patentcad

I'm 5'11" and got as low as 162lbs. this season after losing 46lbs. or so after 5 years of inactivity due to back issues. When I raced regularly for 10 years I was never lower than 165lbs. - and as a 35+ vets racer I was never great, but good enough to garner top 10 finishes and a few top 5 results in some races. Lance is mainly listed as 5'11" 165 lbs - but some accounts put his body weight as low as 150lbs. This is my take on that discussion:

Like everyone else who rides quite a bit, I think Lance's body weight is subject to a fair amount of fluctuation - and there's no way he wouldn't be several pounds lighter after three weeks of the Tour de France. Look at Lance on the podium in Paris each year - he LOOKS thinner than he does at the start. Why wouldn't he? Does anyone here really think you can burn 6000-9000 calories daily and actually eat enough to not lose weight riding that much? I'm an amateur cyclist/racer and I pretty much can guarantee you that a 300+ mile week of training will lower my body weight 1+ lbs. More if I'm trying to lose weight. A 750 mile week of RACING? Over the biggest climbs in Europe? For 20-35 year old men with faster metabolisms than my 48 year old system? Forget it boys. They're not going to maintain the same weight. Not a chance.

My guess is the truth lies somewhere in between: That Lance would start his year @ 165-170lbs. and by the end of the Tour de France be 10-15 lbs. lighter. Of course his team would NEVER admit to such a state of affairs since in cycling the obsession with rider weight is insane, and they just want everyone to get the impression Lance stays at one 'fighting weight' all season long. I seriously doubt that's possible in a sport like cycling. Most of the amateur cyclists/racers I know lose a minimum of 5lbs. from early season to mid season, and 10+ lbs. is more typical.

Rider weight is probably a guarded secret like the nuclear missle launch codes. What the opposition doesn't know can't hurt YOU...

SF Biker

I think the guarded secret is out. I bet Rasmussen weighed about a buck-twenty soaking wet.

patentcad

I think that 120lbs. included his 14.95 lb. racing bike. That is the scariest bike race photo I've ever seen...

thewalrus

It's probably possible if you eat extremely fatty things, but it'll cause a bit of digestive distress the next day... Riders in the tour have to be able to get on their bike the next morning for 21 days. More realistic to consume without trouble would be 5000 calories a day, i'm guessing.

I have done fast-paced metric centuries on hot days in summer, despite eating a huge dinner I ended up a pound and a half lighter the next day. And that's less than half the distance, plus a lot slower than a 225km cat1 race.

SF Biker

I have seen several clips where the TDF riders didn't feel like eating at dinner. The coach made them eat a certain amount of eggs for breakfast and pasta for dinner. After that they could eat what they wanted to. A majority of weight loss for a one day ride (like most mortals doing a century) is from dehydration. One of the side effects of dehydration is loss of appetite. For the TDF riders they are losing all of their fat and some muscle I am sure as their body is taking a beating day in and day out.

patentcad

Another aspect to cycling/eating is that cycling is a tough aerobic sport. I don't feel like eating a huge meal after riding all the time - nor would I want to feel weighed down the next day from such food consumption - particularly if I was facing a 100+ mile ride over 3-5 big mountain climbs. Are you kidding? I'm sure these guys have to really be pushed to eat - and then it's questionable if they can possibly eat enough to maintain body weight.

Of course they can't. That's ridiculous. I'll bet an average Tour rider is going fantastic if he can lose LESS than 5lbs. over that 3 weeks.

daytonian

Lance has always looked closer to 5'9 or 5'10 to me. Listed heights are bs and if you look at pics of he and Sheryl Crow he like 3 inches taller and she isn't 5'8.
I was watching some 05 OLN tour footage today and thought he looked a bit heavier this year than in 04. I think training for monthsis the big reason their bodies aren't shocked when the miles and climbs start pilling up.

thewalrus

Using trek madone frame geometry, he rides a 56 or a 58. some stage bikes have been 56 (final stage into paris this year), others have been 58. I don't think many 5'9 riders fit on a non-sloping top tube 58cm bike...

HolyInstantRice

Lance supposedly has some pretty long legs, so maybe it's a 58 cm?

I'm not familiar with geometry, but that's all I know.

roadgator

ive always heard him listed at 5'9" with an "ideal" starting weight for the tour at 170lbs which most certainly drops to at least 165 if not 160 after teh tour.

they all gota be loosing 5-10+lbs in the grand tours.

DannoXYZ 

Yes, you're right, Lance's weight does drop. He actually has to fight to keep it up. Heard from my ex-coach, who holds a couple of World amateur records in velodrome events, that Lance actually does regular intense gym/weight workouts just to rebuild the muscle that gets burned up on his training regimen. That's because there's no way to avoid it even with eating as much as possible, the food just can't be digested as fast as the calories/hr he's burning up. Especially if you have no time to rest and rebuild, like during Le Tour. If you make an assumption of a high-average digestion and absorption rate of 6000 calories a day, and they're burning up 6000-9000 calories/day, say 7500 average. Where's that 1500 calorie deficit coming from? It's gotta be from the fats and muscle on the body. So over 20-days, that's 10lbs! So if he started Le Tour at 165 "official" weight, he'd be no more than 155lbs on the podium, perhaps even less!

Personally for me, I know that by the end of the season in the fall, my strength is down to only about 50-60% of what it was at the beginning of the season. Most likely through muscle atrophy from getting digested for energy. So I always end up having to take some time off and do strength workouts in the gym over the winter to just to get back to even. I usually try to add a little big more strength compared to last season, as long as I don't gain too much weight from it.

Sincitycycler

I just read today in some cycling rag at Barnes and Noble's that Lance has long femurs for his height and rides 58cm, which is big bike for a guy of his stature.

patentcad

>>Personally for me, I know that by the end of the season in the fall, my strength is down to only about 50-60% of what it was at the beginning of the season. Most likely through muscle atrophy from getting digested for energy<<

I'm not sure I get this. I may be a bit tired in the Fall, but to say that my strength is down 50% after riding 6000+ miles in a season - that's bizarre. I'm STRONGER by Sept./October than I am in May. Thinner perhaps, but always riding better. Why wouldn't I be after all that riding/training? And if you're not, you'd have to examine how you're training/eating I suppose.

As for Lance being 5'9" - not a chance. Not on a 56cm frame (and as some point out it might be a 58cm frame). In fact I'm 5'11" (like Lance) and ride a 56cm frame and I have very long legs for somebody my height - 33-34" inseam, more typical of somebody 6'1"+. So if Lance is on a 56-58cm Trek the odds of him being under 5'11" are like zero.

90% of the serious cyclists I know are thin compared to average people. I don't know how you can ride 200-300 miles+ weekly and NOT get thin. Too much of a calorie furnace. I could manage it - but I'd have to work at it. And why would I do that? Being thin helps me ride/climb better. Is it a challenge to maintain strength when I get real thin from July through October? Sometimes. But not nearly as challenging as trying to climb hills carrying 10-20lbs of extra weight.

hairyleg

I'm 5'11 with serious arms and normal legs---I rode a 60cm for a while, till I broke it. 60 was too big, really, but not way too big. 58 would have been good, probably. I just bought a 56, and I hope it fits-I'll put a big stem on it.
I had always hoped Armstrong was what they said he was---5'11, 162.5lbs. That's me exactly. Almost.

froze

That may be a scary photo...but that's the way I looked when I raced! By the way, I'm 6' tall and now weigh 160 (just over 50), and when I raced I was 155...so let your imagination run wild as too how I looked without a shirt on and images of Rasmussen will appear!!!!!! Gee with a body like that no wonder the girls came running to me...NOT!

EURO

I don't see what's scary about that Rasmussen shot. That's what other endurance athetes look like.

55/Rad

It's also what a lot of Holocaust survivors looked like.

55/Rad

SpongeDad

Consistent with the above, Michael Carmichael discusses food issues on the Tour in "The Lance Armstrong Performance Program" and wrote that "[d]espite eating 7000 daily, Tour riders lose weight and muscle mass, especially from their upper bodies." (pages 120-122)

Interestingly, he says that by the end, the riders are eating pureed foods and avoid raw vegetables (too hard to digest / absorb). That's right, three weeks in France and you're eating baby food by the end.

SpongeDad

I'm 5'7" with a 31.5 inch inseam. Ride a 54cm Trek. That's about as big as I could go, but I could see someone who was 5'9" on a 56cm. Make him 5'10" with even longer legs and I could see him on a 58cm.

Anyway, my guess is that they're not using standard criteria on LA anyway and not worrying very much about whether he can standover the TT with a lot clearance. Who knows, maybe they were just going for a slightly longer wheelbase with the 58cm frame (+.7cm) or more stretched out TT (+1cm).

EURO

The lucky ones who only been interned for a couple of weeks, maybe. But I think that (often repeated) phrase is extremely insensitive to those people who suffered under the Nazis. Rasmussen is a supremely fit and strong professional athlete at the peak of his game, able to ride a bike for hundreds of miles a day, for weeks on end. People coming out of camps like Belsen and Krakow could barely hold their own weight.

{{{Edit, photos removed, innapropriate}}}

Just because rich westerners are, by a large proportion dangerously overweight, it does not mean that everyone who is on the lower scale of body weight can be compared (without a second thought) to people who have been subjected to a starvation diet for years on end.

That photo of Rasmussen is also rather exaggerated, because the angle and his body position makes him look skinnier than he is.

Does this look like a holocaust survivor?



Think about what you are talking about before you say it.

Jared88

Rasmussen is dangerously overweight compared to me.

jbhowat

Euro, you're right. But I'm pretty sure you'll also violating the rules pretty blatantly by posting full-frontal nudity of both males and females. In fact, I'd find those pictures degrading to all Holocaust survivors. It pretty low for a site to be publishing pictures like that. I would have no problem if they had some kind of coverage on (so you could still see how horrible their condition is), but do you really think its right to be showing those women and men fully naked simply because they had no clothes. I'm sure that wasn't their choice. I think its kind of even more degrading and humiliating. Obviously at the time there wasn't much left emotionally in many of them to be degraded, but leave them their dignity. Christ. I don't know what I'm getting at. Take it down or put a NWS link up at the least.

shiftinjon

It is an objective fact of the Holocaust that when the the liberating armies entered the death camps, the internees were exhibiting behaviors that would be considered deviant to normal society. A few of these behaviors were a complete lack of inhibition towards nudity and public defecation. Many prisoners would not wear clothes or use public facilities. They were in an advanced stage of despair. Of course it was humiliating but they were psychologically damaged and could care less. They were waiting for their turn to die.

Of course it is also completely tactless to mention the Holocaust without a sense of sadness and remorse, let alone compare superfit athletes to Holocaust victims. It is also inappropriate for someone to post pictures like that in response to said comments.

jbhowat

I've heard this fact. But that doesn't change my statement. They were mentally broken at the time. Anyone would be. I just don't think we need to go around NOW posting these people in such a weak moment in their mental states. I truly believe that people do need to see the effects of the Holocaust lest it be repeated or denied. However, there are other ways than showing people who were broken to the point that clothing and modesty meant nothing. Maybe in a history book at a university or something, but not on a bike forum.

EURO

I'm not gonna take down those images. As soon as somone mentions the holocaust in such a lighthearted manner, then as far as I'm concerned it's open season.