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The twilight zone called Portugal.

Page 20 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
I think you're right. 55kg Herder Goncalves did 5.97 W/KG on the final 8.74kms of the climb and finished 2:41 behind Figueiredo, who is at a similar weight. That means WTF wattages for Figueiredo...
Thanks for the info. It's not the time I've seen such underestimations by MF Naichaca. He answered a comment on Twitter talking about some tailwind when people I know, on the spot, talk about minimal side wind and not really relevant. Also, the small inconsistencies on climbing time, distance and elevation that he has all the time are annoying. It's not that relevant, but it's pretty easy to correct and makes me wonder about everything else.
 
Freddy Watts uploaded his time in the segment @Mayomaniac talked about which translates to ~6.64w/kg, way closer to my calculation than MF Naichaca's.

Figueiredo has nothing to hide and posts his wtf wattages on Strava, nice!
All jokes aside, like you've said he has by far the most reasonable progression of any of the typivmcal Volta guys. His watts and the fact that he only performs in portugal are still red flags, but at least his progression over the years makes sense...
 
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Freddy Watts uploaded his time in the segment @Mayomaniac talked about which translates to ~6.64w/kg, way closer to my calculation than MF Naichaca's.

LoL. I cannot even hold 6 w/kg for 5 minutes anymore. While I'm old and was never very blessed with a high power-to-weight (or VO2), nice to know that I would fall off my bike from O2 debt within a couple of minutes of trying to keep up with this 30 minute effort :oops:
 
LoL. I cannot even hold 6 w/kg for 5 minutes anymore. While I'm old and was never very blessed with a high power-to-weight (or VO2), nice to know that I would fall off my bike from O2 debt within a couple of minutes of trying to keep up with this 30 minute effort :oops:
If you're holding 6 w/kg for 5min as a clean amateur you're already really strong IMO, nothing but respect if you did that a few years ago!
 
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While Figueiredo did Figueiredo things on the Barreiro climb the level on the final climb was still high.
Jokin Murguialday finished 10th on the stage and climbed SdG in 22:54, a bit over 6.2 W/kg.
Source: https://www.strava.com/activities/7638061369/segments/2993945100351939806
Let's see what the big guys post today, but Figueiredo looked like he could have gone clearly faster...
Based on the 22:22 (which is nearly 1:30m slower than Balarcon's record time) Figueiredo must've done something between 6.5-6.7w/kg. Mind you they did accelerate at Barreiro and pace themselves at Monte Farinha because Moreira was struggling to hold on. I don't think they could've beat Alarcon going full gas but Freddy Watts could've potentially been near the mythical 7w/kg.

DS's saying they were "lost for words" ("""Professor""" Zé Santos from Boavista) and "wanting to stay within the rules of cycling" (Jorge Piedade from Louletano) really says it all.

I promissed you this would still be nuclear and ridiculous. No one gives a single fvck:

FaImrIRXkAAizXK
 
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Based on the 22:22 (which is nearly 2:30m slower than Balarcon's record time) Figueiredo must've done something between 6.5-6.7w/kg. Mind you they did accelerate at Barreiro and pace themselves at Monte Farinha because Moreira was struggling to hold on. I don't think they could've beat Alarcon going full gas but Freddy Watts could've potentially been near the mythical 7w/kg.

DS's saying they were "lost for words" ("""Professor""" Zé Santos from Boavista) and "wanting to stay within the rules of cycling" (Jorge Piedade from Louletano) really says it all.

I promissed you this would still be nuclear and ridiculous. No one gives a single fvck:

FaImrIRXkAAizXK
IMO last year the team was even stronger.
Maybe Figueiredo was not as strong as he was this year and in 2020, but Carvalho was on the same level, Mauricio was clearly stronger and not fading last year and Reis was on a whole different level. Not to mention the fact that they still had Cardoso as a domestique.

Imagine if Antunes and Jose Neves were allowed to race this one with the NT, we would have seen one hell of a fight...
 
I think I know the issue and you were right. He's using the J. Martin formula which is known to underestimate when riders are under 64kg. Figueiredo is 56kg so that probably explains it.

There's also a few inconsistencies regarding time and elevation but I don't think that would explain such a massive difference.
Figueiredo's weight doesn't matter, the twitter user in question uses standardised weight for his calculations. It's about being able to accurately compare performances, not predict actual outputs.
 
Figueiredo's weight doesn't matter, the twitter user in question uses standardised weight for his calculations. It's about being able to accurately compare performances, not predict actual outputs.
Can you please elaborate regarding the formula used then? I'm not sure I understand how the standardized weight formula works.

Not doubting you, I'm genuinely curious. Thank you.
 
For a given performance, you calculate the w/kg by using the same weight (I believe he uses 60 kg as the standard rider weight), no matter what the rider in question actually weights. So two different riders doing the same performance will give the same estimate, even if in reality they produced different w/kg for said equivalent performance.
 
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Based on the 22:22 (which is nearly 2:30m slower than Balarcon's record time) Figueiredo must've done something between 6.5-6.7w/kg. Mind you they did accelerate at Barreiro and pace themselves at Monte Farinha because Moreira was struggling to hold on. I don't think they could've beat Alarcon going full gas but Freddy Watts could've potentially been near the mythical 7w/kg.

DS's saying they were "lost for words" ("""Professor""" Zé Santos from Boavista) and "wanting to stay within the rules of cycling" (Jorge Piedade from Louletano) really says it all.

I promissed you this would still be nuclear and ridiculous. No one gives a single fvck:

FaImrIRXkAAizXK

Just wanna say that the yellow jersey's designers should have had more careful with the logo placement of the supermarket brand who sponsors this year the jersey. From a distance it looks like that Frederico has a bulls eye target to his lower parts.
 
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Based on the 22:22 (which is nearly 2:30m slower than Balarcon's record time) Figueiredo must've done something between 6.5-6.7w/kg. Mind you they did accelerate at Barreiro and pace themselves at Monte Farinha because Moreira was struggling to hold on. I don't think they could've beat Alarcon going full gas but Freddy Watts could've potentially been near the mythical 7w/kg.

DS's saying they were "lost for words" ("""Professor""" Zé Santos from Boavista) and "wanting to stay within the rules of cycling" (Jorge Piedade from Louletano) really says it all.

I promissed you this would still be nuclear and ridiculous. No one gives a single fvck:

FaImrIRXkAAizXK
One correction, they went nearly 1:30 slower than Alarcon's record (20:55 in 2017, in 2018 he did 21:05). I think today a fresh Figueiredo going all out only on the final climb could have gone at least 1min faster, if not more. Maybe not Balarcon climbng times, but up there with the Veloso years.
That said, the Barreiro climb has become his backyard over the last 3 years and by going crazy on that one the gaps on the final climb are bigger than if it was just a crazy drag race up SdG with an easy tempo before.

My overall impression is that he hasn't really improved at Efapel/Glassdrive, he was at least as good in 2020 when he rode for Tavira.
 
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Freddy Watts Figueiredo time trialing like Nuno Ribeiro when he needed to defend yellow. Unfortunately for him the gap was marginal but I'm sure once he hits his Grandíssima prime he'll be a force to be reckoned with in ITT's too.

Perfect ending.
 
Freddy Watts Figueiredo time trialing like Nuno Ribeiro when he needed to defend yellow. Unfortunately for him the gap was marginal but I'm sure once he hits his Grandíssima prime he'll be a force to be reckoned with in ITT's too.

Perfect ending.
Tbf, I've always said that a technical tt woth multiple climbs suits him much more than a flat one. Clearly not as crazy as that final TT by Rodrigues in 2019, when his TT position made Pogacar look like Dumoulin.

Carvalho was the only one who was somewhat in the same league as Moreira, the rest got obliterated.
 
Looks like W52-Porco is really over, at least as we've come to known them in the last years: https://www.record.pt/modalidades/c...omo-parceiro?ref=Ciclismo_DestaquesPrincipais

They'll be creating a youth team. The team boss, Adriano Quintanilha, says Porco will support the team (although the club had suspended the sponsorship in light of the case) and they want to create an Academy for young cyclists where he had the installations for his company. He says, and I quote: "We want a clean cycling, starting with young cyclists and educate them from scratch. That's what my father taught me. I want to be a mentor and have a cycling school".

He also adds that Pinto da Costa, FC Porco's president, is very disappointed and that they want nothing to do with professional cycling at the moment.

About the cyclists that are still not suspended (Amaro Antunes, José Neves and Jorge Magalhães) and the rest of the staff he continues to pay them but doesn't know anything about their future.

Finally, he says that this year's Volta a Portugal only had 10% of the public at home and on TV (which is obviously a lie) but congratulated Glassdrive on their dominance.
 
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Moreira casually dropping the best 10-15min climbing performance of the season. Glassdrive continuing their good form, it's great to see these guys finally getting some well deserved palmares after being robbed by W52 for so long!
Nice to see Moreira back at his usual level after a somewhat underwelming climbing performance at the Volta...

The day before a group of 11-13 riders finished together, but on the climb that topped with around 1km to go (960m at 9.5%) Cesar Fonte did 517W for 2:17, a VAM of 2.417 and he's listed at 60kg...
I know that it's just a bit over 2min, but guys casually doing well over 8 W/KG for that amount of time is really wild...
 
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