Devil

Or any Grand Tour for that matter? I'm not talking about in the pro ranks, like Axel Merckx vs Lance, I'm talking about everyone who's ever contemplated racing. The form of the most respected racers on this forum doesn't even come close to the form of someone like Armstrong, Hinault, Ullrich, Indurain, Mayo, etc.. Why is that? Is it all in the genes? Is it the attitude (an unrivaled will to win)?

And please, no talk of "whoever has the better drugs" - leave that out of this thread, please. This thread could develop a great discussion.

SchreiberBike

100% attitude
90% genetics
70% support
50% luck

brent_dube

I think genes are a must, to start with. And the athlete should have started serious endurance competition hopefully by their early teens. Attitude and good thinking probably separates one very talented pro from another TDF winning pro.

I doubt any of the racers in this forum were born with the same athletic potential as the pros.

No matter what a rider's attitude is, you can only go so far with a certain body.

RacerX

It simply comes down to hard work and what you're born with. Talent goes nowhere without hard work.
Talented? Yuraslov Popovich. 3rd in the Giro at 23 yrs old. That's frickin' talent out the wazoo. What will see his greatness in 10 years? His mind, his focus and hard work.
Ulrich has talent. Once he gets off his fat ass, he's unstoppable. Not enough hard work.
Being a GC rider is genetics. Winning races is hard work and mental focus.

Grampy™

You all are missing one....... Desire. You've got to want it more than anyone else.

cyclezealot

Did Petarchi have that desire when he quit the TDF over safety issues last year.? What about Hamilton. Riding with his collar bone in a brace...Would you have this desire after a crash that scared the crap out of you..? At what cost is this desire..

Guest

Lots of training.

Even if you have good genetics, you still need lots of training, and you need to have started early in your lifetime with that kind of training. Even if you don't have the genetics, with lots of training (training very smart, of course), you can still mold your body into a professional athlete, provided that you start early enough.

Desire too is critical- if you don't want it, how can you go for it?

Dedication- for that kind of training, you really need to be dedicated. I mean, all you're doing is training day in and day out for years and years.

Money- because if you aren't supported, you can't train as much, and you won't be able to progress. That includes money for getting tested, money for high performance gear, money for travel, money for coaches, and money for travel. And I'm not even talking about living expenses, which is a whole different ballgame.

Support- support from family and friends, a support team of coaches and other peers in your sport, support from sponsors and bike shops, support from your job and/or school (if you're still a teen), and medical support.

This is probably just a start for things you would need to race at that level.

Koffee

cyclezealot

Koffee...Based on the few life histories of pro cyclists, I have read; few get that kind of support in the early stages of their cycling career...Most live the lives of Bike Monks, in their early developing stages.. So what is the plan for someone aspiring to be a pro cyclist..?

Guest

Hmmmm... based on what I've read, most of them have. Take a look especially at other countries, where they have sports schools where you can go and dedicate yourself to the sport. Here in the USA, I think it's a bit harder since we don't have schools like that, but when one does find a child that is a prodigy in the sport, all attempts are taken to develop that child's skills. From what I've read and heard, at least in the early teen years, teens here are given as much as possible to develop them into the field of their choice.

Koffee

timmhaan

you have to have the patience to gradually get better. you have to be able to work within a team and sacrfice your self to help the leader win. seems to me that once you've worked hard, and earned your place within a team, only then can you really start to win races. the more i read about and learn about racing, it becomes less of an individual sport in my eyes and more of a team effort. working yourself up the ranks, etc...

Smoothie104

7 watts per kilo of body weight for 30 minutes.

Guest

Seirously, on a 150 pound man, they would be producing more watts than Lance Armstrong.

Any male that could produce a good 400 watts would be good enough to go pro. Actually, as I think the average male that aspires to race can probably train up to 300 watts or so with good solid training and effort, if you can get beyond that with the wattage, I'd be pretty impressed.

Koffee

Smoothie104

The hour record took 6.6 watts per kilogram.

I also found this article written by Chris Carmichael.

"Maintaining an efficient power-to-weight ratio is a key concern for athletes during the mountain stages of the Tour de France. To determine your power-to-weight ratio, perform a 30-minute uphill time trial using a powermeter to monitor the watts you are able to generate on the bike. Next, record your waking body weight and divide this number into the average power you produced during the 30-minute uphill time trial. This will give you your watts-per-kilogram, or power-to-weight ratio. To be a true Tour de France contender like Lance Armstrong, you need to produce six to seven watts per kilogram of body weight."

Maybe you should tell him about your 30mph average Mountain bike Buddy

DEKKERFAN

And, a good Tour rider must also have a good digestive system because your body has to be a recovery and digest. Overnight you have eat and drink enough to both replenish and store-up to be ready for the next day of "tourture". They say Jan Ullrich can eat unbelievable amounts of food. His director sportif commented once that he has never seen anyone eat like Jan. So, it's not just the legs and lungs.

Guest

If the hour record took 6.6 watts per kilo, that means that Lance would be breaking the record every time he rode. So that can't exactly be right, could it?

What Carmichael was referring to was simply the wattage required for the uphill time trial, not the full race, nor even the full day. What's more, he's talking about contenders to win, not every rider. All riders in the Tour de France are definitely professional, elite riders, but not all of them are contenders to win either. Sure, you have to produce EVEN MORE wattage than normally produced during an entire race for an uphill time trial, but on the whole, you are NOT burning six to 7 watts per kilo of body weight for an entire race (unless you're doing the time trial as the entire race). That quote you use is taken out of context, and although is an indicator of how hard the elite cyclist may work in an uphill time trial, is not indicative of how many watts they may need to burn throughout the day when they are racing for hours at a time for several days. If Lance raced that hard for the entire Tour de France, he'd be toast by day 2! So... the average wattage used for the elite cyclist would have to be less than 6.6 watts per kilo. Not only that, at Lance's ideal race weight (158 pounds, or 71.67 kilo), if he was truly racing the entire race at 7 watts per kilo of bodyweight, he'd be racing at 501.69 watts. I find that impossible to believe that Carmichael truly believes that every racer in the Tour must race the entire tour at 501.69 watts, much less Lance.

What I refer to are the longer races- those that are for the entire length of a tour, or even the multi-day races. I thought that's what the point of this thread is about- what it takes to be a professional, as opposed to the Cat. 5, send in for your license average cyclist. If we were simply talking about track racing (for instance), that would DEFINITELY require more wattage, since the track race would require larger bursts of energy held over the duration of the race. In this case, the cyclist will primarily train the ATP/CP anaerobic energy system, and they would focus the majority of their time training power. Because of this, they would tend to have a higher wattage than the cyclist who races in a multi-day tour. Still, the elite rider in a multi-day tour would definitely have more wattage than the average everyday (I assume we talk about males here) male cyclist.

Definitely, Lance will pedal faster while doing his uphill time trial because being a smaller rider (ie: smaller than Jan, who is much beefier), he can avoid wasting unnecessary energy and save his muscles by decreasing his watts per pedal stroke to maintain his total wattage. We all know that Lance has an incredibly high anaerobic threshold and aerobic capacity, and by using this strategy, he will be able to save his muscles while producing the wattage. This is pure genius! On the other hand, I can see why Jan would prefer the big gears- he's got much more muscle than Lance, and being a bigger rider, he can exert more wattage by muscling his way up the hill and relying more on his muscle. If I had my choice, however, I'd rather spare my muscles and increase my aerobic capacity and rely on that to produce my power- it's more energy sparing for the long run, espeically when you're doing a multi-day tour.

Sooooo... I still maintain that the professionals will (assuming they are at the 150 pound weight) can go professional riding at 400 watts. That's pretty darn good. I do believe Carmichael is right- you would really have to produce at least 6 to 7 watts for the uphill time trial (to be competitive enough to win it, of course! and most likely if the uphill time trial was 30 minutes or less), which would net the 150 pound rider a 408- 476 watt uphill time trial- there's no doubt about that. But there's much more to being an elite cyclist than how many watts one uses during the race. As I mentioned before, aerobic capacity is a huge factor, especially for Lance, since he relies so much on it (especially for his uphill time trial, where the quote above this shows how many watts Lance uses for the uphill time trial) to perform optimally during his time trials. I remember reading that LA had an aerobic capacity of 80 ml/kg-min. A top female cyclist will have an aerobic capacity of about 53 ml/kg-min. Compare this to the average male, who has an aerobic capacity of about 45 ml/kg-min, and the average female, who has an aerobic capacity of 35 ml/kg-min. With a higher aerobic capacity and a fast cadence, Lance can definitely conserve his energy and maintain speed as he climbs his hill. If he did his old school mashing, he'd probably not perform as well, since he's a skinnier guy and would exert more muscular effort to climb that hill (I assume that as a beefier guy, he still would have been working to develop the same aerobic capacity he has developed up until now).

There are other factors that need to be taken into consideration, as I mentioned before, when it comes to being an elite cyclist. Genetics and age are always a factor, as well as weight (low bodyfat), VO2 max, lactate threshold, aerobic capacity, and power. I'm sure there are other factors involved too that I'm positive don't need discussion, such as headwind vs. tailwind, tire pressure, heat factor, fuelling, etc., but I don't think there needs to be discussion on those factors- they're pretty obvious.

Sorry, long one.

Koffee

RiPHRaPH

after genetics (you can't pick your parents) and will/desire i'm going with:

ability to push and fight through/past pain. i mean after the searing pain and fatigue sets in to psuh past it.

nick481

what do you all mean by "genetics"?

Laggard

Genetics: Inherited characteristics. In other words, some people are just physically predisposed to perform at a higher level. These traits are passed to you by your parents.

What this means is that I could follow the same training program and work as hard as Lance Armstrong, but because I'm not as physically gifted as him, he would still kick my butt.

Anyone know if VO2 max is genetic?

roadwarrior

Yes as it depends on your body type....for example, a marathoner versus an NFL offensive lineman. A hockey player versus a racing cyclist. All are in great shape, but it's how long you can work at a level just a tick under lactate...marathoner can do it for hours, lineman for minutes with a recovery in between. To use a couple of extreme examples to illustrate...

roadwarrior

People talk about "riding centuries"...imagine doing that day after day after day...imagine your body's immune system going haywire due to the extreme workloads, and not getting sick, not having one bad day for three weeks.
Produce these numbers...
Resting HR 32
VO2 ml/kg 84
Power @ VO2 600 watts
Maximum HR 201
Lactate HR 178
TT HR 188-912 (note that the TT HR is above lactate, so the ability to handle the acid and maintain the workload is pretty difficult..and then get up the next day and ride 120 miles at 22-25 MPH average)
Training miles per day and hours trained 5-6 hours and 100-130 miles.

If you can run numbers like these every day, day after day in all kinds of conditions, you can stand on the top step in Milan, Paris, or Madrid.

For perspective, take a look at some of the top US pro riders at the Tour of Georgia in comparison to the top pros like Lance, Voight, Julich...

Devil

Roadrunner, I found the comparison between the top domestic riders vs those elite Euro riders you mentioned interesting, especially with Chris Horner. He's certainly held his own, but he admitted that he couldn't TT like Lance in VeloNews yesterday:

"I can't do Lance's time, that's...that's a good time. But I'm content. I'm satisfied with what I've done, and I'm still in contention to win this thing, too, but it takes Lance not being 100 percent for me to win this, so I'm hoping and crossing the fingers a little bit."

I think he's proved himself, for now, against the elite pros. We'll see today and tomorrow (especially tomorrow with the mountaintop finish on that hors category climb) if he can hang with Lance, Julich, and Voigt in the mountains, or if he can manage to get away from CSC and the blue train.

cyclezealot

Guess, I am so fixated on cycling because I feel it to be the king of sports when it comes to stats such as 'Roadwarrior' listed from Velo News...Do we think any other sport compares to these vitals.?

Guest

VO2 max is proven to be genetic, but it certainly can be trained even in someone who is not genetically predisposed to a higher VO2 max, and that has also been shown to be true. So if you're sitting around thinking all is lost because your parents were competing in the Couch Potato Olympics, have no fear- a good solid training program will help increase VO2 max, given that you train wisely and train over the years.

Koffee

roadwarrior

I don't disagree with you, Horner is a top rider.
But he's been riding for three days. Not three weeks. With two major mountain ranges with 7-8 days of solid climbing. The stat is that the climbing in the Tour is about the same as six Everest summits...
Horner needs to make up 51 seconds on Lance. And he is not only fighting Lance, but the entire (as you pointed out) Postal team assembled for this race. Chris' support is not as good as that.
And Lance will not allow himself to lose 51 seconds.
I wish him luck. I hope Horner maybe gets a shot again at the big time...he was almost there once.
He can try, but he'll be covered.

roadwarrior

But not enough for everyone to be able to competively participate in endurance sports. That's the point. Some people just have more lung capacity.
You can increase to your personal maximum. But if you want to run marathons, and cannot get to the point where your cardio system can transfer enough 02 to your muscles so you can run four and a half minute miles for 2 hours or so, no amount of training will change that.