I have managed to finish a couple on “easier” days, but I can not finish in the front group on a regular basis. The guy I took the power from is 7 kg heavier than me (80 kg vs 87kg), I agree he is a kind of big powerful guy.
The course has 2 very different parts, the first part is slightly rolling but mostly flat and is easy to skip a pull and recover (no one is really mean that would not allow this in this group).
The second part starts with a 4 minute drag at 2% which is done at high speed, I can usually hang on here still but can put me on the red.
But then a series of short 1 minute 5% climbs start, in particular 3 to 5 if I remember correctly, this are climbed at 500 watts and then require to fall back into close to threshold, maybe I can do one, but many times I drop. And in this efforts there is no hiding.
Granted if I lost weight it would make my life much easier as indeed my power gains are slow at the moment…
For reference data from my buddy:
Strava segment of the full course and its 2 parts:
Example of surge (and this day I believe it was not the most aggressive, I’ve seen even 530 watts)
This is my data; this day I dropped just at the beginning of the second part as I left a gap and I was too cooked to close it):
