I think the Pogacar take was outrageous at the time, too. I really didn't see what he could possible have done better.
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I think the Pogacar take was outrageous at the time, too. I really didn't see what he could possible have done better.
On further review, I don’t know what I was on that early in the day.
Pogi is very tired. Hopefully he won't exceed the time limit today and make the race spectacular later on.
All the Remco acolytes will take any time he puts into an exhausted Pog as evidence that he has would have dominated the last few years without his crash.
What‘s so special about Pogacar is also that he - at least until now, but most likely this won‘t change - has this God-given luck: it makes him avoid crashes and injuries, and keeps him healthy… He is so good in everything he does - and the things he can hardly or cannot influence, they normally all work to his liking.
Great TT by Pogi today. A little over 1 sec/km loss to Ganna and just 0.5 sec/km to Evenepoel speak for themselves. Is seems 48 hours were enough to recover from Strade - wow. Very small gap to Evenepoel and significant advantage over the rest of GC rivals. He could become the leader even before the mountain stage (thanks to punchy attacks on hills and time bonuses).
I disagree, he was arguably better today than in the UAE TT. Didn't expect him to beat Asgreen and lose so little to Evenepoel.
Pogacar flew past that guy like a rocket. It didn't benefit him that much. Even if he was sitting on the wheel for 30 seconds his gain would be like 3 seconds (rough estimate of 10%). In this case it was less than that surely.
I'm not talking about the few seconds he's within a few meters of the rider in front of him, but the process of being behind a rider and his team car on a long straight road for maybe over a minute before you finally overtake him. You may think this is trivial, but it does account for a few seconds, and in this case those few seconds could make the difference compared to Asgreen or Evenepoel in KZD's example.
No, I don't think it's trivial and realize its importance. But I was talking about 30 seconds literally in the wheel. Do you think that i.e. 60 seconds at an average distance of 30 meters behind a rider will give you more than that? I don't.
I'm just saying that on a long straight road, being able to overtake a rider and a car, it's a process that takes maybe a few minutes and that you could benefit 5 or 10 seconds from it. Let's say for argument's sake that he gained 7s, then he would have finished behind Asgreen and 14s from Evenepoel. That's basically a 1s/km difference and rather significant. I was talking to KZD in light of his post, hence why i quoted him.
I generally agree with you on the role of drag but I don't regarding order of magnitude in this case. I computed that Pogacar was about 1,3 m/s faster than the guy ahead. This means that for the last minute (before overtaking) his average distance was 40 meters behind the guy ahead - this is really a lot (and I don't think we should count earlier time when he was 80 m+ behind). You won't gain 7 seconds (which is almost 12%) during a minute like that.
It's more than you assume. At 50 meters behind a motorcycle, the advantage is still up to 7% less resistance. Now imagine it is a car and not a motorcycle...
CDA - AERODYNAMICS - DRAG: influence of motorbikes, bike position etc
I posted this some weeks ago in the "general news thread". Since there is now a follow up, i've decided to make a new topic for it. Red Rick[/url]"]Logic-is-your-friend[/url]"]Belgian professor Bert Blocken from universities Leuven (Belgium) and Eindhoven (Netherlands) has done more research...
forum.cyclingnews.com
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I didn't understand why some thought the best GT rider in the world would feel the effect of an effort done two days before. His result in the TT confirms he was fully recovered. I would stop trying to find a weakness in his game, there is none. He's very likely the best bike rider to appear in the pro peloton since I started watching this sport. And his palmares will confirm that sooner than later.
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It's more than you assume. At 50 meters behind a motorcycle, the advantage is still up to 7% less resistance. Now imagine it is a car and not a motorcycle...
CDA - AERODYNAMICS - DRAG: influence of motorbikes, bike position etc
I posted this some weeks ago in the "general news thread". Since there is now a follow up, i've decided to make a new topic for it. Red Rick[/url]"]Logic-is-your-friend[/url]"]Belgian professor Bert Blocken from universities Leuven (Belgium) and Eindhoven (Netherlands) has done more research...
Good that you cited the article but a given advantage in air resistance doesn't translate proportionally to a speed gain (due to other forces a rider has to overcome). The article states 12% less resistance means 2.6 sec/km (which is 2.3 sec per minute of ride, so about 4% of speed difference). Therefore 7% less resistance is probably around 2-3% of speed gain (so only about 1.2-1.8 sec per minute). Obviously a car can give more air protection (as you said) but we can't say exact numbers without some complicated calculations or simulations. Anyway, I think that's all regarding this topic: we agree on the role of air resistance but providing a reliable estimation of gains is more difficult in this case.
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I like to think that Strade served as an extra stage to Pog's (and other riders who rode Strade as well) Tirreno with a rest day after it. So it seems like their Tirreno has 8 stages instead of 7. I wasn't really surprised to see Pogi and Asgreen do really well in the TT.
Everyone has some weakness, even Eddy had, Pogacar for example (at least until last year) didn't look dominant on big long climbs and was even dropped on Loze and Ventoux and apparently doesn't like heat. Maybe isn't enough for Roglic to beat him in the Tour but still isn't invincible.
Very true and none of the projected data means anything unless the rider is disciplined enough to accelerate in that period of decreased resistance and adjust pace meaningfully when it's gone. It also messes with concentration and pace which are hard to regain.
Calculations also don't mean much when you're in the red zone, too.
By the way; Pogi reminds me of the young version of Lemond in many ways. Minus a little California hubris, of course.
A very good performance and another win!
He looks unstoppable at the moment and is exciting to watch. Not afraid of anything.
Today he closed pretty much every attempt to attack from other riders on the last climb before they could gain anything close to a gap. Demoralising for anyone trying to attack. A smart tactic, since nobody continues their attack if everyone is right on the wheel. The attacks dont continue for more than just a few seconds, before it slows down again. In the end it might not cost too much to close them. A way you can only race when you know you are strongest and basically controlling everything.
Last acceleration was incredible. No one even came close to be able to follow it. Super-impressive.
He looks unstoppable at the moment and is exciting to watch. Not afraid of anything.
Today he closed pretty much every attempt to attack from other riders on the last climb before they could gain anything close to a gap. Demoralising for anyone trying to attack. A smart tactic, since nobody continues their attack if everyone is right on the wheel. The attacks dont continue for more than just a few seconds, before it slows down again. In the end it might not cost too much to close them. A way you can only race when you know you are strongest and basically controlling everything.
Last acceleration was incredible. No one even came close to be able to follow it. Super-impressive.
Yeah, very smart tactic, but you can apply it only when you're way stronger than everybody else. The kid is just too strong.
Just love watching him race, he just makes every race exciting
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