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Climbing Speeds

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martinvickers

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thehog said:
I've got no idea either.

And to be honest I don't think he knows either. He tends to get terse when he really doesn't have the factual information to back up the statement. But that's not important right now.

Simple and verifiable should be just that... simple me verifiable.

So maybe... climbing speeds/averages are not so simple and verifiable from pre-Festina to present day?

I'm sure there is a study somewhere which might bring us closer to reality.

Perhaps? :rolleyes: maybe? :rolleyes: I think? Somewhere there is one? Which supports this theory.... :rolleyes:

Hog, you're done.

You've baited, trolled and misled your way past my generosity level. You had chance after chance to follow the rules of the site, and to do what the Admin told you to do last night. You've refused. Again. and Again. Just as you did when you ened up being banner only days ago. It's not an accident. It's your modus operandi.

You're done. You no longer bring anything useful to the conversation, and I won't waste my time with it until you do.

If you choose to present the links you claimed to have, then I'll consider whether you're worth the time. Until that happens, you aren't, sorry.

At some stage, baiting and trollery have to be treated as such. I've reached that stage, and I will have to treat you as such until you provide some evidence otherwise.

Sorry. But you're done.
 

Dr. Maserati

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thehog said:
Martin. You made a statement that climbing times are down from pre-Festina.
You said it was simple and verifiable.


Ok. So if simple provide the data. Is it verifiable? Provide a link to where the data came from.

So what did you provide?

The following:

Hi Hog,
And didn't you say you already saw them at the 'doping conference' you were at? The powerpoint presentation?

So, you have already seen them and then you added - "it’s not true. And is not fact."
So why not just present these 'facts' you have that show "its not true"?
 
martinvickers said:
Hog, you're done.

You've baited, trolled and misled your way past my generosity level. You had chance after chance to follow the rules of the site, and to do what the Admin told you to do last night. You've refused. Again. and Again. Just as you did when you ened up being banner only days ago. It's not an accident. It's your modus operandi.

You're done. You no longer bring anything useful to the conversation, and I won't waste my time with it until you do.

If you choose to present the links you claimed to have, then I'll consider whether you're worth the time. Until that happens, you aren't, sorry.

At some stage, baiting and trollery have to be treated as such. I've reached that stage, and I will have to treat you as such until you provide some evidence otherwise.

Sorry. But you're done.

??

I'm done what?

I'm assume this is some form of threat?

Nevertheless.

You made the statement on climbing times.

I said it wasn't actually true and that I saw the same statement you made at a conference.

A statement that agreed with that position.

However I've seen no evidence that present day is slower than pee-Festina.

None.

Sample and one off times here and there, yes. But that goes vice versa.

So how you got so angry and wound up is beyond me.

You said it was simple and verifiable.

Then show us why.

Back up your statement.

Calling me a troll and pointing fingers at me baiting doesn't move the discussion forward.

So just tell us - how are average speeds down? Simply and with verification.
 
Dr. Maserati said:
Hi Hog,
And didn't you say you already saw them at the 'doping conference' you were at? The powerpoint presentation?

So, you have already seen them and then you added - "it’s not true. And is not fact."
So why not just present these 'facts' you have that show "its not true"?

I provided a very long post with the facts and links.

Martin refused to even discuss it.

Not sure why.

To busy calling me a troll and getting angry one can assume.

I'm happy for you or Martin to go through my post and pull it apart but no has bothered.

Not sure why either... maybe I'm right?
 

Dr. Maserati

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thehog said:
I provided a very long post with the facts and links.

Martin refused to even discuss it.

Not sure why.

To busy calling me a troll and getting angry one can assume.

I'm happy for you or Martin to go through my post and pull it apart but no has bothered.

Not sure why either... maybe I'm right?

I might have missed it.

So many trolling posts.

Some are quite long.

With spaces in between.

That carry no substance.

Perhaps you can post it again.

Perhaps you won't.

Perhaps you will deflect.

Perhaps you won't.
 
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martinvickers said:
...you might want to consider that AVERAGE and MEAN are not synonyms.

Actually, they are. Mean and average refer to the sum of values divided by the number of samples. Did you mean median? The median value is the 50th percentile, where half the samples are greater than the median and half the samples are less than the median. Did you men mode? Mode refers to the largest bin in a distribution.

Anyways, mean and average are synonyms. And as a scientist I encourage everyone to share the data and calculations they've used in any type of analysis. That type of transparency allows constructive criticism to catch errors and the ability to use the data for other types of analysis.

John Swanson
 

martinvickers

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ScienceIsCool said:
Actually, they are. Mean and average refer to the sum of values divided by the number of samples. Did you mean median? The median value is the 50th percentile, where half the samples are greater than the median and half the samples are less than the median. Did you men mode? Mode refers to the largest bin in a distribution.

Anyways, mean and average are synonyms. And as a scientist I encourage everyone to share the data and calculations they've used in any type of analysis. That type of transparency allows constructive criticism to catch errors and the ability to use the data for other types of analysis.

John Swanson

Actually, they aren't. Mean is one form of 'averag'e, as is Median. Mode has no particular use in a racing scenario.

Now if i compare the top 10 times of a group of riders over the same course in different years, that is, by definition the median value of the first 19/20 such riders depending how you use the 50th percentile.

But if it makes you happier, we can talk means as well.

The total time of the first ten riders up L'Aple d'Huez in 1995 was 389 minutes 46 seconds. We only have the times for the first five from 2013 in the source (Vetooo's list of all-time times), so we can safely state that, at absolute best, numbers six to ten in that year matched the time of the credited 200th in the all time list. If they'd gone faster they'd be in the top 200, and they aren't.

So even giving that generous matching of the 200th rider, the total time taken by the 2013 top ten would be 413 minutes, 45 seconds.

A difference of 24 minutes bar a second, which, dividied by ten riders means a MEAN difference, if you like of 2 minutes and 24 seconds per rider - the 'average' top ten rider in 2013, as listed in Vetoo's all time list of the 200 fastest ascents of the Alpe, was AT LEAST 2 minutes and 24 seconds SLOWER than the AVERAGE top 10 rider in 1995. In relaity, of course it's probably even a few seconds more, as we have been generous in the asumption for riders 6-10 in 2013.

http://www.fillarifoorumi.fi/forum/...a-km-h-VAM-W-W-kg-etc-)&p=2041608#post2041608

feel free to check.
 
Dr. Maserati said:
I might have missed it.

So many trolling posts.

Some are quite long.

With spaces in between.

That carry no substance.

Perhaps you can post it again.

Perhaps you won't.

Perhaps you will deflect.

Perhaps you won't.

Quell that voice in your head.

Here: http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showthread.php?t=19673&page=172

Happy for you to rip it apart. In fact that's what I wanted others to do and provide counter data.

It's fun. And very nerdy. I like it.

But there are was too much anger.

No idea why.
 
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martinvickers said:
Actually, they aren't. Mean is one form of 'averag'e, as is Median. Mode has no particular use in a racing scenario.

<snip>

You seem a bit confused about the common use of mean and average. This might help:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arithmetic_mean

Quote: "In mathematics and statistics, the arithmetic mean (pronunciation: /ˌærɪθˈmɛtɪk ˈmiːn/), or simply the mean or average when the context is clear, is the sum of a collection of numbers divided by the number of numbers in the collection."

I'm sorry, but the rest of your analysis is muddled and unclear. And unfortunately, I suspect it is quite wrong. It might help by starting with presenting the raw data (lists and tables where appropriate). Then take us through a detailed analysis, showing your calculations as you go.

John Swanson
 

martinvickers

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ScienceIsCool said:
You seem a bit confused about the common use of mean and average. This might help:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arithmetic_mean

Quote: "In mathematics and statistics, the arithmetic mean (pronunciation: /ˌærɪθˈmɛtɪk ˈmiːn/), or simply the mean or average when the context is clear, is the sum of a collection of numbers divided by the number of numbers in the collection."

John. Trust me when I tell you, I don't require lessons on mathematics. I particularly don't need to be informed of the difference between the 'common' understanding of averages and its meanings in a statistical mathematical context.

Seriously. Don't make foolish assumptons about my understanding of mathematics.

I'm sorry, but the rest of your analysis is muddled and unclear. And unfortunately, I suspect it is quite wrong.

Assertion is no proof. YOU show what you think is 'unclear', John. If I've made an error in calculation, show me, im not proud.

If you want a more general 'modelling' discussion on the best way to make comparisons, fair enough, but its beyond the basic arithmetical scope of what Im trying to prove.
 
martinvickers said:
John. Trust me when I tell you, I don't require lessons on mathematics. I particularly don't need to be informed of the difference between the 'common' understanding of averages and its meanings in a statistical mathematical context.

Seriously. Don't make foolish assumptons about my understanding of mathematics.



Assertion is no proof. YOU show what you think is 'unclear', John. If I've made an error in calculation, show me, im not proud.

If you want a more general 'modelling' discussion on the best way to make comparisons, fair enough, but its beyond the basic arithmetical scope of what Im trying to prove.

No need to be so vicious.

I think what John means if you think you've discovered gold for your theorem then you need to test it against a second and third and so on datasets.

A subset of 1 doesn't prove very much.

Thus far using only the Top 200 list of all time on d'Huez you've found based on the Top 10 riders in that list for the two given years 1995 and 2013 that the average time up the climb is 2.5 faster in 95 than 2013.

So what does this mean?

We don't know... yet.

Let's test it against other climbs. Same two years 1995 vs 2013 on Ax3 for instance? or Ventoux.

What results do we get?

Maybe those two climbs aren't climbed in the given year. So we need to pick two other climbs that match the sequence. Or alternate years and so on.

...or at least prove their is some form of liner line pointing to the claim.

Something simple that can be verified.

Yes we know wind, terrain, racing tactics all play a part.

Pantani in 1995 attacked out of hairpin one alone and won by well over a minute. That in some respects will distort the time. He was 7 minutes down. No need to chase.

Alas to prove the theorem that climbing times are slower we need more than just d'Huez on two handpicked years.

We need to see this curve on other climbs.

And to my earlier point. That's why its not simple or verifiable.

Its difficult to come up with a model that works to prove such a theory.

I've heard it get used as a throw way line when ever a climb is ridden slower than a previous year or from the bad old days. And when faster there's a tailwind.

But Froome rode ax3 stupid fast this year. He rode amazingly quick up Ventoux after 220km. The Vuelta was super super fast with the Top 5, the Top 10 beating all the old times.

So its not simple. And its not verifiable. Only a little and thats not enough.

The last issue is the dataset. You're using the Top 200 of all time.

I'm not sure you're seeing the obvious problem with that.

But as you will.
 
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martinvickers said:
Word of Advice.

Your struggles aren't overly relevant to the discussion.

But for sh!ts and giggles, you might want to consider that AVERAGE and MEAN are not synonyms.

Ball not man.

All you did was show that alpe d'huez was climbed slow this year. But we need more than that before we can draw any conclusion on whether speeds are down or not. Perhaps if you applied the same analysis to all major climbs in recent years, we might see some trends.

More data needed.
 
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Martin's made a compelling case that the mean speed of all the top ten riders on Alpe d'Huez was slower in 2013 than in 1995. As Hog points out this needs to be checked against other climbs, but the case that speeds now are as quick as the EPO era is not proven.

BTW we do need to be clear what we mean by 'average speed'. Do we mean the average speed of the fastest rider that year? The average of a group of riders? What type of average? Martin was careful about what he meant. John and SiC are wrong about 'average' being a synonym of 'arithmetic mean'. Even the wikipedia quote from SiC says that the terms are only used interchangeably "when the context is clear"
 
the sceptic said:
More data needed.

To my earlier point. When one makes the assertion "simple and verifiable FACT" you'd like to think there was some evidence or data or even some form of research to back it up.

That's why I picked up on the statement.

Because its not true.

In some cases, handpicked years, 1995 vs 2013 on one climb, maybe.

But not in all cases and thus is not slower and its not verifiable as slower.

More to the point the analysis provided was only done after the statement was made.

How would one know prior?

Anyway. How this gets contorted into baiting, trolling and then threatening someone because they want to enter into a discussion is beyond me.

..... and apparently "I'm done" - I assume this means "I'm done for". Meaning something will happen to me? Bad?
 

martinvickers

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thehog said:
To my earlier point. When one makes the assertion "simple and verifiable FACT" you'd like to think there was some evidence or data or even some form of research to back it up.

That's why I picked up on the statement.

Because its not true.

In some cases, handpicked years, 1995 vs 2013 on one climb, maybe.

But not in all cases and thus is not slower and its not verifiable as slower.

More to the point the analysis provided was only done after the statement was made.

How would one know prior?

Anyway. How this gets contorted into baiting, trolling and then threatening someone because they want to enter into a discussion is beyond me.

..... and apparently "I'm done" - I assume this means "I'm done for". Meaning something will happen to me? Bad?

I will not be getting involved in a discussion on this topic with you,Hog, until you provide the links and references that you were told to by the Administrator. You've used up your good will.

But for the complete avoidance of doubt, and since you raised it twice, there is absolutely no threat implied in the phrase "you're done" - only that as far as I'm concerned, your usefulness to the thread is over. - You're done.

Now feel free to carry on refusing to pony up the 'real study' and the 'conference'.
 

martinvickers

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Morbius said:
Martin's made a compelling case that the mean speed of all the top ten riders on Alpe d'Huez was slower in 2013 than in 1995. As Hog points out this needs to be checked against other climbs, but the case that speeds now are as quick as the EPO era is not proven.

BTW we do need to be clear what we mean by 'average speed'. Do we mean the average speed of the fastest rider that year? The average of a group of riders? What type of average? Martin was careful about what he meant. John and SiC are wrong about 'average' being a synonym of 'arithmetic mean'. Even the wikipedia quote from SiC says that the terms are only used interchangeably "when the context is clear"

Might I add, Mobius, as I have done privately to John, that the figure of 2 minutes 24 seconds is shown entirely for ease of calculation - clearly if times slow universally, one would not expect each rider to slow by the same amount of time - in this case, the mean percentage speed reduction is aprox. 5.18% - or 3 seconds for each minute...but again, i doubt that would be of universal application.

nonetheless, and regardless of whether it's a useful measure (I think it's flawed, personally), the point remains that the very first comparison i made had an avg 2.4 min, or 5.18% slower in 2013 than in 1995. It ain't quicker.
 
martinvickers said:
I will not be getting involved in a discussion on this topic with you,Hog, until you provide the links and references that you were told to by the Administrator. You've used up your good will.

But for the complete avoidance of doubt, and since you raised it twice, there is absolutely no threat implied in the phrase "you're done" - only that as far as I'm concerned, your usefulness to the thread is over. - You're done.

Now feel free to carry on refusing to pony up the 'real study' and the 'conference'.

Martin. Enough.

The presentation at the conference if you bothered to take the time to read my post agreed with your position.

That's what I was saying.

How did you get so lost in all of this trying to beat up on me and showing off is beyond me.

In future, slow down. Read the posts and have a discussion.

It will do you some good.

And be nice to people.

In reality what you've done is prove its not simple or verifiable. A long way from it. By getting so angry and wound up it demonstrates there's nothing simple in this at all.

..and PS I took it as a threat and don't appreciate it. I ask you don't use that phrase again, thank-you.
 
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martinvickers said:
John. Trust me when I tell you, I don't require lessons on mathematics. I particularly don't need to be informed of the difference between the 'common' understanding of averages and its meanings in a statistical mathematical context.

Seriously. Don't make foolish assumptons about my understanding of mathematics.



Assertion is no proof. YOU show what you think is 'unclear', John. If I've made an error in calculation, show me, im not proud.

If you want a more general 'modelling' discussion on the best way to make comparisons, fair enough, but its beyond the basic arithmetical scope of what Im trying to prove.

I've been polite until now. I'm going to be using more colourful language from hereon.

Your posts didn't make any sense. Your "calculations", whatever they may have been, didn't make sense. You are using undocumented data as input for your "calculations", so even if by some miracle you are correct, there's no way of knowing. You didn't provide numbers or sources.

Drawing *conclusions* from such a muddle is pointless and futile.

And frankly, anyone who asserts that mean and average aren't the exact same calculation of 1/N sum (x) is either an idiot or is using an arcane definition that is shared by nobody in any field anywhere.

So let me ask you to define mean, and define average so we can understand the difference. Use primary sources where necessary to reference that definition, please.

John Swanson
 

martinvickers

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ScienceIsCool said:
I've been polite until now. I'm going to be using more colourful language from hereon.

Your posts didn't make any sense. Your "calculations", whatever they may have been, didn't make sense. You are using undocumented data as input for your "calculations", so even if by some miracle you are correct, there's no way of knowing. You didn't provide numbers or sources.

Drawing *conclusions* from such a muddle is pointless and futile.

And frankly, anyone who asserts that mean and average aren't the exact same calculation of 1/N sum (x) is either an idiot or is using an arcane definition that is shared by nobody in any field anywhere.

So let me ask you to define mean, and define average so we can understand the difference. Use primary sources where necessary to reference that definition, please.

John Swanson

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average


I sent you a private message some time ago. Please read it at your convenience. Thanks.
 
Morbius said:
Martin's made a compelling case that the mean speed of all the top ten riders on Alpe d'Huez was slower in 2013 than in 1995. As Hog points out this needs to be checked against other climbs, but the case that speeds now are as quick as the EPO era is not proven.

Compelling? Not sure about that.

Context is important.

To be clear I was never asserting that speeds are now quicker. Just they're certainly not slower. And there's no actual evidence that they are slower.

If you take d'Huez 1995. Pantani went full genius from hairpin 1. Indurain whilst not needing to chase raced hard with the rest.

It was raced so hard 11 riders dropped out the next day.

2013 d'Huez was climbed twice in one day. Froome bonked and slowed significanty. Porte waited.

Froome had the Tour wrapped up. It was the last true climbing stage of the Tour.

Contador wasn't himself.

2013 d'Huez is not such a great example. But worthy being part of a full and broad dataset of several climbs.

Now one might argue Froome bonked, Contador slowed because there's no doping etc.

But then you flip the coin for the Vuelta 2013.

You have a 42 year old guy clearly climbing off the charts, beating all known times of dopers in record time on a lot of climbs along with the Top 5 and Top 10 at the Vuelta.

Even Nico Roche is outclimbing the former dopers.

Horner releases his bio and SRM files thats how confident he is.

So when you mirror and match up 2013 Vuelta and 2013 Tour climbs sans d'Huez the picture painted is that these guys are going way faster the the "average" - 'pre-festina" times.

Just take a look at the Peyresourde or l'Angliru.

Swoosh.

So yes you need more than one datapoint to tell the story.
 
What the **** is going on here? And why is all this discussion about top10 (just to win a regressive "debate" no doubt) when as I mentioned 60 posts ago probably isn't the best thing to look at when comparing periods (or in other words, you don't need any data to understand how that will change over time).
 

martinvickers

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..and PS I took it as a threat and don't appreciate it. I ask you don't use that phrase again, thank-you.

Then you took it wrong. As I showed. If you continue to wish to take it wrong, after the clear explanation, that's your choice. Which isn't my problem.

I think I've made it clear I'm not too fussed on what you appreciate. In the case of other posters, even those with whom I commonly disagree, I might well have done. The likes of sniper, for example, is a good spud.

But you've used up too much good will with trolling, baiting and misleading, on this thread and others, for me to care. Frankly I no longer trust anything you say. Including this threat nonsense.

So, since it's clearly not a threat, whether you want it to be or not, I'll continue to use it,as I would any turn of phrase or usage, as and when I see fit.
 

martinvickers

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the sceptic said:
I guess the jury is still out on climbing speeds.

What about time trials? my gut feeling tells me they arent going any slower now than in the 90s

I haven't checked - i suspect it's hard to find identical time trials for 'simplified' comparisons, so there will usually be distinct variables that make a simple cross-comparison very difficult - I'm happy to hear otherwise, of course.

Purely on 'gut', the relatively limited TT performances of Quintana and Purito on the flat, while still podiuming the 2013 Tour gives some limited hope, but its by no means a calculation.
 

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