Originally Posted by DocRay

Roesems and Sosenka.

"normal" is skinny. "normal" in North America is far into obese.

Cycling has riders of all heights and sizes, traditionally, this meant that certain physiques had certain strengths (small riders, climbing, big riders, sprinting), but this all changed drastically in the 90s with the advent of hormones and other PEDs -many historians of cycling have noted this. Power to weight ratios also changed dramatically in that time over the previous 100 years, which means that either there was as leap in human evolution, or other things are at work.