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State of the peloton 2022

Page 10 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
May be a hot take, but the effect of the 3rd week on the top performances in a GT are vastly overrated. It's really normal that the biggest watt bombs drop around the end of the 2nd week or in the 3rd. It's the tiring riders that get dropped that really go down, but the ones still good still drop their best performances.

Fedaia gradient is perfect for a high climbing performance. They did low watts all day before, then they blasted the very bottom too. Every thing inch perfect for high W/kg from the best climber, while many of the others exploded because they held on too long.

The factor that's more crazy than "third week" is the fact that it's at 1700m average altitude, and I'm not super sure how to compare it to a ~30 minute 6.5W/kg climb at 1100m average altitude.

Landa mentioned tailwind made the climb extremely fast. I checked and it seems to be the case - 6 m/s from south east on Passo Rolle (19 km from Fedaia). These are very favourable conditions for this climb and they surely upped Hindley's VAM.
 
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Tailwind would have an enlarged effect on Fedaia as it's very straight E-W with few changes in direction

Yup, that's what I meant. Just a few short switchbacks with unfavourable conditions and other than that very good wind (esp. on the straight). It's hard to say exactly what benefit 6 m/s wind can give but according to my rough estimates a resistive force can be reduced by a few % on such a steep climb, which would mean the same VAM could be achieved with a few percent lower torque and power (assuming constant cadence).
 
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Landa had clearly been weakening relative to Hindley as the race went on (as seen by him being unable to match Poels's pace for an uphill attack on a previous stage, resulting in the attack effectively being aborted). Carapaz on the day lost out to both Carthy and this weakened Landa and didnt even have the power to avoid being trolled by Kamna or to drop off another guy in the break who was just cruising in.

Kelderman and Buchman have performed better on other teams. Any suggestion that Hindley gradually pacing himself away from rivals showing such sub-par form is a red flag isn't one I can personally get my head around.

Heck, I've not even felt the need to post anything negative in the Bahrain thread this Giro.
 
Yup, that's what I meant. Just a few short switchbacks with unfavourable conditions and other than that very good wind (esp. on the straight). It's hard to say exactly what benefit 6 m/s wind can give but according to my rough estimates a resistive force can be reduced by a few % on such a steep climb, which would mean the same VAM could be achieved with a few percent lower torque and power (assuming constant cadence).
Looking at the watts that Buchmann, who lost 3min exactly to Hindley on the steep part of Fedaia and was something like 15.79% slower, posted I'd say that just under 6.4 w/kg for Hindley should be accurate.
 
Based on the forum ranking of the just finished GdI, I get the impression that members prefer top fuel racing. Maybe some of the members are too young to really remember the 'good old days', but many do/should.
Since the bio passport, the past three years have clearly been the fastest. The 2015 and 2010 Giri were voted the best GTs of the decade in this forum, but they were not as fast as the Giro this year, so I don't understand what you base your interpretation on.
 
Since the bio passport, the past three years have clearly been the fastest. The 2015 and 2010 Giri were voted the best GTs of the decade in this forum, but they were not as fast as the Giro this year, so I don't understand what you base your interpretation on.
My interpretation is based on the majority complaining that the racing is no good. "I'll be generous and give it a 3 out of 10...". Everyone is faster now, maybe they liked it when only the GC guys (and a general or two) were faster?

IMO, the GdI was the best one this year. I just enjoy this year's race, who cares about last year, or 1994, or 34?!
 

Went to the IWG website to take a look at their staff and it seems like one of their doctors is a certain Piet Daneels, Team CSC's doctor back in 2004.

I don't have to time to do that but it would be nice to take a look at the current team staff and see which teams have and which teams don't have doctors and team staff that were active twenty years ago and in shady teams. It seems like the staff generations renewal, in certain areas of the sport, is very slow.
 
Went to the IWG website to take a look at their staff and it seems like one of their doctors is a certain Piet Daneels, Team CSC's doctor back in 2004.

I don't have to time to do that but it would be nice to take a look at the current team staff and see which teams have and which teams don't have doctors and team staff that were active twenty years ago and in shady teams. It seems like the staff generations renewal, in certain areas of the sport, is very slow.
I mean, it has kinda been done before (documented that Ibarguren is now at Movistar, San Millan active for UAE, don't know other examples) but the performance effects of doctors arriving at a team are not really seen consistently. Since the bio passport era, teams who got Ibarguren always suddenly started performing a lot better (Lotto in 2011, QS afterwards). But now that he's at Movistar, they're still doing pretty bad. However QS are also doing worse, so it does go the other way....
 

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