Uphill hour

[carolina]

Of course he is making money, he has several sponsors. He tries one climb every week and shows the attemps on his youtube channel. It's fairly entertaining.

About Tommy D, he said something along the lines of "I didn't want to like him, because he is a dopper, but he is a really nice guy and he was the one who got me a contract with a WT team."

 

[DFA123]

Gaimon reminds me a bit of Armstrong in his attention-seeking personality style. Although unlike Armstrong, he couldn't hack it as a WT pro, and has had to find another way to get his publicity. I enjoyed reading his explanation for justifying this massive vanity exercise as a public service, which was then immediately contradicted:

People like seeing what pros can do on their local climbs,"... For any one of these regional benchmark climbs, Gaimon says his efforts give local riders context for their local heroes.

"People think that they can be pro, or that their local Strava star could do the Tour de France," Gaimon said. "Uh, no. I can blow their doors off, and I got dropped in the WorldTour.

Before acknowledging that he has absolutely no endurance and has focused full-time on training just for these pointless efforts, making his efforts completely unrepresentative of anyone actually riding in the Tour.

 

[Leinster]

Re:

Despite the manner in which it distorts performance, I think the issue of environmental variation is part of the "charm" of such records, however for the topic at hand, if people want a climbing record it'd make more sense to simply have an MTT on fixed courses. Conditions on the day are part of the luck of the draw*.

Besides the issue of suitable locations to get a full hour, accurate measurement of vertical metres gained for a set duration would be problematic. The hour record is recorded at and can be set in increments of ~0.002%. For a vertical ascent that would require nailing down altitude to the nearest 3cm, which would not be feasible. No one is going to survey the precise altitude of a random bit of road. Even the nearest metre would be difficult to nail down precisely, GPS is not overly accurate for altitude measurements. You'd probably have confidence in something like nearest +/- 5-10m. That would be like a regular hour record rounding to the nearest number of full laps.


* The UCI used to have different categories for hour records for indoor and outdoor tracks and for above and below a certain altitude (I think it was 600m IIRC). So, e.g. you could hold the amateur indoor record above 600m.

They also used to have a pro and amateur distinction, which has sort of been replaced by those who are in the bio-passport program and masters age category records.

I think accuracy to within a meter would probably suffice to begin with. An accurate topographic survey of a mountain pass wouldn't be that big a deal; most of these roads probably have pretty accurate surveys already done, there's probably benchmarks and monuments set. A survey crew could have the elevation difference from start line to summit pretty well worked out, and then mark multiple "finish lines" on the road at about where the competitor thinks they'll reach after 1 hour. So if our climber thinks he'll make it 20 km up the road, the survey can put altitude markers on the road for every 1, 5 and 25 m of elevation gained between 19.5 and 20.5 km.

The prep would be considerable, but the survey crew's time would be a minor expense compared to closing the road, security, all the usual accoutrements that go with a pro bike race.

 

[Singer01]

Assuming they all just agreed to do it on one mountain (the stelvio for arguments sake) which current rider would have the best time assuming environmental factors were the same for everyone?

 

[DFA123]

Re:

Assuming they all just agreed to do it on one mountain (the stelvio for arguments sake) which current rider would have the best time assuming environmental factors were the same for everyone?

I guess the time would be pretty similar for everyone

Of the WT riders you'd have to think Froome, Porte or Quintana would do best, if any of them could find time to do such a race when they are near their peak. Maybe some lesser rider who can't hack it at the sharp end of GTs might spend a few months training specifically for it and do really well. Someone like De Gendt.

Also, what's Ricco up to these days?

 

[Ricco']

Re: Re:

Also, what's Ricco up to these days?

Selling ice cream in Tenerife. Yes, in Tenerife.

I wonder if a lot of the pro cyclists who go there like Ricco's candies. :twisted:

Now he's married again (not anymore with Vania Rossi) and he takes care of his son. Still in shape, judging by his Facebook photos. And we are less than 7 years away from his successful return to the pro cycling world, with the grand tour treble.

 

[portugal11]

Re: Re:

Also, what's Ricco up to these days?

Selling ice cream in Tenerife. Yes, in Tenerife.

I wonder if a lot of the pro cyclists who go there like Ricco's candies. :twisted:

Now he's married again (not anymore with Vania Rossi) and he takes care of his son. Still in shape, judging by his Facebook photos. And we are less than 7 years away from his successful return to the pro cycling world, with the grand tour treble.

I miss ricco so much... the peloton, these days, is full of clones, boring riders in interviews (bar sagan and cav), i'm sick of politically correct people. Huh...

 

[GenericBoonenFan]

You must be a big fan of Moscon than?

 

[portugal11]

Re:

You must be a big fan of Moscon than?

I'm a fan of moscon "the rider", I didn't like what he did to reza. I'm a fan of big charaters like cippo, di luca, ricco, vino, etc.

 

[Alex Simmons/RST]

Re: Re:

Despite the manner in which it distorts performance, I think the issue of environmental variation is part of the "charm" of such records, however for the topic at hand, if people want a climbing record it'd make more sense to simply have an MTT on fixed courses. Conditions on the day are part of the luck of the draw*.

Besides the issue of suitable locations to get a full hour, accurate measurement of vertical metres gained for a set duration would be problematic. The hour record is recorded at and can be set in increments of ~0.002%. For a vertical ascent that would require nailing down altitude to the nearest 3cm, which would not be feasible. No one is going to survey the precise altitude of a random bit of road. Even the nearest metre would be difficult to nail down precisely, GPS is not overly accurate for altitude measurements. You'd probably have confidence in something like nearest +/- 5-10m. That would be like a regular hour record rounding to the nearest number of full laps.


* The UCI used to have different categories for hour records for indoor and outdoor tracks and for above and below a certain altitude (I think it was 600m IIRC). So, e.g. you could hold the amateur indoor record above 600m.

They also used to have a pro and amateur distinction, which has sort of been replaced by those who are in the bio-passport program and masters age category records.

I think accuracy to within a meter would probably suffice to begin with. An accurate topographic survey of a mountain pass wouldn't be that big a deal; most of these roads probably have pretty accurate surveys already done, there's probably benchmarks and monuments set. A survey crew could have the elevation difference from start line to summit pretty well worked out, and then mark multiple "finish lines" on the road at about where the competitor thinks they'll reach after 1 hour. So if our climber thinks he'll make it 20 km up the road, the survey can put altitude markers on the road for every 1, 5 and 25 m of elevation gained between 19.5 and 20.5 km.

The prep would be considerable, but the survey crew's time would be a minor expense compared to closing the road, security, all the usual accoutrements that go with a pro bike race.

If every 100m altitude (or whatever chosen VAM interval) was marked enroute (beyond a given minimum, e.g. 1000m), then what you can do is take an elapsed time record for each altitude marker.

Once the clock reaches 1-hour the rider must continue on to complete the final 100m sector.

The VAM is then the altitude marker reached just before the hour elapsed + a pro rata vertical distance of the final 100m sector.

The pro rata VAM value is calculated as:
100 x (3600 seconds - time at penultimate marker) / (time at final marker - time at penultimate marker)

e.g. rider reaches 1500m at 58:30 (3510 seconds) and continues on to reach 1600m at 1:02:20 (3740 seconds)

VAM = [1500] + 100 * (3600 - 3510) / (3740 - 3510)
= 1500 + 100 * 90/230
= 1539.1m

All it then needs is an official or two with stopwatches to follow the rider to take the split for each VAM marker. Hand timing would be sufficient as even a 1 second error (quite a big error for a hand timer) would only affect the VAM calculation by 0.1m on such slopes.

You might then define that a VAM record needs to beat the previous record by a minimum of 1 vertical meter.

 

[Kokoso]

Re: Re:

Also, what's Ricco up to these days?

Selling ice cream in Tenerife. Yes, in Tenerife.

I wonder if a lot of the pro cyclists who go there like Ricco's candies. :twisted:

Now he's married again (not anymore with Vania Rossi) and he takes care of his son. Still in shape, judging by his Facebook photos. And we are less than 7 years away from his successful return to the pro cycling world, with the grand tour treble.

I miss ricco so much... the peloton, these days, is full of clones, boring riders in interviews (bar sagan and cav), i'm sick of politically correct people. Huh...

Don't get this. Sagan's interviews are definition of political corectness, he is not verbally interesting. He's doing his "funny" (at least he and some people think so) celebrations, that's is somewhat interesting to me albeit not in a good way, but verbally he is always politically correct. Bar one exception, when he said he likes MTB more then road (yet rides the road which I don't understand - when you like something and can make your living of it, why not doing it).

 

[portugal11]

Re: Re:

Also, what's Ricco up to these days?

Selling ice cream in Tenerife. Yes, in Tenerife.

I wonder if a lot of the pro cyclists who go there like Ricco's candies. :twisted:

Now he's married again (not anymore with Vania Rossi) and he takes care of his son. Still in shape, judging by his Facebook photos. And we are less than 7 years away from his successful return to the pro cycling world, with the grand tour treble.

I miss ricco so much... the peloton, these days, is full of clones, boring riders in interviews (bar sagan and cav), i'm sick of politically correct people. Huh...

Don't get this. Sagan's interviews are definition of political corectness, he is not verbally interesting. He's doing his "funny" (at least he and some people think so) celebrations, that's is somewhat interesting to me albeit not in a good way, but verbally he is always politically correct. Bar one exception, when he said he likes MTB more then road (yet rides the road which I don't understand - when you like something and can make your living of it, why not doing it).

Sagan isn't always politically correct... just see his interview in gent wevelgem

 

[jmdirt]

Re:

Gaimon reminds me a bit of Armstrong in his attention-seeking personality style. Although unlike Armstrong, he couldn't hack it as a WT pro, and has had to find another way to get his publicity. I enjoyed reading his explanation for justifying this massive vanity exercise as a public service, which was then immediately contradicted:

People like seeing what pros can do on their local climbs,"... For any one of these regional benchmark climbs, Gaimon says his efforts give local riders context for their local heroes.

"People think that they can be pro, or that their local Strava star could do the Tour de France," Gaimon said. "Uh, no. I can blow their doors off, and I got dropped in the WorldTour.

Before acknowledging that he has absolutely no endurance and has focused full-time on training just for these pointless efforts, making his efforts completely unrepresentative of anyone actually riding in the Tour.

Soapy craves attention, but he is nothing like LA. PG is a goofball who just happens to be a genetic freak. He didn't discover cycling and/or his potential until too late in life. Admittedly he can't hang at the WT level, but he's having fun riding his bike still so WTH.

 

[Max Rockatansky]

Any numbers like VAM from Babadag yesterday?

It looks like this climb might be the thing for the hour…

 

[Armchair cyclist]

Strava has it as a sector of 18.21 km, 1878m of ascent, and Zwiehoff's time as 1:12:44 (so presumably 12 seconds faster for Lutsenko).

So 1878/72.53 x 60 =1553.5 VAM
Is that the valid method?

 

[Skijumper Roglic fan]

It looks like this climb might be the thing for the hour…

Indeed.

I actually even hope for a real Babadag hype now.

Every few years, great new climbs show up, somewhere on earth. First Gamoniteiru in Asturias, few years ago, now Babadag.

I think Babadag is now the „real deal“, and GT organizers better have a look how it could be included into Giro, Tour and/or Vuelta.

And of course it would be a great destination for the climbing hour world record.

Babadag climb is listed as 18,4kms, 10,3% average. Impressive numbers, but with the Gravel trend, somewhere even more impressive climbs will be suitable to pro road races.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

VAM hour record rivalry would be really interesting. A monster climb is needed though (i.e. 1800+ m of elevation gain and steep enough). Climbs perfect for that (large vertical relief and low base) are present on volcanic islands i.e. the Canary Islands. Then we would see what kind of w/kg cyclists are able to produce when completely fresh and prepared especially for one hour effort (i.e. there's a reason why marathoners take part in 2-3 events per year).

 

[RedheadDane]

I suppose a way to do it would be something like this:

1. Select a climb that's the one that's always used - to make it as fair as possible in terms of gradients.
B. Mark the starting point of said climb.
III. Every time a new record is set, the rider in question gets a marker with name and date of record at the height he/she reached.

 

[Cookster15]

Interesting subject. What's the optimal slope for peak VAM? 8-9% ?

But I think Canary Island climb whilst a low base isn't steep enough to optimize VAM?

Here is Lutsenko Tour of Turkey on Badabag,. What a monster!

Babadag climb - Google Suche

 

[Mayomaniac]

VAM hour record rivalry would be really interesting. A monster climb is needed though (i.e. 1800+ m of elevation gain and steep enough). Climbs perfect for that (large vertical relief and low base) are present on volcanic islands i.e. the Canary Islands. Then we would see what kind of w/kg cyclists are able to produce when completely fresh and prepared especially for one hour effort (i.e. there's a reason why marathoners take part in 2-3 events per year).

Marathons are a longer and the physical Impact on your Joints and tendos is a lot Higher.
I do agreed with the fact that one would have to to Lots of specific training to optimize His Performance.

Big hill climbs with mass starts on super hard climbs with big prize money (the Saudis to have 4-5 climbs that are harder than the Zoncolan, Just saying) seems like something that could work.
Of course I'd go full powerlifting and have a separate, untested federation, but that's a different topic...

 

[Mayomaniac]

Maybe Blockhaus from the side that has an average gradient over 7% and over 1,900m of altitude gain could work for this kind of project.

Or that big climb in Madeira.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Interesting subject. What's the optimal slope for peak VAM? 8-9% ?

But I think Canary Island climb whilst a low base isn't steep enough to optimize VAM?

Here is Lutsenko Tour of Turkey on Badabag,. What a monster!

Babadag climb - Google Suche

8-9%? It's 10-12%, maybe even more methinks. I suppose it's individual, some cyclist feel more comfortable than others on those 15%+ gradients (in theory the bigger the gradient the more fraction of power is used to overcome gravity alone). There are various climbs in the Canaries - most Teide climbs are too shallow but Roque de los Muchacos (La Palma) climbs from the sea level to 2000 m in 22 kms (BTW great area, once I did an awesome hike there - from my accomodation (near the sea level) to 2400 m and back).

Maybe Blockhaus from the side that has an average gradient over 7% and over 1,900m of altitude gain could work for this kind of project.

Or that big climb in Madeira.

Madeira has monster climbs but the biggest of them all (Arieiro) may lack a bit of vertical meters (1800 m).

 

[Cookster15]

8-9%? It's 10-12%, maybe even more methinks. I suppose it's individual, some cyclist feel more comfortable than others on those 15%+ gradients (in theory the bigger the gradient the more fraction of power is used to overcome gravity alone). There are various climbs in the Canaries - most Teide climbs are too shallow but Roque de los Muchacos (La Palma) climbs from the sea level to 2000 m in 22 kms (BTW great area, once I did an awesome hike there - from my accomodation (near the sea level) to 2400 m and back).

Yeh, I was thinking of Teide. Then I checked my facts on the Canaries after I posted and found this one

Llano de Las Animas from Playa de Garome - Profile of the ascent

Llano de Las Animas from Playa de Garome is a climb in the region La Palma. It is 18.3km long and bridges 1853 vertical meters with an average gradient of 10.1%

climbfinder.com

 

[Red Rick]

Interesting subject. What's the optimal slope for peak VAM? 8-9% ?

But I think Canary Island climb whilst a low base isn't steep enough to optimize VAM?

Here is Lutsenko Tour of Turkey on Badabag,. What a monster!

Babadag climb - Google Suche

I read somewhere it should be like 13%.

I'm not sure what the physics say against 'steeper is better' apart from you need gravity to push you against the road so you have grip and maybe your body position and balancing depresses watts at higher gradients.

But aero drag is still relatively gigantic at 8-9%.

For reference, compare W/kg estimates for Lo Port to Sierra Bernia.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

I read somewhere it should be like 13%.

I'm not sure what the physics say against 'steeper is better' apart from you need gravity to push you against the road so you have grip and maybe your body position and balancing depresses watts at higher gradients.

But aero drag is still relatively gigantic at 8-9%.

For reference, compare W/kg estimates for Lo Port to Sierra Bernia.

It seems that cyclists suffer more on those 20%+ gradients - I mean they don't fully utilize their power due to balancing at low speed and bent position. At such gradients gravity doesn't allow for an upright position (which maximizes power output). A constant gradient of 10-15% is probably VAM sweetspot for most guys (it's probably shifted towards the upper value for top climbers).

This seems almost perfect. Between km 4 and km 21/22 the road rises by 1850/1930m in 17/18 km (avg. gradient close to 11% and relatively even ascent, only the road quality should be improved)

El teide climb via La Caleta | 22.2 km | 2184 m | 9.7% - Climbbybike

Climb the El teide via La Caleta by bike. The El teide is 2184 high. You gain 2162 altitude metres in 22.2 km. Watch the profile, route, ranking, stories, images, gpx-file, ...

www.climbbybike.com

Then again, it's all probably fantasy cycling.