rubiksoval

If you're in a group doing 40 mph you don't need to sprint...

Danhedonia

Ancohuma was the sleepless enterprise. Other stuff here and there. Nothing overly impressive.

Had a ****ty seizure 3 years ago, a bunch of other super-unlucky life occurrences. Trying to bike my way back to returning to Bolivia in a few years. We'll see.

allepunta

might well be... but you can dope a donkey, will never become a race horse...

allepunta

why would you use a powermeter anyway...like I read in another forum once "it is like hiring an accountant to tell you how poor you are"

Rides4Beer

I've learned there's a big difference between regional/domestic pros, and Tour pros. I've ridden with Tour pros that are 10 years into retirement and they are still absolute beasts, just unreal. They take KOMs without even thinking about it, just messing around on a group ride.

tallbikeman

This guy has the whole road racer persona lifestyle down. I'm still riding steel bikes so I don't have to worry about being shunned. In fact as the pack zips by me I don't think they can see me. Didn't know about Strava until this video. Laughed the whole time as he instructed us on how to game the KOM system. I'll probably have to look for a road out in the middle of Nevada, maybe Hwy 50 east of Eureka, NV. for my KOM skills to shine. Maybe I'll just ignore Strava and just keep riding bicycle anyway without it. That's more like it. Takes too long to cycle to the middle of Nevada.

shrimp123

so you are all telling me that i should be paid as much pros are paid in 3hours, for just pedaling for 5minutes?
kewl. get me some greens.

downtube42

Buddy of mine would drag his bike out mid summer and go on a ride with me, his first of the year and I'd have three thousand miles by then. I couldn't drop him to save my life. And he was maybe possibly a cat 2 roadie back in the day.

Genetics ain't fair.

Hiro11

That video is both pretty funny and very true once you realize it's backwards hat Dylan. I like Dylan's channel in general.

Every road KOM in my area was set on a day with a huge tailwind favoring the rider, often with a leadout. Or, you'll pull up the ride that had the KOM and the rider did a five mile warmup, hammered a 2 minute segment and then did a five mile warm down. It's eyerolling. Still, 47 year old guys like me can get into the top ten and occasionally set the KOM on regular group rides if we make an effort. It's attainable. The average road segment around here may have 500-1,000 unique riders on the leaderboard.

Mountain biking is a different story. There's very little singletrack mountain biking in my area (Chicago suburbs) and the trails that are available are both heavily traveled and used for races. As a result the singletrack KOMs in my area are really fast and often set by very talented / professional riders on a race day. If I get into the top 200 on those segments, I consider that a good effort for me. This reflects both the speed of the KOM and my general lack of offroad skill. There are 3,000-5,000 unique riders on all of these singletrack leaderboards.

"Strava racing" is easy to roll your eyes at. There are certainly people that take this meaningless "competition" among non-competitors way too seriously. On the other hand, going for a segment can add some serious zip to your workouts and help you break plateaus. Maybe you care about that, maybe you don't. I think the whole thing is fun as long as you don't take it too seriously.

tallbikeman

Life and genetics can seem unfair. I road raced in the early 70's while based in a mountainous area. There was always the casual rider who would come out on a ride and keep up or kill us on the mountains. Humble pie is handed out by receding rear wheels. My third year racing a 14 yr old kid and his dad showed up and started riding with us. The kid and his dad were shortly showing everyone how to go up mountains. His name was Greg Lemond. Though Greg was a USCF Jr racer at the time I never bested him on any hill climb. The difference between superior and ordinary athletic gifts is a chasm as big as the Grand Canyon. Train train train and still slower than the best. So if you woke up this morning feeling good what more is there.

burnthesheep

You would think the gaps would widen the shorter a duration you can get. So, take that down from 5min for yourself down to just 1min. What can you do for a minute, and how long can they do it?

Avg Cat 5 racer would be like, what? 500w for a minute?

In the prime of the dope era, pretty sure when Lance weighed a bit more they estimated that hill climb time trial in the tour to have been done in the upper upper 400's for like 25min. What was the estimate? 495? For 25min. That's like fake funny math right there! But, it isn't. The Zwift Alp is a hair shorter than the real life climb finish. If it's taken me 54min at 3.5w/kg and he did it about twice as fast..........yup, that'd be 7w/kg for him. At 7 at the time he was about 70kg. 7x70 = 490w. Whoa. That's what I weigh now, 70kg. I could only do 490 for maybe a minute and pocket change. Dude did it for 25min.

25x longer than what local yokels could do for a minute.

rosefarts

This isn't just a cycling thing.

In my early 20's, I was running sub 1:30 half marathons and 10k around 40.

I tested myself a few times to see what my mile time was. It was right around 5 minutes. Never under but I think I could have with dedicated work.

So at my best, all out, my best single mile was 25-30 seconds slower than a single mile from an olympic marathoner.

Keeps you humble

​​​​​​

WhyFi

GCN did the video on how long individuals could hold the power from Wiggin's hour record, which was ~440w. The schmoe off the street didn't last one minute, Ollie almost made it to 4 minutes and Conor did 46 minutes. That's a pretty stark demonstration of the difference that training and genetics can make.

Hypno Toad

I had to look, historically, my longest time at 440W is about 15 seconds. For an hour, I'm better than half Wiggin's 440w, but not a lot better. This is a generous serving of humble pie!

WhyFi

For me, at least, 440w is in a weird no-man's land - there's just not much reason to stay there for long unless you're ungodly strong. I bet that you could hold it much longer that 15sec if you were trying, though. Looking at my 2020 data, I managed ~90 sec on a couple occasions, both of which were short hills of about that duration (I'm a heavy guy [for road cycling] that likes to get little hills over with asap).

burnthesheep

For that video, what doesn't do Wiggins justice is how much power you lose going from sitting upright like Conor did versus being scrunched down in that aero position! And that excludes the pain of riding the rivet of a TT/pursuit saddle and the shoulder/neck/arm pain of an hour down there. 440w for 45min is stellar no matter what.

You can train on a TT or pursuit bike all you want, the hip angle and shoulder shrug make it so you will always make less power than the road bike.

If you put Conor into that same position Wiggins was in relative to his body geometry........I'd wager a full pint of good beer he couldn't leave the 300's for the hour. Unless Conor rides a TT bike about 50% of the time, it wouldn't surprise me if he was down a lot more than that.

They're figuring with modern aero setups somebody like Campanaerts made under 400w for his hour record. Wiggins was a big dude.

Hypno Toad

Agreed, as an endurance rider, I don't do a lot of high power-short duration riding. I might try to hold 440w as long as I can after I get my pain cave put back together ... we've had a painter working in our basement for the last week, it'll be great suffering in a freshly painted pain cave!

WhyFi

I seem to remember them mentioning that Conor was a member of the time trial team when he was riding professionally, though, so that beer might be in peril.

burnthesheep

It'd be worth the loss of a beer just to see it in person. Not over internet, but like one of your buds makes a bet and guts themselves trying.

Here's a challenge I thought of:
If Covid calms down, I told our team mates I'd put a beer on the line to attempt the "Campanaerts ftp test" paceline challenge. They're on road bikes, I'm on full TT kit. Goal is you have 20min to drop the others. They can't rotate. Decide ahead of time the order of riders. They also can't pass and then surge/recover. Choo choo train losing the caboose, then the dining car, then the passenger cabin........I get a beer from each person dropped.

caloso

I have a couple KOMs that will probably never be broken because the roads don't exist any more. That's the secret. Find a road that they're about to tear up to build a new mall, go ride it, post it, never worry about it being taken.

downtube42

After seeing Free Solo I realized a winning strategy would be too spend a year studying one of the stupid fast curvy dangerous descent segments around here, learning every inch, then (this is critical) having no concern whatsoever for death, do it.

One difference, though, for him any mistake would be fatal. No chance of paralysis or other survivable but life changing outcome.

Hypno Toad

I fell like this belongs in this thread too

cjenrick

my best ride was when i was tanked up on vodka. there was a really steep climb that i used to use the lowest gear on the 30 lb stumpjumper that i had and it was still tough! (Mora Drive in Los Altos hills for anyone in that area)

well on this day i stuck it in the big ring with a 16 on the back and just sprinted up the thing like a mad man.

never put out nearly as much power since then. 15 seconds of pro fame. well actually it was like 45 seconds to the top.

there might have been some cocaine involved also but i can not remember.

pro racing puts enormous strain on your knees, hips, back, your body was only designed to take so much and your joints have maybe 10 million revolutions available per body. so would you rather burn those joints up in 4 years as a pro or enjoy riding till your 100? i do not think that many pros ride bikes for fun after they retire, maybe i am wrong but it seems illogical that they would want to do something that represents pain memories stored up in the cerebral vortex.

WhyFi

Toespeas

climbing power does translate to every aspect of cycling , he is fast up a hill , thats about it !