State of Peloton 2023

[Nick2413]

However, it is important to note that the German and American star's records were further aided by the use of EPO, which makes the Spanish cyclist's achievement even more remarkable.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

OTOH our young, well-trained heroes ride paniagua.

 

[Rob5091]

Do we get the pre-Tour doping bust this year, to show how strongly the UCI fights doping?

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Do we get the pre-Tour doping bust this year, to show how strongly the UCI fights doping?

Imagine Pogacar and Vingegaard get caught a day before the Tour. They are handcuffed by gendarmes: Pogi smiles as always and shows his tongue to the camera, Vinge with his head down looks shocked and broken. Their teams react immediately i.e. Gianetti calls Pogi a rotten apple and compares him to Ricco, JV states Vinge doesn't need doping as he's an artificial human etc.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Do we get the pre-Tour doping bust this year, to show how strongly the UCI fights doping?

Random aging Southern European cyclist getting busted before the Tour? That can always happen, but IMO it's not a given.

 

[Rob5091]

Random aging Southern European cyclist getting busted before the Tour? That can always happen, but IMO it's not a given.

Yeah, the UCI seems to have gone from "we fight doping" to "doping? what's that?"

 

[Mayomaniac]

Yeah, the UCI seems to have gone from "we fight doping" to "doping? what's that?"

If anything big happens in the near future is probably because of a police investigation (a serious one, not whatever the French have been doing during the last 2 years), not the UCI/antidoping in general.

 

[Rob5091]

https://cyclinguptodate.com/cycling...024-as-neom-look-to-step-in-with-leading-role

Saudis looking for some more sportswashing at Jumbo.

 

[pastronef]

https://cyclinguptodate.com/cycling...024-as-neom-look-to-step-in-with-leading-role

Saudis looking for some more sportswashing at Jumbo.

since I'm not a Jumbo fan at all, I'd be curious to read the comments from the Jumbo fans if that happens

 

[Rob5091]

Chat on Jumbo & possible Saudi deal ongoing at
https://forum.cyclingnews.com/threads/team-jumbo-visma.30926/page-100

 

[Barnacle Bill]

I have a sub to the (UK) Times (so my elderly mother can do the crosswords, haha) and occasionally glance at the Sport section - generally not much in the way of cycling coverage though. But today I noticed quite a comprehensive article on the believability of modern cycling, with references to the history of cycling and the wild west 90s, why we should be suspicious, balanced by some analysis of technological and training advances and how they're impacting performances. It's a long piece, given it also includes comparisons to other sports and charts of things like rider weights and nationalities competing, but although a lot of the tech advancements stuff has been mentioned here before, I thought I'd post a couple of snippets which caught my attention:

Full article (paywall): https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/have-we-reached-an-era-of-cycling-that-can-be-trusted-7mmcr5m5p

Tucker estimates the benefit of EPO at “between 3 and 5 per cent”. Vaughters puts it at 6 or 7 per cent. “At 400 watts, you’re looking at an increase of 30W [from EPO],” Vaughters says. “A bike from 1996 would weigh at least 2kg more [than today]. And from an aerodynamic standpoint, excluding the rider, at between 45km/h and 50 km/h, the power required to overcome its extra resistance would be in the order of 75W. So on a flat road, the technology has far surpassed the increase in power that doping gave. I mean, way, way, way past it.”
Dan Bigham, the Ineos Grenadiers performance engineer, who broke the hour record twice last year — once as rider (55.548km), then as coach to Filippo Ganna (56.792 km) — is similarly convinced. “We’re at the point where equipment and drag reduction are more than covering off what they were doing in the EPO era,” he says.
The tools for optimising aerodynamics have become widespread, in particular Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), with which every surface of a rider, their bike, wheels, helmet, can be analysed and adjusted depending on the predicted speed. “Ten years ago, CFD was something I was learning about at university and most top motorsport teams would use but you wouldn’t find it in a cycling team. Now it’s just part of our process.”
Breakaway riders, he says, have optimised their own aerodynamic advantage sufficiently that the old rule — the peloton can take back one minute per km — no longer applies. “Aerodynamic drag is cubic to velocity, so it’s harder for a peloton to ride fast enough to take that time out.”

These advances, though, are not uniform. Aerodynamic improvements have the greatest impact in fast races and reduced rolling resistance (the energy lost between the tyres and the road surface) on cobbled routes, where there is a greater proportion of drag. “It just becomes an arms race, really,” Bigham says. “In Paris-Roubaix, if you pick the wrong tyre size, the wrong pressure, you’re out of the race.” Critically — when the Tour arrives in the Pyrenees next month — the steeper the road, the slower the pace, the smaller the impact, and the more complex the questions when a doped record is threatened.

Between tyres, frame and drive-chain efficiency, Bigham estimates a rider — on a long, slow climb — could be saving 20W to 25W compared to 20 years ago. “If you double your speed, your drag goes up eight times,” Bigham says. “When you get to those lower speeds [20km/h to 30km/h] the aerodrag is in the region of 20W to 80W, compared with 300W to 400W at high speed.”

“That [riders in the 1990s] were even remotely close to these riders — man they must have really been doping because there’s no way you can overcome all this other stuff,” Vaughters says. “Simple fact is, if you dumped in the amount of doping that was being used in the mid-90s into Jonas Vingegaard or Tadej Pogacar and they got to use modern training, nutrition and technology, they would blow the Alpe d’Huez record out of the water.”

 

[Rob5091]

"the peloton can take back one minute per km" - I thought it was one minute per 10 km. Anyway thanks for the post - shame the article is behind a paywall, but interesting that it comes out now a week before the Tour. Since I can not read the full article, I wonder if you could say who was interviewed for the article. EF's Vaughters and Ineos' Bigham I see from the snippets.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Interesting. Does this mean that our heroes doing 6.5 w/kg on a steep climb is equivalent to 6.1-6.2 w/kg 20 years ago? Teddy, Skeletor and co are riding paniagua!

 

[Barnacle Bill]

"the peloton can take back one minute per km" - I thought it was one minute per 10 km. Anyway thanks for the post - shame the article is behind a paywall, but interesting that it comes out now a week before the Tour. Since I can not read the full article, I wonder if you could say who was interviewed for the article. EF's Vaughters and Ineos' Bigham I see from the snippets.

Yes, looks like that's an error as it should be ten kms as you say. It seems that Bigham, Vaughters and Ross Tucker were interviewed for the article, there are also references to earlier works by David Walsh and David Epstein.

 

[Rico044]

"A bike from 1996 would weigh at least 2kg more [than today]"

Ok maybe in 1996 that was true, but pretty much by 2000 it seems like all the bikes were at the UCI weight limit. I remember a picture of Gilberto Simoni's bike in the early 2000s and it had weights attached in order to meet the weight limit. I actually think a lot of modern bikes are above the UCI weight limit these days.

 

[Mayomaniac]

"A bike from 1996 would weigh at least 2kg more [than today]"

Ok maybe in 1996 that was true, but pretty much by 2000 it seems like all the bikes were at the UCI weight limit. I remember a picture of Gilberto Simoni's bike in the early 2000s and it had weights attached in order to meet the weight limit. I actually think a lot of modern bikes are above the UCI weight limit these days.

Yeah, not to mention all the modern training bs when you already had stuff like fasted training sessions before breakfast being used by the Eastern Block riders in the 80ies.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Honestly, if it was up to me cycling would take a page out of powerllifting's book (with it's absurd amount of federations) and have a separate untested federation. Let someone like Monster Energy or Bang sponsor it.
Would be hillarious if the result was the same as in powerlifting and the tested athletes would come way to close to the performance of the untested ones...

 

[proffate]

They stopped calling traveling in the NBA and the league is more exciting than ever.

 

[hrotha]

"A bike from 1996 would weigh at least 2kg more [than today]"

Ok maybe in 1996 that was true, but pretty much by 2000 it seems like all the bikes were at the UCI weight limit. I remember a picture of Gilberto Simoni's bike in the early 2000s and it had weights attached in order to meet the weight limit. I actually think a lot of modern bikes are above the UCI weight limit these days.

Yeah it was a whole thing

 

[Riek s]

They are bonkers if they believe the bike difference in aero is 20-80W at 20-30km/h. (it takes 180W to ride 30km/h); (the drag at those speeds is still relative low that the bike doesn't make a big difference, the rider does.

The weight difference is also negilable since the bike weight has been fixed for a long time. (Indurain was 9kg, but pantani bike in 1998 was 6.96kg, Armstrong 7,2kg, Thomas Sky bike 2016 was 7,19kg, ). (dont forget, those in the 90ies early 2000 could remove a helmet on a MTF)


If we talk about TT, yes for sure. TT positions & bikes have dramatically shifted that at ultra high speeds, which were previously unattainable for a single rider. But here we are talking about >50km/h. (otherwise riding in TT clothes on a climb would gain you 20W and everyone would do that)

 

[Red Rick]

Yeah, not to mention all the modern training bs when you already had stuff like fasted training sessions before breakfast being used by the Eastern Block riders in the 80ies.

LRCP had an interview with Jumbo's head of performance, and he didn't really give big sweeping explanations for why riders were so much better now, but he did say the overall training buildup over a season had become a lot different, with winter breaks being much shorter and with high intensity training sessions being basically year round at varying frequencies, saying that changed quite a bit compared to like 2015.

 

[proffate]

They are bonkers if they believe the bike difference in aero is 20-80W at 20-30km/h. (it takes 180W to ride 30km/h); (the drag at those speeds is still relative low that the bike doesn't make a big difference, the rider does.

Try reading it again. He said that the atmospheric total drag was 20-80w at those speeds and that all the tech advances were worth 20-25w savings. I'm going to say this is reasonable because I type some numbers into http://bikecalculator.com/ and I get 26w saved (400w => 374w) on a 7% grade for a 60kg rider when I switch from "hoods" to "aerobars" (which reduces the CdA by some arbitrary amount). Obviously this is not scientific but I find these online calculators to be in the right ballpark.

 

[the delgados]

Try reading it again. He said that the atmospheric total drag was 20-80w at those speeds and that all the tech advances were worth 20-25w savings. I'm going to say this is reasonable because I type some numbers into http://bikecalculator.com/ and I get 26w saved (400w => 374w) on a 7% grade for a 60kg rider when I switch from "hoods" to "aerobars" (which reduces the CdA by some arbitrary amount). Obviously this is not scientific but I find these online calculators to be in the right ballpark.

Hi, I'm not that bright.
Apologies in advance for what might be dumb questions.
If the technological advances were somewhat similar to a predetermined drag of 20-80 watts, don't the two numbers cancel each other out?
Did EPO enhance output by 20-80 watts before the technological advances? Did people stop using drugs to get back to the previous 20-80 watts advantage that was afforded prior to lighter bikes?
What does that have to do with the everchanging elements of a road race? You know, the ebbs and flows; riding in groups small and large and by yourself, at different stages of a race, etc.

 

[Riek s]

Try reading it again. He said that the atmospheric total drag was 20-80w at those speeds and that all the tech advances were worth 20-25w savings. I'm going to say this is reasonable because I type some numbers into http://bikecalculator.com/ and I get 26w saved (400w => 374w) on a 7% grade for a 60kg rider when I switch from "hoods" to "aerobars" (which reduces the CdA by some arbitrary amount). Obviously this is not scientific but I find these online calculators to be in the right ballpark.

If the total drag is 80w, that includes the rider. The rider will take the biggest chunk of that drag. There is no way that the bike takes 1/4 th of the drag as savings. ( Unless the bikes have a negative drag).

 

[zlev11]

Honestly, if it was up to me cycling would take a page out of powerllifting's book (with it's absurd amount of federations) and have a separate untested federation. Let someone like Monster Energy or Bang sponsor it.
Would be hillarious if the result was the same as in powerlifting and the tested athletes would come way to close to the performance of the untested ones...

we already have this, it's called the Volta a Portugal