Hi all!
With all these knowledgeable people on this forum, I think i’m in the right place to ask this question 
I’ve an assignment to make a sports analysis. I chose cycling ofc. A part of the assignment is this:
It has to be scientific but i’m having trouble finding the right literature.
Can someone help me out by providing some links or tips?
Thanks!
Just to make it a bit easier you may want to further specify what cycling discipline you want to focus on. They are pretty disparate and may lead you in different directions depending on what you choose. e.g. the limiting factor for a track sprinter, is different than what limits a tour de france GC contender, is different than what limits an ultra distance racer, etc.
Also, what class is this for? i.e. what angle are you looking at this from? Physiological, Psychological, etc.
Ah yes, I´m sorry…
The focus is on road racing, so long races, stage races and crits.
The angle i´m mostly looking for is physiological but every other information is welcome.
Even road cycling is pretty broad. The demands for success are vastly different in a 90 minute crit, 40km TT, 250km one-day classic (a la Flander, Roubaix, etc.), and GC stage races.
Just my $0.02 as someone with limited research experience, I think that you might be easier to pick metrics to focus on rather than a discipline- most of the studies measure something specific like FTP, VO2 max, TTE at a % of VO2 max, peak power (for some duration like 1’, 5’, etc.), blood lactate levels, and so on. Then once you have your metrics, it’s easier to talk about their importance or influence on results. For example, FTP is one of the main determinants in time trial performance but less so for crits and some one day classics.
Here’s a search I did in a particular topic titled “Kolie Moore Podcast Wisdom” for the phrase “pubmed”:
https://www.trainerroad.com/forum/search?q=pubmed%20topic%3A30520
Most of those results will probably be the effects of different training on physiological markers like VO2max, FTP, etc. The hard part will be finding studies that then correlate things like that to race success.
Just searching for “pubmed” will return tons of studies that people have mentioned in the forum.
Also, the thread “Pro/elite training” will maybe give a bit more insight into how the training methodologies correlate to race success and some discussions on how the trade offs between endurance and higher power play a role. There is a combo of scientific studies, power plots from pro riders’ stravas and some interpretation of both of those (based on both fact, opinion, and anecdote).
Also, I don’t know what your level of understanding is right now on the subject (both physiologically and a sporting perspective) but there are some great lectures on youtube by Tim Cusick (big guy at Training peaks) that look at how to structure training for cycling but I don’t remember scientific it is. It is based in science but I don’t remember if he references the science directly.