On Pocagar aerobic engine and recovery capabilities

Isn’t there already some sort of requirement for teams to collect and report training data to the UCI? I thought I had seen or heard that somewhere so that they are able to make sure that teams aren’t just training their riders into the ground. I’m not sure they use it for doping purposes though. I’m not sure how that would be used though. If someone was doping they would just improve at a quicker rate. And since people already recover/improve at different rates this would be difficult to detect.

Thomas de Gendt did 428w for 55minutes at 70kg on Stage 9 of the Giro, including 530w for 5 minutes at the end of the time trial: https://www.strava.com/activities/2380646886/power-curve/305

IMO there is nothing particularly suspicious about Pogacar’s performance. There are plenty of examples of equivalent power in the peloton.

This year’s tour was decided by a pretty small margin on the last day. I’ll start thinking about doping again when I see someone performing like Lance again, where he turns around and grins at someone before putting minutes into them on one stage.

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Lets also remember that all of these guys were pretty fresh. Everyone is putting out record numbers this year as training has not had racing to throw it off.

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I tend to agree here. The w/kg assumptions I’ve seen for Pogacar’s climb are phenomenal and in-line with what I assume it takes to win the TdF, but not totally out of this world.

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All of these guys can push crazy numbers for an hour when fresh, but I’d imagine it’s a lot different after 3 weeks of hard racing. Pogacar may not be as aerobically fit as some of these other guys who have many more years in their legs, but perhaps Bernal, Pogacar and these other young riders are just able to recover incredibly well and be in way better form at the tail end of a grand tour.

Also, if you are going to bring Pogacar into question for being so fit at a young age, I think it’s actually more unbelievable that Roglic has gotten as good as he has without riding during his youth.

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If you mean the Strava KOM bit, I’m not talking about comparing KOM rides to other rides by that individual, I’m talking about KOMs where there simply isn’t any power or HR at all so they may not have even been on a bike!

Still don’t really understand how HR is any help seeing if somebody had a bad day or not. Some bad days I can’t get my HR up. Some bad days I can’t get my HR down. Kind of see where you’re going with the power. Though do also think there are still so many factors that the noise could easily drown out the usefulness. Discrepancies between different PMs. Whether they calibrated or not. Difference between measuring power at the crank vs hub to account for drivetrain losses. Some PMs are better than others at coping with changes in temperature and elevation during a ride without needing to be recalibrated, and Tour stages see some pretty dramatic elevation and temperature changes. Potential for issues caused by power cutouts on one side (see the Garmin Vector thread!), etc. I remember when Sky released Froome’s power data and people were going down rabbit holes debating what the correct formula should be to adjust for power measured using Stages PM with Q rings which are known to cause high readings…

Pogacar just followed TR’s high volume plans for the win.

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To add to that, I’m going to start questioning/outright accusing all TR users who win a race/finish Mary Austin. It’s only fair. :v:t2:

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This could also contribute to setting some record times on a lot of the climbs. I’ve heard numerous world tour riders say that they almost always see their best power numbers at the TDU and other early season races in a normal year. So for this year they are coming into the TDF with a lot less racing fatigue and therefore better power.

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A useful piece of data indeed. If we had a complete history of riders data then we could quickly clear this up by doing what you just did. Your post was very compelling.

He has plenty of public power data from the early part of the year: Strava Pro Cyclist Profile | Tadej Pogačar Pogi

Just look at the weeks in January and February and you can browse to your hearts content :slight_smile:

You can just skip around his KOM list until you find weeks where he is training versus racing and see plenty of climbs and the power associated with it. Example: https://www.strava.com/activities/3048273450

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Nice! Now if everyone else posted their data. We could dispel “insert winner here” as a doper. Instead we are left in the dark, in a thread that will most likely get 1k posts deep, and get nowhere.

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How would comparing power files actually help determine who is doping?

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I thought the US was an extension of the same Ferrari / Italian doping regime, so I put those together. There was no cross over into GB where there hasn’t been any tangible evidence of doping. After countless investigations and enquiries, with hefty prison terms on offer to anyone lying, the best seems to be a bit of innuendo over a jiffy bag and a blue inhaler :man_shrugging: I’m not naive enough to say it’s not out there, but I’m not sold on it being a national thing… unless it’s Russia :rofl:

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Basic analysis would indicate W/Kg beyond the realms of human physiology.

Do we actually know what the “realms of human physiology” are?

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Multiple ways.

Tom dom said he did 430’s up the climb. That would most likely put pog at 450+. If we could see his data, we could determine if he did a “clean humanly possible” power.

Also, @stevemz brought up another valuable method. Show other riders doing that power. That helps to dispel riders as dopers. There’s a thread in here where @Nate_Pearson posted the breakdown of w/kg of TR users. Very valuable info that everyone loved that he posted. Could you imagine how useful that would be for pro’s. We could start to see outliers, and then start asking questions.

Im not saying any outlier should be labeled a doper. It should start questions. That’s better than the current system we have where we are automatically sceptical of all winners. It will help to clear up alot of sceptism.

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Without mass data, no.

Well, we know based on historic data what kind of W/Kg would be considered beyond possible (based on triangulating FTP, VO2 and efficiency).

Interesting recent paper on the topic of using power measurement for anti-doping

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