the delgados wrote:red_flanders wrote:the delgados wrote:I don't think smaller gears explain that clip in any way. There's nothing magic about a smaller gear. You just spin faster for the same speed. If anything he appears to be in way too big a gear for the incline but is putting in little visible effort.
I'm not trying to be a contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. I highly suspect motors have/are being used in the peloton.
With all due respect, please tell me what gear he was pushing. I mean, you said it was too big, but unless you're seeing a different video, I have no clue what gear ratio he was using. That's pretty much impossible to determine. Please let us know what gear you think he was pushing.
You're absolutely right--there's nothing magic about smaller gears. That said, they allow you to keep a high cadence at a steep pitch without losing too much of your rhythm.
I am open to being completely wrong, but
I see a guy who got a bit of a breather while waiting for the Vroomster to catch up before switching into a very low gear and keep a high cadence and speed for a very short period of time while his leader said a quick "hi' before taking off into the distance.
(run-on sentence, but I hope my point's are clear.)
I don't know why the exact gear has any bearing, of course I don't know. What matters is that we have all ridden bikes for a really long time (some of us for way too long) and we know what an effort and an acceleration should look like at a given grade, ESPECIALLY when we can watch other riders move over the same spot. Smaller gears make it easier, and make you go slower and/or spin faster. This is not what I see in this video.
He appears to me, and a great many others, to be moving way too fast, with too little effort for whatever gear he appears to be using. He appears to accelerate without any additional effort. If you see it otherwise, I won't argue with you about it. But smaller gears do not answer, TO ME, what I see in that clip. What I see in that clip is someone being assisted, and it's probably the most obvious evidence of motor use I've ever seen, Cancellara, Froome, Hesjedahl, Stade2 or any other event inclusive. My personal opinion.
I think half of the frenzy about motors on this thread has been nonsense, but this, to me, is obvious.