Originally Posted by
Blue Belly
20 watts equalling a long lonely ride tells me that this rider didn't have it in the bank, anyway. a little better fitness would have insured he would have been dictating that surge, maybe?
Better fitness is always better, but we always only have what we have. As an example: my teammate Mark has a very good sprint, he will beat me every time. I can climb much better, I will beat him on every hill. If he stays with me on the climb, he wins. If we're at a stage race, he can win the crit, do a good flat TT, and then maybe he only needs to hang on to my wheel in the RR. Are you starting to see how the logic plays out? Maybe you would tell him he only needs to have more in the 'bank', but at the end of the race we did what we could with what we had when we started.
We're not talking about grams here, we're talking about 6 pounds.