Froome's SRM data on Ventoux

[Merckx index]

VO2max testing is so last century and is, along with blood lactate testing, largely redundant in the age of power data and advanced analysis tools (and knowledge of how to use and interpret such data).

I greatly appreciate your input to this thread, but wrt this particular statement I have to add, it would be true if doping were not an issue and teams were transparent. As you well know, power data frequently are not published (and you and Coggan have been arguing all along it’s too difficult and/or expensive to do it for the entire peloton). That being the case, and not knowing the doping status of any particular rider, of course we look for parameters like V02max, lactate and efficiency, which can be used to estimate what an undoped rider’s maximum power could be.

You don't need to analyse a data file. If Chris could have done that in 2010 he would have stormed any race he chose. He didn't. In fact, he was hanging on to motorbikes. Giving his bike to Hendo. Getting dropped by Gerrans.

Analyse that.

Sure, but that’s very different from saying that 5.6 watts/kg (not even 5.9 as some here are saying, if I have Froome’s weight at 68 kg right) is mutant. Your argument that Froome at the end of a long stage in the third week of the TDF is only 5% less than Pinot’s alleged max means he must be mutant ignores the fact that several, maybe many, riders can put out that much power. It implies that Tucker draws the line 10% too high.

The argument of Froome pre vs. post 2011 is something most of us in the Clinic accept, but if that’s your point, going on about how 388 watts is fishy is a red herring. It isn’t fishy by itself, it’s only fishy compared to Froome pre-2011. But we already knew that before these data came out. John Swanson, aka ScienceisCool, provided an analysis of ITT's that makes that much clearer than any single climb does.

 

[franic]

Re:

What we need next is a side by side video of Dawg vs Lance for the final 15 km


-1. Lance Armstrong ______ USA | 48:33 | 2002
-2. Chris Froome _________ GBR | 48:35 | 2013

I guess Armstrong’s performance would be much more steady, which makes Froome’s results even more strange.

 

[franic]

Re:

Sure, but that’s very different from saying that 5.6 watts/kg (not even 5.9 as some here are saying, if I have Froome’s weight at 68 kg right) is mutant. Your argument that Froome at the end of a long stage in the third week of the TDF is only 5% less than Pinot’s alleged max means he must be mutant ignores the fact that several, maybe many, riders can put out that much power. It implies that Tucker draws the line 10% too high.

The argument of Froome pre vs. post 2011 is something most of us in the Clinic accept, but if that’s your point, going on about how 388 watts is fishy is a red herring. It isn’t fishy by itself, it’s only fishy compared to Froome pre-2011. But we already knew that before these data came out.

5.6 W/Kg should be the whole climb output. What about Froome’s last 13k or 7k?

 

[adamfo]

Re:

Interesting that Vayer says the files came from a leak not a hack. Sky lying once again, they must be really worried about this stuff.

They can scare away oufeh from twitter, but the likes of Vayer aren't gonna stop here.

Vayer can't say anything else. It's an offence to knowingly handle stolen goods.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Re:

Sure, but that’s very different from saying that 5.6 watts/kg (not even 5.9 as some here are saying, if I have Froome’s weight at 68 kg right) is mutant. Your argument that Froome at the end of a long stage in the third week of the TDF is only 5% less than Pinot’s alleged max means he must be mutant ignores the fact that several, maybe many, riders can put out that much power. It implies that Tucker draws the line 10% too high.

The argument of Froome pre vs. post 2011 is something most of us in the Clinic accept, but if that’s your point, going on about how 388 watts is fishy is a red herring. It isn’t fishy by itself, it’s only fishy compared to Froome pre-2011. But we already knew that before these data came out. John Swanson, aka ScienceisCool, provided an analysis of ITT's that makes that much clearer than any single climb does.

I think you are reading far more into my post or misinterpreting it entirely.

ETA: yeah no idea what you're on about. Someone claims "data that is hard to interpret and could be interpreted in many ways, ". I am not sure what interpretation they were hoping to do, or what the many ways of interpreting it are, but despite that, I was disagreeing that it is difficult or confusing to interpret the data. Or even needed interpreting in fact.

The interpretation line is a smoke screen, imo, thrown up by David BS Brailsford.

 

[LeindersGains]

For how many seconds do Froome maintains 600 watts? We need a real analysis of the data.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Re:

For how many seconds do Froome maintains 600 watts? We need a real analysis of the data.

My take is that looking that closely at the minutae of the data from one climb does not really provide anything valuable compared to the pre-/post-2011 Froome performances, or Swanson's TT deltas.

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Re:

5.9 w/kg?

Storm in a teacup comes to mind. Love the fact that digger character knows the data doesn't have a smoking gun, so is now going for the motor excuse

The smoking gun is that ca. 2011 he was a 5.3 to 5.4 W/kg rider...

John Swanson

 

[BYOP88]

Re: Re:

5.9 w/kg?

Storm in a teacup comes to mind. Love the fact that digger character knows the data doesn't have a smoking gun, so is now going for the motor excuse

The smoking gun is that ca. 2011 he was a 5.3 to 5.4 W/kg rider...

John Swanson

Amazing what pillows and pineapple juice can do for a guy.

 

[red_flanders]

It would seem that in the micro-interpretation of the data, the forest is again getting lost through the trees as it did in the Armstrong era is that what Froome is doing is pounding a bunch of known dopers with accelerations and power outputs they can't match. So there's not really any need to argue about what's possible. You have the best riders in the world, all peaking for this race. They are likely all doped. The performances they are putting in are what is possible doped given how much energy they've expended, how the stage has been raced, the weather and road conditions, etc. And Froome is again pounding them all.

The data is the data. It simply puts a set of numbers on what's already obvious.

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Re: Re:

I think people are missing the really interesting thing here. It's not whether this data shows doping or not. It's that this data matches almost exactly the w/kg calculations of Vayer and Ferrari(?), even though Brailsford dismissed them as peseudo-scientific rubbish.

Exactly, there are two views on statistics. My background is in machine learning so I'll call them the Chomsky view and the Google view, as described here http://norvig.com/chomsky.html. The Chomsky/Brailsford view is that you have to perfectly model every conceivable factor with real physics etc and the model has to mirror reality. The Google/ammattipyoraily view is that the predictive accuracy of the model is what matters and not the internals.

My view is that the Chomsky way leads to whataboutery and nothing ever being done. If you have a model and it has very high accuracy despite leaving out certain variables, I think it's obvious that those variables aren't important.

I'm very much of that view as well. Often, what you're after in the lab is a parametric response. As I turn this knob, what happens to the output - that kind of thing. Use that data to create a model. Working from first principles to write a deterministic equation from which to model your data is a great big time suck and that's about it.

John Swanson

 

[Merckx index]

Edit: Sorry, this should have been in the older Froome thread.

ammattipyöräily ‏@ammattipyoraily 2m2 minutes ago

#TDF2015, Stage 10. La Pierre Saint Martin (14.89 km, 7.72 %, 1150 m)
Chris Froome: 40 min 54 sec, 21.84 Kph, VAM 1687 m/h, 6.09 W/kg [DrF]

isn`t this within the realm of what is considered possible without juice?

Yes, depending on who you talk to. SoS draws the line at 6.2-6.3, but that is for 25-30', so by their standards this is borderline. More than the 5.6 in the leaked data, though. But I don't know about wind conditions, if it turned out there was a significant net headwind, that would change things.

For comparison, Quintana is about 5.93, and Contador 5.70.

Last year, Nibs climbed Hautacam, about the same vertical ascent (1060 m) with the same power, 6.09 watts/kg. Also climbed Port de Bales, 1120 m, at 6.02 watts/kg.

 

[Supimilian]

Solution to all this:
Power meters and HRMs(that riders can see) should be banned from racing anyways.
They add nothing for the fans, and take away many facets of racing.
If not banned they can use a PM on the condition that the figures are made public.
Would only be fair.

 

[Saint Unix]

Agreed. It takes almost no effort from UCI to introduce mandatory uploads of all SRM files after a race. The riders can easily do this themselves, or have someone in the staff do it for them.

If every team has to do it, it's not unfair. There are enough legitimate experts out there with a loud enough voice to drown out or correct the actual pseudo-scientists who will inevitably misinterpret the data.

 

[doperhopper]

Re:

Solution to all this:
Power meters and HRMs(that riders can see) should be banned from racing anyways.
They add nothing for the fans, and take away many facets of racing.
If not banned they can use a PM on the condition that the figures are made public.
Would only be fair.

Doping should be banned from racing anyways. It adds nothing for the fans, and take away many facets of racing.
If not banned they can use PEDs on the condition that the figures are made public.
Would only be fair.

 

[veganrob]

Re:

Solution to all this:
Power meters and HRMs(that riders can see) should be banned from racing anyways.
They add nothing for the fans, and take away many facets of racing.
If not banned they can use a PM on the condition that the figures are made public.
Would only be fair.

Power meters don't help you go faster. It only measures what you have done or are doing.

Doping helps you go faster and should be banned.

 

[Supimilian]

Re: Re:

Solution to all this:
Power meters and HRMs(that riders can see) should be banned from racing anyways.
They add nothing for the fans, and take away many facets of racing.
If not banned they can use a PM on the condition that the figures are made public.
Would only be fair.

Power meters don't help you go faster. It only measures what you have done or are doing.

Doping helps you go faster and should be banned.

To all the people out there that are fighting the good fight to keep doping legal
What are you people even on about?

HRM and powermeter don't help anyone go faster derp. No help for staying under threshold herpderp

 

[markene2]

Acording to lemonde he did better than Armstrong in 99.

http://www.lemonde.fr/sport/article...-mieux-qu-armstrong-en-1999_3450992_3242.html

edit: It's a old article, but still retweeted by Vayer

 

[red_flanders]

There's another really obvious thing that these climb stats don't take into account, and that's whether or not you were pushed to your limit.

Seems clear that in many if not most cases, the winner isn't pushed to his limit, as was the case today. How much faster would he have gone if challenged? To be clear, the difference between having to beat someone at the line and pushing yourself to get as much time as you can is comparable to the difference between hard training and an actual race. You simply don't push as hard in training.

The other thing no one really seems to mention is how many known doped performances actually exceed the "not possible physiologically" bar? Turns out not all that many. We have seen countless performances we know were aided by EPO and/or blood bags which don't violate this principle and no (potentially) clean performances that even approach these limits, unless you actually believe you're watching clean cycling now.

What can be gleaned from that? You can't tell much from these discussions other than if you see someone over these thresholds it's a fact that they're doping. For the rest? If you're even getting close it's more than highly suspect.

 

[franic]

Re:

There's another really obvious thing that these climb stats don't take into account, and that's whether or not you were pushed to your limit.

Seems clear that in many if not most cases, the winner isn't pushed to his limit, as was the case today. How much faster would he have gone if challenged? To be clear, the difference between having to beat someone at the line and pushing yourself to get as much time as you can is comparable to the difference between hard training and an actual race. You simply don't push as hard in training.

The other thing no one really seems to mention is how many known doped performances actually exceed the "not possible physiologically" bar? Turns out not all that many. We have seen countless performances we know were aided by EPO and/or blood bags which don't violate this principle and no (potentially) clean performances that even approach these limits, unless you actually believe you're watching clean cycling now.

What can be gleaned from that? You can't tell much from these discussions other than if you see someone over these thresholds it's a fact that they're doping. For the rest? If you're even getting close it's more than highly suspect.

What is suspicious of today is that the whole Team Sky looked superior to everybody else. This reminds me of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3rZphEtzSM
and this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGpW-88VioQ

 

[Netserk]

Re: Re:

So we have data and the numbers are reasonable, hmm, good I'm almost glad of the back, it's reassuring.

As for Sky's reaction, easily demonised but if the data has been stolen and it affords their rivals insights into Froome's ability, why on earth would they be ok about it? Anyway glad it's out there, the legendary Ventoux alien attack exposed as being human.

I'm glad you've finally become a believer of pseudo-science jimmy! welcome onboard.

Hopefully this means that when vetooo or Vayer says Froome does something superhuman you will believe that as well?

This is his attack on the Ventoux, when has he ever been more super-human? Or as revealed by the leak, human?

How was it human???

It was faster than both pVAM and DpVAM (and the estimated power matched the actual power). That is the currently best definition of inhuman.

 

[Netserk]

Doctors, I'm confused. So if Froome had raced the 2014 Tour like Ventoux then no podium for him??

you honestly think the likes of Peraud and Pinot can outclimb Froome?

that makes a lot of sense..

I asked you because some of you here are full of numbers since 2011. And now that you have the official ones maybe you can answer this.

Ventoux is a long climb. You can't compare it directly to climbs that take 20-30 minutes.

Chamrousse and Bales are long climbs. Not to mention Hautacam, at the end of a TOur with 6 MTF, which most people agreed it's the hardest climb the ASO is using in Pyrenees.

Only Chamrousse (50'03'' @5.84W/kg) was near Ventoux length (48'35'' @5.88W/kg).

Hautacam was 37'20''. Bales was 32'52''. Risoul was 31'44''. Pla d'Adet was 30'05''. PdBF was 16'45''.

 

[Tonton]

I can't believe that this topic is falling from the top of the page. To me, this is big news. As King Boonen indicated, pseudo-scientist Vayer was right on the numbers. And I wonder: why this video, why now? Is Vayer playing a cat and mouse game, maybe drawing scrutiny and French police to Sky's door? We shall soon find out.

In the meantime, my days as a rider were before SRM, and I'm too cheap/broke to get one right now. Cateye . Having said that, I have used a HR monitor for years while training for and running marathons. MaraTonton if you will . I (finally) watched the video. Let me walk you through my experience and explain why I believe the video is so interesting.

Pseudo-science: in many books and magazines, you read that your Max HR is more or less 220 minus your age. If people as serious as Pete Pfitzinger use this as a rule of thumb (and give you a way to define it accurately - sprints), it must be somewhat true. In my case, the difference between the rule of thumb and the actual Max HR was 4. Not much indeed. Froome being 28 in '13, his Max HR would have been...192. Not 175 as one guess in this thread was. If so, it would mean that Dawg was at 90% of his Max HR when recording 160 bpm. You can't go back from that, and get back to your pace without significant raise in HR. With a 192 bpm Max HR, 160 bpm translates into 83% of Max HR. More likely. But still too much.

I have tried many times to increase pace on training runs when falling behind splits: the extra effort resulted in extra bpm that didn't go away. I have a vivid memory of making up 12 seconds in a mile, late in a marathon, which resulted in an extra 5 bpm that I never went away. Skybots will say that's why I'm on a computer and not riding the TdF .

So what makes your body bring more oxygen to fuel your effort, yet not raise your heart rate significantly? Genetics, or something else? When you put 1,020 watts even for a small time, you should raise your HR significantly, and it would take a while slowing down to get it down. It didn't happen. Add another 600W blast on top of it to rid Quintana off your wheel...

The HR data isn't believable. Come on!!!

Doped.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Sorry HR info is a furphy.

 

[Tonton]

Re:

Sorry HR info is a furphy.

Furphy: is that how you say "funny" in Australia? Furry? Fluffy?