datlas 

Short answer to OP question: yes.

guadzilla

He is saying all sports require skills and it is NOT as if swimming and XC dont require technique. In other words, he is agreeing that swimming and XC also require technique. You have misread his statement (i skimmed through it and did the same thing - then had to stop and read carefully) or quoted the wrong person.

Back to the topic at hand - even with squash, which requires a lot of motor skills and coordination, there was a fairly sizeable gap between the performance of men and women. I was a used to play for of the top college teams in the country, which also had some international level women players. And this had nothing to do with talent or effort - a simple case of biology -male muscles are more capable of the short explosive power needed to hit that ball really hard, and also that initial burst to get to where the ball is.

mercator

Appears I misread your comment - my apologies, early morning commenting should probably wait till the coffee kicks in.

berner

Surak may be right in the observation that in endurance events women may have an edge. Right now one of the best ultra marathoners of any sex is Courtney DauWaulter. One event of 250 miles or so she finished about 8 hours ahead of the runner up, enough time to shower, have a bite to eat and a nap. The link is to a race up and down Mt. Blanc.

HTupolev

There's not really good evidence for this. While women do occasionally win ultra-endurance stuff, these races are fairly chaotic and often have very thin fields. When the pointy end of both the men's and women's fields show up in droves, the fastest man nearly always finishes well ahead of the fastest woman.

In your video example of UTMB 2019, Courtney DauWaulter finished 21st overall, about 20% slower than the men's winner. Using it as an example actually weakens your argument, because that's a far larger difference than you usually see between male and female runners even in shorter events. For example, at the 2016 Summer Olympics, Elaine Thompson's winning 200m was about 10% slower than Usain Bolt's winning 200m. Or at the 2019 Boston Marathon, Worknesh Degefa's winning time was about 11% slower than Lawrence Cherono's winning time.

Maelochs

yeah ... clear writing takes skill too , ... I obviously need practice. but skiing is more fun.

ChrisAlbertson

Here is why I posted this question...

I was in a left turn lane waiting for the light and this other rider is there, says hello. The left turn leads to a hill, maybe a 5% or 6% grade. I'm 62 years old, need to lose some weight and just got back to cycling after December 2019. This other rider was maybe 30 with very athletic build on a high-end carbon bike. The light changes and he was off and was up the hill at close to the 25 MPH speed limit. I do that hill at 10 MPH. I'm obviously not fast. Then I get home some time later and Stava tells be I would be the 7th fastest woman up that hill this year.

My guess was that (1) there are not many women cyclists and (2) few women bother to use Stava. But there were are least a couple hundred of each gender.

Then I notice that in the last few weeks only two female cyclists have pasted me on the road and I see exactly zero women my age riding actual road bikes. But younger men routinely pass on my left.

I don't know if it makes sense to compare top racers as these people are very a-typical of the population in general. But on the other hand, they show what people could do if they were to train

Drew Eckhardt 

We're faster at high levels of competition, although individual variation matters more for recreational cyclists.

Men have a 10% higher power to weight ratio and are larger. Better power to weight makes us significantly faster in the mountains where speed is proportional to it, better power to drag helps us on flat ground.

canklecat

While I'm tickled to have cracked the top ten on a few Strava segments, I realize it's absurd and mostly an indication of a statistically insignificant sampling group.

Many of the local KOMs are owned by a guy who's chronologically in his 50s but gifted with the physical ability of a 30something. To my knowledge he's never raced, and only recently began Zwifting. He's not even particularly competitive. Riding fast, consistently, seems almost effortless for him. Although I'm sure he works hard at it.

So while it was amusing to see my name a notch or two below his, my times were never anywhere close to his under any conditions. That means there's plenty of room for genuinely fit and competitive riders -- men and women -- to filter in there are gradually knock me down to the middle of the pack where I belong.

And, sure 'nuff, as more cyclists have tackled those routes, I've dropped from 2nd to 6th to 9th to off the top ten. As it should be. I already know from riding with consistently strong riders my age that I'm struggling to keep up with them. Two or three local pro women have nudged me out of 2nd on some fairly tough climbing segments -- short, steep sprint-climbs or slightly longer time-trial inclines.

To me, that just underscores that biology is terribly unfair to women in the physical realm. Those women have the competitive athletic drive that I lost years ago. Meanwhile, I'm sitting on a still reasonably good stockpile of lifelong male biological privilege and wasting my time whining about not feeling quite chipper enough to crawl out of bed early in the morning for a bike ride. If I was a women I'd be pissed off all the time at guys like me.

And anytime I do manage to crack a top ten, I'll go join a fast local club ride just to remind myself of reality -- which happens very quickly when I see them getting smaller and smaller on climbs.

It's good motivation, but also a reminder that if a 60+ year old cyclist has a KOM/QOM or top ten, either that segment isn't ridden by many people, or we're freaks of nature, or we're doping. And I've discovered from trying every legally available supplement I can get my grubby mitts on, they only help a tiny fraction. If I ever do crack a hotly contested top ten or KOM, you can bet I managed to talk a doctor into putting me on PEDs.

Kimmo 

It's not just that, it's having testosterone in your system. I saw a doco about a M2F mechanic who suddenly struggled to fit a gearbox after hormone therapy.

big john

I've been a member of a road club for 31 years and I think when it comes to recreational cyclists the fastest women will be faster than most of the men. I don't mean in a sprint but on a long climbing ride. You've heard of a ride called Breathless Agony? I did it and a woman finished 14th overall out of 400. This was 12,000 feet of climbing in 75 miles which was timed. I know, it's not a race but it is timed.
A woman friend of mine who is a great climber and also 46 years old finished 36th out of 100 in a field of mostly men with lots of racers, cat 1s, ex pros, etc. This was run as a race and had 9000 feet in 75 miles..
A woman pro who is also a climbing specialist came and rode with our club in the Santa Monicas and she dropped everyone on the climbs including some pretty good climbers.
Of course at the elite level men have an advantage but if your a recreational riding man and you ride where there are lots of good riders you will get used to being dropped by women on long climbs.

WhyFi

Was he wearing a jersey with lots of stripes and cookies?

sfrider 

You do have to be careful when comparing performance between populations of very different sizes. The performance distribution is gaussian, meaning it's a bell curve, and when you increase the population size the extreme outliers change. If you take the top 2000 in a large enough population they will ALL be outliers on their curve, while in a small population the same 2000 reaches deep into the bulk of the bell itself. Ask yourself how the best african american NHL hockey players compare to the best Canadians or Russians? Or cyclists who are first generation scandinavian immigrants? In the latter, because the population is so small you'd likely find the top performers aren't competitive with the outliers of a larger body. Or you might find one. Maybe two. But most likely none, ever, because the larger body is the superposition of 100s of smaller ones and the top outliers are cherry picks. When looking for biological sex differences you need to start by normalizing for distribution, and that means making statistical observations, not how well the best woman performs again P/1/2 males (neither of which is a representative selection, it's outliers vs outliers, and the larger the population, the further out its outliers will be statistically). Any inherent physiological differences would manifest as differences in curve shape; for example one might have a higher mean but a smaller standard deviation, meaning on average it performs better, but the outliers are pulled in closer to the mean. (In other words, there is a performance 'wall'.) Note that the entire population includes cyclists with no interest in racing, who might ride 200 miles per week just because they enjoy it. And, hence, many cyclists have very good endurance, but not a whole lot of power since their riding/training lacks in intensity. In fact, I'd go out on a limb and guess that the overwhelming majority of cyclists have no interest in racing, that it tends to be something new cyclists do and either they like it and continue, or don't and become like most and simply ride for the enjoyment of it for its own sake. If we hypothesize that women are less competitive, then they would obvious skew away from the racing scene.

ChrisAlbertson

Yes exactly. I was hoping that you were going to remind me of a valid statical method. It has been a few decades since I took those classes. The real problem is getting the data.

Back to theory. I know the men have a higher percent muscule mass but much of it is in the upper body where it is not so useful for climbs. Women being lighter just might gain some advantage on climbs but again any woman who is climbing a big hill on a road bike is a 6-sigma outlier almost by definition.

Is there a good way to answer the question that does not compare the few outliers? Maybe not. But I always hate to say "It is impossible because I can't figure out how."

banerjek

There is far more variation among men and among women than there is between men and women in general.

The variation between women and men is a big deal once you get past a certain point, but the further down you go, the less difference it makes.

A few years ago, I intentionally slowed down -- for rec riding, who cares if you're a few minutes slower even if that translates to a distance of a mile or more? Kinda nice to not be in pain all the time

Bah Humbug

I'm sorry; I don't think we can be friends anymore.

tomato coupe

That would mean there aren't even a hundred women in the U.S. who climb big hills on their bike, which is clearly not the case.

RiceAWay

That is the best possible answer Lots of women pass me up. And in a rather large group there was a father who brought his 8 year old twins along on HEAVY bikes and they would drop everyone on the climbs. My daughter finished third in the Jr. Nationals one year and there was no way I could keep up with her when she was in that shape and I was pretty fast then.

ZHVelo

Really? One big difference between males and females is muscle so in sprints the relative distance seems like it should be large given that muscles are the key determinant. Whereas it is known that the longer the duration, the closer women can get (there is a debate that they are actually better at ultra-distance stuff, though personally I doubt that, more that they are so close there and the events aren't normed that it may look like it).

ZHVelo

Very interesting post and I love the last comment - yes, it doesn't matter at all who is faster. I am German, we love Biathlon, and there is no difference in popularity, at times where they are more successful, the women are even more popular. When you have woman race woman, you don't see live or on TV that they are slower than the men, only if they race directly against the men would you see it. You don't notice it, simple as that, all you see is the best of the best (of half the population) fight it out. Why on Earth would anyone think "nah, ain't gonna watch this, a high school boy could beat them". No, as you say, if you see your favourite athlete do well and show passion and determination that is all that is needed.

burnthesheep

I didn't cruise the other responses, but the w/kg values and the wattage values are both astronomically stronger for the men. The women are incredible athletes, but the physiology and body composition is just different. The heart and lungs and legs are just physically bigger in the men to begin with. Meaning.......yes, the speeds are vastly different.

I saw it quoted somewhere the GCN host Emma Pooley had a threshold of about 5.2 w/kg. For guys that might get you into the low level P/1/2 races as cannon fodder. IF you were working with a upper 60's low 70's kilograms weight. But not on a lady's body weight for the 5.2w/kg, no way Jose'. 260w threshold won't get you anywhere.

Size overall matters on flatter/TT stuff. So the difference there is great. The women's ITT Yorkshire winner was about 26.5mph on a course overall uphill at 0.44%. The men's winner, Dennis, was nearly 30mph. I can't describe how much even just 1mph difference is. Different courses, but still. 3.5mph!!!! That's colossal. Our local ITT scene typically has Cat 3 guys who are good hobbyist TT riders above 26.5mph on hillier terrain than Yorkshire ITT was. 26.5mph on that terrain the women's ITT was on is about what my goal is in ITT in the long run. About 300w an hour.

Also, back to that 5.2w/kg. The only hope of getting away from a mix of Cat 2/3/4 weeknight world's dudes with 5.2w/kg (at a lady's weight) is going to be uphill if you're a lady. The gross power of that only being 260w is a big disadvantage if comparing to men.

We've had some super impressive ladies show up to the world's ride. Nobody ever picks on them nor do they treat them easier. They're welcomed, encouraged, and bring lots of fun. They usually can hang in the bunch great, but not really any attacks or solos that would stick. They try great though! We've got two hills where there's usually a pretty tough attack and I'm usually around 500 to 600+ for a minute at that time to pull a gap. We usually regroup a mile later to keep the fun together and the ladies are usually about a minute back after a mile or so attack from a couple guys.

ChrisAlbertson

I've now realized that asking this question is exactly like asking if men are taller than women. How would we answer this? Obviously the average heights are different but does it make sense to compare only male and female elite basketball players?

That 5.2W/Kg woman would sure as anything beat me. I am male, over 60, 10 pounds overweight and don't seriously train. I think I might be 2W/Kg if averaged over a 20 to 30 mile ride. But even so on local roads, I've only been passed by a female cyclist a very few times.

So the question now is how to even ask the question. It seems wrong to only compare those at the top as that leaves out 99% of both groups. My experience of not being pasted on the road by many women is not right either because there are so few of them on the road.

Another well-known observation is asking people to estimate the average hight of people. We always guess too high because we notice taller people more than shorter ones. We always remember the exceptions and this skews our perception.

Seattle Forrest

I'm going to use this at work today. 🙂

HTupolev

You don't have to. You can compare performances across any percentile. Obviously you'll have to adjust things somewhat based on what the different active percentiles represent in terms of the total population (i.e. female cyclists are sampled more sparsely from the population of all women than male cyclists are from the population of all men), but it doesn't make the comparison impossible.


How would you perform against a similar-age woman, who is similarly overweight and who also doesn't seriously train, who compares similarly to other women in that boat as you do to other men in your boat?