Not the full time trial aero experience though. These are just their every day bikes. (And aero gains while climbing are significantly reduced given drag is proportional to v^2 etc)
One of the tech gurus on cycling news compared Pantani’s ride compared to Pogacar’s ride. They used the following criteria aero, drivetrain efficiency, tyre width and rolling resistance. According to their calculations this gave Pogacar an extra 40 watts and if you take this into account he was actually 43 seconds faster than Pantani. Of course this tech stuff does not take into account weather, wind, or the similarities and differences between the two stages.
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I think it’s pretty ridiculous to compare rides 26 years apart.
There’s so many factors that go into a climb like that. Pogacar’s ride was at high tempo where he had an armchair ride behind Visma’s train. Some may scoff that the aerodynamic effect on a climb is not significant, but at the speed they were all travelling of course it does.
Road surface, tyres, bike technology, on the bike nutrition, training regimes, power meters; it just doesn’t compare.
Of course it doesn’t compare, but all of those are “marginal gains” that every one else in the pro peleton has access to.
There are a million (well not a million) studies on cycling drag, but the gains at 23.7 kph (Pogacar’s speed on the Strava segment) are naturally much less than at 50kph due to the v^2 term. Cd will be lower by some percent that obviously gives some benefit, but the benefit is no where near the same as at higher speeds(Interestingly Pog runs wider tyres than most)
The question is, how much did “being on the gear” help the past riders. And have all the tech advances wiped out all of those and improved by so much. It’s kind of a pity that the 1 hour world record isn’t raced regularly, and is also all over the place due to crazy cycling positions (and the gear??) etc, because it would be interesting to compare that record (in somewhat controlled conditions) vs improvements over TdF climbs. (Ganna recently matched the distance set in the 90s with crazy aero, this is about 10% further then Merkx on a regular bike, which I’m going to suggest is the upper limit on aero gains etc at the moment, and it’s probably a fair bit less than that)
Apologies, I’m just all over the place for now. But to not be at least a bit sceptical is ignoring history. We’ve heard it all before, and we always want to believe that we’re watching historical greatness, but at this point I’m just a bit cautious.
I have been very clear there is doping. Legal and illegal. Elite athletes should be legally doping to improve performance. Its a matter of how many stray into illegal doping.
I think “legally doping” is completely the wrong term.
Nutrition and supplements, sure. Putting random sht into the body with no scientific studies to establish the safety and protocols etc. not so much. These aren’t lab rats. And cycling teams shouldn’t be employing Dank equivalents.
Legal doping is the right term. At the end of the day, elite athletes seek any cutting edge advantage. I can assure you that if an athlete is advised that eating cow poo every day will enhance your performance, then athletes will do it. Finally, if the athlete trusts their team, there are no Dank types ( unqualified/semi qualified ) in the peleton.
I’d say the term “doping” implies cheating so the use of “legal performance enhancing” substances is what you mean.
As for “trusting their team”. Really? The sport, and plenty of other sports has a history of qualified people who are trying to push the edge. We could go down a million rabbit holes that we’ve been down in other parts of the board, but plenty of professional teams in plenty of sports have hired “qualified” people and told them to enhance their teams performance.
To be clear, I’m not saying Pog is on it. I’m just saying that 7W/kg for 40 minutes is a pretty extreme outlier, and historically those sort of performances have required at least a degree of scepticism.
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And just to go back to the earlier discussion. Aero makes no difference, assuming the estimated power is accurate (and Vingegaard confirmed it was v. close). Aero changes the time for the same power.
If you didn’t notice, Pogi averaged 27kph on the last climb and hit 30kph at times (on an 8% gradient, mind you!). Aero will make a difference at those speeds.
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Sorry, didn’t explain myself there. My point was the W/kg comparisons are all power output. So aero is already factored out. Better aero = faster at the same power output. But the 7W/kg for 40 mins is a power output that is always on the edge. Not comparing speeds, as they will be better, but the W/kg is at levels that have been on the edge in the past.
Nutrition, fuelling etc obviously helps, but the question is nutrition or “nutrition”.In previous generations power outputs at that level for that time were “nutrition”.
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Not a fan of the Tour finishing with a time trial. Giving the sprinters their time in the sun in Paris is iconic and a fitting finish to the race.
Watched abit of the Tour this year, a shame there wasn’t really a contest. Hopefully its a little more of an even playing field next year.
Some of the greatest GTs have finished with a TT. Lemond vs Fignon for example.
This year it was a bit of a damp squib because Pogi had it sewn up by a country mile.
Obviously, finishing the race on the Champs Elysee would have been preferable, but not possible due to the Olympics.
I find the final “showcase” sprint stage on the Champs Elysee rather boring, but each to their own.
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The TT that delivered Cadell Evans the TDF prize was thrilling.
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It was.
It was the penultimate stage in that race.
I the issue with the showcase sprint on the Champs Elysee is that it all feels a bit of a letdown, apart from the final 100m.
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The last stage of going round Paris is only meaningful for deciding the other colours, particularly the Green when it’s close.
I remember O’Grady not quite getting there against Zabel, otherwise it’s totally boring except for a stage winner.
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The Itt should have been stage 20.
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So the Giro-Tour double including 12 stage wins accross the two races. It suck’s if your a fan of cycling but I don’t see how you can’t be sceptical of that performance.
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19 stage or 1 day wins, 2 GT overall wins, one monument, Strade, and still a bit of the season to go.
Not quite Eddie Merckx, but getting up there in terms of all time seasons.
And the circus continues with two weeks of post TDF criteriume in and around the Olympic games. They are big business and nice earners for the invited riders. Pog stated that he had one off day in the Giro which I am certain is the day he beat Quintana. I am interested to see how he goes after the Olympic Games RR as he usually takes two or three racedays to hit form in the back-end of the season.
I will be watching the Tour of Wallonie this week. Ewan returns to racing at Y leon tomorrow and should just about win while Thursday has the hillier Klasika which Jayco has won on three occasions. The reason why Plapp rode at the front in the Tour of Austria was because he returned to Australia for two or three weeks after the Giro and did limited training. I would like him to ride for GC in the back half of the year.
Yes, Jayco got a stage win at the TDF which is the holy grail, however, their overall performance was nowhere near the level of 2023. Of course they were not helped by 3 or 4 riders getting COVID, but they really stuffed up the sprint train. They did not get Groenewegen to the finish enough times which is disappointing, because he was the only rider who could come off Philipsen’s wheel in stage 6. They left another stage win on the table. Bling had his health issues and at times, needed to be convinced that his shape was fine. In saying that, Bling has had good numbers and good form and so far he has wasted his season through a combination of questionable tactics and lack of team support. I am interested to see their selection for the Vuelta because they need to be bold, instead of being conservative.
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