Originally Posted by
PeteHski
It’s okay, there’s no need to preach to me how freaking hard pro cycling is! I happen to think it’s one of the toughest sports in the world for all the reasons you give.
Of course I am defining “skill” in a narrow way. If you go for a much wider definition of “skill” including factors like bravery, mental resilience and endurance as you are alluding to above then there is no argument. But when you start comparing technical skills like bike handling, you will not convince me that they are anything special RELATIVE to many other sports, including most other cycling disciplines. I would say that the bike handling skills required for Enduro mtb racing are well beyond those required for GC road racing.
Still missing my point. It's not just that road cycling is hard, it's that the skills one needs to utilize are necessarily learned while performing in such hard conditions that only a tiny sliver of the population ever master them. Pro MTBers are wearing full body armor and ride nowhere near as compactly in large groups with one another, and have nothing but closed trails to deal with. Lots of skills required, sure, but not harder conditions to acquire those skills than elite road cycling. So while their handling skills are high, they are different enough from elite road cycling that I reject any notion that it's obviously harder.
I also don't know why you get to limit the requirement of skills to GC contenders with the highest FTP. Even if you do, not one of them rides a whole race at the front. The times when skill matters are the ones you rarely see televised except when they go wrong. And less skilled riders will get it wrong far more often, even when fitness isn't necessary, such as in a large fast-moving peloton where minimal watts are required, as evidenced by the carnage caused by lower tier riders at the TdF Femme avec Zwift.