Originally Posted by
Campag4life
I understand. Point I was trying to make is I believe for myself...and maybe this falls under the umbrella of average versus good cyclists...the biggest deficit to achieve good status is lack of miles...can't get good without base miles. No question that quality of miles matters alot and perhaps trumps mileage ultimately as you say.
I had such a conversation with an old CAT 1 buddy of mine I caught out at the park doing intervals on his TT bike. I asked him...I said...you and I are about the same size...same musculature...and yet you are faster. We go back aways and I have ridden with him a fair amount. He said, he could make me as fast as him in 1 season. As you say...it would take a dedicated training regiment. He rides BIG AND structured miles.
I am not sure I would ultimately be quite as fast as him but I do believe him that the gap would shrink. Aside from natural talent, he is very driven in his training and as much as I like to ride hard and fast, I believe the biggest difference between us is his singular focus to train, compete and win races. In fact, perhaps biggest difference between good and average, is the natural drive to train and ride hard. I like what Eddy Merckx said about himself...what is it about you Eddy? Why are you so fast? If you look at old pictures of Eddy, he looked fairly unremarkable in musculature. He said, 'his ability to suffer'. I believe that is likely a big part of it.
Big hint: I've found that the majority of young speesters, like Cat1 guys or running equivalent, think they can get 'anyone' to their ability through sheer work. It's not true, though. Yes, he'd likely get you a lot faster, and that would be awesome on its own, but make no mistake, you can't be Cat1 with joe-average genetics. The guys on my HS and x-country team kept telling me they could make me as fast as they were with a season of training, just by HTFU with them. I did all my speedwork with these 3 guys who were my 'coaches' and did all the gutbusting workouts they recommended. I got better yes, but I was still an order of magnitude off their ability. They were horrified, but I actually think I've got slightly better genetics than the joe-average person on the street. Don't mistake what young speedsters say as truth - experienced coaches who have worked with both types of groups (slow and fast) can give you a much better gauge of ptoential.