Are Pros Getting Too Powerful?
 

The fastest pro cyclists are putting out historic levels of power, exceeding the infamous doping decade.

When Vingegaard attacked on the recent San Giacomo climb, his estimated power was 7.04 W/kg for 11:38 minutes.

Last year, Vingegaard managed 7.46 W/kg for 11:17 minutes on the Izua climb. The only performance to match or exceed that was Pantani in 1995, 7.62 W/kg, for 8:59 minutes.

Why? Is it the better diet? It must be the "diet".

Even without doping, athletes tend to get bigger/stronger/faster over time. Diet, training, equipment, all contribute.

Like everything, the "marginal gains" are getting better and more challenging to detect, and the results are recorded more accurately.

Too powerful for what?

They didn't have power meters back then. How did they get Pantani's power output?

Also more money tempting raw talent away from other major sports that would normally be far more lucrative. For example Remco chose cycling over football (soccer).

Recent interviews with Mark Cavendish also point to huge changes in training methods and nutrition during his career.

If you know the weight of the rider and bike, and the slope of the climb, w/kg can be calculated.

It was calculated.

Are basketball players getting too tall? Are linebackers getting too much mass and power?

And they also have video (TV video of Patanini, digital/internet video of Vingegaard) so they can determine how long it took them to do a climb.

Thread moved form General to Pro Cycling for the Fans.

Training, altitude, nutrition, equipment, marginal gains...

We've heard this before... from... Lance Armstrong.

I will say this with the same certainty I said it about Lance (and everyone else riding against him) - they are doped it the "max". And I got skeptical eyes when I said that stuff back then.

By "max" I'm saying what they can get away with. They are doped right up to that point, and taking whatever new substance isn't being tested for.

We went from a period of 15+/- years where no one cracked the Huez top 100 time on the pro tour - to having 5-6 riders pop the top 20 on one tour, and they were riding in the GC pack - not on breakaways or during a TT.

Lance - a super doped up, older more seasoned rider, with more tours and training under his belt did 6.6wkg for his TT up Huez. A clean, younger, less seasoned Pogs has turned 6.3 for 36 min.

Pantani - coke, EPO, roids and whatever else - 7.6wkg. A clean Vingo - 7.6wkg.... RIGGGGHHHHHHTTTT. Better food... sure.

Physics and arithmetic give you estimated power. It's the same way they do it now. Pros aren't making their recorded power numbers public.

Yeah, I remember an interview with Cavendish in his prime and he mentioned doing track racing training improved his sprinting ability quite dramatically, most notably his initial acceleration off the lead-out man's wheel in a sprint to the finish line.

I'd be surprised in a European footballer would jump to cycling, seems if you can make an 'A' level squad in Europe the money would be much better. Not specifically for the money, but the same thing occurs with youngsters in local track & field/athletics here in the USA as local HS football coaches go to spring track meets and recruit the fastest sprinters for their HS football teams.

NFL players are juiced to the max.

B'Ball players aren't getting taller, they are simply turning from Larry Bird bodies to Lebron James.

Wide receivers (Terrell Owens) with the same body composition (even leaner) as Arnold.
T.O. - 6'3 - 225-230 with 3% body fat.
Arnold - 6'2 - 235+/- with 5-7% body fat.
The "skinny" fast guys vs Mr super doped up Olympia.

Athletes are doped. It's not just food.

We have 7 billion people on this planet. The vast majority have no access or knowledge of bike racing as something they could actually do. That means most of the outliers on the bell curve of cycling ability aren't racing. We are just beginning to see pro riders from Africa. Biniam Girmay is a very good pro rider. Not a mountain goat so not an example here but a very good and versatile finisher.'

And yes, training and diet have stepped up big time. Now imagine if Pantani or Merckx had access to today's training. But it isn't a really fair comparison because there is another difference and that one puts a brighter light on those earlier racers. Targeting races. Seasons now are built around peaking for certain races and riding the earlier races that will best prep them for the biggies. 50 years ago, everybody rode a whole lotta races every year. Now they race far fewer. Eddy Merckx won nearly a race a week for six years, racing on average twice a week. Completely unheard of now. And with that many races rode hard, he couldn't possibly target the big goals and hit super high peaks.

My belief is that eventually we are going to see a huge wave of African riders. Driven by several factors. 1) It will become known in Africa that this is an approach to a better life, a dream like the pro sports in this country were to Blacks. Biniam Girmat has a a dream of a life for a 12 year boy. Think baseball, football and basketball. 2) Africa is going to become seen as the place where if you build the racing infrastructure, you will be able to reap talented riders to sent to Europe. The right entrepreneur type could drive this hard and do very well. If bike racing booms in this country and becomes a big pro sport, someone will go to Central and South America to reap similar talent. In a hundred years, maybe super climbers from the Australian Outback. China, India. Think that bell curve and how many thousands of outliers have been completely missed by bike racing. There are a lot of body types poorly represented in the white world. I'm guessing some of these could fit very well into the racing scene. The running world is dominated by sprinters and marathoners from Africa. There are peoples around the globe where the average body type looks rather Pantani-ish. What if the bell curve fringes of those populations raced the Alps? We could have our eyes opened!

Several good climbers in a group can set a faster pace than one climbing alone, so it's not surprising several riders could post top times in one stage.

If that group is doing that climb as part of a stage, and they are matching the best TT times on that climb, it is surprising.

Why surprising?

Because a TT is a full gas maximum effort from start to finish, contrasted to a road race with its attacks and tactics, and the TT rider doesn't have to do it at the end of a long stage.

It's no surprise that the fastest times up AdH were set during TTs.

I agree that they should. But as of 2017, TTs have only produced the 2nd, 9th, 12th, and 13th fastest times up the Alpe d'Huez, and no other times in the top 35 (ish).

Well, he chose what was left for him after it became obvious football wasn't going to work out for him.

True, but that is an estimate. His exact aerodynamics coefficient is not known. Nor is the wind direction, or even things like tire rolling coefficient- I don't think anyone measured that back then.

Given that there was only one year in which the TT was held (2004), I'd suggest that having that many high placings from a TT is informative.

But yes, the non-TT times are remarkable, also. Drafting at the speeds the pros climb must be significant. Then again, Pantani led or soloed most of the climb when he set the lowest time. Armstrong did the same solo effort in 2001, the year of "the look".

Folks were measuring rolling resistance back in the 1990s, and some even before then. But yes, these are all estimates, and people can argue upside down, backwards, and sideways over the accuracy.