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How common is 300w for an hour?

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How common is 300w for an hour?

Old 09-07-21, 09:15 AM
  #301  
gsteinb
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Your reliance on absolute numbers and not something based on weight is pretty entertaining.
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Old 09-07-21, 10:19 AM
  #302  
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That's fair, but the air doesn't care what you weigh. It cares how much of that weight presents itself as frontal area. The topic on Slowtwitch is for a triathlon/TT fit. On a pan flat route.

You're 1000000% correct when we put it to road bike and toss some hills or terrain into the equation. Yes, at that point not looking at the w/kg part of the equation would be really wrong.

The reason the numbers were eye popping is that the math on what the CdA would have to be are about 0.33 according to Aeroweenie putting in the known power, weight, and tire setup. 0.33 on a TT bike is a parachute.

The photos of the bike fit, ain't no way that CdA is that bad. The fit was pretty good looking for a starting point.

I'm just incredulous at the whole scenario. The training stimulus to do 350w for a whole hour, no matter the weight of the person. And the speed outdoors on 330w on a decent looking TT fit. It's not a "you're lying" kind of thing. More of a "how is this possible". Genuine incredulity. As I've never met someone in real life that fits that mold, and I've met plenty of folks in 5 short years of riding.
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Old 09-07-21, 01:42 PM
  #303  
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BTS, I read the thread in ST, obviously, the data is bogus. One of the many things I like about sanctioned racing is the officiating and rules. Generally, they are pretty good so when you win or set a record, it is valid.

The guy may not be doing a zero offset before he rides on his PM. I do not remember if anyone suggested that. But in reality, it is a mute point. The rider should know the data is bogus and go hire someone to help him. Every coach and testing service that I have used would solve / explain the issue in a heartbeat it once they see the rider on bike, riding and take timing splits.

And some athletes just show up with a lot of power without training. And improve with very little additional stimulus and recovery. That does not mean that they can ride in a grand tour. There are a lot of variables.

Have you ever seen a rider in a time trial snake along the road? I mean the front wheel is constantly changing direction with each pedal stroke. That is an amazing way to scrub speed and waste power.
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Old 12-13-21, 11:14 AM
  #304  
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Originally Posted by burnthesheep
Yeah, I don't doubt at all the folks higher up on the food chain can do it.

But C and B class Zwift per the w/kg definitions, if you interpret it this way, to me would be like Cat 4/5 in USAC. And A would be Cat 3. Then A+ would be on up from there.

The other talking point was BIG dudes tossing power. Maybe so. I've just not personally seen that strong of a linear correlation to power output and how much folks weigh. The 220lb dudes who ride the B group that leaves before the hammerfest simply are not magically making mega power. You can tend to make more, but I feel I see more that the people who "care" and do the "work" and grow their fitness........a side effect of that is a pretty lean build. By lean, I mean under 80kg.

They were trying to tell me it's "common" for 85kg dudes to be tossing out HUGE aerobic wattages. I don't buy it. The "weeknight worlds" and most races you attend.........just don't look like that. Usually the body size comes down with the aerobic fitness. Or the folks I hang around that's the case.

So: 80kg dude......250w........3.1w/kg in C. Gains 20w. 270w is now needing to go up to 87kg to stay in the same w/kg class. 270/87 = 3.1 . 250w/80 = 3.1

That's what I think is happening. Folks sandbagging.

I could do that if I raced Zwift. If a race necessitated a 20min effort I would most certainly blow over 4w/kg and be into A for sure. Or, I could just add some kg's and stay B.

This is why I think my anecdote of the real world rider sizes and power not matching what we see in Zwift. The riders maybe DO make that power..........but they're not actually that big. They're sandbagging.
This is not correct. You can check racers in A and B in terms of FTP and weight on Zwiftpower. There are Cat 2 Bs and Cat 1 As doing 5w/kg.
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Old 12-13-21, 12:04 PM
  #305  
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#for Doge

60 minutes
7/19/2017 - 303
1/3/2015 - 301 (indoors)

then a whole bunch in the upper 290s
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Old 12-13-21, 01:25 PM
  #306  
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In my fittest year, when I came close to an outdoor sub-5hr imperial century (4,400' of climbing, actual moving time of 5:15 and an Avg Power of 212W over 5 hrs), I had an outdoor riding FTP60 of 233 watts (3.2W/kg), an indoor trainer FTP60 of 259 watts, and a peak 2-3 second sprint output of 1,050 watts. And my power curve shows that while riding outdoors, I once held 300 watts for a maximum of 6.5mins., and riding indoors I once held 300 watts for 37mins.

A 300 watt outdoor FTP60 was WAY out of my reach.

Last edited by Riveting; 12-13-21 at 01:42 PM.
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Old 12-13-21, 03:09 PM
  #307  
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The ability to hold FTP is inversely proportional to IQ.

As a younger man, I was an average pack filler Cat 3 weighing 76-79Kg. I can't get below 83 Kg anymore, I am into my 60's. I made 318-325 watts (average) on a Powertap G3 hub over the course of some Strava races in duration of 20-40 minutes and made 282 watts (NP) over a 2:40 C race, which I won. I was 102 Kg at the time, I am almost 6'4''. If I was 70 Kg, that would impressive power. Anyway, I am quite certain I could have held 300 watts for an hour but my longest balls to the wall effort was only about 45 minutes.
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Old 12-14-21, 11:35 AM
  #308  
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45min counts. I think most folks say 45 to 70min? In my book 45min would count.

I need to try again soon in Zwift. Outdoors local to me there aren't many good options to hammer that long nonstop without a drive out of town. Then if so, I'm going for a 40k on the TT bike instead of a road ride. So subtract XX watts at that point.

I'm pretty sure now I'm up on power a bit. During some 2x15 on the TT bike other day, my avg speed out/back on the flatter portion that still isn't flat was faster than my 10mi PR speed. Despite no TT helmet and such. Meter battery died during warmup, so just hammered and watched HR and went by feel.

I need to fix my meter issue on the road bike. It reads a lot lower than my Quarq or Kickr. Left only Stages junk. Probably get a gxp Quarq dfour and put my dura ace rings on it and get the carbon Quarq crank arms for it.
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Old 12-14-21, 11:42 AM
  #309  
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most folks say an hour is 45 - 70 minutes?
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Old 12-14-21, 12:22 PM
  #310  
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Originally Posted by gsteinb
most folks say an hour is 45 - 70 minutes?
The physiological condition which really dictates what ftp is occurs between 45 and 70 minutes. It could be reached at 45 for some folks or held to 70 for some folks. Not specifically 60min. I said 60min in the original topic as the Zwift stuff uses defined w/kg limits based off of concrete times like 5min, 20min, or hour, etc..... So, I chose an hour.
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Old 12-14-21, 01:14 PM
  #311  
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I wish I cared about anything as much as burnthesheep cares about 300w.
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Old 12-14-21, 03:51 PM
  #312  
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without opening any software I figure I can do more watts for 45 minutes than for 60, and more watts for 60 minutes than 70.
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Old 12-14-21, 04:25 PM
  #313  
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For me, the difference between 45 and 60 minutes is a touch over 1% (290 to 287). There's a bit more of a dropoff at 75 and 90 because I've been using Zwift races to get back into shape after getting hit by a car/surgery this spring/summer and I haven't been doing many races much longer than an hour. I need to get back into dedicated training, but it's so fun and easy to just log onto the computer and hop into whatever race is handy and get my daily dose of humility.
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Old 12-14-21, 07:56 PM
  #314  
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Originally Posted by burnthesheep
Well 300w is 50w shy of 350w. I could dare say 300 is perfectly believable. 350w for an hour on 7 hours a week just sounds incredibly rare.

Not really. As stated earlier, watts really mean little without Kg. Even considering your point about wind resistance, you’re still going to have more frontal re the bigger you are.

Ar my best my ftp was 360. While that sounds like a lot I also weighed a shade over 200 pounds at the time. With those numbers I could doing pretty well in crits and tt’s as a Cat 3, but was toast in road races with real climbing.

Net net, 300 watts plus is not that big of deal for a bigger guy.
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Old 12-15-21, 09:09 AM
  #315  
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I'm 32 pages late to this (how did I not see this before?) but the overriding thing on my mind is inaccurate PMs on Zwift. You see pictures of people posting their sub hour Alpe and, I'm stereotyping here, but you look at the picture, the position, and you think, okay, on a great day, that person might be able to do 15 mph on a flat road, forget about going 8 mph up a hard climb for an hour. (On Zwift my best Alpe time is around 90 min, my one and only Ventop is like 180 min or some ridiculous amount of time, and generally it takes me 3x longer to do a climb compared to the KOM.)

Combine that with "I just got (accurate) powermeter and now my FTP is down from 300w to 160w." And I sort of smirk inside because, yeah, the numbers the rider was putting down before seemed a bit unrealistic.

I think 350w is unusual. 300w is getting closer to "normal". The local rider that doped (caught by the gran fondo testing) was 340w doped. He seemed relatively compact, like maybe my height, so that number would have been impressive.

I max out at somewhere around 220w, and my weight bottoms out at about 72 kg (currently 80ish kg and maybe 180w). For me 3.1 w/kg, 220w ftp, the time I was at my best when I had a powermeter... in a Cat 3 crit I felt untouchable. I could do almost anything I wanted. Even in Cat 2 I was okay in the pack, couldn't really follow breaks, but I could go contest some sprints or felt like maybe I could have been up there until 200m to go. I couldn't sprint though, I was too gassed, esp after some of the longer crits, 40 miles or whatever.
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Old 12-15-21, 09:34 AM
  #316  
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I don't think I've ever beaten you in a race actually. You are a master wheel surfer. Get your upgrade and do Hilltowns next year - I need revenge.
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Old 12-16-21, 07:28 PM
  #317  
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Originally Posted by TheKillerPenguin
I don't think I've ever beaten you in a race actually. You are a master wheel surfer. Get your upgrade and do Hilltowns next year - I need revenge.
I'm sure you've beaten me because I have so many DNFs to my name.

So if I register for a race and don't start, does that count?
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Old 12-17-21, 02:02 PM
  #318  
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How's the big dude thing work? Why not once you have the mega power drop the pounds and keep the power? Is that not practicable?

I just never understand that, why not go out and eat a lot more, gain power, then drop the weight. That sounds naive, but I really don't understand. As I thought you had to have the heart/lungs to go with it. If a person holds their weight and has reached their normal cyclist leg sizes, gains are in the heart/lungs/mitochondria. It's not growing larger legs. Right?

So that's why I'm confused how a really large dude can make so much power on so little training volume. If someone is into that physiological info, I'd be all ears.
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Old 12-17-21, 02:56 PM
  #319  
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Originally Posted by burnthesheep
How's the big dude thing work? Why not once you have the mega power drop the pounds and keep the power? Is that not practicable?

I just never understand that, why not go out and eat a lot more, gain power, then drop the weight. That sounds naive, but I really don't understand. As I thought you had to have the heart/lungs to go with it. If a person holds their weight and has reached their normal cyclist leg sizes, gains are in the heart/lungs/mitochondria. It's not growing larger legs. Right?

So that's why I'm confused how a really large dude can make so much power on so little training volume. If someone is into that physiological info, I'd be all ears.
Yeah, this is something I have argu...uh, friendly discussions about frequently with the folks I race on Zwift with. They contend that racing me is unfair because my greater raw W at the same W/kg gives me an advantage on the flats (I'll agree somewhat but W aren't the only factor even on flats, and I have a bigger CdA due to my height and my weight gives me a bigger coefficient of friction), while we're both at the same level on the climbs. I argue that, even if we proportionally have the same amount of increase on accelerations or climbs, the extra 50W that I have to find that they don't for each 1 W/kg we increase has to come from somewhere. Energy ain't free and going from cruising at 330 to hitting 650/700 up the legsnapper vs their 195 to 390 makes me burn more matches for the same burst.

I also don't really get why I can increase a few W with less training than someone lighter than me unless having to carry my bulk around all day every day is a sort of resistance training for my muscles. Training improvement seems to track more with W/kg than W if you just look at bulk training. Could also be that I train very inefficiently, so I have a lot more room to improve than someone at the pointy end. I mean that's definitely true, but I'm not sure how that fits with the whole being bigger means I can improve more raw W than a lighter person at a similar fitness level.

As far as just getting strong big and then losing weight, it was sure a lot faster/easier lose weight in my 20s/30s. After passing 40 a few years back, my metabolism has slowed way down (even though I'm riding a lot more than I did in most of my 30s and probably more than riding + volleyball in my 20s, which was my sport of choice back then) and dropping weight is a lot slower/harder than it used to be.
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Old 12-17-21, 04:32 PM
  #320  
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Originally Posted by burnthesheep
How's the big dude thing work? Why not once you have the mega power drop the pounds and keep the power? Is that not practicable?

I just never understand that, why not go out and eat a lot more, gain power, then drop the weight. That sounds naive, but I really don't understand. As I thought you had to have the heart/lungs to go with it. If a person holds their weight and has reached their normal cyclist leg sizes, gains are in the heart/lungs/mitochondria. It's not growing larger legs. Right?

So that's why I'm confused how a really large dude can make so much power on so little training volume. If someone is into that physiological info, I'd be all ears.
If you lose a significant amount of weight you will lose raw power with it as well. Weight loss is never 100% fat and cutting weight can hurt training due to poor recovery / low-energy levels.
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Old 12-17-21, 07:47 PM
  #321  
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I guess Vegan Cyclist just did it....
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Old 12-19-21, 10:53 AM
  #322  
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Originally Posted by carpediemracing
I'm sure you've beaten me because I have so many DNFs to my name.

So if I register for a race and don't start, does that count?
Dude i'll take what I can get!
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Old 12-19-21, 07:01 PM
  #323  
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Originally Posted by brian44
I guess Vegan Cyclist just did it....
I mean, I didn't look into that.......but if he rides as much as he lets on from the video blog stuff that should be a foregone conclusion that he could without issue.

If I've done a 40k in aero at 265w and am pretty good at riding in TT in aero, I'm down maybe 10w versus road position. I just ride that much in aero. So 275w for road. Confirmed by an indoor Alpe climb at about that on the road bike. My 40k is faster than 60min, but close enough. I hope to get that to maybe 275w this year in aero for that same duration.

We'll see. I'm also working on more aero gains, so there's that also. As power matters as long as it isn't wasted on a bad riding position, equipment, or excess weight, or bad strategy.
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Old 12-19-21, 07:26 PM
  #324  
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Originally Posted by burnthesheep
Agreed. For Zwift I guess I lament they don't do a good job on their classifications. So I don't race. It isn't experience/skill/power combo based. I'm basically trying to build my point for Zwift moving to points based racing like USAC has instead of raw w/kg.

I'm kind of over the "it ain't possible, they cheat" mentality and on to "so what, just move to points instead".

Even for group rides that aren't races and choose to not do "everyone together" for listing 3/wkg........you get a bunch of anomalies of folks on the front doing 300w the whole time at 100kg.

I mean, local to me, you'd still be in pretty rare air doing 300w for a full hour. No matter how small/big you are.
I’m new to Zwift, but I do have a couple of observations from the racing I’ve done. It seems that everything is based on your 20’ power, but that power is irrelevant in most Zwift races. My 20’ power puts me solidly in the A’s, but I get my ass kicked in every race I do except TT’s and a race up Alpe du Zwift. They group you on 20’ power, but races are won and lost (or I get dropped or not) based on my 30” to 1’ power. All of the things I’m good at in cycling don’t help in Zwift racing and all of the things I’m bad at are really important. :-).

I’m no longer a spring chicken, but I can still do a P/1/2 crit and not worry about getting dropped and even maybe play briefly at the front. In a Cat A race on Zwift I get popped out the back. I think I’m still kind of figuring things out and the game is similar, but not exactly like “real racing”. I think I can improve, but I’m probably going to get a kicking more often than not.

I think that you can do quite well on Zwift without having a crazy high FTP. Certainly you need some, but I would hesitate to jump to the conclusion that a rider who does well on Zwift necessarily has a big FTP. More likely they have a decent FTP and really good 1-5’ power.

Another thing is that the “pond” is I think much deeper on Zwift. When I go to Master’s nationals or worlds a lot of really good guys go, but also, a lot don’t for any number of reasons. Not every quality rider has the time, resources or family situation to travel to nationals or especially worlds. A lot more of those people do have the time/resources to get on Zwift. If there are 5 top level guys in your age group locally, maybe only 3 will go to nationals. But on Zwift imagine 3 of the top 5 in EVERY locality hopping onto the Zwift race you’re doing today. It’s going to be kind of hard!
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Old 12-19-21, 07:44 PM
  #325  
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Originally Posted by nslckevin
I’m new to Zwift, but I do have a couple of observations from the racing I’ve done. It seems that everything is based on your 20’ power, but that power is irrelevant in most Zwift races. My 20’ power puts me solidly in the A’s, but I get my ass kicked in every race I do except TT’s and a race up Alpe du Zwift. They group you on 20’ power, but races are won and lost (or I get dropped or not) based on my 30” to 1’ power. All of the things I’m good at in cycling don’t help in Zwift racing and all of the things I’m bad at are really important. :-).

I’m no longer a spring chicken, but I can still do a P/1/2 crit and not worry about getting dropped and even maybe play briefly at the front. In a Cat A race on Zwift I get popped out the back. I think I’m still kind of figuring things out and the game is similar, but not exactly like “real racing”. I think I can improve, but I’m probably going to get a kicking more often than not.

I think that you can do quite well on Zwift without having a crazy high FTP. Certainly you need some, but I would hesitate to jump to the conclusion that a rider who does well on Zwift necessarily has a big FTP. More likely they have a decent FTP and really good 1-5’ power.

Another thing is that the “pond” is I think much deeper on Zwift. When I go to Master’s nationals or worlds a lot of really good guys go, but also, a lot don’t for any number of reasons. Not every quality rider has the time, resources or family situation to travel to nationals or especially worlds. A lot more of those people do have the time/resources to get on Zwift. If there are 5 top level guys in your age group locally, maybe only 3 will go to nationals. But on Zwift imagine 3 of the top 5 in EVERY locality hopping onto the Zwift race you’re doing today. It’s going to be kind of hard!
I thought that about "there are a ton of good riders on Zwift because you are drawing on all the good riders from all over the world". Then I realized it's probably not that, although it may be getting better.

When Zwift first started there was a rider that absolutely blew everyone away. I don't know the rider's real name, but it was a woman, and she was putting down crazy power. Then Zwift had the Zwift Academy to discover strong riders, and this rider... disappeared. I haven't seen her online since. She might have changed her name, etc, but it's possible that her data wasn't accurate. It's one thing to ride with inaccurate data "in the wild", but in a Zwift Academy setting, that kind of data will be very obvious very soon.

I think a lot of riders are wildly overestimating their power. For example, I use an SRM, I've calibrated it, I have an idea of my power, and I am confident it's reasonably accurate. So my 90 min Alpe time makes sense, my 180 min VenTop time makes sense.

Then I see someone that realistically will not be able to go much faster than me if at all, and they've gone 33% faster on Alpe.

At the same time, I've learned that if I'm pedaling (to start warming up) as Zwift boots up, it takes my power as zero, so if I'm rolling at 50w, then go, say, 200w on Zwift, Zwift shows 150w, because I lost that initial 50w. I've had to stop, get my avatar to put a foot down, then try again. On the track bike I can't get it closer than about 10w (so I am going 10w harder than Zwift), and my road bike is typically even or 10w off.

And at the same time, I haven't seen crazy good sprinters. I mean a Chris Hoy kind of rider, on Zwift, ought to stay out like crazy. I'm putting down literally half his peak, half his 20s power, and I'm one of the "faster" sprinters out there. If a modern day sprinter got onto Zwift, it'd be like a joke. But I've never seen such numbers, times, etc. No 2000w jumps, no 1500w sustained. But riders can do that.

As far as the racing goes, it's tougher for us tricky racers. I'm an okay 3, sometimes pretty good. In 2015 I was a pretty good 3, won a race, got three 3rds. On Zwift I was a D racer, barely. I can't sit in and coast like I do in real lift. Wind direction doesn't exist in Zwift so it doesn't penalize others (vs me because I sit in better). The coasting model is very aggressive, you coast like you're braking. Etc.
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"...during the Lance years, being fit became the No. 1 thing. Totally the only thing. It’s a big part of what we do, but fitness is not the only thing. There’s skills, there’s tactics … there’s all kinds of stuff..." Tim Johnson
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