Some thoughts on fandom and power output

by R Mc on Jul 22, 2009 4:23 PM EDT

Many cycling fans admire the riders who can repeatedly dish out rapid accelerations on a climb; by the same token 'diesel' riders like Menchov and Leipheimer have come in for a fair bit of . . . meh.

What follows is a bit of speculation on the power outputs and physiological realities associated with those rapid accelerations.

Leaving aside Ferrari's quirky VAM calculations, it seems as though it takes around a 5.8 to 6+ watts/kilosgram power output to be competitive on a Tour de France climb. People capable of sustaining that power output are not wide-spread. As an example, Chris Anker Sorensen was drilling it at 390-420watts for his pull at the bottom of the last climb yesterday. Within 3 minutes of his pull his heart-rate was 185. I don't know exactly what his LT heart rate is--but it's safe to say that he was near it or over it. And what happens when guys like Sorensen or Cancellara clearly go anaerobic to pull is an almost inviolable physiological fact: go anaerobic for more than a minute or so . . . and it takes nearly twice that long to recover.

Various estimates place Contador's pace for his attack on that climb in the 415-420 average watt range. (Armstrong's was higher--he just weighs a lot more than Contador).

So? Well, here's where things get interesting: An attack that would open a gap would need to be in the 700-850w range . . . sustained for 10-15 seconds. And then, instead of shutting it down and recovering like a sprinter would . . a climber has to settle back into that 415w power output. Sounds like the sort of thing that should be repeatable over and over, right?

Well, not so much.This is why I think the doping-era has caused problems by creating skewed fan expectations of what sort of spectacle the riders are capable of producing. Comments?

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During the first mountain stage of the Giro, Horner was saying that when Basso was on the front pulling at around 500 watts

but he couldn’t sustain it and he would go back to around 460-70…

Since his time-trial skills have improved, his lactate threshold is much higher than it was even a few years ago and then he is able to keep putting out high power without going anaerobic. I think that after his attack which would probably be around 700 watts because of lower body weight, He would be a little lower on the power so that he can still go fast BUT recover and then get back up LT power. He probably does training like this regularly to prepare for race efforts like this. Sprinters can also go up to levels anywhere from 1400 to 2000+ depending on the sprint so that is double what the climbers are doing.

I don’t really trust the VAM calculations to much because of a lot of variables that could skew the end results but nonetheless it was a spectacular show.

by Vlaanderen90 on Jul 22, 2009 4:45 PM EDT reply actions

Is it back to baseline?

Or to a rest? That is, why does someone like Sastre or Contador need to sustain the 400+ watts after their surge? What if they are doing 600/300 gradual increase, 600/300 and so on trying to time it such that the people they are attacking are falling back slightly when they go. To me it is the changes if they are followed that get to you, not necessarily the surge. I think that is why when of these guys fall back a little from the mountaineers, they are ok. They no longer are caught in the unsteady rhythm.

I do think that EPO and blood replacement have created a distorted view. What can I say, Pantani, Vino, the Killer all are still some of my favorite riders, but they couldn’t do what they did naturally.

by Markk on Jul 22, 2009 5:24 PM EDT reply actions

Dopers pump out the watts, too

Glad to see Di Luca go down – so obvious in both his good Giro years. Cheater.

For me, it just comes down to the fact that no one can attack like Lance could – not Contador, as we saw today, not anyone.

Watching the Alp d’Huez day last year where no one could attack except maybe Andy really made me wonder if that was just what undoped riding looked like.

Lance himself looks pretty chipper, under heavy testing, and also 38(?) years old. He does enough to support the possibility that he rode clean in his TDF prime.

I feel one intelligent thing the authorities did was to let Ricco come back ‘early,’ and so we can see what he can do without drugs and also without 2 full years off, too.

by thisisntthezodiac on Jul 22, 2009 7:55 PM EDT reply actions

here's the deal about Armstrong

think what you will about his past or present habits, he NEVER launched an attack along the lines of a Ricco (or really even like Contador).

If I had to guess, I’d say that his attacks never went above 750w—even in 2001 on L’Alpe. But . . . his attacks also never dipped back below 400w, I’m guessing.

I think my point was to suggest that defining “great racing” as being the spectacle of guys launching 700-800watt attacks while they’re already at LT and then sustaining that LT pace and launching even more attacks is unrealistic.

by R Mc on Jul 22, 2009 8:16 PM EDT up reply actions

And, just to say it, I think this is an extremely insightful and well taken point.

…thanks for the post.

You see how calm Vaughters is? That’s because he’s really one giant seething ball of Evil inside. With like, extra Evil.

by Ed K on Jul 22, 2009 8:54 PM EDT up reply actions

But as you have pointed out above,

He never, even in his youth, was as greyhound-shaped as a Ricco or Contador. It would therefore have been doubly-insane if he attacked like Ricco. I have a very hard time compensating for body shape and composition. Sure, all weight is weight. But if a considerable percentage of your body’s volume is lungs and diaphragm, that’s got to change the available O2 relative to the mass.

And the biomechanics are different with different body shapes. The watts that you put into the bike are not perfectly correlated with the ATP that your muscles are are burning. And how do you figure in something like liver size / glycogen storage, or crap like that? The chart is a great rule of thumb. But it seems to mne that people with very strange body morphology or physiology must violate some of the assumptions that go into the “power burned / power put into the pedals” model.

by JFS_PGH on Jul 24, 2009 2:58 AM EDT up reply actions

Yes, it's just that the "what Lance is doing is not possible - just look at the watts,"

has been a totem for Lance disbelievers…Vaughters once wrote a rebuttal in one of the bike racing magazines..

Not sure what you are saying about Lance’s tour winning attacks? He torched Ullrich year after year gaining a lot of time. I consider him to be the greatest high-altitude rider ever.

I like to think Cancellara’s success over sprinters has been due to cleaner racing, but that could be way off, for sure.

by thisisntthezodiac on Jul 22, 2009 8:39 PM EDT reply actions

I've never been convinced by that argument about LA...

…given the variability of human physiology, the idea that there is some hard limit that is simply impossible undoped strikes me as pseudo-scientific wishful thinking. As in, it would be really nice if it were this simple, and its seductive to think that it is this simple, but the chances that it is this simple are more or less belied by just how damn hard it is to understand how athletic performance takes place, let alone the rest of the things the body does.

You see how calm Vaughters is? That’s because he’s really one giant seething ball of Evil inside. With like, extra Evil.

by Ed K on Jul 22, 2009 8:59 PM EDT up reply actions

Well . . .

doped or not, Armstrong never appeared to launch attacks that would take him way over LT.

His style was more to peg it right at the edge of LT and hold it there. That sort of performance—call it turbo diesel—is more believable than the Ricco style.

That said, while there’s a lot we don’t know about human performance, there does seem to be a disparity between the available physio. data about Armstrong and his power outputs during his 1999-2005 run. Unfortunately, the simplest explanation for that disparity involves some form of PED.

by R Mc on Jul 22, 2009 9:11 PM EDT up reply actions

To be clear...

…my point was simply about that one argument. Re: the rest of things, I’m a confirmed agnostic on the LA question. I’m not qualified to form an independent or informed judgement of this data, and in the absence of a juridically sanctioned determination by people who are, I’m not going to suggest I can do better.

You see how calm Vaughters is? That’s because he’s really one giant seething ball of Evil inside. With like, extra Evil.

by Ed K on Jul 22, 2009 10:47 PM EDT up reply actions

I'm an agnostic too

As someone who only rides her (very ordinary) bike on the beach, I watch the grand tours and gape at the heroics of all the riders. Needless to say, that sometimes leads to disappointment when another truth emerges, but I always come back.
Because it’s not just about aerobic and anaerobic, it’s about ticker too. The Sorensons in the red zone, Kenny striving to reach Paris, Menchov falling off in his TT at the Giro but stealing victory anyway…. It’s not just the Grand tours, it’s the Grand Narratives that are so compelling.

by Seahorse on Jul 23, 2009 3:28 AM EDT up reply actions