Bradley Wiggins - Can he win it ?

[Old Hack]

I guessed "3 replies to mention drugs" before opening the thread - what do I win?

You realise only middle-class idiots think a bicycle is a toy, right? It's pretty much the most efficient mode of transport known to man.

I'd say the opposite... competitive cycling like TdF looks like the furthest thing from fun I can think of. I find it astounding the pace they set especially up hills. By contrast the daily highlights show is quite interesting.

I too find the pace they can run all day long outstanding, implausible even. Terrific athletes whom we should be proud of too. These guys are treated like heroes in France and Belgium.

[d000hg]

Even if they are ALL drugged up, frankly I don't care - those guys are amazing.

[TimberWolf]

What speed do they do uphill?

[Mich the Tester]

What speed do they do uphill?

That depends on the hill. On a really steep long climb they might be going less than 10kmh, but up a light slope maybe 35 kmh.

[Old Hack]

What speed do they do uphill?

Probably what you'd do on the flat. They touch 60-70 kmh in the pelaton. Outside of it, they touch 50-60 kmh. Pushing along as hard as I can, and I am fit, I can average around about 40 kmh for a couple of hours. These guys do it for 6, 7 hours.

Amazing.

[lukemg]

TdF is brilliant but level of ignorance about all aspects is staggering and annoying. I don't even like the extra attention it's getting now because people haven't got a clue

Jerseys, team structure, break-aways, meaning of a stage win, time-trials, specialist climbers, sprinters, GC, stage differences, domestiques, lead-out train, le jour sant.

Bit like myself watching rugby union in the WC, offside, rucks etc I am clueless most of the time but know this and therefore stick to hoping England win.
Gut feeling is that this is a fairly level playing field unlike many previous drug years, BW can afford a tough day (not terrible which can be 10 min loss) or a minor crash/puncture, especially as last time-trial should let him catch back up + strong team can help him back.

[Mich the Tester]

Probably what you'd do on the flat. They touch 60-70 kmh in the pelaton. Outside of it, they touch 50-60 kmh. Pushing along as hard as I can, and I am fit, I can average around about 40 kmh for a couple of hours. These guys do it for 6, 7 hours.

Amazing.

They average something like 40 to 43 kmh over three weeks (not including two rest days), and that's what is really impressive. There are plenty of track sprinters who can manage 60 to 70 for a few seconds and plenty of good club riders who can ride about 40 for a day, but those guys get up and do it again the next day, and the next, and the next for three weeks with only two days rest along the way.

[TimberWolf]

I found this interesting, and somewhat counter intuitive:

Abstract

It is widely held among the general population and even among health professionals that moderate exercise is a healthy practice but long term high intensity exercise is not. The specific amount of physical activity necessary for good health remains unclear. To date, longevity studies of elite athletes have been relatively sparse and the results are somewhat conflicting. The Tour de France is among the most gruelling sport events in the world, during which highly trained professional cyclists undertake high intensity exercise for a full 3 weeks. Consequently we set out to determine the longevity of the participants in the Tour de France, compared with that of the general population. We studied the longevity of 834 cyclists from France (n=465), Italy (n=196) and Belgium (n=173) who rode the Tour de France between the years 1930 and 1964. Dates of birth and death of the cyclists were obtained on December 31 (st) 2007. We calculated the percentage of survivors for each age and compared them with the values for the pooled general population of France, Italy and Belgium for the appropriate age cohorts. We found a very significant increase in average longevity (17%) of the cyclists when compared with the general population. The age at which 50% of the general population died was 73.5 vs. 81.5 years in Tour de France participants. Our major finding is that repeated very intense exercise prolongs life span in well trained practitioners. Our findings underpin the importance of exercising without the fear that becoming exhausted might be bad for one's health.
Increased average longevity among the "Tour... [Int J Sports Med. 2011] - PubMed - NCBI

I would have preferred a comparison between people who drive themselves to the limit and the moderately fit, rather than the former against a general population, although that would be more difficult to do.

[Mich the Tester]

I found this interesting, and somewhat counter intuitive:



I would have preferred a comparison between people who drive themselves to the limit and the moderately fit, rather than the former against a general population, although that would be more difficult to do.

I find the article a bit too quick to conclude that high intensity exercise might be raising life expectancy; there are many other factors that need to be cancelled out; lower rates of smoking among endurance athletes, lower rates of alcohol consumption, less saturated fats, plus the possibility that elite athletes are quite simply physically superior to others by birth and better able to recover from illness and injury. They're certainly able to respond to training more effectively than others.

However, also interesting to note is that among those who rode the tour between 1930 and 1964, we cn be pretty sure that a lot of them were using some kind of pharmaceutical aid, albeit primitive; only after Tommy Simpson died in 1967 did the doping checks really start; amphetamine use was pretty common before then. So if this stuff is so bad for you, why is the life expectancy of these guys not lower than the general population?

(For idiots; I am not suggesting that drugs are harmless or condoning drug use or pharmaceutical aids in sports etc etc etc...)

[Old Hack]

TdF is brilliant but level of ignorance about all aspects is staggering and annoying. I don't even like the extra attention it's getting now because people haven't got a clue

Jerseys, team structure, break-aways, meaning of a stage win, time-trials, specialist climbers, sprinters, GC, stage differences, domestiques, lead-out train, le jour sant.

Bit like myself watching rugby union in the WC, offside, rucks etc I am clueless most of the time but know this and therefore stick to hoping England win.
Gut feeling is that this is a fairly level playing field unlike many previous drug years, BW can afford a tough day (not terrible which can be 10 min loss) or a minor crash/puncture, especially as last time-trial should let him catch back up + strong team can help him back.

Second last day is a time trial I believe. I think by the end of this week we'll know. Cadel, will try and muller the mountains and hope to drop Wiggo. I don't think the rest of the tour is that bad, so Cadel cna stay with wiggo all the way, apart from that time trial. I don't think wiggo can drop 10 mins, to be honest, I think he'd not get that back. What is going for him, is that this years TdF is fairly flat, in comparison to previous years. His biggets chance ever.