cyclepixie

From yesterday's Times - it's today's most e-mailed story

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/17/he...626&ei=5087%0A

solveg

thanks cyclepixie! It's a great story, isn't it? I think it's really opened up the eyes of some people, too.

How has your riding been going? Have you been able to get out much? It's too darn hot to knit!

Tom Stormcrowe

Good find!

markhr

just because I hate links to stories

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/17/he...ar&oref=slogin

The Bicycling Paradox: Fit Doesn’t Have to Mean Thin

By GINA KOLATA
Published: July 17, 2007

Andy Hampsten, the former pro cyclist, the only American ever to win the Tour of Italy, the first American ever to win the grueling Alpe d’Huez stage of the Tour de France, does his best to discourage casual riders from signing up for the cycling trips he leads in Tuscany.
“All of our trips are designed to satisfy experienced riders,” Mr. Hampsten writes on his Web site. To train, he suggests, “you should ride at least 100 miles a week for at least 6 to 10 weeks” on routes with “as many hills as you can find.”
So I had an image of what our fellow cyclists would look like when my husband, son and I arrived in Castagneto Carducci for a cycling vacation. They would look like Mr. Hampsten, who at age 45 remains boyishly thin and agile, bouncing with energy.
I was wrong. For the most part, our group consisted of ordinary-looking, mostly middle-age men and a few middle-age women.
These were serious cyclists. One of them was Bob Eastaugh, a 63-year-old justice on the Alaska Supreme Court who said he rode mostly to stay in shape for his true passion, downhill ski racing.
And our trip was challenging. The longest hill was 15 miles, the steepest had a 15 percent grade, the longest one-day ride was 90 miles, and the terrain was never, ever flat. It is hard to imagine that a group of middle-age adults could have handled an equivalently difficult 10 days of running. What, I wondered, made bicycling different?
It turns out that others, too, have been struck by the paradox of bicycling fitness.
“When I first got into cycling, I would see cyclists and say, ‘O.K., that’s not what I perceive a cyclist to be,’ ” said Michael Berry, an exercise physiologist at Wake Forest University. Dr. Berry had been a competitive runner, and he thought good cyclists would look like good runners — rail-thin and young.
But, Dr. Berry added, “I quickly learned that when I was riding with someone with a 36-inch waist, I could be looking at the back of their waist when they rode away from me.”
He came to realize, he said, that cycling is a lot more forgiving of body type and age than running. The best cyclists going up hills are those with the best weight-to-strength ratio, which generally means being thin and strong. But heavier cyclists go faster downhill. And being light does not help much on flat roads.
James Hagberg, a kinesiology professor at the University of Maryland, explains that the difference between running on a flat road and cycling on a flat road has to do with the movement of the athlete’s center of gravity.
“In running, when you see someone who is obviously overweight, they will be in trouble,” Dr. Hagberg said. “The more you weigh, the more the center of gravity moves and the more energy it costs. But in cycling, there are different aerodynamics — your center of gravity is not moving up and down.”
The difference between cycling and running is like the difference between moving forward on a pogo stick and rolling along on wheels. And that is why Robert Fitts, an exercise physiologist at Marquette University who was a competitive runner, once said good runners run so smoothly they can almost balance an apple on their heads.
Even Mr. Hampsten has been surprised by the cycling paradox. He recalls a woman from San Diego who went on one of his trips. “She was quite overweight,” he said, and even though she claimed to be an experienced cyclist, he worried that she would have trouble keeping up with the group. He was wrong.
“She rode so well,” Mr. Hampsten said. “Her cadence was very efficient. I was just amazed and delighted.”
As for the effects of aging, serious recreational cyclists do slow down, but they are not penalized as much as runners by the passing of years, Dr. Hagberg said. It’s because cycling, while grueling, is not as demanding as running.
“The best example of that, in a bizarre way, is the Tour de France,” Dr. Hagberg said. “What runner could go out six hours a day for three weeks and not be totally trashed after a day or two? That’s a microcosm of the aging issue.”
Still, even the best serious recreational cyclist is almost a different species from a professional rider. How much faster, our touring group asked Mr. Hampsten, would a professional rider go up that 15 percent grade during a race? About twice as fast as the fastest in our group, he replied.
And how about recovery after racing? Mr. Hampsten used to compete in 100 races a year, including the Tour de France, and he would recover by going for a long, relaxed ride. It sometimes took him three hours of cycling to warm up after a hard race. Then he’d continue for another two hours.
But recovery does become a limiting factor for professional cyclists, Mr. Hampsten said. It’s why most professional riders can no longer win long, multiday races after age 32.
“It’s almost eerie that at 32 years, you stop winning,” Mr. Hampsten said. “The endurance seems to stay, but recuperation doesn’t come around.”
When Mr. Hampsten retired, he was 34, “and I hadn’t won a race in two years.”
Now, he estimates, he is 80 percent as fit as he used to be.
But 80 percent for Andy Hampsten is still impressive. As soon as our cycling tour ended, he headed out on a fast ride that included a long hill to the town of Suvereto, taking a road with 187 switchback turns.
“It is my favorite road to ride,” he said.

Cosmoline

Small world. I've argued a number of cases in front of Justice Eastaugh.

Yup. Nobody has ever passed me going downhill. This morning I went down the "roller coaster" part of my commute with a much fitter guy on a faster bike, but even though he was cranking hard and I was using the brakes, he still couldn't get by me. Heaven help anyone or anything I ever hit on a downhill run. Eastaugh better watch his six!

markhr

You probably know a few of the AK folks that hang around telemarktips as well then?

Cosmoline

Possibly, but I'm not into skiing much myself. I bike right through the winter.

markhr

in AK, in winter, that's nails

Cosmoline

No, that's:

geo8rge

If the times did better research they might realize that as people get older they have more money to buy and maintain bikes. I was about 26 before I had a bike I owned overhauled, I was amazed. Now I either ride regularly overhauled hubs, or sealed bearings. I would also point out that the inherent efficiency of the bicycle can result in weight gain as riders down more calories of Gatorade than they burn on their $3000 road bikes.

If you really want a paradox try scuba diving. Any one that can learn to operate the BCD BUOYANCY COMPENSATOR can do it. Extra fat might be an advantage in colder water. Can't swim too well, get one of those torpedo things.

v1k1ng1001

Wait a minute. What exactly makes the existence of unconventionally fit bicycle riders paradoxical?

Maybe this article should be retitled "The Bicycling Misconception..."

WalterMitty

Or perhaps more broadly, "The Fitness Misconception..."

markhr

the article is from a competitve runners viewpoint - not exactly known for being built like linebackers

markhr

or to clarify compare marty nothstein with rasmussen





edit - forgot about Hubner

JumboRider

It amazes me often how little people marvel at the efficiency that is the bicycle. How long has the bicycle gone in the same design? Arguably the recumbent is the next evolution but that really is just the same bicycle.

I do think the article short changes the cyclist. While the comparison between runner and cyclist effort is true, the cyclist must learn to become one with the machine to take advantage of the bicycle advantage. It takes time and training to spin smoothly just like it takes time to learn a runner's gait. You can not take a great runner and throw him into the Toure expecting winning results.

It is easier for the out of shape guy to start riding than to start running. Pounding on joints and penalties of effort to weight all play their part. In the end, for me, it is just a matter of how much fun it is to move at 12-20 miles an hour on my bike.

Wogster

Recumbent bicycles have been around since the early part of the 20th century, in fact they were banned from sanctioned racing in 1934! I think that ban really hurt the 'bent because a lot of performance innovation comes from racing, whether we like it or not. Just like a lot of the durability that we find in modern bikes comes from the mountain biking arena.

Cosmoline

Recumbents still dominate the non-motorized land speed record competitions. On flat level roads no other cycle can touch them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Whittingham

beingtxstate

I like that article, saw it a couple of days ago from a local listserv. Encouraging for sure.