Originally Posted by
Fat Boy
I've thought that if you want to find good potential cyclist, you should look at high school running. Cross-country stuff for more of a climber and a 400-800 track runner for crit type stuff. If you find someone that is killing it in either one of those 2 disciplines, then they've got the correct makeup for a bike racer. Now the question of whether they want to do it is a completely different matter.
I agree.
I think the big hurdle is to get these kids on a bike for the testing and have some empirical evidence as British Cycling did in their tests. Like actually going to HS track teams and putting them on bikes (or WattBikes) one day.
My personal story, in 2009 I started racing track for fun. I was grossly overweight (BF% was probably 30+ percent). The first sprint night I hung tight with a slower CAT-B racer. During the recap, the race director asked me what gear I was running, I said "I don't know...48/16." (a warmup gear) and was impressed by my legspeed as an untrained, out of shape, fat racer. So, that was effectively my "Talent ID" moment...at age 35. I've been relatively successful since then (emphasis on the "relatively").