Wigans goes there. Cadence!

[Don't be late Pedro]

Without rushing off to the history books, I suspect those famous historical names were often successful on the road AND the track....simultaneously.

I suspect if you look through those same books you will find that some riders dominated classics and GTs...simultaneously. Doesn't mean you could do that now though.

 

[Ferminal]

Since 2004?

 

[Don't be late Pedro]

Since 2004?

Who did you have in mind?

 

[Ferminal]

O'Grady 2004:

4th K-B-K
5th T-A
3rd M-SR
2 Stages Dauphine
1 Stage Tour
1st Hamburg
3rd Denmark
1st Madison Athens
4th Worlds Verona
5th P-T

McGee 2004:

1st Romandie Prologue
2nd Romandie ITT
9th Romandie Overall
1st Giro Prologue
2nd Giro Reduced Sprint
2nd Giro Lame MTF
2nd Giro ITT
8th Giro Overall
1st Route du Sud Overall + TT
4th Tour Prologue
2nd IP Athens
1st TP Athens

 

[JimmyFingers]

I think there is an element of luddism here. Yes plenty of riders have been successful on the track and the road, which is something I have used to counter Dear Wiggo's contradictory argument that the track has a very small talent pool, that Wiggins' palmares there does not translate into success on the road.

So a good track rider isn't likely to be a top road rider. Although now apparently you can race hard on both.

In decades past riders would race on the roads in the summer and the track in the winter. It was all about getting paid: paid for racing, paid more for winning, and then winning got you more invites to races and more money. The financial pressure is less these days so I believe there is far less of a crossover, although there are plenty of riders that still do both.

But the world has moved on and these days you need to really specialise and develop your abilities in one area to be truely world class. Not I'm not saying Brad specialising in IP meant he wasn't very good on the road, more that because he was specialising in IP he wasn't necessarily trying as hard on the road i.e. it wasn't his primary goal.

Winning races isn't just about athletic ability, it's about desire and most of balls the size of grapefruits. It's an incredibly dangerous sport. Tell me this DW, if you were training to go to the Olympics would you be putting your body on line, race after race and risking serious injury at the sharp end of the races? Bradley concentrated on the TTs and got in the odd breakaway, I'm not surprised he wasn't slugging it out all the time in every race.

Look at Geraint's Thomas' season last year. Sky sent him to a few races early season then he was wrapped up in cotton wool in the lead up to the Olympics. No doubt if he wins a classic or too we're going to have a similar dissection of his palmares to determine whether he is able to do it or not, and I can predict now what the answer to that will be.

 

[Don't be late Pedro]

O'Grady 2004:

4th K-B-K
5th T-A
3rd M-SR
2 Stages Dauphine
1 Stage Tour
1st Hamburg
3rd Denmark
1st Madison Athens
4th Worlds Verona
5th P-T

McGee 2004:

1st Romandie Prologue
2nd Romandie ITT
9th Romandie Overall
1st Giro Prologue
2nd Giro Reduced Sprint
2nd Giro Lame MTF
2nd Giro ITT
8th Giro Overall
1st Route du Sud Overall + TT
4th Tour Prologue
2nd IP Athens
1st TP Athens

I think our definitions of 'dominated' are somewhat different...

 

[Ferminal]

Who is talking about dominance?

In their own right at their best as a track or road rider neither were unbeatable, but 2004 happens to be for both of them, their best road season. Yet the same year they also performed at or close to their best track form (with very little preparation if you look at their calendars).

 

[King Boonen]

Who is talking about dominance?

In their own right at their best as a track or road rider neither were unbeatable, but 2004 happens to be for both of them, their best road season. Yet the same year they also performed at or close to their best track form (with very little preparation if you look at their calendars).

Surely the point is about dominance though? They were good riders on the track and road at the same time, but were they great/dominant at either at the same time? Doesn't look like it.

So is it possible, in a modern world where track racing is being taken more seriously by more countries and training has changed massively for both the road and the track, to be great/dominate at both?

 

[Ferminal]

Surely the point is about dominance though? They were good riders on the track and road at the same time, but were they great/dominant at either at the same time? Doesn't look like it.

So is it possible, in a modern world where track racing is being taken more seriously by more countries and training has changed massively for both the road and the track, to be great/dominate at both?

So if Brad McGee had focused 100% on the Giro in 2004, he would have won it? Or if he focused 100% on Athens, he would have two gold medals?

It's not about dominance it's being able to perform at your best in multiple disciplines simultaneously. If your best is dominance then so be it, but if your best is 2nd-tier then that still doesn't discount the fact that it is the maximum you can achieve regardless of whether or not you're focusing on a single discipline. Couldn't a hypothetical rider who is a better pursuiter and stage racer than McGee have done a 4'16" in Athens and won gold, and been a bit better in the Giro and stepped onto the podium?

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

Darryl Webster certainly was.

We better just might say road racers did some track next to the road racing. From an historic point of view. There was a lot of money in six-days races.

Nowadays riders get so much more paid it is no longer that interesting for them. Just look at the field that competes nowadays at the Six Days of Gent, for instance.

1 KEISSE/O'SHEA
2 DE KETELE/G. VAN HOECKE BEL
3 BARTKO/DILLIER
4 HANSEN/HESTER DEN
5 SCHEP/STROETINGA NED

Compare that to
1. Peter POST (Hol) - Rik VAN LOOY (Bel) 520 points
2. Emiel Severeyns (Bel) - Rik Van Steenbergen (Bel) 389
3. Klaus Bugdahl (All) - Arthur De Cabooter (Bel) 278
4. Reginald Arnold (Aus) - Michel Van Aerde (Bel) 362 à 6 tours
5. Gilbert Maes (Bel) - Fritz Pfenninger (Sui) 421 à 9 tours
6. Palle Lykke Jensen (Dan) - Oscar Plattner (Sui) à ?

With all due respect for the 2012 Six Days Racers but they seem to be 'B-riders', same could be said for the track racers. Why concentrate on track while there a millions to be earned on the road? Vaughters was on a 300.000$ contract at Credit Agricole. How much is there to be earned in track racing? No, track racing is something you do 'on the side', if you have any brains.

Not that there have not come great talents from track racing, but, why are sprint worldchampions on track often crap on the road? Or better, why do world champions sprinters do not even come to road racing? Why is Bauge stuck to track? Why is Theo Bos not a worldclass road race sprinter, he was worldclass on track, remember. Jens Fiedler? Rousseau?

I am not trying to diss track cycling into a backward child in cycling but it is quite interesting to see that in history 'the alltime greats' did not start out on track or kept focussing on track. Cavendish could be the one off for that matter.

Why was Francis Moreau so great on track but not on the road? Bartko? And why were these always TT'ers and no TT'ers/climbers? Must be the cadence.

I am not disputing the great track record of Wiggins but I tend to think the 'he focussed on track' is BS, he seemed keen enough to jump ship and leave Garmin for a much better deal moneywise, so, it is fair to say money is important for him.

 

[Don't be late Pedro]

Who is talking about dominance?

Ignore that. That is my mistake.

How were their track exploits funded? If you know your track career is safe guarded then it would be very easy to take your foot of the gas on the road.
Some tracks riders are affected by longer distances more than others wrt to track. There could be a number of reasons.

Wiggins has mixed it up in a year

Track World Championships
1st Individual pursuit
1st Team pursuit
1st Stage 1 ITT Four Days of Dunkirk
1st Stage 1 ITT Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
1st Stage 4 ITT Tour du Poitou-Charentes

but certainly not in anything GC related. However who is to say he did not reap the rewards in 2008

Olympic Games
1st Individual pursuit
1st Team pursuit
Track World Championships
1st Individual pursuit
1st Team pursuit
1st Madison (with Mark Cavendish)

My initial point was riders used to dominate GTs and classics. That does not happen any more. It might happen again.

Until 2012 no Spanish rider had ever won Lombardy.

 

[Don't be late Pedro]

Why is Bauge stuck to track?

Slightly off topic but an interesting read.

http://inrng.com/2011/03/bauge-on-racism-and-outsprinting-cavendish/

 

[Ferminal]

I'm sure we can all agree Wiggins is a superior stage racer and superior pursuiter to McGee. In 2008 Wiggins was the same age as McGee 2004, with as many seasons as a pro. A performance similar to McGee in Athens would have been enough to secure gold in the Beijing IP. Wiggins' best result in a road race 2008 was not getting dropped in Scheldeprijs.

The idea that an experienced rider of both the road and track cannot sustain a high level in both disciplines simultaneously is false. Of course they may wish to prioritise one, diminishing the result in the other. That is a far better explanation than pretending it's impossible.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

So if Brad McGee had focused 100% on the Giro in 2004, he would have won it? Or if he focused 100% on Athens, he would have two gold medals?

It's not about dominance it's being able to perform at your best in multiple disciplines simultaneously. If your best is dominance then so be it, but if your best is 2nd-tier then that still doesn't discount the fact that it is the maximum you can achieve regardless of whether or not you're focusing on a single discipline. Couldn't a hypothetical rider who is a better pursuiter and stage racer than McGee have done a 4'16" in Athens and won gold, and been a bit better in the Giro and stepped onto the podium?

The thing I really take issue with is Krebs, a PhD in this stuff, saying track and road are so markedly different. We've already discussed that pursuit is ~85% aerobic. So if you're developing your aerobic engine, you are developing your pursuiting engine, no question. There is no magical aerobic engine for pursuiting, as distinct from another aerobic engine that allows you to ride for 5 hours at tempo. The aerobic aspects of that engine (for both events) use the same bits and pieces to get their work done.

How do you develop your aerobic engine? All training, regardless of the zones you are riding at contribute to some extent to each facet of physiological development, as evidenced in the lovely acoggan zone-table:

These zones are not discrete - they form a continuum.

The concept of periodisation means you don't do your all your VO2max efforts up front. You work on aerobic capacity, then functional threshold power, then polish it all off with the technical aspects of starts, flying 2000m efforts, standing km+ efforts, VO2max efforts, etc.

So for the vast majority of your training, ie aerobic capacity up to FTP efforts, a GT and pushing yourself in said GT is ideal. Particularly when you consider Krebs agrees with acoggan in saying Wiggins always had this power on tap, so would not be going out of his comfort zone to push into the top 30-40 at least.

And given the power he is putting down now, I still fail to see why he couldn't bust top 40 in a doped peloton.

 

[Don't be late Pedro]

I'm sure we can all agree Wiggins is a superior stage racer and superior pursuiter to McGee. In 2008 Wiggins was the same age as McGee 2004, with as many seasons as a pro. A performance similar to McGee in Athens would have been enough to secure gold in the Beijing IP. Wiggins' best result in a road race 2008 was not getting dropped in Scheldeprijs.

The idea that an experienced rider of both the road and track cannot sustain a high level in both disciplines simultaneously is false. Of course they may wish to prioritise one, diminishing the result in the other. That is a far better explanation than pretending it's impossible.

I think there is always going to be a tradeoff at the top level. How much of that is acceptable and the impact is going to be rider specific.

I was surprised that 'Track' Wiggins did not do better in prologues but then look at the recent Aussie IP guys. They too seem to be struggling a little iirc?

 

[JimmyFingers]

I'm sure we can all agree Wiggins is a superior stage racer and superior pursuiter to McGee. In 2008 Wiggins was the same age as McGee 2004, with as many seasons as a pro. A performance similar to McGee in Athens would have been enough to secure gold in the Beijing IP. Wiggins' best result in a road race 2008 was not getting dropped in Scheldeprijs.

The idea that an experienced rider of both the road and track cannot sustain a high level in both disciplines simultaneously is false. Of course they may wish to prioritise one, diminishing the result in the other. That is a far better explanation than pretending it's impossible.

Again a reasoned and thoughtful conclusion.

I think that in any road v track debate one factor that needs to be pointed out is the rarefied atmosphere and surface in a modern indoor velodrome against the unpredictable climatic and surface condtions on the road. In a velodrome the temperature and humidity is controlled, giving a consistent air density. The surface is wood and perfectly smooth, and very predictable. The bikes are vastly different too, fixed gear, lighter and stiffer.

The road will have a changing surface, huge variations in weather patterns and wind and the rider will be using a geared bike with brakes. What I am saying is the disciplines have very different technical demands which means transitioning from one to another will not necessarily translate into reproducing your best form in both. This is why to become truely world class in one or the other these days you concentrate pretty much solely on one or the other, hence both Brad and Cav abandoning the track in favour of the road.

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

I was surprised that 'Track' Wiggins did not do better in prologues but then look at the recent Aussie IP guys. They too seem to be struggling a little iirc?

Taylor seems to be having less problems.

Perhaps a bad example.

Jesse Sergent seems to be on the right track.

Now a decent question, what was Wiggins focus between the end of Athens till 2007? No track results, no road results. Nothing.

The road will have a changing surface, huge variations in weather patterns and wind and the rider will be using a geared bike with brakes. What I am saying is the disciplines have very different technical demands which means transitioning from one to another will not necessarily translate into reproducing your best form in both. This is why to become truely world class in one or the other these days you concentrate pretty much solely on one or the other, hence both Brad and Cav abandoning the track in favour of the road.

Just from last season, Ben Swift and Geraint Thomas didnt look to be having problems with 'the switch'.

Both raced in last years 'early season' races and were quite okay for the track worlds we might say?

 

[JimmyFingers]

Now a decent question, what was Wiggins focus between the end of Athens till 2007? No track results, no road results. Nothing.
Just from last season, Ben Swift and Geraint Thomas didnt look to be having problems with 'the switch'.

Both raced in last years 'early season' races and were quite okay for the track worlds we might say?

[edit] Oops missed the Wiggins bit. No idea to be frank, he's not exactly the model professional

Swift grabbed a couple of wins in the Tour of Poland but was badly outclassed at the Vuelta. Thomas was one of Cav's train at the Giro but essentially played possum for much of the season while he prepared for the Olympics i.e. concentrated on one discipline to make sure he was world class in it. Neither had 'world class' seasons on the road. Thomas in fact proves my point.

Next question

 

[Don't be late Pedro]

Now a decent question, what was Wiggins focus between the end of Athens till 2007? No track results, no road results. Nothing.

Maybe one for someone who has read his book?

Just from last season, Ben Swift and Geraint Thomas didnt look to be having problems with 'the switch'.

Both raced in last years 'early season' races and were quite okay for the track worlds we might say?

They both race under Brailsford and so are at an advantage since he can commit them to only races that fit in with both the track and road schedules would be one obvious reason.

 

[del1962]

Wiggins prime focus after athens appears to have been drinking Belguim Beer

 

[SundayRider]

If Wiggins was just unmotivated to train properly for all those years on the road then all of he should he becomes disciplined and trains perfectly. What changed? A need for more money? Not wanting to waste talent? A cleaner peloton? Or maybe he had had his '1000 days'?

 

[JimmyFingers]

If Wiggins was just unmotivated to train properly for all those years on the road then all of he should he becomes disciplined and trains perfectly. What changed? A need for more money? Not wanting to waste talent? A cleaner peloton? Or maybe he had had his '1000 days'?

All of those are plausible. Priorities change as you get older and start a family.

 

[SundayRider]

All of those are plausible. Priorities change as you get older and start a family.

I just find it strange that his motivation for track was high and he achieved in that yet the condition gained from track was never enough to even show that he was anywhere near capable of being a winner on the road.

 

[SundayRider]

All of those are plausible. Priorities change as you get older and start a family.

Yet being road focused means a lot more time away from the family than previously on the track.

 

[Don't be late Pedro]

I just find it strange that his motivation for track was high and he achieved in that yet the condition gained from track was never enough to even show that he was anywhere near capable of being a winner on the road.

How is it that Dennis Bergkamp could barely get a game at Inter and became one of the premier leagues greatest ever players? He was even playing the same game and not some variant.