Clean Aussie Pro's

[sniper]

Re:

If Evans could keep up when he shouldn't, it won't be because he was beefier - it'll be because he blood doped like everybody else. At which point, this "Evans is so beefy" talk becomes superfluous. It doesn't explain Evans's performance. It's just blind shots.

I see your point. And yes, we also need the blooddoping. No doubt.
Still, assuming for a sec that my weight estimates are accurate, I'd be interested in knowing (a) how unique that kind of weight gain is among endurance athletes in that particular age (25 to 30), (b) whether or not it requires an exogenous explanation, and if so, (c) what the exogenous explanation is.

Fact is (and I think you'll agree) Evans constitutes a salient exception to what seems to have been the trend in the past (half a) decade or so, the trend being extreme weight loss.

 

[MellowJohnny]

Getting away from the Evans debate, 3 interesting ones

Adam Hansen
Allan Davis
Henk Vogels

?????

 

[SeriousSam]

In 1905, Bertrand Russell wrote a famous essay called "On denoting". The problem he was tackling was how we can make sense of sentences that say something about objects that do not exist. Can they still be true or false?

Most of his analysis was about a sentence involving "the present king of France". But he might as well have used "clean aussie pros".

 

[Alex Simmons/RST]

Re:

No I don't think so. I believe you can increase mitochondria density with no increase in muscle mass.

Yes.

Hypertrophy of slow twitch muscle fibres is however also a natural consequence of sufficient volume of high end aerobic training, especially lots of threshold and VO2 max type work.

 

[blackcat]

Re: Re:

If Evans could keep up when he shouldn't, it won't be because he was beefier - it'll be because he blood doped like everybody else. At which point, this "Evans is so beefy" talk becomes superfluous. It doesn't explain Evans's performance. It's just blind shots.

I see your point. And yes, we also need the blooddoping. No doubt.
Still, assuming for a sec that my weight estimates are accurate, I'd be interested in knowing (a) how unique that kind of weight gain is among endurance athletes in that particular age (25 to 30), (b) whether or not it requires an exogenous explanation, and if so, (c) what the exogenous explanation is.

Fact is (and I think you'll agree) Evans constitutes a salient exception to what seems to have been the trend in the past (half a) decade or so, the trend being extreme weight loss.

see Gerro, he is smart and has not lost weight, and he still has the sprint and punch. Matthews, otoh, has won a bunch sprint in Vuelta about 2 years ago, but he has lost weight so he competes with Gerro in the Ardennes. Gerro triangulates his strengths against his competitors, who have all lost a few lbs, but a few lbs in the Ardennes, is superfluous. 10km climb, no, Ardennes, yes. Matthews could have been 5lbs heavier and been a field sprints specialist, but he would have had to tackle Cav and Kittell, which is not easy.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Re: Re:

No I don't think so. I believe you can increase mitochondria density with no increase in muscle mass.

Yes.

Hypertrophy of slow twitch muscle fibres is however also a natural consequence of sufficient volume of high end aerobic training, especially lots of threshold and VO2 max type work.

Assuming sufficient dietary protein yeah? Which should be a given for a pro cyclist.

 

[movingtarget]

Re:

movingtarget have a look at the physique of martin vinnicombe, no bigger that ed clancy or steven burke

From what I remember of Martin Vinnicombe he was huge. Maybe that was in the later steroid days.

 

[movingtarget]

Re: Re:

What's so hard about putting on muscle when you're a super lean cyclist type? The hard part is losing it.

Yeah I am not understanding the skullduggery of a professional athlete developing muscle from 19 to 25 as a full-time athlete.

concede this. but see marathoners, do they put on much weight? the non-african racial athlete type? most stay around jockey leanness[sic]. see the Brownlee brothers in triathlon.

De Castella was not like that. He also said he had to give up swimming as he was putting on too much muscle. Something he sometimes did in the off season. Lot's of cyclists use to do cross country skiing in Winter and obviously that would have added a lot of bulk looking at the pro cross country skiiers. Maybe more the sprinters than the GT riders.

 

[movingtarget]

Re: Re:

So 19 to 30 and you don't think a full-time athlete would put some weight on between those 2 ages?

:-/

you're bending it like beckham, DW.
'put some weight on'
if his weight development is not remarkable, it should be easy to give me another example from cycling.
and please consider his Mapei weight as the starting point. He's 24/25 there, a full grown athlete.
At 25 Cadel looked more like a Schleck or a Wiggins.
At 30+ Cadel has the same weight/musculature as a Sagan.

Evans is also only 174 cms. Sagan has to be at least 10 cms taller. Evans also changed his training and did lot more work on the TT. That had to have some effect on his body shape also. He was never a spinner, he was always riding big gears.

 

[movingtarget]

Re:

Don't get me wrong, he's chunky. 64kg for 1.74m is heavy compared to Froome's current 66kg for 1.85m frame.

Hinault was the same build but slightly taller. He won five Tours. Not a pure climber either.

 

[blackcat]

Re: Re:

De Castella was not like that. He also said he had to give up swimming as he was putting on too much muscle. Something he sometimes did in the off season. Lot's of cyclists use to do cross country skiing in Winter and obviously that would have added a lot of bulk looking at the pro cross country skiiers. Maybe more the sprinters than the GT riders.

i almost googled the spelling but thought better of it wrt foreigners awareness of RdC, but I was definitely thinking RdC.

And a devil's advocate or rebuttal on DearWiggo point on running v cycling catabolic, but they dont run for 5 hours a day because it is weight bearing and your white tissue tendon/ligament plus the red tissue muscle cant just hack it.

 

[blackcat]

Re: Re:

movingtarget have a look at the physique of martin vinnicombe, no bigger that ed clancy or steven burke

From what I remember of Martin Vinnicombe he was huge. Maybe that was in the later steroid days.

nope, not huge. think an 800metre track and field frame of today. a little bit bigger than Boonen's upperbody, maybe something like Theo Bos.

 

[blackcat]

 

[heart_attack_man]

Re:

In 1905, Bertrand Russell wrote a famous essay called "On denoting". The problem he was tackling was how we can make sense of sentences that say something about objects that do not exist. Can they still be true or false?

Most of his analysis was about a sentence involving "the present king of France". But he might as well have used "clean aussie pros".

Agreed. I don't know how this thread has reached 7 pages... (DISCLAIMER: I am Australian)

 

[Alex Simmons/RST]

Re: Re:

No I don't think so. I believe you can increase mitochondria density with no increase in muscle mass.

Yes.

Hypertrophy of slow twitch muscle fibres is however also a natural consequence of sufficient volume of high end aerobic training, especially lots of threshold and VO2 max type work.

Assuming sufficient dietary protein yeah? Which should be a given for a pro cyclist.

Yes.

It's particularly pronounced in roadies that move back to a phase of track specific training, e.g. pursuiters, or team pursuiters. In general they put on lean muscle mass.

 

[Alex Simmons/RST]

Re: Re:

De Castella was not like that. He also said he had to give up swimming as he was putting on too much muscle. Something he sometimes did in the off season. Lot's of cyclists use to do cross country skiing in Winter and obviously that would have added a lot of bulk looking at the pro cross country skiiers. Maybe more the sprinters than the GT riders.

I recall some years ago (at least a decade ago), and well beyond his competitive running days, he told me one day he been cycling a bit and found it quite hard relative to running. It was the greater variability in effort of climbs and descents he felt. He was not a small guy. Lean but not small.

 

[sniper]

Re:

I wouldn't trust my eyes, Blackcat.
These photos are deceptive, messing with your brains.

 

[movingtarget]

Re: Re:

I wouldn't trust my eyes, Blackcat.
These photos are deceptive, messing with your brains.

From what I remember he was a better 1 KM rider on the track and that was his specialty which means sprinting as well not so much 4 KM pursuit. Those photos support that. Compare the photos to an average pursuit rider today and I think he is much bigger. He looks more like a track sprinter. But I guess compared to someone like Michael Huber he is a shrimp.

 

[TheDuke]

Hi guys, just in reference to Marty above, I used to ride a lot with him in the late 80´s and early 90´s and I can say that he was "huge", compared to to me. Ok, I´m not massive at 179cm and back then probably 75kgs, but he was at least over 6ft (183cm) and I´d say around 85kgs. He had enormous legs, and could put out massive power. We always referred to him as "Big Marty". Incidently he was considering a switch to Ice Skating long course sprinting - good build for it

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Re:

Hi guys, just in reference to Marty above, I used to ride a lot with him in the late 80´s and early 90´s and I can say that he was "huge", compared to to me. Ok, I´m not massive at 179cm and back then probably 75kgs, but he was at least over 6ft (183cm) and I´d say around 85kgs. He had enormous legs, and could put out massive power. We always referred to him as "Big Marty". Incidently he was considering a switch to Ice Skating long course sprinting - good build for it

Story I read back in the day when he was last man for the kilo, the riders currently in 1st & 2nd hopeful he might break his bike on take off

 

[TheDuke]

I certainly wouldn´t have put it past him to snap a frame. He had big power for sure. He used to make awesome wheels, all hand made and spoke tied. He was by far the most powerful rider in our bunch, and there were some good riders in there like Brett Dutton and Matty White, but on the flat coming back from Waterfall once the big guy put the hammer down - it was struggle street to stay with him. In saying that though, Lucy Tyler may have had bigger legs than Marty back then

 

[TheDuke]

Just one further comment, and this isn´t related to Vinnicombe, but just the perception about how big riders are in photos and television. Dont be mislead by the images you see on TV. Most of these guys are actually pretty small. I´m not saying that as a general rule, and of course I have seen some big guys, heck, I used to think that Thor Hushovd looked massive on TV, but in reality compared to most grown men, he is actually quite small. Certainly for a pro level rider, he is probably big. I´m often roadside watching these guys go by, or occasionally have the opportunity to ride with them, and some of them are just tiny. I rode (struggled) behind Romain Bardet and Clement Chevrier earlier in the year, and it felt like I was riding behind one rider The funny thing is that last night (and this is absolutely no joke) I bumped into Peter Sagan who was heading up to the Tour of Suisse, and what struck me was that he is really quite small, compared to how he looks on TV. Very nice guy as well!

Just a thought....

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Agreed. Jens was like 75kg race weight and it's ridiculous how light that is for someone his height vs a normal person.

 

[movingtarget]

Re:

Just one further comment, and this isn´t related to Vinnicombe, but just the perception about how big riders are in photos and television. Dont be mislead by the images you see on TV. Most of these guys are actually pretty small. I´m not saying that as a general rule, and of course I have seen some big guys, heck, I used to think that Thor Hushovd looked massive on TV, but in reality compared to most grown men, he is actually quite small. Certainly for a pro level rider, he is probably big. I´m often roadside watching these guys go by, or occasionally have the opportunity to ride with them, and some of them are just tiny. I rode (struggled) behind Romain Bardet and Clement Chevrier earlier in the year, and it felt like I was riding behind one rider The funny thing is that last night (and this is absolutely no joke) I bumped into Peter Sagan who was heading up to the Tour of Suisse, and what struck me was that he is really quite small, compared to how he looks on TV. Very nice guy as well!

Just a thought....

Yes this is true. Most road riders are slight but track riders are a different matter. But even some of the track riders look much bigger while on the bike. I always thought Armstrong looked much bigger on the bike. You have seen the photos of Andy Schleck in a pool and even Wiggins. Both incredibly thin. You wonder where the power comes from but of course the light weight is part of the reason.

 

[42x16ss]

I certainly wouldn´t have put it past him to snap a frame. He had big power for sure. He used to make awesome wheels, all hand made and spoke tied. He was by far the most powerful rider in our bunch, and there were some good riders in there like Brett Dutton and Matty White, but on the flat coming back from Waterfall once the big guy put the hammer down - it was struggle street to stay with him. In saying that though, Lucy Tyler may have had bigger legs than Marty back then

I remember Vinnicombe saying that he had to be careful taking off in the 1km and pursuit as the frames he was using would flex too much and be inefficient

He was saying that if he was able to ride today's carbon frames he'd be a few seconds faster for sure!