numbers for a tank like Lazkano, but more than enough to open up the legs for the main sets of the session.

As soon as he hit the first climb of the ride, he went utterly ballistic. He did not lap his bike computer, so I am gauging his effort based on the power line. Lazkano did 10×30-45 efforts with a minimal 15-20 second recovery. But this was not a true recovery; these were over/unders.

This is a workout in which the cyclist goes over his Functional Threshold Power for a time, then backs off to under it (but still in a higher zone than is comfortable enough to recover) then pushes again above threshold before repeating the cycle to complete one set. The intention of such a session is to increase the body’s ability to “buffer” lactate at reasonably high intensity. It also mimics the effort profile of a small group working together (sitting in wheels at a good power before pulling in front at a power that is probably slightly above FTP).

So what sort of wattage was Lazkano doing for his over/unders? His overs were between 620 and 700 watts, and his unders were mostly well over 300 watts, with the exception of a few he let the power drop a little bit more. His average power for the first set on the 10-minute climb? An absurd 525 watts. This makes me wonder what his peak 10-minute power is without oscillating his power so much. What on God’s Green Earth is Filippo Ganna, the biggest flat engine in the world, going to push for 10 minutes if Lazkano is doing this in training and gets crushed in time trials by the Italian? I am not so sure it would be much higher. Lazkano is that strong.

The Basque was not done with the session yet; in fact, he did two more sets, hitting 521 watts average for the second 10-minute set of over/unders then faded a bit to 499 for his third set, which lasted over 12 minutes. On the last rep he was averaging nearly 800 watts for the last 15-20 seconds, so he had a lot left in the tank.

Interestingly, he hit his maximum heart rate for the ride of 196 beats per minute at the end of the first set. According to his Strava heart rate zones, this is barely digging into his VO2 max (HR Z5) zone. But pro cyclists are so well aerobically trained that often heart rates don’t ever reach their projected/untrained maximum. Besides, if Lazkano is hanging around at threshold (Z4) at 520+ watts, he would have won every Monument last season. And let’s face it, he has no results in those races yet.

So of course I have considered the possibility that his power meter is simply over-reading, as INEOS Grenadiers’ famously do. But I actually consulted with a power data expert on Twitter and he believes that Lazkano’s power meter is accurate. I also plugged his effort on the climb into BikeCalculator.com, which has complex formulas for wattage, wind, gradient, speed, and weight. Using his alleged weight according to ProCyclingStats.com and his wattage on the climb (as well as the climb’s length, gradient, the bicycle’s assumed weight), and I reverse-engineered what his time *should* have been up the hill if his power meter was accurate. And I got almost the exact same result as his actual time for the first set of over/unders. So I have to believe this man is really as strong as it appears.

I have gotten a good amount of entertainment from following some professionals on Strava this off-season. As the big guns usually stop sharing their power data as they get more famous (Lazkano even posted a ride today on Strava, and I was devastated to see that he had hidden his power!) it is a privilege to see what some of the second-tier guys are capable of and predict what they can do in races in the future. The human body is simply amazing.

So what can be expected of Lazkano in 2024 and beyond? Well, he needs to switch teams. I know I say that a lot, but trying to ride Cobbled Classics at Movistar is a doomed mission. My argument is surely bolstered by the team screwing him out of a Tour selection last year! Lazkano should go to INEOS or something and be a leader on the cobbles. Even UAE – Team Emirates needs another strong guy for the cobbles for when Tadej Pogacar is focused on other goals like the Giro d’Italia.

I am unsure if the professional peloton is prepared for the watt-bombs that Lazkano is likely to drop on them in the Classics this upcoming season. My main worry is that he is peaking too early. But with his engine, if he keeps just the form he already has, he should enter Milano-Sanremo and De Ronde as a top favorite. Even Paris-Roubaix ought to be doable. The competition is of course fierce, and it is always hard to knock off MVDP and Wout van Aert, but Lazkano simply has the raw physical ability to do it.

In the Tour, he needs to hop into breakaways and he can do the job. I expect a stage win this year especially with no Wout or MVDP in the race.

After this year, we will see what he does. His contract at Movistar is up when the season ends, and I am sure the big teams will offer him a lot of money. Quick-Step might be a good option too, though they probably cannot pay him as much as UAE, INEOS, or Visma-Lease a Bike. It seems a 50/50 shot right now on whether he sticks with Movistar after this season. If he does, I hope they can provide him the support he needs to win Monuments and Grand Tour stages.

Lazkano is a fearsome talent who is currently flying under the radar. That will change if he wins MSR or something, but if I were a Visma or Alpecin-Deceuninck (MVDP’s squad) team director, I would be pretty worried right about now that their Cobbled season was going to be upended by the Oier Lazkano, a Basque rider for Movistar, of all permutations (Spaniards have not traditionally been good in Cobbled Classics). I doubt those team directors are analyzing rival riders’ training power files in January, but they should be! If anybody of importance in the cycling world is reading this, hire me! I will do it for you.

I’m only half-joking.

I’ll discuss Mathieu van der Poel’s 2024 campaign in my next post.

Ciao.

Jamie