You intended to put this in pink, I'm sure.

You keep mixing up Athens ('04) with Sydney ('00). Stoltz and Walton broke away and "controlled" the bike at the Sydney games. But, having talked to Simon Whitfield and others who were there, it's because nobody actually cared. They were never a threat to win or even medal. ITU racing is like that - sometimes really impressive rides are just the result of tactical decisions by the pack to not chase. That's why Alistair is credible as an uber biker based on his ITU performances. Because nobody wants to let him get away, and he still does it.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

Is it really 10,000 feet? I did Silverman, and remember it just being kind of undulating- no serious climbs. Couple of really steep kickers at the end was the most memorable climbing.

Shoot, I did say Athens when I meant Sydney! I was thinking "first Olympics", so that made me think Athens... correction appreciated, and also Whitfield's insight. I just remember watching it and see Stoltz and Walton, but of course couldn't tell from the coverage if it was a break or if the field didn't care.

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wovebike.com | Wove on instagram

He lost by more than 10minutes. I don't know about the aerobar thing, Bjorn looked pretty normal when I saw him riding that day. Maybe it was a big problem, maybe not. the doped to the gill comment is irrelevant . . . current pro tour riders are doped just as much as they were then, and I doubt very much that the pro triathlon ranks are squeaky clean.

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Dimond Bikes Superfan

Two things and then I'm done with you. I covered the race that day so did the "entire " ride on a motorcycle, so saw every bit of it. Ya he looked normal leaving transition for about 6 miles.

And i can assure you that Björn was as squeaky clean as they come, didn't even drink coffee. And the whole drug thing is also why he didn't go into professional cycling, he knew it would be futile.

Where all these comparisons of pro cyclist times vs triathletes falls down is pro cyclists don't do 1.9K swim or 3.8K swim before a 90K or a 180K TT and they don't have to run afterwards. If you don't believe it, look how pedestrian the bike splits of Udo Bolts, Rolf Aldag, Laurent Jalabert, Chan McCrae were after they switched over to triathlon. Even Lance got smoked by Kienle at the Galveston 70.3....it's amazing how badly pro cyclist start to sucking at cycling after the swim, when they actually have to do with triathletes do.

Put a fully doped Tyler Hamilton in a freezing cold Lake Mead swim for 3.8K and then make him ride 180 and run a full marathon and suddenly Bjorn won't really look that bad.

Having said all that I am really curious what Richie Porte could pull off if he came back to triathlon (he was a swimmer in Australia growing up and did tris, then cycling). He is a pretty small guy, but I think with 6 months of training, he could put down a swim not far off the first pack and do a non moto aided sub 4:10 bike on a flat course like Brazil. It would be awesome to see. He is listed at 172 cm and 62 kilos so in the range of Tim Don

And the moto.

Maybe you should disclose your connection to First Endurance in your signature. That's what we do around here.

c'mon now, dev - if pro triathletes were so damned good at cycling, they'd be cyclists.

and anyway, for every udo bolts, there's a spencer smith: a hard-riding triathlete who moves over to pro cycling and is underwhelming. i think back in the 90s some triathletes (pigg? riccitello? zack?) put together a team for an american stage race, and did fine, but weren't overwhelming anyone.

horses for courses and all that. . .

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

Without making excuses that single ride just isn't the best judge of anything. To start with our swimmer made a wrong turn and we were already +10min down starting the bike. My extensions broke off within 5-6miles and changing gears, drinking etc was a chore. I spent maybe 50% of that ride in an aero position, stopped at the side of the road for several minutes to try and fix it and generally didn't push that hard once it was clear we were completely out of contention.

I have however done a few TT's against some of the top TT'ers in the world. I lost around 2min:30s over 50km to someone who was 2nd place at Olympic and Worlds TT at that time.

Twice I've also been 4s and 15s behind someone over 50km who won both the Tour de Suisse and Vuelta TT during those years. Of course that doesn't mean I was anywhere near his ability. Same way that a single data point from Silverman doesn't really say anything at all despite people bringing it up all the time..

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BA coaching http://www.bjornandersson.se

Sorry, I don't post all that often on ST and did have this listed in my bio. I now added it to my display (I think).

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Robert Kunz / Founder and VP of Science for First Endurance

Say again?!?! The way I remember it, Kienle tried, but had trouble getting away, and instead rode in the pack of 3. (So funny how ST loves to make shit up). Oh, and Lance was also 41 at the time.

Sebastian Kienle: Swim: 00:26:10; Bike 2:03:43

Lance Armstong: Swim: 00:23:28; Bike 2:05:10

Cameron Wurf is not quite at the level of Richie Porte, but he's probably the closest analogy that we have going. Wurf is a pretty solid swimmer, but not much to write home about in terms of his bike splits. He's fast, but very often doesn't even have the fastest split of the day. He's not much of a runner, so I don't know that he's "blowing it out" on the bike - he may just not be a very good runner. But regardless, I doubt many pro triathletes could hang with Wurf in a bike race. But they have no problems doing so in a triathlon.

Shockingly, triathletes are good at triathlon...

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

Chris Hinshaw was living with Pigg at that time and did that bike race with them.

Not quite? That's a pretty big understatement.

Wurf had zero World Tour wins, and spent most of his World Tour career as a domestique at lower-classified events.

Porte has 26 World Tour wins, and is BMC's team GC team leader.

There's a pretty huge gulf between those levels.

Chris Hinshaw was living with Pigg at that time and did that bike race with them. //

Man the internet can really be like a game of telephone sometimes. First the slight on Bjorn, which I debunked to no avail, and now Bjorn himself has told his story(same as mine)


The race that this guy is referring to is one I and a few others put together, so I know something about that one too. There was no Chris Hinshaw, not even close. IT was the 1993 Redlands Classic, the top stage race in the US at the time. Over 40 pro and national bike race teams entered, but only 25 would be selected. We got in on a special entry, mostly because of our fast talking..


So the team was myself, Mike Pigg, Kenny Souza, Jimmy Ricatello, Jurgen Zack, Tom Resh, and Bruce Reid. All of us were either pro triathletes, or in the case of Tom and Bruce had done several(Tom was a 30 10k runner in college as I recall too) There were a lot of grumblings from the cycling teams that we got let in when 15 other teams were frozen out.


Long story short, we got 9th overall, ahead of the Saturn, Swamais, and Canadian national team among over a dozen other pro teams. And we did not really ride that well overall.


Jurgen got sick 1/2 through, Kenny had trouble staying in the draft of the 170 man fields(not because of speed, but just haired out), I got a musett bag thrown into my rear shifter and it got sucked into my wheel in the long hard road race, limped in with two gears, 53/13--42/13 and barley made the cuttoff time to continue.


But each day I believe it was either 4 or 5 of your top guys scored and we always had enough to be competitive. Mike Pigg was the star, never got dropped once the entire race, making the 3 man break up the steepest climb.e was 15th overall GC less than a minute and a half behind the winner(who was later popped for drugs) The rest of us filled the spots enough to get good points and a really good team placing.


The next year a.team made up of all professional mountain bikers did the same thing as us, they got 11th overall. I would say we do ok for ourselves, and represented triathletes quite well...

Sorry, but I was pretty sure that Chris did a bike stage race with Pigg around 1990. I think that Chris mentioned he had to ride on a flat for a couple miles.

Some great discussion of this from thread on Rana racing as a continental pro for a year.

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/Slowtwitch_Forums_C1/Triathlon_Forum_F1/Ivan_Rana_to_race_pro_peloton__P2180419

So a pro cyclist who won the tour of california, competes in grand tours etc, is going to be less 'fit' than an ironman athlete for a longer TT? My understanding is that Bennett was doing some long rides on the TT bike over the offseason in order to improve.

There are plenty of pro cyclists in the sub 70kg range who would crush triathletes and also beat 70kg plus pro cyclists in TTs. It's not always the bigger guy who wins.

Who won out of Kienle and Armstrong in that race? Maybe Armstrong was going easier on the bike?

Sorry, but I was pretty sure that Chris did a bike stage race with Pigg around 1990. I think that Chris mentioned he had to ride on a flat for a couple miles. //

Perhaps he did, I know Mike liked to do some bike races between triathlon season. I just don't remember Chris ever doing any though, he was primarily a swimmer, but also a good cyclist. And I seem to recall he did not really race into the 90's, he was one of the early 80's guys that had short pro careers. His brother and sister both held the Kona swim records at one time too, Jennifer was actually a good woman pro for a few years. And their dad was a national champion masters swimmer..


And funny thing I saw a few years back were a lot of Hinshaw names in the olympic trials. I assume they are the kids from those 3, not sure which ones though. Certainly some good swimming genes in that pool.....

We did the 1989 Ironman Canada together. He finished 2nd, I was about 300th.

Chris' younger brother Brad swam around 46 minutes in Kona. Brad's sons Ryan and Ben were good, but the youngest Adam, was damn good.

Chris' mom Barbara was also an impressive age group triathlete.

First of all, please don't attribute a single post of mine to "ST making up shit". There is no one who controls ST, just blame it on me. Secondly, Kienle out biked Lance at Galveston. That case is closed. You even posted the splits (and yes, Lance rode a bit like an idiot standing up and accelerating instead of staying aero and steady). Third, Lance was not 41, he was 40. Joop Zoetemelk raced protour right up to that age and won Tirenno Adriatico at 39. Ekimov was doing just fine at 40, and closer to home Cam Brown keeps winning races in his early 40's in triathlon (as we Lance), Bottom like Kienle outibike Lance and Galveston

No where did I say that triathlon pros are as good as pro cyclists in pure cycling (although I really had a great time when Pigg, Riccitello, Souza, Zack and Monty beat the Canadian National Cycling team at the Redlands Classic back in the mid 90's....thanks Pigg and team for putting all the roadie snobbery in its place....).

My main point was that when pro cyclists come over to do triathlon they either ride slower than triathletes or at best they are on par. Probably the best crossover guy was Steve Larsen who did smoke all triathletes on the bike leg WHEN HE BECAME A TRIATHLETE!!!!

Funny thing in my posted reply to Iron_mike, that I remembered this escapade from you guys holding your own with the various US based pro teams at Redlands....but I am forever thankful that you guys smoked the Canadian National Cycling team.