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State of the peloton 2022

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Cookster15

Cookster15

May 14, 2011
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Glad someone decided to give the Clinic a kick start. Clinic stuff has been very quite for months now. Obviously little racing lately is part of the reason. But I worry the teams and riders are looking for a competitive edge however they can find it while Lord Sauron's eye isn't watching.
 
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MikeS369

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spredy

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Just because Ganna is big doesn't mean he can't climb. How about you actually look at the data?

Jebel Jais is about 5% average, power to weight has less of an effect on a shallow climb like this, meaning Ganna's raw large watts can help overcome his weight disadvantage.

Then, if you look at the power data of Neilson powless they 'only' did 5.5 watts per kg for 45 mins after about 4 hours of 160 watts. Heck, when I'm in peak form I could nearly have hung on the climb, and I can assure you I'm not doping.

So with Ganna's raw power requiring him to use less power to weight, if he was at 5.3 watts per kg @82kg he would have done like 434 watts. We see him make efforts like this all the time, and in much harder races, he posts a lot on Strava. So yeah, he may be on some stuff, but this ride in and of itself is no crazier than anything else he's done.
 
BlueRoads

BlueRoads

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spredy said:
Just because Ganna is big doesn't mean he can't climb. How about you actually look at the data?

Jebel Jais is about 5% average, power to weight has less of an effect on a shallow climb like this, meaning Ganna's raw large watts can help overcome his weight disadvantage.

Then, if you look at the power data of Neilson powless they 'only' did 5.5 watts per kg for 45 mins after about 4 hours of 160 watts. Heck, when I'm in peak form I could nearly have hung on the climb, and I can assure you I'm not doping.

So with Ganna's raw power requiring him to use less power to weight, if he was at 5.3 watts per kg @82kg he would have done like 434 watts. We see him make efforts like this all the time, and in much harder races, he posts a lot on Strava. So yeah, he may be on some stuff, but this ride in and of itself is no crazier than anything else he's done.
Click to expand...

Well, it was enough for Dumoulin, George Bennett, de la Cruz, Almeida and some other probably not in peak form but generally pretty good climbers to not hang on. If you're better I hope you have a pro contract. Bissegger, who seems to be in good form, wasn't able to hang on at all, he got distanced in the beginning, despite certainly trying, so it was not a day for time trialers per se. And no, I don't think Ganna is in peak form already either, because his major goals obviously come later, and I'm also not sure he only weighs 82 kg at the moment if he did indeed put on weight for P-R.
We never know, and I'm not saying this is different from some other things he has shown, but don't make this "I could have done this".
(I'm really quite a fan, I like this style and he seems like a very nice guy, and therefor it's not even that I don't like to see it, but I feel it would be hypocrite to suspect other riders I don't like that much and pretend this is totally normal.)
 
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spredy

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Any of those riders might just not have wanted to contest the GC/the stage, they might not do well in the heat, they might just think ahh who cares this is just UAE tour or might have just had an off day.

I'm not trying to say 'Oh I'm better than Tom Dumo' or whoever but I'm saying based on the power data, it really isn't some super human effort. It's easy just to see x rider do x thing and have doubts, but once you give some context to help fill in the blanks, those suspicions can be alleviated.
 
SafeBet

SafeBet

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BlueRoads said:
Bissegger, who seems to be in good form, wasn't able to hang on at all, he got distanced in the beginning, despite certainly trying, so it was not a day for time trialers per se.
Click to expand...
Bissegger must be extremely aero, because his incredible TT performances have seldom translated to road races, especially when they involved some climbing (the lone exception being his win from the break in Tour de Suisse).
All the other riders you mention must have had a bad day or are far from their peak, because the power output required to be in the leading group up to the final 500 metres of the stage is nothing to write home about for a WT rider. I'd even argue this wasn't Ganna's best climbing performance of the last couple of weeks if you ask me.
 
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Mayomaniac

Mayomaniac

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SafeBet said:
Bissegger must be extremely aero, because his incredible TT performances have seldom translated to road races, especially when they involved some climbing (the lone exception being his win from the break in Tour de Suisse).
All the other riders you mention must have had a bad day or are far from their peak, because the power output required to be in the leading group up to the final 500 metres of the stage is nothing to write home about for a WT rider. I'd even argue this wasn't Ganna's best climbing performance of the last couple of weeks if you ask me.
Click to expand...
Yeah, his climbing in the Tour de la Provence was probably more impressive.
Lower gradient tempogrinders are also different than actually hard climbs and Ganna has always been good on this kind of climbs. Look at him winning from the breakaway on the Montescuro stage of the Giro and at his performances on the Alto Colorado in San Luis.
It's still not in the same league as some of the stuff that Wout has pulled off. If he looses some weight like planned things could look different in a few months, I have to say that...
 
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