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Waterloo Sunrise said: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.
Waterloo Sunrise said: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.
Agreed, but as I said 'the effect of surface, wind direction etc is greatly reduced'.karlboss said:Good thing Coefficient of aerodynamic drag is constant between everyone, making the hour record a great point of comparison instead of climbing![]()
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.python said: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.
davidg said: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/ Ventoux is notoriously windy, making estimates difficult. If you can get the true SRM or powertap data.......Le breton said: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.
you are absolutely correct. that's why i mentioned power files as the only reliable data in response to le breton.davidg said:1/ Ventoux is notoriously windy, making estimates difficult. If you can get the true SRM or powertap data.......
valid point. but the mistake le breton is making goes beyond the fact. he is insisting that he has a 2% accurate yardstick to separate2/ I fail to see how a sanctioned doper can be a reference point for a clean effort
i think you are wasting your time on a puffy individual.The only way that you can determine Watts is to measure Watts. Otherwise you are guessing.
davidg said: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 said:i think you are wasting your time on a puffy individual.
Escarabajo said: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
Escarabajo said: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
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
Escarabajo said: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.
JPM London said: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 said: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.
very informative post, never saw it. thanks.Escarabajo said: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>
python said:. also note that 2% of 400 watts equal 8 watts to get some perspective on the sensitivity of claimed accuracies.
i ignore your posts as i promised because they come from an individual with puffy attitude quoting and advertising himself. goodbye.Le breton said:Funny that you notice it only after I posted something to that effect. Thanks for reading my posts anyway.
Frosty said: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.
Frosty said:David Moncoutie.......
Does anyone know what w/kg a time of 39.55 up alpe d'huez for Moncoutie would produce?
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 said: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.
Escarabajo said: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.