Wout has been absolutely ridiculous.
"on another level" and TdF in the same sentence always give me pause for scepticism. How are the top guys comparing to the theoretical max human level these days? Any "superhuman" efforts?
Quote from: Fultonius on July 24, 2022, 12:13:19 pm"on another level" and TdF in the same sentence always give me pause for scepticism. How are the top guys comparing to the theoretical max human level these days? Any "superhuman" efforts?Despite all advances in tech, training, nutrition, staying cool (these ice vests look like they’d be great for between summer bouldering attempts), etc. the fastest climbs were still some distance behind the ‘bad times’, so I have some hope.
Quote from: teestub on July 24, 2022, 01:42:00 pmQuote from: Fultonius on July 24, 2022, 12:13:19 pm"on another level" and TdF in the same sentence always give me pause for scepticism. How are the top guys comparing to the theoretical max human level these days? Any "superhuman" efforts?Despite all advances in tech, training, nutrition, staying cool (these ice vests look like they’d be great for between summer bouldering attempts), etc. the fastest climbs were still some distance behind the ‘bad times’, so I have some hope.I'm not a cyclist myself and really only follow Le Tour (occasionally also follow the other grand tours but it varies) but do listen to a couple of cycle podcasts each year while Le Tour is running. What Teesub said nicely explains my understanding of it also. By doing some simple napkin maths anyone can time sections of routes and figure out the watts / KG effort. Non of the figures this year seemed to raise any eyebrows from people in the know.The really obvious phenomenon from the 'bad times' was when a rider would have a terrible day smash a couple blood bags for dinner (yum!) then come back the following day and solo an entire Alp / Pyrenees stage to victory. Nothing even close to that this year. Pog+Vin were really closely matched. Pog had one slightly bad day, got his tactics wrong chasing down Roglic without any help from his team and maybe didn't fuel well enough. Great sportsmanship though. Love that he rode off the front of the peloton today when Ineos briefly attacked just for the lolz and was beaming on the podium with the White jersey presentation.
Quote from: Fultonius on July 24, 2022, 12:13:19 pm"on another level" and TdF in the same sentence always give me pause for scepticism. How are the top guys comparing to the theoretical max human level these days? Any "superhuman" efforts?I was listening to the Real Science of Sport podcast today. They've been cycling performance sceptics for years, but they're now saying current top (bike!) climbing performances are consistently near the upper limit of the plausible, but nowhere near Pantani-era fantasy landhttps://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/cycling-special-the-science-of-cadence-van-der/id1461719225?i=1000557499846
Great edition of the Tour for me. Though Jumbo WERE pretty dominant, there was enough going on for it not to be a procession.
- Cycling individual times, power outputs etc don't look outrageous but the consistency looks very dubious. We now have GC riders out competing the specialists on stages where the specialists would previously have won. Being able to do this day after day on a grand tour looks suspicious.They also looked at Pogacar's development as a young athlete pointing out some aspects where he has always been an outlier, possibly giving hope that all could be above board.Apologies if any of this is from the episode you linked to, I haven't relistened to it.
Quote from: steveri on July 25, 2022, 09:59:42 amGreat edition of the Tour for me. Though Jumbo WERE pretty dominant, there was enough going on for it not to be a procession.I did wonder how much Roglic's withdrawal was down to really being unable to continue, versus lack of motivation to continue in a team role as senior domestique
Quote from: Muenchener on July 25, 2022, 05:27:27 pmI did wonder how much Roglic's withdrawal was down to really being unable to continue, versus lack of motivation to continue in a team role as senior domestiqueI thought he’d been found to have 2 fractured vertebrae since
I did wonder how much Roglic's withdrawal was down to really being unable to continue, versus lack of motivation to continue in a team role as senior domestique
As an honorary Dane I'm obviously now totally invested in Vingegaard ... but basically still clueless about the Tour. But he seems to be looking strong.