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State of the peloton 2022

Page 19 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
1991 Tour: 135km of ITT, 36km of TTT
1992 Tour: 137km of ITT, 64km of TTT
1993 Tour: 118km of ITT, 81km of TTT
1994 Tour: 119km of ITT, 67km of TTT
1995 Tour: 108km of ITT, 67km of TTT
1996 Tour: 103km of ITT
1997 Tour: 125km of ITT
1998 Tour: 116km of ITT
1999 Tour: 121km of ITT
2000 Tour: 75km of ITT, 70km of TTT

1991 Giro: 116km of ITT
1992 Giro: 112km of ITT
1993 Giro: 92km of ITT
1994 Giro: 86km of ITT
1995 Giro: 104km of ITT
1996 Giro: 62km of ITT
1997 Giro: 58km of ITT
1998 Giro: 82km of ITT
1999 Giro: 77km of ITT
2000 Giro: 82km of ITT

1991 Vuelta: 124km of ITT, 49km of TTT
1992 Vuelta: 97km of ITT, 33km of TTT
1993 Vuelta: 116km of ITT
1994 Vuelta: 102km of ITT
1995 Vuelta: 100km of ITT
1996 Vuelta: 90km of ITT
1997 Vuelta: 78km of ITT
1998 Vuelta: 79km of ITT
1999 Vuelta: 98km of ITT
2000 Vuelta: 89km of ITT

This is probably your biggest culprit. Interesting to note how the Giro went a whole decade without a TTT and were actually the ones with the least TT mileage, reducing down to only one long TT in the mid 90s, possibly with the hope of keeping crowd-pleasers like Pantani in the mix more than they could be in the Tour. The Vuelta in 1991 has two TTTs (one in trios and one as a full team), two long ITTs and an MTT. All of those tour TTT mileages are from a single stage, they don't have an example like the 1991 Vuelta with two TTTs, so an 81km TTT being in the repertoire absolutely was part of the sport back then. Notice how the Tour scales back ITT mileage and replaces it with TTT mileage from 1993 to 1995 to try to engineer closer competition to Indurain, but without drastically altering the balance - suspect they had little problem with Indurain winning but wanted to foster a closer competition; of course he also won the 1992 and 1993 Giri, the latter of which had reduced ITT mileage, notwithstanding that part of that was the Sestriere TT which finished with the long uphill drag and eventually climb. Similarly the 1994 Tour includes that 47,5km Morzine TT that went over a couple of climbs which Piotrs Ugrumovs went nuts on. This type of mixed TT is pretty uncommon nowadays, certainly over that kind of full distance. We get a few TTs like the mini-MTT to Megève a few years back, but I'm thinking something more like Sestri Levante in the 2009 Giro as the last example I can recall off the top of my head of this type of TT which is not an MTT but includes a wide array of terrain and has mountains but not as a defining feature.
I don't think the amount of TT mileage had such a big effect on who was a super responder and who wasn't. The hardest mountain stages were also much harder then.

In the 90s, some of the craziest climbing performances were done by guys over 70 or even close to 80kg. And yes, that's also unquestionably to some degree down to better gear and thus flats in the peloton becoming much easier.
 
I don't think the amount of TT mileage had such a big effect on who was a super responder and who wasn't. The hardest mountain stages were also much harder then.

In the 90s, some of the craziest climbing performances were done by guys over 70 or even close to 80kg. And yes, that's also unquestionably to some degree down to better gear and thus flats in the peloton becoming much easier.
Sure, but the amount of TT mileage drove down the value of the pure climber, so they might not be nurtured and developed to the same extent, especially as unless they were absolutely elite climbers, they would frequently lose time on the flats and be well out of the GC before they even got to the mountains. Nowadays, the low TT mileage relative to historic norm means that somebody who is a pure climber immediately has no reason not to think of themselves as a potential GC leader, so riders of that style are much more aggressively sought out by talent scouts. If they come around now, rather than in the mid 90s, people like José María Jiménez and Leonardo Piepoli are at the forefront of GC contention, and guys like Melcior Mauri, Ángel Casero and Aitor González never write their name into GC history.
 
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I don't think the amount of TT mileage had such a big effect on who was a super responder and who wasn't. The hardest mountain stages were also much harder then.

In the 90s, some of the craziest climbing performances were done by guys over 70 or even close to 80kg. And yes, that's also unquestionably to some degree down to better gear and thus flats in the peloton becoming much easier.

Apart from Indurain I am genuinely struggling to think of a rider looking like he is close to 80kg doing super well on the climbs.

Edit: in the 90's obviously as there were these 3 glorious weeks in May in 2006
 
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Sure, but the amount of TT mileage drove down the value of the pure climber, so they might not be nurtured and developed to the same extent, especially as unless they were absolutely elite climbers, they would frequently lose time on the flats and be well out of the GC before they even got to the mountains. Nowadays, the low TT mileage relative to historic norm means that somebody who is a pure climber immediately has no reason not to think of themselves as a potential GC leader, so riders of that style are much more aggressively sought out by talent scouts. If they come around now, rather than in the mid 90s, people like José María Jiménez and Leonardo Piepoli are at the forefront of GC contention, and guys like Melcior Mauri, Ángel Casero and Aitor González never write their name into GC history.

Chava was pretty tall and lanky. I honestly don't remember what his TT position was like, but build-wise he was Zülle like, imo.

Edit; here's Heras and Jimenez along side

View: https://youtu.be/hiBSNivtde0?t=2416
 
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In the meantime I also think studies like these are interesting. This is also why I ask a lot of noob questions because I don't believe marginal gains is complete bull either. It's just both.


(Or they are actually using mechanical or rather electric doping after all.)

Link to the study is here: Double blind controlled study of epo use in cyclists shows no difference between epo and placebo up Venteux. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28669689/
EPO studies on amateurs are basically pointless because you have so many non-controlled variables. The "performance" of an fit but average joe like me or you varies a lot over a month due to various factors, EPO won't make that much of a difference.
Secondly, the big advantage of EPO isn't that it'll boost a single threshold effort into oblivion but that it increases endurance over multiple day efforts (e.g. Grand Tours). And in the study they only tested the former.
 
Apart from Indurain I am genuinely struggling to think of a rider looking like he is close to 80kg doing super well on the climbs.

Edit: in the 90's obviously as there were these 3 glorious weeks in May in 2006
Not close to 80kg but Olano, Zülle, Ullrich, Armstrong, Riis were all above 70kg. Not crazy but definitely above the norm compared to today (even Dumoulin at his peak was less than 70kg). I think the surrounding factors regarding TT relevance @Libertine Seguros mentioned definitely played a role but EPO must have had an impact as well on helping the bigger guys. Ullrich really shouldn't have the best non-Pantani, non-ITT time up Alpe d'Huez or the Madeleine or Arcalis record, Riis not the Hautacam record, Indurain not the La Plagne record...

An other random thing I noted re-watching a lot of 90s videos is the insane amount of time people are climbing out of the saddle. Watch the Pantani one man show in the Giro 98 or 99 and he's basically running up the mountain, not just accelerations, constant tempo pushing. I wonder if this is gear related or has also some physiological EPO background.
 
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Not close to 80kg but Olano, Zülle, Ullrich, Armstrong, Riis were all above 70kg. Not crazy but definitely above the norm compared to today (even Dumoulin at his peak was less than 70kg). I think the surrounding factors regarding TT relevance @Libertine Seguros mentioned definitely played a role but EPO must have had an impact as well on helping the bigger guys. Ullrich really shouldn't have the best non-Pantani, non-ITT time up Alpe d'Huez or the Madeleine or Arcalis record, Riis not the Hautacam record, Indurain not the La Plagne record...

An other random thing I noted re-watching a lot of 90s videos is the insane amount of time people are climbing out of the saddle. Watch the Pantani one man show in the Giro 98 or 99 and he's basically running up the mountain, not just accelerations, constant tempo pushing. I wonder if this is gear related or has also some physiological EPO background.

Olano, Zülle, Riis were all tall skinny guys. I think they were more Dumoulin like in build than Dumoulin fans would want to acknowledge.
 
Both. Bigger gears meant they were using EPO + steroids, growth hormones and Synacten to stomp up those mountains. Also it was possible to do extreme carb loading thanks to IGF1 and corticosteroids.

So they were climbing on strength.

With Aicar and the current shifting they would do high fat, low carb. Because obviously with AICAR it's better to fuel the body with fat, since it ramps up liquid metabolism. Hence why they climb with endurance now.

At least that is my amateurish understanding.
 
Both. Bigger gears meant they were using EPO + steroids, growth hormones and Synacten to stomp up those mountains. Also it was possible to do extreme carb loading thanks to IGF1 and corticosteroids.

So they were climbing on strength.

With Aicar and the current shifting they would do high fat, low carb. Because obviously with AICAR it's better to fuel the body with fat, since it ramps up liquid metabolism. Hence why they climb with endurance now.

At least that is my amateurish understanding.
Watch Riis riding away from the rest on Hautacam, he's grinding such a massive gear out of the saddle that he looks like he's going really slowly.

That strength aspect is definitely underrated. Ignore the TT distances, there's a lot more to the fact that we don't see 70+ kg riders regularly pushing well over 400 watts AND big w/kg numbers on long climbs any more. Why be miserable trying to maintain incredibly body mass ala Wiggo if you don't have to?
 
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Jul 5, 2021
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really inspiring to see Tadej Pogacar trying to strike a blow for clean cycling against the Ineos and Jumbo teams
I'm not sure you can claim Pog is clean. But I do like his gung ho tactics, livens things up. WvA is what casts shade for me. Take him out of it, happy to be naive and believe what I see. With Wout, hmmmmm. Even Ving totally blanked him when crossing the line on the TT today, he looked well embarrassed.
 
Hopefully the police will do searches before/during every GT from now on.

Well well well, where do we go from here?

No idea... either the rest catch up and we get Bernal who can time trial, Remco who can sprint uphil and we get close tours again.

Or Bernal/remco are not the responders like those other 2 and we get this kind of attractive tour every year untill the french raid those teams and there performance drops like a brick. Cyclism will get another brick in the face. We will again have 2-3 years where nobody goes beyond 6,1W/kg and everybody tells now it is clean again. Anotehr 'supertalent' arrives doing 6,5W/kg and everyone will be woow.
 
1-2-3 on the GC finished 2-3-4 in the ITT 2+ minutes faster than any rider in the top-20 on GC at the start of today

I don't like it.
Indeed. If I hear one more comment about the yellow Jersey giving you wings, I'm going to throw up.

G in this form beats his previous tour winning form substantially. But pogo kicks his a$s by massive time. Only problem is, vingo kicks pocos a$s as well.

Then there's Jumbo every day, UAE on their one 'amazing' day.

Ummm, 3 cheers for the cleanzest cycling ever.
 
Don't visit here much because people seem very confused and not very scientific or rational.

Lucky for you, I'm here today for a couple of secs to clear things up, since the forum is a mess of bad info and wrong thinking.

I have done a basic investigation and it seems to me (imho) the most likely situation is as follows:

The main cheating teams are UAE and Jumbo-Visma where almost all riders are juiced. Jumbo started the recent cycle of cheating with Dumoulin at least as far back as his Worlds win, UAE started with uber-alien Pogacar.

Quick Step were cheating with Alaphilippe but not anyone lese.

Sky/Ineos were not quite cheating so badly but unethical use of TUEs, bullying culture and unpleasantly large budget are not a good look (This was all discovered by a UK Government miilion-pounds funded investigation, so you can have good faith in this compared to rumours and conspirarcy theories spread by children all over the place. (and the Salbutamol controversy was solved correctly, with good science (even if it required expensive lawyers))

Bahrain are trying to get big time but have been frustrated by very annoying police raids, so have yet to enter really big league.


That's it really, not much else of note in last decade, apart from the odd Olympic medal or two...

Hope that helps you confused people - you really do deserve the likes of WvA, Pogacar, Vingegaard, Alaphilippe,, enjoy the racing...
 
I found it hilarious how the commentators on Eurosport GCN constantly keep going on about how this is on corse to be the fastest ever Tour de France. Indeed, faster than 2005, but they don't even question anything about it, just keep going on about how amazing Wout and Jumbo are ect...
This just shows that sad state of journalism in 2022, people afraid to question the narrative in fear of being banned from press conferences ect...
 
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Don't visit here much because people seem very confused and not very scientific or rational.

Lucky for you, I'm here today for a couple of secs to clear things up, since the forum is a mess of bad info and wrong thinking.

I have done a basic investigation and it seems to me (imho) the most likely situation is as follows:

The main cheating teams are UAE and Jumbo-Visma where almost all riders are juiced. Jumbo started the recent cycle of cheating with Dumoulin at least as far back as his Worlds win, UAE started with uber-alien Pogacar.

Quick Step were cheating with Alaphilippe but not anyone lese.

Sky/Ineos were not quite cheating so badly but unethical use of TUEs, bullying culture and unpleasantly large budget are not a good look (This was all discovered by a UK Government miilion-pounds funded investigation, so you can have good faith in this compared to rumours and conspirarcy theories spread by children all over the place. (and the Salbutamol controversy was solved correctly, with good science (even if it required expensive lawyers))

Bahrain are trying to get big time but have been frustrated by very annoying police raids, so have yet to enter really big league.


That's it really, not much else of note in last decade, apart from the odd Olympic medal or two...

Hope that helps you confused people - you really do deserve the likes of WvA, Pogacar, Vingegaard, Alaphilippe,, enjoy the racing...

thank you, i'm glad you posted this highly scientific and rational post
 
I have done a basic investigation and it seems to me (imho) the most likely situation is as follows:

The main cheating teams are UAE and Jumbo-Visma where almost all riders are juiced. Jumbo started the recent cycle of cheating with Dumoulin at least as far back as his Worlds win, UAE started with uber-alien Pogacar.
Yeah, it shows that you've done basic "investigation".

Dumoulin got worse while at Jumbo and his World Championship win was while he was still at Sunweb.
 
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