Fabio Aru 6.5w/kg

[the sceptic]

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/astana- ... ro-ditalia

“In 2014 Aru used his time trial bike during his rest days to work on his position. Now we’ve dedicated the third day of every triple block to his position plus specific time trial work at race speed. His numbers are better, Fabio has an extra 5-10 watts at threshold, that means he’s at about 395-400 watts with a weight of 61.5kg.”

 

[Nick C.]

Unless threshold is a brief period of time isn't this ratio in the eyebrow raising territory?

 

[Benotti69]

Putting up numbers like that just means he didn't have breakfast or stop for coffee. Training = beating lazy dopers.....

 

[LaFlorecita]

Question: when do you include bike and equipment weight when calculating W/kg, and when not? I am so confused

anyway, what I think is more amazing is his weight

 

[sniper]

That poster was right, the one who said Britain/Norway need a good doping scandal to wake them up and get their heads out of the sand. Italian cycling fans prove it. Where are the Aru-bots? And Sky-bots wonder why we don't have lengthy Astana threads...

anyway, you wonder why they put these numbers out. I'm all for, but it doesn't seem the logical thing to do now with all the focus on Astana, especially on Nibali and Aru.

 

[sniper]

Re:

Question: when do you include bike and equipment weight when calculating W/kg, and when not? I am so confused

anyway, what I think is more amazing is his weight

indeed, for a 1.81 tall guy...that's skinny.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Isn't this exactly what Wiggo did at the start of 2012 to explain why he was about to win all the TTs, something about the gears and cadence and something? Kerrison crunched the numbers and studied Tony Martin and BAM.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

ie get out ahead of the TT ability turn around and "explain" it. preempt the WTF looks and thoughts.

stupid posting time limits. stupid. stupid. stupid. stupid. stupid.

 

[the sceptic]

Re:

ie get out ahead of the TT ability turn around and "explain" it. preempt the WTF looks and thoughts.

stupid posting time limits. stupid. stupid. stupid. stupid. stupid.

I like that Astana are so blatant with their doping that they don't even try to hide that their riders are putting up obvious doped numbers.

Sounds like it's going to be a fun year

 

[Rollthedice]

Slongo did the mistake of telling Aru's weight. Nobody does that.

 

[May0maniac]

Re:

Slongo did the mistake of telling Aru's weight. Nobody does that.

His weight isn't a big secret, it has been mentioned quite a few time before in different interviews. I don't think his weight should surprise anyone, just look at his arms. I'm 1,83m tall and 65kg heavy when I'm in top shape, but compared to someone like Aru my upper body is way more muscular.

 

[DirtyWorks]

The numbers are being compared wrong. The famous Ferrari numbers are climbing power estimates during a grand tour, Aru's stats are not during a grand tour.

I have no clue if he's clean. He has a more reasonable caeeer trajectory than a Froome.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Re:

The numbers are being compared wrong. The famous Ferrari numbers are climbing power estimates during a grand tour, Aru's stats are not during a grand tour.

I have no clue if he's clean. He has a more reasonable caeeer trajectory than a Froome.

Mind you, if he's doing those numbers for an hour during a 3-4 hour ride after doing a 5 then 7 hour ride on the previous 2 days, up at Teide (ie altitude) it's getting pretty darn close to GT type performances.

In the Tour your GC guy is going to be doing 200W average in the peloton as a protected rider. On a training ride like they are doing here, more like 240-270, depending on session goals, etc. ie I think it's a pretty good indication.

2012 was 453W for 64 minutes from an alleged 69kg TdF winner.

 

[Alex Simmons/RST]

Re:

Unless threshold is a brief period of time isn't this ratio in the eyebrow raising territory?

Threshold is such an abused term, who can tell what they mean?

IOW without actually being told how their threshold was derived, it really doesn't tell us much.

 

[Alex Simmons/RST]

Re:

Question: when do you include bike and equipment weight when calculating W/kg, and when not? I am so confused

anyway, what I think is more amazing is his weight

When assessing physiological capability, then we talk about a rider's power and body mass.

When assessing the physics of cycling (e.g. assessing climbing speed) then we need to consider all mass of the system.

If you use the latter (i.e. physics) to determine the former (i.e. physiological capability), then of course you need to know both the body mass of the rider and of the total system. And of course if you want to predict the latter from the former, you also need to know the total system mass.


Physics fun:
As a minor aside, we really should distinguish between the terms weight and mass, because weight is actually a force measure and not a mass measure and as such weight doesn't technically apply to all parts of the cycling physics calculations, e.g. kinetic energy and acceleration where it's mass that matters. Weight really only applies when talking about forces or energy potential resulting from or due to gravity.

We get away with it of course because by definition on this planet, weight and mass have a an almost unity conversion factor of 1-g (acceleration due to gravity), although the conversion factor is not truly a constant but varies due to lots of reasons (and on the Earth's surface is a mostly function of latitude and altitude).

For example the mass of an object at sea level and at 3000 metres altitude would be the same, but you'd weigh 0.1% less at that altitude because the force of gravity is a little less than at sea level (it varies in a quadratic manner). You also weigh more at the poles than at the equator by about 0.5% (it varies with latitude in a sinusoidal manner).

There are formula to estimate the variations in the force of gravity at different locations based on height above sea level and latitude.

e.g. an object with the same mass weighs nearly half a percent more in Copenhagen than it does in Mexico City or Singapore. Talk about a double whammy when you eat a danish

Half a percent is small for many considerations, but depending on the sort of things you are trying to tease out of data, or the level of estimate precision you are attempting, 0.5% may not be insignificant

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Re: Re:

Unless threshold is a brief period of time isn't this ratio in the eyebrow raising territory?

Threshold is such an abused term, who can tell what they mean?

IOW without actually being told how their threshold was derived, it really doesn't tell us much.

Snort.

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

http://www.bikeraceinfo.com/oralhistory/lemond.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" rel="nofollow

I think I was capable of producing 450 to 460 watts. The truth is, even at the Tour de France, my Tour de France climb times up l'Alpe d'Huez yielded a wattage of around 380 and 390. That was the historic norm for Hinault and myself. You've got times going back many, many years. But what was learned recently, in the last 5 years, was that when you start the Tour de France, you start with a normal hematocrit of, say, 45 percent. By the time you finish, it's probably down 10 or 15 percent. Which means my VO2 Max dropped 10 or 15 percent. So that's why I was never producing the same wattage. And then there a lot of other factors that help performance if you've recovered. My last time trial in '89, I averaged about 420, 430 watts, which would match or be slightly down from what my real VO2 Max was.

What did he weigh? 63? 64?

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Does VO2max depend on Hgb concentration (Hgb / BV) or Hgb mass (total Hgb)? Because if it's Hgb mass, your VO2 max won't change as much as he is claiming.

This says: http://www.extremephysiolmed.com/content/pdf/2046-7648-2-33.pdf

As a result, the relationship between VO2max and tHb-mass is stronger than that observed between VO2max and [Hb] or BV.

Quoting LeMond in this instance makes sense, but what he says does not. 420W would not have been his VO2max, but his FTP.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Thanks Alex!

 

[memyselfandI]

Re: Re:

But did anyone state that those numbers were from an hour during a 3-4 hour ride after doing a 5 then 7 hour ride on the previous 2 days, up at Teide (ie altitude)? Prolly not. Training session outputs, all-time mean maximal records and performances at the third week of GT are all quite different story. Small group workouts are different than racing gruppetto in a GT +220K slightly undulating sprinters stage, where it's possible to non-pedal 2 hrs and have an avg power like 180-190w meaning recovery day.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Re: Re:

But did anyone state that those numbers were from an hour during a 3-4 hour ride after doing a 5 then 7 hour ride on the previous 2 days, up at Teide (ie altitude)? Prolly not.

Yes. They did. Linked at the top of this page of the thread: http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/astana- ... ro-ditalia

 

[memyselfandI]

Re: Re:

Well no they did not. There is a talk of blocks aso but not a word that numbers were recorded during these training blocks. Talk about tt-spesific training at race speed does not tell much either, you can do it thousand ways. Sorry im a bit challenged in this as I read leagal texts at my work. You may think they told he was doing these numbers at Teide training but they did not.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Leagal texts are something I am not familiar with, and if you can't follow English, I fully understand your confusion.

Let's see if I can show you how the same subject is repeated throughout the interview:

Slongo revealed details of the training Nibali and Aru did on Teide, and of how they completed three full triple block of training.

“They were intense days of hard training. We did three full triple blocks, that is: a first ride of five and half hours, a second of six and a half or seven hours and then a third of three and a half to four hours with the time trial bike. The fourth day is a rest day. That means each triple includes about 16 hours of training and 11 thousand metres of climbing. When you multiply it three times, it's an important block of training."

"Aru has followed a gradual build-up to the Tour de France, The Giro del Trentino (April 21-24) will be an important test but we're where we want to be. And there's still be time to do some extra quality work during the pre-Giro get together at Sestriere."

"In 2014 Aru used his time trial bike during his rest days to work on his position. Now we've dedicated the third day of every triple block to his position plus specific time trial work at race speed. His numbers are better, Fabio has an extra 5-10 watts at threshold, that means he's at about 395-400 watts with a weight of 61.5kg."

 

[DFA123]

Re: Re:

The numbers are being compared wrong. The famous Ferrari numbers are climbing power estimates during a grand tour, Aru's stats are not during a grand tour.

I have no clue if he's clean. He has a more reasonable caeeer trajectory than a Froome.

Mind you, if he's doing those numbers for an hour during a 3-4 hour ride after doing a 5 then 7 hour ride on the previous 2 days, up at Teide (ie altitude) it's getting pretty darn close to GT type performances.

In the Tour your GC guy is going to be doing 200W average in the peloton as a protected rider. On a training ride like they are doing here, more like 240-270, depending on session goals, etc. ie I think it's a pretty good indication.

2012 was 453W for 64 minutes from an alleged 69kg TdF winner.

The key figure though surely is comparing it to Aru's own performance last year. He says in the article that he has gained 5-10 watts. So that suggests his power at 'threshold' last year was 390 watts (or about 6.35 w/kg). There was no way he was close to that during the longer Grand Tour climbs. So either he loses a considerable amount of power during a Grand Tour, or the 'threshold' that he refers to is significantly less than an hour in duration.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Yes, definitely need to compare it to what he was doing and when last year. In the article they say he was doing TT bike position work on the rest days, and no indication when he was doing actual race pace training on the TT bike.

The figures seem to be talking specifically about his TT power?

We'll find out soon enough!