Cycling thread

SerenityNigh · May 9, 2023

jazzy said:
The rumour is that the Liverpool FC medical team have been brought in to advise the UCI lol

Alberto Salazar can't work in Athletics any longer so maybe he's doing a side gig (although don't let him near the kids...)

SerenityNigh · May 9, 2023

Bruce Wayne said:
This is what I'm struggling with tbh, as during the Sky years, the times and general speed were down on what had gone before, and certainly on the EPO era, which would seem to be in line with the fact that it was somewhat cleaner.

Now, they're back up toward the speeds from the EPO era on the climbs, while the overall speed of the races is at record levels. It doesn't really seem feasible to me that training and equipment are "so" much faster than they were during the Wiggins/Froome era given that we're talking a huge leap in just a few years.

Surely they are on a new therapy that isn't understood/anticipated/detected by the testers (who themselves may be financially incentivized not to care) but at some point somebody will feel left out and Landis on the rest of the cheaters and we'll see a brief reset. The only real question I have is whether a team like EF is actually clean like they say or if the riders are defying their own team testing.

SerenityNigh · May 9, 2023

Bruce Wayne said:
I'm always a bit sceptical of claims made by bike manufacturers etc., but you "might" have a claim that equipment has progressed quite a bit since the Armstrong/Pantani days. I suppose my confusion with it all is that Froome and his generation were both a fair bit slower than both the EPO era and the current generation. Now the current crop seem to do extraordinary things in pretty much every race. It's certainly exciting to watch, but history suggests that cycle racing should be somewhat boring and won by small margins, with extraordinary performances usually driven by something else. Maybe this time really is different to all the other times.

In Athletics/T&F you still see people making substantial gains; not to contradict my previous comments but I think it's entirely feasible that there are real training gains on what was done even 30 years ago, much less the performance gains and nutritional insights.

If you look at the marathon record, Derek Clayton ran sub 2:10 in 1967, 2:08 was breached by Carlos Lopes in 1985, 2:05 wasn't broken until Paul Tergat did that in 2003. 2:03 was broken in 2014 then Eliud Kipchoge has run 2:01:09 officially and sub 2 in an unofficial test run (not race legal, with drafting pacers and special Nike shoes, etc). If you look at Kipchoge's progression he's run 2:05:00 or faster 13 times in official races (and 2:00.25 and 1:59:40 in unofficial tests). It's possible that Kipchoge is massively doping, but it's also very real that he's naturally faster at this distance than everyone who's come before and his training is more advanced than everyone before; this is evidenced largely because he's run 13 times in races faster than the WR just 20 years ago. Not saying Tadej and Roglic are the same, but it's not necessarily different.

Bruce Wayne · May 9, 2023

SerenityNigh said:
In Athletics/T&F you still see people making substantial gains; not to contradict my previous comments but I think it's entirely feasible that there are real training gains on what was done even 30 years ago, much less the performance gains and nutritional insights.

If you look at the marathon record, Derek Clayton ran sub 2:10 in 1967, 2:08 was breached by Carlos Lopes in 1985, 2:05 wasn't broken until Paul Tergat did that in 2003. 2:03 was broken in 2014 then Eliud Kipchoge has run 2:01:09 officially and sub 2 in an unofficial test run (not race legal, with drafting pacers and special Nike shoes, etc). If you look at Kipchoge's progression he's run 2:05:00 or faster 13 times in official races (and 2:00.25 and 1:59:40 in unofficial tests). It's possible that Kipchoge is massively doping, but it's also very real that he's naturally faster at this distance than everyone who's come before and his training is more advanced than everyone before; this is evidenced largely because he's run 13 times in races faster than the WR just 20 years ago. Not saying Tadej and Roglic are the same, but it's not necessarily different.

I'm not a runner but there were those new shoes weren't there that made a tangible difference to times? In cycling, while there is a whole lot of marketing fluff designed to part people from huge sums of money, I haven't seen too much tangible evidence that new bikes are significantly faster than those from a few years ago.

SerenityNigh · May 9, 2023

Bruce Wayne said:
I'm not a runner but there were those new shoes weren't there that made a tangible difference to times? In cycling, while there is a whole lot of marketing fluff designed to part people from huge sums of money, I haven't seen too much tangible evidence that new bikes are significantly faster than those from a few years ago.

There haven't been any substantial differences in shoes. There are some energy return shoes, but in general shoes are light and small and there's little room for any energy systems. And I'm less arguing for specifics than the general advances but my little experience on a bike suggests that small gains are largely multiplied and I suspect this is happening some in this instance. Obviously monster climbs are unreal but you also see the peloton riding insane speeds on the regular.

sbbefc · May 9, 2023

Bruce Wayne said:
I'm not a runner but there were those new shoes weren't there that made a tangible difference to times? In cycling, while there is a whole lot of marketing fluff designed to part people from huge sums of money, I haven't seen too much tangible evidence that new bikes are significantly faster than those from a few years ago.

I don't think there's much of a difference between the top-end bike of today and those of 10-15 years ago. I'd wager Pog would still win the tour on Frooms Pinarello.

Bikes of a decade ago are just as as light (there's a minimum weight anyway). In terms of aero dynamics, rim depths/wheels are pretty much the same, kit isn't too dissimilar and the positions riders take up on the bike are the same. Those are where the main aero gains are to be had.

I would say it's certainly negligible going up hill. Maybe some very minor aero gains on the flat.

SerenityNigh · May 9, 2023

"there haven't been any substantial differences in shoes" *for the marathon. general training shoes are always adapting but race shoes are "flats" and the best ones have added more stiffness to get some energy return but largely these are very very small/light. Nike claims Kipchoge's shoes can add a 4% boost (which is a lot over 26.2 miles) but I think the lab tested number and the real world number aren't likely to match. I suspect this is similar to Trek's seat post and Cervelo's stem aero changes, which obviously make aerodynamic gains but this obviously has less effect than the rider's own habits and technique (ie how much in the peloton, tuck, etc).

SerenityNigh · May 9, 2023

sbbefc said:
I don't think there's much of a difference between the top-end bike of today and those of 10-15 years ago. I'd wager Pog would still win the tour on Frooms Pinarello.

Bikes of a decade ago are just as as light (there's a minimum weight anyway). In terms of aero dynamics, rim depths/wheels are pretty much the same, kit isn't too dissimilar and the positions riders take up on the bike are the same. Those are where the main aero gains are to be had.

I would say it's certainly negligible going up hill. Maybe some very minor aero gains on the flat.

I don't know cycling well enough but going back to T&F, nearly every average runner can run the men's marathon WR pace, the problem is they can't handle it for the full time/distance. I suspect most riders* can attack a climb at the speeds top climbers maintain (with obvious variation due to differences in power), the question is how long they can handle that speed and can they do it after riding for 6 hours. Outside of certain women's records (largely set by East Germans or FloJo) every record in T&F in all disciplines continues to advance and it's not just because of PEDs.

*I mean professionals of course

Black Belt Jones · May 11, 2023

I went up Great Dun Fell this week - biggest road climb in the UK, and also the hardest according to this (very good) site:

Cycling climbs England

In England cyclists can find 1247 interesting climbs between 3 and 840 meters above sea level. Great Dun Fell from Knock is the toughest ascent with a difficult

climbfinder.com

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2ozD53k]

It's not actually hard because it's never properly steep, but it's very sizeable by UK standards - a 44 min effort for me, and a nice winding road that gives you different views. Very fast descent back off as it's basically a closed road (you could meet a telecommunications vehicle I guess), although my front wheel was catching the wind a bit too much so I went steady.