What is the physiological limit?

[ChrisE]

How did this thread turn into an Iban Mayo climbing argument?

I noticed there was not a choice on the poll "As much as LA wants to pay".

I thought that was the threshold, with his special PEDs that only he can buy.

 

[Galic Ho]

In an hour record setup, what, in your opinion, is the best that a human could possibly achieve without doping. Think Mercx undoped, on his best ever day.

That guy was caught doping by a new developed test created by one of his own countrymen in its first administration. I doubt Merckx or Anqueitel ever did race clean. Sure it wasn't epo, hgh, aicar and every known blood top up but the guy was always using. Basically I doubt he ever went clean in his pro career.

 

[Galic Ho]

You mistake me - I was working on the basis that most people would agree Merckx is the greatest ever cyclist, just to get people thinking about about what is humanly possible - I have no view over whether Merckx ever did put out his best effort in an hour record, or for that matter how doped he was, but just trying to get people to set their expectations high rather than the preveiling wisdom that it's impossible for someone who weights 65KG to ride at 390W for an hour without being doped - a position I consider utterly laughable.

LeMond did that more than once with those figures. He weighed about 2 kilos more but he could put out 390-410W in a GT.

I think 6.5W/kg is about as far as one can reach over an hour period clean.

 

[davidg]

Good thing Coefficient of aerodynamic drag is constant between everyone, making the hour record a great point of comparison instead of climbing

Agreed, but as I said 'the effect of surface, wind direction etc is greatly reduced'.
The more variables you can eliminate or reduce, the more accurate your result.

 

[Le breton]

i hope you do realize that your entire self congratulatory rants in this thread are as irrelevant as your transposition of personal performances on a professional rider.

glad you finally admitted the limitations of your method but as i said before i am not interested given the puffing attitude you seem to have.

I did not admit limitations to my method beyond the 2% i mentioned, what I said was that I could have made an error in my calculation, hoping that maybe you would look for it.

 

[Le breton]

There is always someone to being in an irrelevance - lol.

Why anyone would want to introduce Mayo into a discussion regarding clean performance is beyond me. Apart from being caught, he was a climber and consequently this introduces so many more variables into the calculations.

I seem to recall on a prior thread, using a consensus of Merckx's power, that I estimated 6W/Kg or thereabouts. As someone else stated, it probably wasn't his peak value.

1)The ascent of Ventoux is a 1hr effort
2) Mayo at 6.75 W/kg for 56mn, won and gives a reference that nobody seemed to have been able to achieve in a clean way. Therefore the limit is probably under 6.75 at the turn of the 21st century. Sorry I thought it was obvious.
3) The advantage of climbs is that you actually can carry out accurate calculations by yourself, without depending on Peter Keen or Padilla to tell youhow many watts/kg Boardman or Indurain produced.

 

[davidg]

1)The ascent of Ventoux is a 1hr effort
2) Mayo at 6.75 W/kg for 56mn, won and gives a reference that nobody seemed to have been able to achieve in a clean way. Therefore the limit is probably under 6.75 at the turn of the 21st century. Sorry I thought it was obvious.
3) The advantage of climbs is that you actually can carry out accurate calculations by yourself, without depending on Peter Keen or Padilla to tell youhow many watts/kg Boardman or Indurain produced.

1/ Ventoux is notoriously windy, making estimates difficult. If you can get the true SRM or powertap data.......
2/ I fail to see how a sanctioned doper can be a reference point for a clean effort
3/ you are correct. Peter Keen has only been working on this for some 25 years so what does he know. The only way that you can determine Watts is to measure Watts. Otherwise you are guessing.

 

[python]

1/ Ventoux is notoriously windy, making estimates difficult. If you can get the true SRM or powertap data.......

you are absolutely correct. that's why i mentioned power files as the only reliable data in response to le breton.

2/ I fail to see how a sanctioned doper can be a reference point for a clean effort

valid point. but the mistake le breton is making goes beyond the fact. he is insisting that he has a 2% accurate yardstick to separate
different performances. that's a falacy because the actual w/kg estimates (even if done very carefully and considering or compensating for windy conditions) are more likely around +/- 5%. that's enough noise to totally obscure performance gains from blood doping (likely in the same range at the elite level)

The only way that you can determine Watts is to measure Watts. Otherwise you are guessing.

i think you are wasting your time on a puffy individual.

 

[Le breton]

1/ Ventoux is notoriously windy, making estimates difficult. If you can get the true SRM or powertap data.......
2/ I fail to see how a sanctioned doper can be a reference point for a clean effort
3/ you are correct. Peter Keen has only been working on this for some 25 years so what does he know. The only way that you can determine Watts is to measure Watts. Otherwise you are guessing.

1) I have climbed Ventoux 12 to 15 times, each time w/o wind, despite the name. There was no wind that "MAYO" day either.

2) I thought I made ABUNDANTLY clear that i used this as UPPER LIMIT, since I HAVE TO SPELL IT OUT, THAT MEANS THE PHYSIOLOGICAL LIMIT must be below 6.75, LIKE 6.5 OR 6.6 w/KG

3) I respect Peter Keen's work, which is why I always use his work for reference. But that means only 1 rider , Boardman. On mountain climbs you have dozens of performances near the upper threshold of human capacity.
Padilla, a bit less trustworthy I guess.

Well, time to go for a ride.

 

[Le breton]

La bave du crapaud

i think you are wasting your time on a puffy individual.

n'atteint pas la blanche colombe

 

[David Suro]

Karlboss,

Thanks for the correction.

Point still stands, there are limits in many sports that are comsidered unbreakable, until they are broken.

Personally, I am intreagued by the sub 2:00 marathon.

 

[keen_but_slow]

Hi, not sure why all the debate. The number is a function of efficiency, V02max, and how close to it you can ride for an hour.

Efficiency will deteriorate slightly over the hour for a number of reasons, but as I understand it, the number of watts produced / metres run per unit of oxygen consumed it pretty constant amongst trained cyclists/runners. How close to the redline one can sustain for an hour is also fairly well bounded by training and motivation, but if you take hydration and nutrition advances out by making it an hour off a standing start (rather than looking at climbs at the end of mountain stages part-way through a GT) that's fairly well established too. What's left is VO2max, which is pretty much confined to what mother nature gave you plus maybe 10% for a lifetime of endurance sport.

So running / climbing records should only fall very slightly as we discover new points in the tail of the three distributions. Take typical pro numbers for the first two and use a VO2max of 95 for the third (enough people have tried cycling for us to have found such a person by now?) and that's your answer. I don't know the numbers and I don't care. I'm comfortably less than 5 so I need to work in an office for a living.

The implication running through the thread is that there are no outliers in the first two variables that can get an 80 VO2max guy onto the TdF podium. I say to those people : "Explain Derek Clayton, if you can".

It's when there's 20 guys going up the Alpe in 40 minutes you have to raise an eyebrow. And anyone going up in 38!

 

[Kender]

I'm still trying to work out how medical science can be researched and proven in a poll by people who are not medical scientists

 

[Escarabajo]

I would not pick any rider post ninety as an example of Physiological limit (Not clean limit).

I don't like to brag about it but here is my compilation from a previous post ("How Good Can a Clean Rider Be"):

I have asked that question several times in other threads. The key part is to focus on efforts close or above the 30 minute mark. Here is what I have found on this forum.

I have heard the guys from the "Science of the Sport", Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas, talk about the 5.8 W/kg mark. Here is their take from their website:

What is physiologically possible?

If this kind of analysis is to be useful, then every single aspect must be factored into the calculation - the wind speed throughout the climb, the mass of rider and bike, the length and gradient of the climb. Then one might be able to make a strong case for the position that what we are seeing is impossible physiologically.

There are people (experts in the sport) who believe that the upper limit of performance should lie around 5.6 to 5.8 W/kg on a longer climb. This is well below what is being calculated for the current Tour, particularly the Verbier. However, if the wind speed is not controlled, then the calculated power output may well fall below that "ceiling". The point is, we just don't know what the wind is doing and so the margins are currently too large. Therefore, you cannot use isolated performances, lacking control over variables, to infer doping.

Andrew Coggan gave me a link of a chart for all out efforts over different periods of time. It even describes the different types of modalities behavior when going from one effort to the other. The absolute max that I can read from this table is 6.4 W/kg for prolonged efforts (well above 30 minutes). Here is the link:

http://home.trainingpeaks.com/articles/cycling/power-profiling.aspx

The only problem I have with these tables is that some numbers could have been extrapolated. I haven't had the time to ask Andrew Coggan about that. The second question is who were the riders that were tested in order to build these tables? What was their condition when they were tested. In other words, you will hope that when you assemble this type of information the riders would be completely clean and well fitted. Now, if some of the values were extrapolated then there is no way of knowing if an athlete can get to the top of the charts clean. Maybe if he is reading this he can help us understand better these tables.

Finally, JV pitched in some numbers for Bradley Wiggins well above 6 W/kg for around 20 minutes. The problem with his version is that we can not look at these numbers objectively anyway. Here is his version:

Originally Posted by JV1973
Ok, so answer the 20 min effort vs 40+ minute effort question, I only have limited information from elite athletes, so this isn't a University study....

That said: CVV can produce about 5.9 watts per kg in peak form for 40+ minute climbs, Wiggo is a bit more at 6.1 w/kg for this length of effort.
From the pre-Tour tests both riders have done up Rocacorba (a 33 minute climb) I know that Wiggo was at 6.1w/kg and CVV was 5.7 w/kg (He was off form a bit in June). However, Wiggo did a local 10 mile TT in GB about 2 weeks before the Tour, or 5 days before the Rocacorba test. He posted a time of 18mins flat (and was disqualified for using a 1080 wheel...funny rules over there). Anyhow, his power was 482 watts, so using his Tour weight of 72 kgs, so 6.7 w/kg. So, anecdotally, there's about a 9% decrease in power when going from a 20 min effort to a 40+ min effort. At 6.7 w/kg you certainly can climb at a VAM of 1750, but at 6.1 you wont even hit 1700 (again, anecdotal based on experience).
The last TT in the Tour Wiggo averaged 434 watts, consistent with his previous tests of 40+ minutes and just about 6.1 w/kg. I don’t have any data for Wiggo up climbs in the Tour, as he didnt use a PowerTap..

JV

The only reliable information I can go by are the numbers pre-nineties versus after it. The only reason I say this is because of the big advantages that have been seen from the sophisticated doping programs after the nineties. There have been power numbers showing values well above 6 W/kg after the nineties but no matter how much people plea their case that the riders were clean, you just can never know.

Here is an example of a rider over 6 W/kg after the nineties:

Originally Posted by acoggan
(BTW, the guy who put out the 6.42 W/kg for 1 h was Chris Boardman, who had a VO2max of 90 mL/min/kg.)

Some forists have stated that riders like Eddy Merckx, Greg Lemond, and Bernard Hinault have barely touched the marks of 400 Watts which would put them below the 6 Watts/kg mark (I believe). I have only done the calculations for Herrera in Alpe d'Huez 1984 winner time (370-380 watts) and for Greg Lemond in the 1989 time trial (420 watts) and they were below the 6 W/kg mark. If before the nineties the power numbers show below these power numbers of 6 w/kg, then discussing whether they doped or not is a moot point. So let's no bother with that topic anyway.

Last but not least. Greg's opinion on the maximum power achievable by a clean rider:

http://www.bikeraceinfo.com/oralhistory/lemond.html

My wattage, relative to VO2 Max...a VO2 Max of 92 or 93 in a fully recovered way...I think I was capable of producing 450 to 460 watts. The truth is, even at the Tour de France, my Tour de France climb times up l'Alpe d'Huez yielded a wattage of around 380 and 390. That was the historic norm for Hinault and myself. You've got times going back many, many years. But what was learned recently, in the last 5 years, was that when you start the Tour de France, you start with a normal hematocrit of, say, 45 percent. By the time you finish, it's probably down 10 or 15 percent. Which means my VO2 Max dropped 10 or 15 percent. So that's why I was never producing the same wattage. And then there a lot of other factors that help performance if you've recovered. My last time trial in '89, I averaged about 420, 430 watts, which would match or be slightly down from what my real VO2 Max was.

Of course, in the '90s drugs came on the scene, so the wattages have gone out. There are some things that are just not explainable, people with VO2 Maxs in the low 80s producing 500 watts. A physiologist friend of my said that for a person to do that, 500 watts, he has to have to have nearly 100 milliliters of Oxygen. There are a lot of questions there for me

And then later I found this chart from the Science of the Sport. With the disclaimer that there is a proven error in the Lance Armstrong calculation of 6.97 Watts/Kg. It was closer to the 6.6-6.7 Watts/Kg mark. It was corrected previously but If you need the proof I’ll find it.

I found this chart in the Science of the Sport. You can be the judge:

This is based on climb performances. Here is the complete link if you want to read some more:

http://www.sportsscientists.com/2009/07/tour-de-france-2009-power-estimates.html

Other absolute power numbers calculated Pre-Nineties that I have found in other blogs:

Les années 80 :
Avoriaz 1985, Herrera, Hinault 375 w
Superbagnères 1986, Lemond 380 w
Alpe d'Huez 1987, Herrera 395 w, 1989 Fignon, Delgado 390 w

Conclusions IMHO:

6.0 w/kg : third week of a GT. Maybe second week if first week was hard enough.

6.4 w/kg: fresh legs. maybe for a clissic or Hr record.

But I am not an expert. So what do I know?

 

[JPM London]

And then later I found this chart from the Science of the Sport. With the disclaimer that there is a proven error in the Lance Armstrong calculation of 6.97 Watts/Kg. It was closer to the 6.6-6.7 Watts/Kg mark. It was corrected previously but If you need the proof I’ll find it.

Does this chart seem to show that maybe Indurain was clean in his first three victories and then had to dope to keep up the winning?

Or does it instead show that anything after Lemond (and above 6) was juiced?

Interesting chart in any case!

 

[Le breton]

Does this chart seem to show that maybe Indurain was clean in his first three victories and then had to dope to keep up the winning?

Or does it instead show that anything after Lemond (and above 6) was juiced?

Interesting chart in any case!

Escarabajo's post is quite interesting, I would like to make a few comments on it but don't have the time now.

Concerning the chart, unfortunately it seems to mix data from averages of last climbs of mountain stages and data from single climbs. If you looked at peak performances in the Indurain years you would see that they are much higher that those presented in that graph.

Also of interest would be a comparison of the TTs to Avoriaz, namely the one of 1978( ?) won by Hinault that started in Evian and the one of 1994, starting in Cluses and won by Ugrumov. Hinault's time up the final part ( Morzine to Avoriaz) : 33:00 is an absolutely outstanding performance. Only 5 racers did better in 1994 at the peak of the EPO years, with Ugrumov at 31:40 ( from memory, but I have L'Equipe with the results somewhere).

A lot of the data seem taken from the calculations of Frédéric Portoleau and Antoine Vayer (a former member of Festina staff who as a trainer found it impossible to continue with that team). Portoleau is a cyclist and an engineer. He goes personnally to several of the events to see for himself abour weather conditions... Together they wrote a book in 2002 on that subject : "pouvez-vous gagner le Tour" ISBN 2-913166-06-7 (http://www.polarfrance.fr)

Just one last comment : it's unfortunate that people use VAM in this context, considering that it is just a very rough indicator.

 

[Le breton]

VAM is very rough

Escarabajo's post is quite interesting,
....
Just one last comment : it's unfortunate that people use VAM in this context, considering that it is just a very rough indicator.

Quoting from some files I have ( ****, I again let myself be dragged in this, now i'm late

Let's go to analyticcycling and see what VAM one gets for a 66 kg cyclist riding a 7.5 kg bike with an extra 1.5 kg of equipment, i.e. a total of 75 kg.

For the other numbers to plug in, let's say the rider has CdA of 0.38 square meters, air density is 1.1 and rolling resistance = 0.004

Then, for whatever slope, let's say the exerted power is a CONSTANT 430 watts at the back wheel, ie about 440 watts at the crank ( 6.67 watts/kg).

How much will his/her VAM vary according to the steepness of the climb?

Here are the answer from analyticcycling:

% VAM
-- -----
6 1590 meters/hr
7 1696
8 1777
9 1837
10 1883
11 1917
12 1948
..........
15 1998
One can readily see that the VAM is really a crude estimator of efforts on climbs of different steepness as for the same given power the VAM drops from 1883 m/hr on a 10% incline to 1590 m/hr on a 6% slope, a difference of more than 15%.

So, for accuracy go to analyticcycling or correct VAM according to slope.

 

[python]

I would not pick any rider post ninety as an example of Physiological limit (Not clean limit).

I don't like to brag about it but here is my compilation from a previous post ("How Good Can a Clean Rider Be"):
<snip>

very informative post, never saw it. thanks.

btw, jv's numbers about wiggings correlate well with lim's numbers liberally posted elsewhere. all were measured by powertap. since we are talking about w/kg in decimals, it is important to remind that unlike srm powertap is not measuring power at the crank. thus lower reading, perhaps 10-15 watts depending the bike drive train condition. also note that 2% of 400 watts equal 8 watts to get some perspective on the sensitivity of claimed accuracies.

 

[Le breton]

funny

. also note that 2% of 400 watts equal 8 watts to get some perspective on the sensitivity of claimed accuracies.

Funny that you notice it only after I posted something to that effect. Thanks for reading my posts anyway.

 

[python]

Funny that you notice it only after I posted something to that effect. Thanks for reading my posts anyway.

i ignore your posts as i promised because they come from an individual with puffy attitude quoting and advertising himself. goodbye.

 

[Frosty]

David Moncoutie has often been seen as being a clean rider. While I don’t believe in any rider 100%, and there could be clean riders going faster than him, if we assume this is true, then how does his tt up alpe d’huez in the 2004 tt hold up? This occurred in the third week of the tour, two days beforehand there was a rest day, the day before there was a mountain stage. On this mountain stage, Moncoutie finished 23 minutes down which for a climber means he took it relatively easy. Coupled with the preceding rest day this should have meant he was relatively fresh for the tt as far as third weeks of GTs go. For the total tt distance he did a time of 42.04. Armstrong’s ascent of the alpe has been given as 37.36 on that day while his time for the total tt was 39.41. This can be accounted for by the early flatter section to the foot of the climb taking 2.05. Assuming Moncoutie took the same time this gives Moncoutie a time of 39.59. In reality Moncoutie would probably have taken longer on the flatter section, 5 seconds? Does anyone know what w/kg a time of 39.55 up alpe d'huez for Moncoutie would produce?

(i know from the above posts that the answer will be debatable but i was just interested)

http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/road/2004/tour04/?id=results/stage16

 

[Le breton]

David Moncoutie has often been seen as being a clean rider.

In reality Moncoutie would probably have taken longer on the flatter section, 5 seconds? Does anyone know what w/kg a time of 39.55 up alpe d'huez for Moncoutie would produce?

(i know from the above posts that the answer will be debatable but i was just interested)

QUOTE]

Actually, rather than the whole climb, it would be interesting to calculate Moncoutié W/kg between the intermediate timing posts at 1.7 km and 9.15 km (where racers are protected from the wind) and compare to L.A..

On that stage the last racers doing the climb had the disadvantage that on the last 3 or 4km they had to contend with some contrary wind.

I probably still have l'Equipe giving such details as the split times. I don't know if/when I'll have time to look for that info.

 

[Le breton]

David Moncoutie.......
Does anyone know what w/kg a time of 39.55 up alpe d'huez for Moncoutie would produce?

In the meantime I got this calculation for L.A. between those 2 spots .
Point 1 was really at km 1.7 hence at ~725 m.

Point 2 was 50m after hairpin No 7, hence at ~ 1395m, km 9.15.

Distance = 7 450m
Elevation 670m
time 21:03 = 1263 sec
slope =0.0899
v = 7450/1263 = 5.899m/s (VAM =1910m/h)

Air density (28°C ave. altitude 1100m altitude ->) 1.03
CdA 0.4 m^2
Crr = 0.0036
70 kg cyclist + 8 kg equipment ( bike, shoes,... 1/2 bottle)
RESULT = 464 watts

+ 2.5% transmission losses -> 476 watts over those first 21 min of the climb. Of course some cobra-like creature might tell you that such a calculation is valid only at the 5-10% level, but don't believe snakes . That calculation is solid at the 2% level for watts exerted at the pedals.

476/70 kg = 6.79 Watts/kg

476 watts -> 5.9 liters O2 , ie VO2 = 84 ml/min.kg
using data published by Coyle.

 

[Escarabajo]

very informative post, never saw it. thanks.

btw, jv's numbers about wiggings correlate well with lim's numbers liberally posted elsewhere. all were measured by powertap. since we are talking about w/kg in decimals, it is important to remind that unlike srm powertap is not measuring power at the crank. thus lower reading, perhaps 10-15 watts depending the bike drive train condition. also note that 2% of 400 watts equal 8 watts to get some perspective on the sensitivity of claimed accuracies.

I have used some probabilistic method to estimate power outputs with the equation of state and I have found the errors to fall between +- 5-9%. So from one extreme of the calculation to the other extreme you get more than 10%. But that is not how you calculate the error anyway, so I would use anywhere from 5-9% from the expected value or mid point.

 

[python]

I have used some probabilistic method to estimate power outputs with the equation of state and I have found the errors to fall between +- 5-9%. So from one extreme of the calculation to the other extreme you get more than 10%. But that is not how you calculate the error anyway, so I would use anywhere from 5-9% from the expected value or mid point.

you are in a ball park, i think.

there are several local climbs where i train. occasionally i compared the calculated power with my power meter averages. i'd try to control or account for as many variables as i could. 5% would be the typical error. sometimes i get lucky and it gets better.

in general, as you already noted, accuracy is a complicated statistical discipline. where it really matters certain professions send their employees to a separate college course.