How Do The Pros Maintain Their Speed

[marzjennings]

Beacuse they are a mutant breed and not real people who lose 2lb by cycling 1000 miles and gain a stone by eating one slice of cake.

Or mabybe it's because the TDF doesn't have 20-mile cake and coffee stops

That reminds me, one of the rides I want to do this year is coming up, The Tour de Donut. It's a sort of charity race where every donut you eat takes 5 minutes off your race time. People have managed to finish the 28miles in negative time.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

That reminds me, one of the rides I want to do this year is coming up, The Tour de Donut. It's a sort of charity race where every donut you eat takes 5 minutes off your race time. People have managed to finish the 28miles in negative time.

But surely you could just ride round without eating any donut at all??


I'd do that and then eat them all at the end!!

 

[Reluctant cyclist]

'Because they are a mutant breed and not real people who lose 2lb by cycling 1000 miles and gain a stone by eating one slice of cake'

I knew a girl like that once!

 

[Ticktockmy]

Apparently when Miguel Indurain was at his peak he still appeared to have a belly, even though he had next to no body fat. When they examined him they established that he had such an enormous set of lungs that it pushed his other organs downwards and the only place for them to go was outwards once they escaped his ribs.

Now that's a freak of nature.

Now thats a good excuse to use for me having a belly..LOL

 

[cyberknight]

And they do not have to work a night shift then get up kn**aerd and start ripping out hawthorn bushes .

Thats my excuse anyway .

 

[scott s10]

peleton, when i road race sometimes we go round at 25 mph , in the bunch, then someone attacks then everyone goes wild

 

[Speicher]

But surely you could just ride round without eating any donut at all??


I'd do that and then eat them all at the end!!

The flaw in your approach is that there would not be any donuts left by the time you finished.

 

[Crankarm]

With performance enhancing substances anything can be achieved .......................

 

[jdrussell]

well being a pro pelotoneee myself, it's all about the bunching.

ha ha

erm, yeah ok

 

[Sheffield_Tiger]

With performance enhancing substances anything can be achieved .......................

That's what I keep telling myself

Never seems to quite work

 

[Randochap]

Three words: Pain. Endurance. Capacity.

 

[scott s10]

yes , there are probably people out there who are as strong as the top guys but cannot sustain the amount of pain they go thru

 

[Garz]

As mentioned before they are 'elite' ranked for a reason so have great endurance and top % in the sport at it. Add to that their power to weight ratio's are massive!

 

[jimboalee]

On another thread, ( Brutally overtaken ) I describe how I overtook two guys up a 6% hill. I was doing 12 mph ( 19 kmh ) against a 5 mph headwind.
I got to the top and carried on with the same RPE. I went straight up onto the big ring and was cruising at 22 mph before I knew it.

I've worked it out and I would have been producing just under 400 W up the hill and around 300 W along the flat after the hill.

In a sheltered group, I would predict this could be kept up for quite a while.

I would have needed another 50 - 100 W to ride at 26 mph on my SWorks in the same conditions.

Training, muscularity and capillarisation. BIG VO2 capability. That's how the pros do it.

 

[Globalti]

Interestingly I was chatting with someone (Bigjim?) on the recent Blackpool ride and he told me that he had got caught up in a peloton and stayed with them for a while. Apart from the ease of riding he noticed how hot he felt, presumably with no breeze to cool him and being surrounded by athletic bodies working hard.