Are tall riders at a disadvantage for GC wins?

[dominikk85]

Obviously super tall guys like 6'3 + often are at a disadvantage due to weight at climbs but it seems recently most of the major talents for GC wins are quite short (like sub 5'10/1.78m).

Evenepoel 1.71/5'7
Vingegaard 1.75/5'9
Pogacar 1.77/5'9 1/2
Roglic 1.77
Bernal 1.75

Also most of them are very light at around or under 140 pounds.

Historically many climbers have been as small or smaller (pantani) but those guys also dominate ITTs which used to be often dominated by bigger riders like for example indurain who was like 6'1 170 or so.

Are we entering an Era of tiny GC riders? I'm not saying that it used to be super different, GCs were never won by 6'2 180+ guys but I wonder if "normal sized" riders who are maybe 6 ft 160 will still have a chance in the future?

Do you think maybe UCI rules put short and tiny riders at an advantage at ITTs due to aero rules in relation to height?

To me it feels wrong that 5'8 140 guys dominate flat ITTs. In the mountains of course but in ITTs it feels a little strange.

Does UCI maybe need to adapt rules so "normal sized" riders have a chance again?

 

[JayKosta]

Maybe there is an aero advantage for shorter riders due to less leg frontal area exposed to air resistance. That might also apply to upper body area.

 

[Elos Anjos]

Physics is unfair, we have to change that.

 

[Cookster15]

Simple physics - the taller you are the heavier you are. This is no reason to change UCI rules to make taller people more competitive. Imagine changing the rules of basketball to make shorter people more competitive?

 

[Vesica]

well..
Nibali - 1,81 m
Froome - 1,86 m
Dumoulin - 1,85 m
Geoghegan Hart - 1,83 m
Wiggins - 1,90 m
Thomas - 1,83

So I would say also plenty examples of riders who could considered as "tall".

 

[Red Rick]

Obviously super tall guys like 6'3 + often are at a disadvantage due to weight at climbs but it seems recently most of the major talents for GC wins are quite short (like sub 5'10/1.78m).

Evenepoel 1.71/5'7
Vingegaard 1.75/5'9
Pogacar 1.77/5'9 1/2
Roglic 1.77
Bernal 1.75

Also most of them are very light at around or under 140 pounds.

Historically many climbers have been as small or smaller (pantani) but those guys also dominate ITTs which used to be often dominated by bigger riders like for example indurain who was like 6'1 170 or so.

Are we entering an Era of tiny GC riders? I'm not saying that it used to be super different, GCs were never won by 6'2 180+ guys but I wonder if "normal sized" riders who are maybe 6 ft 160 will still have a chance in the future?

Do you think maybe UCI rules put short and tiny riders at an advantage at ITTs due to aero rules in relation to height?

To me it feels wrong that 5'8 140 guys dominate flat ITTs. In the mountains of course but in ITTs it feels a little strange.

Does UCI maybe need to adapt rules so "normal sized" riders have a chance again?

I believe for most countries being between 170 and 180cm is more common than being over 180cm, there's only a few countries IIRC where the mean male height is over 180cm.

I'm pretty sure for pure W/kg output smaller is simply better because if you're taller you don't only have to have the same oxygen carrying capacity per kilo, you also have to carry that oxygen for a longer distance.

GC riders used to be bigger because flats had a bigger effect due to less efficient and heavier bikes. Now smaller riders are simply more efficient at hiding in the peloton.

As for short riders dominating flat ITTs, I'd say only Evenepoel really does that.

 

[Gratemans]

Physics is unfair, we have to change that.

^This.

I really had a "wtf did I just read" moment from the OP. Thanks for that I guess.
Taller guys aren't at a disadvantage. They are physically less suited to compete for GC. There's a subtle but important difference there.
It's nature, and you gotta work with what nature gave you. That's how sports work. Taller guys that have a talent for cycling often are better suited for TT's or sprints. So they become TT'ers, rouleurs or sprinters.
Those that are actually capable of going for a GC will still do so (Vesica named quite a few there).

Changing the rules to make it easier for tall guys to win a GC must be one of the most absurd suggestions I ever read.

 

[Cookster15]

I believe for most countries being between 170 and 180cm is more common than being over 180cm, there's only a few countries IIRC where the mean male height is over 180cm.

I'm pretty sure for pure W/kg output smaller is simply better because if you're taller you don't only have to have the same oxygen carrying capacity per kilo, you also have to carry that oxygen for a longer distance.

GC riders used to be bigger because flats had a bigger effect due to less efficient and heavier bikes. Now smaller riders are simply more efficient at hiding in the peloton.

As for short riders dominating flat ITTs, I'd say only Evenepoel really does that.

I agree re Evenepoel but then how do we explain riders like the Schleck brothers who are 186cm - 6’1” ? I suppose to answer my own question, the aero advantage of shorter riders in TT only became fully evident in the last 10 years?

 

[Red Rick]

I agree re Evenepoel but then how do we explain riders like the Schleck brothers who are 186cm - 6’1” ? I suppose to answer my own question, the aero advantage of shorter riders in TT only became fully evident in the last 10 years?

No?

Leipheimer and Evans were also short. It's mostly about being able to put the power out in an aero position. And guys like Evans and Leipi had a slightly higher BMI than guys like Schleck.

 

[dominikk85]

well..
Nibali - 1,81 m
Froome - 1,86 m
Dumoulin - 1,85 m
Geoghegan Hart - 1,83 m
Wiggins - 1,90 m
Thomas - 1,83

So I would say also plenty examples of riders who could considered as "tall".

Most of them are older though (mid to late 30s), the younger generation of GC contenders is mostly shorter.

I wonder if that is a general trend or just a coincidence.

 

[dominikk85]

Simple physics - the taller you are the heavier you are. This is no reason to change UCI rules to make taller people more competitive. Imagine changing the rules of basketball to make shorter people more competitive?

That is true of course, frontal area will always be bigger for taller guys.

The question is whether the relative frontal area (body angles) are the same or whether the rules mean that body angles are more upright for taller guys.

I don't know the exact rules but if the rule says aero bars can go x inches past the wheel or something it would mean the taller rider has to be more upright.

 

[proffate]

Height of TDF winners over time does not support the thesis that shorter riders are gaining advantage relative to taller riders.

And it's not really that "short" riders have an advantage anyway, or we'd see Pozzovivo winning more. It's that average height riders have an advantage.

Top marathon runners are all in the range of 5'5" - 5'9". Kipchoge is 5'7" and I don't think you can get much more perfect than him. Top road cycling GC riders are slightly taller than that, probably due to aerodynamics playing a larger role and/or a result of the equipment weight handicap smaller riders face.

Aside from physiology, a small part of the clustering around the same height is likely due to equipment. I argue that bicycles are designed to work well in the 52-54cm range and very small or very large bikes are just less efficient. (It seems obvious that the optimal wheel size, for example, would not be the same for all humans, but all competitors are using 700c wheels.) Obviously if we used HPVs instead of upright bicycles for racing TTs, the winners would skew taller. Likewise if the weight limit for bikes were 50lbs then smaller riders would have a harder time up climbs. So there is a large degree to which this is all arbitrary and not just physics.

 

[proffate]

Imagine changing the rules of basketball to make shorter people more competitive?

I actually don't know how you would do this*, but I'm sure they would if it garnered more viewership.

Nordic skiing is cool because winners can be almost any height.

The rules in cycling are already extremely arbitrary and capricious. Adjusting them so that a larger range of body types can be competitive would be a strict improvement. But I agree that changing something so the optimal height simply shifted from one value to another would be pointless.

* lowering the rim isn't going to keep your shot from being blocked by someone a foot taller than you

 

[Gratemans]

The rules in cycling are already extremely arbitrary and capricious. Adjusting them so that a larger range of body types can be competitive would be a strict improvement.

What the actual?!
I'm not even gonna bother with this thread: It might get me banned. I just hope someone more patient than me drops by to politely explain to you the meaning of professional sports.

 

[dominikk85]

What the actual?!
I'm not even gonna bother with this thread: It might get me banned. I just hope someone more patient than me drops by to politely explain to you the meaning of professional sports.

Actually rule changes to help certain body types are not uncommon in other sports.

Basketball introduced the 3 second zone and later the 3 point line to reduce the dominance of tall players (they still dominate but would dominate more without those rules.

Ski jumping makes athletes with a too low BMI to use shorter Ski.


Also I wouldn't ask UCI to specifically help taller athletes, I was just asking whether the aero rules are putting larger guys at a disadvantage not just absolutely but also relatively, ie. Are shorter guys have the same body angle and just a smaller frontal area or can they actually "stretch" more and be less upright.

 

[Gratemans]

I was just asking whether the aero rules are putting larger guys at a disadvantage not just absolutely but also relatively, ie. Are shorter guys have the same body angle and just a smaller frontal area or can they actually "stretch" more and be less upright.

There are no "rules" that put larger guys at a disadvantage. It's all physics. And if ever there were honest, unbiased and universal rules, it's the laws of physics.

And I feel like I'm repeating myself (or @Vesica to be precise): Tom Dumoulin. Geraint Thomas. Vincenzo Nibali.

 

[carton]

Height of TDF winners over time does not support the thesis that shorter riders are gaining advantage relative to taller riders.

And it's not really that "short" riders have an advantage anyway, or we'd see Pozzovivo winning more. It's that average height riders have an advantage.

Top marathon runners are all in the range of 5'5" - 5'9". Kipchoge is 5'7" and I don't think you can get much more perfect than him. Top road cycling GC riders are slightly taller than that, probably due to aerodynamics playing a larger role and/or a result of the equipment weight handicap smaller riders face.

Aside from physiology, a small part of the clustering around the same height is likely due to equipment. I argue that bicycles are designed to work well in the 52-54cm range and very small or very large bikes are just less efficient. (It seems obvious that the optimal wheel size, for example, would not be the same for all humans, but all competitors are using 700c wheels.) Obviously if we used HPVs instead of upright bicycles for racing TTs, the winners would skew taller. Likewise if the weight limit for bikes were 50lbs then smaller riders would have a harder time up climbs. So there is a large degree to which this is all arbitrary and not just physics.

I would venture that graph stacks up with average male height increasing over time to the current 1.75m. I don't think the WT riders' height distribution varies significantly from average male heights worldwide. I would guess that they are a bit over those averages, possibly even factoring in that most riders are European. So yeah, given current rules and equipment, GC capabilities seem to be rather uncorrelated to height. If anything, I would think that there is a floor rather than a ceiling. I think it is harder for a 1.60m rider (15cm under the global average) than for a 1.90m (vice-versa) given that the weight of the bikes does correlate perfectly with rider height. Jose Rujano is the shortest rider I can think of that contended for WT GC in the last few decades and he was listed at 1.62m, meanwhile Wiggins at 1.9m won the Tour, and 1.92m Thymen Arensmann just came in 6th at the Giro.

I would, however, venture to guess that GC contenders are a bit under average forum heights as English-speaking cycling fans seem would seem to be overweighted in Northern Europe and Aukus where heights are a bit higher than global averages.

 

[proffate]

There are no "rules" that put larger guys at a disadvantage. It's all physics.

Uh, I mean there are rules, and the rules affect different riders differently. If you change enough rules, cycling becomes rowing, and in rowing, it's better to be larger. More realistically, I gave two extremely plausible rule changes that would give more advantage to taller riders.

Unrelated question. How tall are you?

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Height of TDF winners over time does not support the thesis that shorter riders are gaining advantage relative to taller riders.

You need to correct for the height increase of the population as a whole though. If the percentage of people shorter than 1.75m in cycling countries overall, and in the peloton in particular, has decreased over time (and it has), then there will also be less Tour winners shorter than 1.75. Moreover, the graph is missing the Tour wins of Pogacar and Vingegaard, who are 1.76 and 1.75 respectively. Finally, the graph starting with the year Jean Robic became the shortest-ever Tour winner means his outlier height skews the correlation to the maximum possible degree.

IMO what you want to be doing if you really want to base your conclusions on this kind of data is calculating the height difference between the Tour winner and the average rider height for that year's Tour, and using that for the correlation. And maybe also include second and third place so that repeat winners don't skew things too much.

Tl;dr: this graph tells us nothing.

 

[proffate]

I would venture that graph stacks up with average male height increasing over time to the current 1.75m. I don't think the WT riders' height distribution varies significantly from average male heights worldwide. I would guess that they are a bit over those averages, possibly even factoring in that most riders are European. So yeah, given current rules and equipment, GC capabilities seem to be rather uncorrelated to height. If anything, I would think that there is a floor rather than a ceiling. I think it is harder for a 1.60m rider (15cm under the global average) than for a 1.90m (vice-versa) given that the weight of the bikes does correlate perfectly with rider height. Jose Rujano is the shortest rider I can think of that contended for WT GC in the last few decades and he was listed at 1.62m, meanwhile Wiggins at 1.9m won the Tour, and 1.92m Thymen Arensmann just came in 6th at the Giro.

I would, however, venture to guess that GC contenders are a bit under average forum heights as English-speaking cycling fans seem would seem to be overweighted in Northern Europe and Aukus where heights are a bit higher than global averages.

The worldwide average isn't very interesting because worldwide, malnutrition drags the average down quite a bit. Besides, why do we care what the average height of a certain population is if they don't participate in cycling?

Anyway, saying "GC riders are average height" is quite a lot different from "I don't think the WT riders' height distribution varies significantly from average male heights worldwide" or "GC capabilities seem to be rather uncorrelated to height". My conclusion would be that you must be approximately average height to be a good GC racer given current rules. Not correlated would mean that we'd see the occasional 5 or 7 foot rider. The dataset for TDF winners is rather small, but across the many thousands of pro cyclists we've ever seen, there's never been someone over 6'6", so obviously the pro cyclist distribution does not match the population's distribution. I agree that there is as much of a floor as a ceiling.

 

[proffate]

IMO what you want to be doing if you really want to base your conclusions on this kind of data is calculating the height difference between the Tour winner and the average rider height for that year's Tour, and using that for the correlation. And maybe also include second and third place so that repeat winners don't skew things too much.

Feel free to collate that data.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Feel free to collate that data.

Please call me back when there are more than 24 hours in a day.

 

[carton]

The worldwide average isn't very interesting because worldwide, malnutrition drags the average down quite a bit. Besides, why do we care what the average height of a certain population is if they don't participate in cycling?

Anyway, saying "GC riders are average height" is quite a lot different from "I don't think the WT riders' height distribution varies significantly from average male heights worldwide" or "GC capabilities seem to be rather uncorrelated to height". My conclusion would be that you must be approximately average height to be a good GC racer given current rules. Not correlated would mean that we'd see the occasional 5 or 7 foot rider. The dataset for TDF winners is rather small, but across the many thousands of pro cyclists we've ever seen, there's never been someone over 6'6", so obviously the pro cyclist distribution does not match the population's distribution. I agree that there is as much of a floor as a ceiling.

So global averages aren't actually all that different, average male height in the US, where the malnutrition rate us under 4%, is only 1cm above the world average. Also, human height, as most things, is normally distributed not uniformly distributed. So in the US about 98.5% of people are under 6'4" and just 1 in 3 million people are 7' or over. So no, you're not likely to have a seven foot WT rider in our lifetime. But Connor Dunne is 6'8" and he was ProTour.

Again, given the bike weight penalty, while I said that rider height is rather uncorrelated to GC capabality, I do think there is a floor. I doubt we'll see a GC or even a WT rider under 5 feet. And maybe there is also a point at which say a 6'10" rider just can't get low enough and eats so much wind in a pack where 84% of guys are 5'6"-6' that he can't hang on. Seems unlikely. Somewhat more likely it might be the case that if you're at all athletic and you're over 6'8" you're better off trying your hand at basketball. And again, that also just shaves another extremely thin tail off the distribution.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Taller riders already get an advantage in TT position, they are allowed to put their arms in a more angled position compared to shorter riders, which allows more of their upper body to hide behind their arms, meaning their aerobars, which are... aero, have a bigger impact. Just to overcome a disadvantage of their bodytype. For me that is an unfair advantage, because the advantage of a taller rider is that they are also able to push more watts. Why do smaller riders have to see their advantage taken away from them? I don't see smaller riders getting a power advantage because taller riders have more power. Should smaller riders be allowed to have an electric motor to help them to overcome the power difference with taller riders, seeing as taller riders get help to overcome their disadvantage?

Taller (heavier) riders are also at an advantage when it comes to bike weight and overall w/kg, because bike weights are the same for all, which means smaller riders need to push more w/kg in order to perform the same. Frame strength/stiffness, frame size, brake performance... those need to be more performant for taller/heavier riders. A 55kg guy could well get his bike to weigh significantly less, while -for his weight- still be as safe or even safer than a rider weighing 30kg more. Going downhill into a corner at 90kmh, a bike of a heavy rider has to be more stiff and be able to brake harder than for a light rider. Yet the bike weight is the same for all, 6.8kg. Which means uphill the light rider has to drag more weight relative to his own bodyweight, putting him at a disadvantage w/kg.

Say you are a short guy and weigh 55 kg. Your net potential is to push 7w/kg for a certain duration of time. That's 385w. With a 6.8kg bike added, you will be able to push 6,23w/kg.
Now your rival is taller and weighs 75kg. His net potential is also to push the same 7w/kg for the same duration. That's 525w. With the 6.8kg of the bike, he will push 6,43w/kg.
He will drop you on the climb.

So the short/light guy has to push more watts, because even though he could safely ride a lighter bike, he has to ride the same bike as the heavier dude, which has this minimum weight, so that the bike would be safe enough for the heavy dude. So the short/light rider gets punished for the heavy riders being heavy.

 

[Cookster15]

Taller riders already get an advantage in TT position, they are allowed to put their arms in a more angled position compared to shorter riders, which allows more of their upper body to hide behind their arms, meaning their aerobars, which are... aero, have a bigger impact. Just to overcome a disadvantage of their bodytype.

Disagree. Aerodynamic drag is a function of drag coefficient (incl aero position) and frontal area.

Short riders like Remco (171cm) also have lower frontal area which negates any disadvantage of a less aero TT position. Another example was Domenico Pozzovivo who was only 165cm but could do a good TT when on form e.g. 2013 Vuelta. Also, in sprinting Cavendish was relatively short compared to other sprinters.