The Étape du Tour is a Tour de France stage on closed roads, ridden by amateurs the day before the pros. Distance varies by edition — typically 130-180km — but the climbing is always the deciding factor: 3,500-5,000m of vertical, often on hors-catégorie cols. The math of cumulative vertical is what destroys amateurs without enough FTP. Two consecutive 1,500m climbs at 3.0 W/kg is a fundamentally different physiological problem than one isolated climb of the same height.
The honest target ranges. Below 3.0 W/kg and the time cuts become a real risk. 3.0-3.2 W/kg gets you across the line in survival mode — heart rate pinned, pacing knife-edge, no margin if anything goes wrong. 3.5 W/kg is the practical floor for a comfortable finish where you can ride the descents safely and the back third doesn't become a grind. 4.0+ W/kg is where you're riding the event, not enduring it — strong on the final climb, in groups on the flats, finishing inside the top quarter of the field.
Why durability matters more than fresh FTP at this distance. On the podcast, Dan Lorang has detailed how the World Tour now treats fatigue resistance — your power three to four hours into a hard ride — as the primary differentiator at the elite level. The same logic scales perfectly to the Étape. A 3.5 W/kg rider whose power holds at 90% three hours in will outride a 3.7 W/kg rider whose power collapses to 75%. Long zone 2 plus sweet spot at the back end of long rides is the durability protocol.
The realistic project for an amateur. Closing the gap from 3.0 W/kg to 3.5 W/kg is 9-18 months of structured training for most amateurs — and the pace slows the closer you get to 4.0 W/kg. If you're entering the Étape this year and your FTP is honest at 3.0 W/kg, the right move is to register and treat this year as reconnaissance, then target 3.5 W/kg for next year with an 18-month structured build. The W/kg calculator gives you the bands; the FTP timeline article on the site tells you what's realistic.