Biggest challenge going pro is to make a living at it.

You mean that part where everyone is running around in Borat style g-strings and yelling?

HA, the list is endless for me. 6' 3" and 210 +/-, my desire to eat "real" food whenever I want, my refusal to dope (legally or not), my enjoyment of other things other than riding, etc...

Yes, and obviously there are a number of limiters. I just think that a person with the right support has a better chance of "making it" than a person with the right genetics on a statistical basis. It's completely unfounded speculation, and this whole exercise is mental m***********, so any viewpoint is reasonable.

Helicopters, motorcycles, fans, genetics and etc are easy. This is the tough part...





Rock Racing brings their own...



From Masters World Track Championships last week...

Note to self: Don't race track

Yeh...they need some work and only carried the medals to the podium.

they look more like girls waiting outside the Headmaster's study.

btw that's a really scary looking tv camera.

That made me laugh. My thoughts exactly.

I would wager about 40% of what those Rock Racing girls said was giving the metal horns and shouting "Rock and Roll!"

In order; genetics, dope and politics.

OP, have you ever raced? I don't notice about 90 percent of what is going on outside the race.

Haha. Funny. Poor Abdeem, and Abib...

Coeds in lunch line at Princeton.

Check out the shoes. Princeton...really?

I'm glad I didn't attend Princeton with girls looking like that there!!!

I got to thinking about that "picking the right parents" part. And I guess that's true. But on the other hand, I suspect if you have the right parents, turning pro still involves really busting your butt to do well. Meaning if I had the right parents, I still wouldn't be in a position to turn pro, because I'm just not that concerned with it. So there may be people sitting right out there reading this on the screen, thinking "If only I had the right parents" when in fact they DO have the right parents, and just eat too many Cheetos.

Come to think of it...how many pro cyclists have brothers of similar skill?

The biggest challenge to going pro is choosing what kind of performance enhancing drugs take.

Off the top of my head currently the Schlecks and the Velits. I'm not going to put more effort into thinking about it though.

This genetic thing and busting your ass regardless is interesting. I was as a cycling expo about 35 years ago where they had this new wattage power meter that cyclists could use and test their wattage. This frumpy out of shape hippie dude in sandals and baggy pants was walking around and a marketing rep for the power meter asked him if he wanted to try it, he said no. His girlfriend urged him to do it for fun, so he got on it and cranked the highest wattage of the day including pros that tried it! This hippie dude barely ever been on a bike and didn't run. So genetics does play a very important part; with training who know how far that hippie dude would have gone, but he refused offers by several teams to train for racing. I was there watching all of this go down, it was amazing the offers he got.

but still farther from average, than if you started with average parents...

and more likely to be better than the parents, than if you started with average parents.

I'm thinking urban legend bull****. For starters, Power Meters were first commercially available in the late 80's. So I'm doubting there was a power meter being demonstrated to the public 15 years earlier in 1975.

Right "genetics" (i.e. natural talent) is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for success as a professional cyclist.

Thus, no one without being gifted to at least a certain level will make it regardless of how much they work.

And of those who are gifted, they still have to have the other pieces, such as hard work, good coaching, financial support, and some element of luck/opportuinty, to make it.

They've had dynamometers and Prony brakes and whatnot for a long time. Whether the account is true or not, I can't say, but it doesn't imply a bicycle-mounted digital-readout power meter.