Professional Cycling - Can you believe the speed?

I really enjoy biking and ride just enough to appreciate, and be amazed by, the speed of these riders in the Tour. Averaging 30+ mph just blows me away. I'd have to be going downhill for 50 miles in order to average even 25 mph!!!

Seriously, I think anybody who has not ridden with a bicycle computer and developed an appreciation for what it takes to cruise at 20mph or 30mph is not seeing the Tour riders realistically. I know that even I must remind myself how fast these guys are riding. Often, the camera angles and their pedaling cadence makes it appear they are just pedaling along on a casual Sunday ride at about the speed any average rider would ride.

I know in the past when I was less aware of this, that my impression was that I could ride with them; I just wouldn't be able to stay up with them for the long distances they ride. Now that I understand more about how fast 30mph is, I know that I couldn't even ride a mile with them, and wouldn't even care to try, for that matter.

Am I anywhere close to the mark here? Don't you agree that a lot of viewers just don't appreciate how hard it is to reach even their slowest pace?

Part of the "problem" is that they make it look really easy. Also, bike speeds are hard to judge for your average person. The result is that it looks like these guys are out for a nice Sunday morning stroll, when in reality they're hammering along at 29 mph.

The worst thing is that don't just do it for a day, they manage to keep up incredible speeds (depending on terrain) for 3 weeks :( I wonder if they are really human

I was thinking the same thing yesterday morning. I went out before work and did my hilly 40k solo in my fastest average of the year, 30kmh. :rolleyes:

I was pretty damn proud of myself, but quickly remembered that is was far cry from the 57+kmh they averaged in their ITT at the TdF. :eek:
f

I was watching the 4-man break last night on OLN. They were showing the one rider who was out in front, and he was standing and looking back, waiting for the other 3 to catch him. Then he'd look forward and pound out a few dozen strokes, then pause and look back.

Then the camera man zoomed in on his drivetrain as they faded out for a commercial. He was on the 53 in front and the 3rd cog from the smallest on the back. 53x14? (maybe even 53x13) And I think he was riding up a slight incline. :eek:

Heck, I think I use a 53x14 twice a ride, and it's usually on a -6% downhill grade. I can't even imagine riding a 53x14 for that long on a ride. Sheesh.

Well it can't be that difficult. According to this thread, its a walk in the park to get a BMX bike up to 40 mph!

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=118531

It just shows you how easily these guys can quickly turn over the big gear ratios for 6 hours in a day. It's amazing.

Yea the Prologue was just short of 35mph for 12 miles. My commute is 12.5 miles, I just about puke if I can stay at 19-20. I'll give them (generously) 3 mph for super-aero suits and kick-butt bikes, but those next 13mph, ouch. Superhuman. And OP is right on, you need a computer to understand what those boys accomplish.

The only way to pull it off....doping.



KIDDING!

These guys are amazing....super athletes that most people outside of the sport have no idea about.

I'll take any one of these guys over a pudgy, overpayed baseball player any day.

Now that I understand more about how fast 30mph is, I know that I couldn't even ride a mile with them, and wouldn't even care to try, for that matter.

You would probably be suprised at how little effort is required to ride 30mph in the middle of a pack with 50 riders in front of you, 10 or 15 riders wide and drafting as close as they do. As long as you can ride a steady line, you could probably keep up for a while. The problem comes when there are accelerations or gradients.

You might have a good point there, zero. Riding in a group is something I've never done, so I have no appreciation for the degree to which drafting assists a rider, other than what I"ve read or heard from the discussions on OLN's coverage.

Am I anywhere close to the mark here? Don't you agree that a lot of viewers just don't appreciate how hard it is to reach even their slowest pace?

Yeah, spot on. I think about it occasionally when I'll hit 25-26mph on a flat for a short time, and just chuckle to myself about how it's significantly slower than the pros go for HOURS at a time.

Drafting, as mentioned, is certainly a major factor, but the fact remains that these people devote their lives (up until retirement, anyway) to doing this, and it is truly astonishing when you're confronted by the reality of it all.

The only way to pull it off....doping.



KIDDING!

These guys are amazing....super athletes that most people outside of the sport have no idea about.

I'll take any one of these guys over a pudgy, overpayed baseball player any day.

All right, Greg.
;)

I don't know what to say about them except that they are animals on the bike. They really do make it look like they're just rolling along like it's no big deal, though.

Koffee

Yesterday as the peleton was going through the feed zone, one of the commentators said something like "They've backed off - they're only going about 25mph now." I turned to my wife and said "I can go that fast - for about 5 minutes. They're doing it while they fiddle around with their food bags and drink a coke!"

We have a local kid that raced in Europe, he's around 26 now, rode the equivilent of a farm team. First time I saw him spin I could tell there was something special about him, he just 'had it'. I use the analogy of watching a herd of horses run, they are all going the same speed but that one...wow, watching him was like that. And to think, he was a 'b' rider WOW.

Someone mentioned that it's not all that hard to draft at 30, no its not, but you have to accelerate after every corner, catch up after every water bottle run, recover and do it again, and again....

All right, Greg.
;)

I don't know what to say about them except that they are animals on the bike. They really do make it look like they're just rolling along like it's no big deal, though.

Koffee



All right, Greg.

Hey, wanna go turkey huntin'?

Old adage goes, if you cant ride at 30mph solo and still talk, you arent ready for the pro's.It doesnt get any easier, you just go faster applies too.

After riding for a living for the last 4+ years Ive learned that its nothing more than lots of practice and hard work, most folks just arent willing to go thru the suffering and effort to get that far.

Considering that there is probably 1 billion people in the world that know about cycling and like it, you're only gonna get the freaks of nature in the tour. And there are different levels of freaks (Lance all the way down to Jan [just kidding!...sorta].) These guys not only work super-ultra hard, they also have genetics. Damn that genetic lottery!!!

I just recently started riding and only have a few hundred miles under my belt so far, but was thinking about this today as I was riding. I was going downhill and topped out at about 30-32mph. I was even thinking that my computer must not be calibrated correctly, but it probably is. 35+mph for 100+ miles...unbelievable!

John K

Yea but they have had a tail wind for the entire race. I am SURE I could do 60 kph with a tail wind. :roflmao:

But seriously I think they may be being a bit overzelous, Lance's comments today seemed to say that when they hit the hills there were going to be a lot of riders getting dropped due to the pace they have been doing so far and the fatigue factor.

We have a nice downhill stretch - about 3 miles on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Rode it yesterday and averaged about 35 mph. Can not possibly imagine doing that on a flat road under my own power. It's just too fast to think about!

Suprisingly, 30mph isn't that hard to maintain in a well working paceline. We did it tonight, and it was a piece of cake. I even took a pair of 1km pulls at 28-30mph and pulled off the front before I got tired. We did the paceline for 15miles or so, until the group split up (some of us wanted to do hills :D). Now the thing that is freakish about the pros is that they can do that day after day after day after day, and 5-10mph faster.

What totally wigs me out is not so much the constant high speeds on the flatter stages, but these guys doing 3, 4, 5, 6 Cat. 4+ climbs, and doing it over several days. There, they don't have the aero advantage of a paceline - it's just churning the rings pushing that weight up the hills with no help.

How can they not completely blow up, pass out on the side of the road, and die?!! Even with all of the great nutrition and drinks...it's inhuman I tell ye.

It's so inhuman, it's almost penguin! :D

You are right ^^^ 30 MPH pacelines are no too much of a big deal, I have been in a few crits that averaged around 26 MPH and that is with 90 degree corners, but it was also for only 45 minutes. The owner of the LBS I go to (which used to be a very high ranked cat1, Raced in Redlands, etc) said that if you could not hang in a paceline at 35 MPH then you were not a true pro/cat1, and that most of the crits then averaged in the low 30's (29-31 averages) :eek: .

What truly makes there guys special is that they can do it day after day after day. 100 mile road race for a normal cat 1 is no huge stretch BUT to do it 22 times in 23 days is insane...

I hope one day I will compete in 1 or 2 100 mile road races in a week. Someday!

It's so inhuman, it's almost penguin! :D

In Eye-tai-yun, it would be "penguoni", no? LOL!

Truly Eric, "your a idiot". ;) :) :D

I'm the idiot? My name is spelled in my signature and you still got it wrong! :D

forgot where I read it but somebody mentioned that cycling is one of the few sports where you can never feel like a pro. A golfer might get a hole in one in his life and feel like tiger, bb player might have an on day and hit some rediculous shots, but no amateur cyclist will ever be riding and suddenlyeverything clicks and next thing they know they are riding like they're in the tdf.

I'm the idiot? My name is spelled in my signature and you still got it wrong! :D

Notice the spelling/grammar of "your a idiot". It was sort of a running joke on RBR's P.O. forum. ;)

Yeah those guys are wicked fast. I nearly threw myself a little party when I hit 24 mph on a flat stretch.

I average 18mph with cadence of 100-105 in windy shore road for an hour and that wasn't easy for me. My goal is to get to 23mph average in about 2 hours biking and it probably will take me this whole summer, then winter is coming and I have to lay off, then back to where I started. I don't know if I will ever make to 27-28mph, ever.

This is such a pain, cycling is not as easy as it look, and yet I agree those damn guys in TDF makes it looks like they're strolling in the park.

It's even more impressive when you consider that power required to ride at a certain speed doesn't go up linearly, but exponentially!
The difference in power required between 30 and 57 km/h (as in fore0121's post) is around five times (all other things being equal)!
In reality, they're more aerodynamic, have lighter bikes, and probably also weigh less than most people posting here, so the actual difference could be 3 times or so.
Still mighty!

Suprisingly, 30mph isn't that hard to maintain in a well working paceline. We did it tonight, and it was a piece of cake. I even took a pair of 1km pulls at 28-30mph and pulled off the front before I got tired. We did the paceline for 15miles or so, until the group split up (some of us wanted to do hills :D). Now the thing that is freakish about the pros is that they can do that day after day after day after day, and 5-10mph faster.

Tend to agree... have done some twin centurys and noticed how easy it was to cruise fast in some well formed pace lines...

But bottom line, the TDF guys hit hills and sprint finish over days and days... no matter how nice a pace line is, the overall race is a place for monster riders only.

PenguinDeD says that 30 mph isn't hard in a paceline.
Well, what would be equally easy for you out on your own?
Without that comparison, your statement is useless!
If you easily manage 25-26 mph on your own, then 30 isn't much faster, but still significantly so.
I personally don't have any, even recreational, racing ambitions, but averaging even 16-17 mph would be VERY hard work for me. In a tight formation, maybe that could be improved to 20 mph, but certainly not more!

True that. On the flats I can cruise pretty comfortably around 22-23mph. In late april when I couldn't average over the high teens, a 24-25mph paceline dropped me off in a race. And that was when my adrenaline was pumping.

So, pretty much a 6-7 mph gain from riding in a large group then, or around 30%.

I suppose some of the effect is also partly down to the fact that you're encouraged to keep up simply by riding with others. So maybe 1-2 mph are mental gains! :)

think of the breakouts. sometimes people alone keep the same pace as the main group. thats real impressiv.