Just how big is "Big George" as Phil Ligget calls him?

[Sincitycycler]

As in Hincapie? Height and weight? How about Magnus Backstedt and Jenns Voight, who died in the mountains yesterday. I'm curious because i'm 6'2" and down to 198 lbs for 210 lbs and have dreams of being a better climber, but it seems that you have to weight no more the 150 lbs!

Clydesdales unite!

[kubla khan]

I think George is like 165. None of these guys are actually very big in terms of weight since they are all emaciated except maybe for that Magnus guy.

[jameyj]

http://www.letour.fr/2005/TDF/LIVE/us/1100/coureurs.html

83 kilos and 1.91 m (~182 lbs and ~6ft 3in)

[superdex]

George is 6'3", 185 lbs(http://www.georgehincapie.com/bio.php)

MAgnus is 6'4", 209 lbs

Jens is also 6'3", but he's down at like 165 if I remember correctly....

[JungleCat]

I think George is like 165. None of these guys are actually very big in terms of weight since they are all emaciated except maybe for that Magnus guy.

LOL! If George is in the emaciated category, where does that put Rasmussen? Guess I gotta re-read that "Corpse" post.

[jbhowat]

Yeah. The funny thing is I've had people strongly imply, if not flat out tell me that I'm too tall to be a good cyclist. I'm 6'2 165ish. The funny thing is, I beat their ass all over -but they apparently think one day they are going to get better and I'll be limited by my height. :rolleyes: I guess they don't realize I'm the same height as Indurain. There's actually quite a few big guys in the peloton.

[Dinstee]

I don't see how height would be a detriment to fast riding. Not at all. I'm always chasing my LBS owner on rides. He's pretty tall like you.

[Cranks]

[QUOTE=Sincitycycler]As in Hincapie? Height and weight? How about Magnus Backstedt and Jenns Voight, who died in the mountains yesterday. I'm curious because i'm 6'2" and down to 198 lbs for 210 lbs and have dreams of being a better climber, but it seems that you have to weight no more the 150 lbs! [QUOTE]
A better climber is one thing, but it is relative. Are you trying to match the Tour climbers, or do you just want to be better than you currently are?

In "Lance Armstrong's War" (a book by Daniel Coyle) he talks about the infamous Dr. Ferrari and his mad calculations. Stop me if you have read this, but for those who haven't it is interesting.

The Ferrari therory is based on how many watts you can sustainably output without reaching your lactate threshold (the point where your muscles hurt too much to continue at that rate). You then work out the ratio of your output in watts to your weight in kilograms. Dr. Ferrari says to win the Tour you have to approach 6.7 watts per kilo. If you weigh 198 lbs (89.811216 kg or roughly 90), you would need to output 603 watts. Lance averages 450-500. Daniel Coyle, a weekend warrior who rides an hour a day at lunch time three days a week, did a test and did 195 watts.

That would say losing weight would help you, but do you really want to spend your life training for the TdF? I think what amazes me most is the gulf between professional cyclists and the average person. And the gap between Lance and the average cyclist is cited at being only 2%.

[pedex]

Im about 2 inches taller than Armstrong and about his weight and size otherwise, my max power sustainable for an hour is 318watts, he has 150 watts on me.Some of that is training, some is hemacrit, im sure maybe 1-2% is genetics, dunno where the rest of it comes from.I ride for a living year round, my issues arent a lack of riding thats for sure.

One thing many dont understand about Armstrong though is although he has a high power to weight ratio and lots of sustained wattage, he has a crappy sprint, his short term peak power isnt all that high.Its a trade off just like anything else.

[Cranks]

True about the sprint. And it is pointed out, all the Discovery team riders are groomed to go very fast for a million miles, but not to be explosive. And that bears itself out, don't you think? Look at Valverde at the end of Stage 10.

318 - you're a monster, pedex!

[Guest]

Im about 2 inches taller than Armstrong and about his weight and size otherwise, my max power sustainable for an hour is 318watts, he has 150 watts on me.Some of that is training, some is hemacrit, im sure maybe 1-2% is genetics, dunno where the rest of it comes from.I ride for a living year round, my issues arent a lack of riding thats for sure.

One thing many dont understand about Armstrong though is although he has a high power to weight ratio and lots of sustained wattage, he has a crappy sprint, his short term peak power isnt all that high.Its a trade off just like anything else.

Well, you can either train so that you specialize in long, fast rides, or you can train to be a sprinter, where you just need to use explosive energy to sprint it out. Both use different energy systems to achieve success.

Koffee

[superdex]

You're speaking of fast twitch vs slow twitch fibers, right? I thought a person was genetically predisposed to favor a particular kind?

http://www.answers.com/topic/physical-strength

[pedex]

True about the sprint. And it is pointed out, all the Discovery team riders are groomed to go very fast for a million miles, but not to be explosive. And that bears itself out, don't you think? Look at Valverde at the end of Stage 10.

318 - you're a monster, pedex!

Ya,watching guys like Lance ride near guys like McEwen definitely shows the huge differences.At 30mph McEwen if he hasnt been riding at that pace for long still has alot left, around 12-15mph on a good day, Lance doesnt, thats all he's got, he mentions this in his first book, in a bunch sprint all he could do is sit there and watch and be helpless while the others rode away.Some of the sprinters arent that big, but they are heavily muscled, McEwen has huge arms for a little guy.

Ive seen lots of guys on hills sprint away from Armstrong, thing is they cant hold it, so he doesnt always have to chase them down, just pick up the pace enough to where he catches them anyway and then just rides away.The steeper the pitch the more evident it is, at 4% he can be beat easily, at 7%+ its almost impossible to get away from him for long.The little climber guys really start shining at 8-9% and up, unfortunately for them, very little of the stages are like that or they'd kill people.

Im not that strong, there's at least 2 messengers here that dust me with a quickness plus several rec riders.Age is catching up to me too, at 39 years old I definitely dont have the snap I used to even 4 yrs ago, or recovery, my legs feel pretty used up right now, at least its been a slow day today.

[Guest]

You're speaking of fast twitch vs slow twitch fibers, right? I thought a person was genetically predisposed to favor a particular kind?

http://www.answers.com/topic/physical-strength

People are genetically predisposed to favor fast twitch muscle fibers, but what they've found in the past few days is that it's not the end of the world if you don't have that genetic predisposition. You will have to train a lot harder, and work on getting your slow twitch muscle fibers to "act" like fast twitch muscle fibers- get the slow twitch muscle fibers to contract more forcefully. This can be done with a lot of training. With the different types of fast twitch muscle fiber, you can also get your Type II(a) fast twitch muscle to respond more explosively. This takes time and training, though.

There are other factors that affect a cyclist overall: how high is your lactate threshold, how high is your VO2 max, how long have you been training, max heart rate, etc. There's a lot more to it than simply having a genetic predisposition to fast twitch muscle fiber.

Koffee