While I agree with the improvements that have been made regarding aero, friction, nutrition and training, isn’t it still crazy that the greatest performances in terms of climbing speed (solo, not in a bunch) are pretty much exclusively 10 to 20 years old… or from this or the previous tour… all but one (Richie Porte, La Plache de Belles Files) … from a certain Tadej?
I mean, the improvements to affect climbing speed (weight, nutrition, training, friction and a little aero) have been there, but not massive over the Last 2 to 4 years (where other fantastic riders could have reached similar levels of performance, but only one man exploded beyond historic marks).
Last year starting with the Classics to the Tour we saw a step change in performance. Not incremental, but overnight, power output that was winning stages was getting shot out the back into the grupetto.
Again, I’m not talking about incremental improvement which is expected. I’m talking instantaneous boosting.
I can’t explain the step change, I honestly just don’t know how to explain it if it were physiological doping. It seems odd that from the Classics to the Tour that everyone would be faster all of a sudden and there would be mass convergence from lots of riders in terms of all using the same substance for the same gain. I think that’s why I lean towards a small but meaningful mechanical doping advantage combined with some other legal improvements. 1+1 = 3 type of stuff.
Unless it’s just another open secret?
Maybe we’ll see some articles and interviews from riders retiring this year talking about it?
You hear this kind of thing a lot. But the thing is: nearly every single person riding in the TdF has a backstory like this. I remember hearing Michael Creed on a podcast a few years ago, when asked how he was able to get the attention of team managers, said he never lost a race (or at least to anyone but Danny Pate) until he got his first pro contract.
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Now with GCN+ I’ve watched hours and hours of cycling since February - including the women’s racing that throws up some of the most exciting contests I’ve seen, on a pretty frequent basis 
Nice!
I have a theory on this, and I don’t think it is only affecting the pro peloton: Covid Fitness.
Some examples: A Cat 4/5 race I was in two weeks ago averaged 26 mph for the race. Prior to the pandemic, a 24 mph average (sometimes closer to 25) was more common in races in this category. Also, the group rides around me in Chicago all seem to have kicked it up a notch. C groups are averaging 20 mph now (were 16-17) with B at 22ish (were 20) and A is charging to 27 or 28 (were 26+). Hell there’s one ride that averages 28-29 mph every week right now that blows my mind every time I see those folks post on Strava.
Practically everybody is talking about how much faster the rides are now, too. It’s not just something I’m perceiving.
To me, Covid fitness is a legit and real thing, and I fully believe it affected the peloton as well. A year of structured, rigid training and dialed nutrition plans without work travel or races to disrupt or throw off the process? For an amateur that can lead to massive changes (it certainly has for me), and I imagine the same is true for the pro peloton but on a different level/scale.
This theory doesn’t account for Pogacar’s performance so much as ties into your thoughts that a light switch has been flipped. It just points to how much harder and faster folks have been as we emerge from the coronavirus pandemic.
When De Gendt says he put out a career best 10-minute power to start stage 8 and he got dropped, you know the level has jumped up a lot. Curious about the numbers, I took a look at Sepp Kuss’ Strava for the start of that stage since he usually posts with his power meter for raw numbers, and the first 9.5 mins of the race he averaged 412 watts (6.8 w/kg). Similarly, yesterday’s stage winner Ben O’Connor also posted and averaged 6.5 w/kg (436) for 9.5 mins at the start of stage 8. It seems actually bonkers what we’re seeing right now.
Covid fitness is a lot of it, imo. You’re seeing this across all sports.
I changed my strength and conditioning coach to someone who has worked with a few athletes in the tour before they went to Europe and has others in the Olympics and other top sports. She said the last year and a half has allowed her athletes to lift and do more strength work than ever.
I was reading from one of the US Olympic swimmers that they picked up the weights for the first real time and she’s faster than she ever has been.
Basically, everyone just about took a year off of a taper / race phase and have just been doing build / rest / build / rest phases.
Our Wednesday Cat 4/5 had a two man solo breakaway average 27mph with wind on a rolling course. Peloton is around 26mph. They’re also selling the races out. People are fast, healthy, and strong right now.
And people say irony is dead.
What about Aderlass……which also prominently featured Slovenian athletes.
Taco Bell commercials, Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year, and his presence got the Orange Gabbon to sponsor a major bike race.
Lemond was HUGE.
Brad wiggins did 450watts for an hour on his record, so pogs 56min at 400-450 is feasable isn’t it??
I watched the Rest Day coverage on ITV4 (UK channel) yesterday and they had a brief snippet of an interview with Cav. We all know that Cav has his opinions and he’s not scared to vocalise them. When asked what advice he’d give to ‘the new riders we’re seeing coming through?’, he just laughed and said ‘what advice can I give them? I’m a fanboy too!’
What I found quite telling was the way he said this. He was laughing.
The day prior to this interview, he almost missed the cut off. Even with the help of his teammates he was just about on his knees. Yes, Cav is no mountain man and he said in the ITV4 interview that he hadn’t ridden an Alpine Pass in over two years but, Cav can usually roll his way over. He was more emotional finishing that stage than either of his two wins.
If a rider who’s in the damn race, who’s getting his teeth kicked in, is still able to laugh and say he’s a fan, I should hold fire and see what plays out.
Well, that on its own doesn’t give much insight.
Bradley Wiggins of course had the „disadvantage“ of having to press all of that in a TT position, while Pogacar could do at least some of it standing or road bike position.
That‘s pretty much all I can say in defense of Pogačar on this case.
Brad‘s performance was completely at sea level while Pogacar‘s went from 1000 to 3000 feet. This is by no means massive, but it is a slight factor.
The biggest one however, which also makes it extremely hard to believe he was able to beat Küng without a sip of that Capri Sun, is Pogačars weight.
Küng was around 82kg on the TT day.
Brad Wiggins gained a Good 11.5kg for the effort to be over 83kg:
450W average at 83kg is an absolutely believable 5.4W/kg.
He also did it fresh legged, not at the end of a Grand Tour.
I would however take the relative figure with a grain of salt. It’s not like sub 6 Wkg is always naturally achievable - for a heavy guy, it likely isn’t! A 100kg person will hardly be able to push 580 W for an hour. These figures of what is achievable usually refer to the lightest of climbers, not just anyone.
As for Pogačar, he is officially listed at 66kg and 176cm height. His BMI is not even that low (21) suggesting he could go even lighter without a significant power drop of.
His power for the first 40 minutes has to have been somewhere around 400 to 430W, just because he matched Dumoulin and was faster than Wout on the flat bit, two riders with FTPs DEEP into the 400s!
That is somewhere between 6.06 and 6.51 Wkg for 40 minutes, in a TT position.
What follows is THE FASTEST ASCENT of a >500m climb in the history of the tour, beating out Contadors Verbier climb.
Again, we have no data for this, but all the resources I found suggested north of 450W for those 16:10 min.
If we say it is „just“ 445W for that duration, that’s still over 6.7Wkg (likely closer to 6.8 or 6.9), for almost the duration of an FTP test, AFTER 19 Grand Tour stages, AFTER 40 minutes of over 6Wkg, at an average altitude of 2‘000 feet (which reduces power by around 2% for acclimatized rider compared to sea level).
In the bicycling article posted at the very top of this thread, the expert suggests „6.2 Wkg“ to be the highest natty achievable power to weight for a top tier male athlete. That means at sea level, fresh legged, probably at the lightest weight possible that still allows you to perform.
Pogačar really had non of these factors going for him and really pulled a ~6.5W/kg FTP performance at the end of a Grand Tour.
So back to the question at hand:
No, it’s not.
how I hate seeing that argument.
LA was the best doped rider at the time.
Whether it comes from his ability, or how well his body reacted, no one can tell.
As a result, no one can tell if he’d have been the best clean rider.
That’s the issue with doping, it moves the goalposts.
A little more context:
Lennard Kämna was one of the few riders that day to have posted power numbers. His weight is very similar to that of Pogacar (1kg lighter than Pog).
He was 1:26 slower than Pogacar at 399W average (6.14 W/kg).
That means, he was a good 10% slower at the same weight, at 6.14W/kg…
Also, this post is quite interesting:
Also, there is this quote floating around on the web stating „Fabio Aru breaks the record on Planche des Belles Filles at 16:12“ from 2017… so he was only 2 seconds slower than the man Pogi.
However, he was drafting the team sky train until 2.4k to the top. Also, many claimed he wasn‘t all clean after that performance either… he was an Astana rider after all. This goes back to „I don‘t say Tadej is the only one who is questionable, he is just the most questionable of them all“
So, this is how Tadej Stacks up to the time:
The two closest times are Porte and Wout on that day, with Porte being a good 22 seconds down (on that segment alone). The performance by Porte is in my opinion rather questionable, too, at over 1800 VAM. What he has at least going for him, is he was quoted to be a good 5kg lighter than Pogacar. So if he averaged something crazy like 6.6W/kg, that is 403 Watts or so… which is utter madness… hard to believe to be natural… but then moving on to thinking Tadej was another 2.3% faster than that… I just can‘t even fathom that.
I agree. The pandemic has hit the sports industry. Although there are now a lot more machines for exercising at home, it is easier to maintain nutrition at the same time.
Just a thought: for all those calculating w/kg, how do you know what the rider’s weight was on the day? are you using what weight their rider profile listed months ago? their ave weight for the year? what they weighed stepping on the scale in the team bus the morning of the stage? what their weight was at km 130? makes a difference. Guys like Pantani and Tyler Hamilton disappointed me in the past, but I’m hoping Pog doesn’t. Willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, and that 5 or 6 years from now I can say “yeah, I remember watching all 5/6/7 of his TdF wins, what an icon!”