Creakyknees

Baseball fans are notorious for being stat-hounds, as are American football, basketball fans. Free throw %. Man left on base %. 3rd down conversions.

What stats do we track in cycling? Power and speed and time, sure.

But what about "solo breaks that succeed" and 2 vs 4 man break success rates, and "sprints won from 150m vs 400m jump" just for ideas.

Granted, road races are inconsistent; it's hard to compare L-B-L to the 9th flat stage of the '74 Vuelta. But still, there are so many races, that patterns emerge. How many insights are hidden in the data?

Anyone ever have a crack at this? As far as I know, as a long time fan, it all lives in tribal wisdom and Bruyneel's head.

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DrWJODonnell

Cycling stats

• Top Sprint Speed of the winner
• 40k TT time
• Watts/Kg
• Time up the Alpe d'Huez
• Hour record
• Hematocrit levels
• Bike weight
• FTP

I don't believe there is a stat for "Highest percentage of breakaway successes with the heat above 85 degrees and the humidity above 90%" or "Number of attacks by Jens Voight vs. the entire remaining pro peloton expressed as a ratio from year to year."

I once remember seeing that some mets pitcher had a 0.67 ERA in his career for night games that were foggy. ?? Did they really have that stat available?? Baseball goes a bit over the top if you ask me.

EventServices

Please never let cycling get bogged down with stats. They mean absolutely nothing, and they're as inane a conversation as I've ever heard. They only exist to give sports radio guys a chance to hear their own voice, which they LOVE.

Talk about palmares only. What have they WON? Where did they place?

In track racing, talk about their 200m times. End of stats conversation.

Don't even begin to make up new stats just for grins. That would be like buying bike stuff and calling it "Schwag": wrong.

substructure

+2 on this.
It's what sets cycling apart. Guys can talk, in the office, all day about the basketball stuff that's going on or baseball stuff and I can justifiably walk away.

MarkSch

I recall reading an article about Oscar Freire that listed his wins / racing days ratio per year over his career...I want to say it was approaching 0.25 for some years...not many races, but he sure wins his share...

ElJamoquio

I can figure out that stat quite easily.

The_Cretin

I thought that was the whole point of the biological passports.