No, you are totally wrong suggesting a 2:20 marathon in Kona. Froome was out front for 80K. It was barely 2.5 hours. Dumoulin was only 3 min behind him. Dumoulin climbed the last climb of that day after than Froome. It's more like one guy ran 2:40 and the other guy ran 2:42. That's like Dave Scott vs Mark Allen, or you could compare it to Macca vs Crowie in Crowie's first IM....that one was 2:42 for Macca vs 2:44 for Crowie with Crowie chasing for the entire marathon and not closing. 2:20 is just a ridiculous statement.

I don't think you are getting his analogy. He's saying a 3 weeks stage race is not a collection of 21 races just like an Ironman is not the collection of 3 sports and 2 transition zones. It's the entirety of the clock ticking, not any individual timed leg and Sky keeps an eye on all of the time that the clock ticks, not any particular single timed leg. Does that make more sense. Sure Ironman is continuous whereas a stage race has breaks and if you guys know the history of the TdF, it was originally run with no breaks, just one massive loop of France (kind of similar format to RAAM today, but Equip could not properly cover the race and sell newspapers, so they broke it down to daily stages with sub races and sub categories).

Okay, I already expressed that I think the entire notion of comparing Stage 19 at the Giro to the Kona marathon is "ridiculous," so I'm not going to split hairs on how the times should compare. I stand by my reasoning for thinking the analogy doesn't hold, though.

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Coach at TriForce Triathlon Team: https://www.triforceteam.com

I get the analogy but it still doesn't make any sense. If you want to compare an 8 hour single day triathlon to cycling then pick a comparable event like Milan San Remo or Liege-Bastogne-Liege and make the statement that you can't go all our from the first hill or you're gonna pay for it on the Pogio or La Redoute and that it's not 20 individual hills but one series of hills etc. Or not 300 single kilometers if you want. Anything beyond that is too different for any analogy. Might as well make the comparison with life in general and say you're probably gonna live longer if you don't burn the candle at both ends...

I think we all get that physically the analagy does not hold over time-space. That is glaringly obvious. If we pull Socrates into this discussion, he'll tell us that the guy who tabled the position just expanded what happens in one sport over a day to another sport over 3 weeks (leaving out the time element)....once we remove the overall time duration element, his logical position is the dynamics have similarities in terms of pacing out over the entire event and adding up time over each leg. He's saying in both sports its one giant event that is the summation of single timed legs, but no single leg wins the race and going into the tank on a single leg may have a detrimental impact on the other legs, or holding back in early legs and staying in striking distance and pacing out resource utilization can have really positive impact in the later legs of the event.

He didn't bonk, he was sick. With a high fever. Lung infection apparently.

I think my analogy stems from my belief that different sports (across all boards) can learn something from each other.

I want to say that for GC rider, when you can kick away from the contenders in the finale and gain seconds its great. But only if you can come back the next day.... ...and you still come back on day 20. It's playing with fire.
(For stage hunting it's different.)

In the same way it's great when you can ride away from the Kona train. But only if you don't fall apart in the marathon.

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10k - 30:48 / half - 1:06:40

Have a look at the timing of my post vs when the news came out about Pinot's sickness. But would you not say that a Grand Tour rider who gets sick along the way is partially unlucky, but partially they did it to themselves by going too deep into the tank along the way. That's pretty well the ultimate goal of Grand Tour racing and its what ToBeasy is talking about. GC guys have to pace it through 23 days and recovery daily. The guys who win grand tours manage around sickness and crashes too...and yes, I get that there may also be some special grey line medical treatment to revive these guys for tomorrow's stage, but they all have access to that.

Serious question....how many GC guys have a "bad" day because of an "playing with fire" attack, and how many have a bad day because they just have a bad day because it's a long ass race, and not because they are not managing it well enough, they just dont have it to go up a mountain with the front group every single day. Which is my original reply to you....GT's show me just how few GC guys there really are in the sport.

You guys keep saying they are all faltering because they are attacking too much and not saving energy, but the reality is, how many stages do these guys actually get to attack? Are you saying they should have all saved up and then been able to go with Froome? That's kinda shitty logic imo, because that's too easy to say "should have saved energy". A week ago yall all were talking Froome out the back door and he sucked. He suddenly wins this way and now the narrative is he won because he was steady to the finish line while everyone else faltered because they rode like an idiot. But that's revisionist history at it's finest, but as the old saying goes, winners get to decide how history remembers it.


Seriously how is Starky going to win Kona? By sitting on the front group? Eh nope, he'll get out run by 18 people easily in that situation. His 1 and only chance is to take the bike out hard enough that it hurts everyone else and burns up everyones legs and he "holds on". Chances of that happening? 4%....chances of him blowing up..96%. So is he suppose to play it safer and thus come into T2 with 10 other people, 6 that will be 90s ahead of him by 5k into the marathon?

At some point, you most certainly have to play to your strengths while limiting your weaknesses. TD was in a world of trouble in this race because he never got the iTT mileage to get a bigger buffer.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Think about what this whole thread is about. This whole thread happened because of one of the most epic GC attacks in the history of cycling. It took THAT type of event to make you come up with this reasoning. The same people saying a GT is a steady race were saying Froome was done 10 days into the Giro. That's what we are dealing with. 90% on ST thought and said Froome wasn't going to win this year 10 days into the Giro. I think it was one guy who said that Sky was going to pull a maniac type of move and every was giving him shit for even suggesting it days prior.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I get your point and it is legit. Grand Tours are so fricking hard that faltering is a big possibility. And when you race for the GC that possibility is even higher. It doesn't matter how you race it.

However, and that has nothing to do with Froomes solo ride, I lately noticed a pattern that shows how some guys seem to burn their matches more wisely. Maybe it has something to do that not everyone is doped to the gills anymore and microdosing or whatever. But the era with attack over attack leading to (GC) success seems over. Froome has a very strong Team but even when he is alone in the finale he does not always react with a big surge but rather rides steady and reels them in again. (And only then does sometimes come the ONE decisive move that kills everyone that has been surging all day)

Dumoulin rides similarly. Even last year he didn't jump ahead with Quintana all the time but often got him back with his own tempo pace.

Of course Froome and Dumoulin also have the advantage of the TTs. And thats what makes it interesting. You have to juggle different things and can never neglect one part. Details matter and multiple surging over the course of three weeks add up.

I loved it how aggressive Yates was. But I also wonder what had happend to him had he hold back only a tiny bit in week two. Maybe not winning but podium. He was in monster shape but maybe didn't use it in the best way. Big Kudos to him for trying. But it is also interesting to ask what might have been. (We are always more clever afterwards)

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10k - 30:48 / half - 1:06:40

I loved it how aggressive Yates was. But I also wonder what had happend to him had he hold back only a tiny bit in week two. Maybe not winning but podium. He was in monster shape but maybe didn't use it in the best way. Big Kudos to him for trying. But it is also interesting to ask what might have been. (We are always more clever afterwards)


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Let me get my popcorn ready for the ST comments when no one attacks the mountains anymore because they are conserving and waiting til the end to attack.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I think the main flaw in your theory is that Froome was calculated in holding back the first two weeks. There's no way that conceding several minutes to Yates was part of the plan. If Froome had been able to, he and his team would have covered every attack, as they always do.

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Coach at TriForce Triathlon Team: https://www.triforceteam.com

I was curious and snooped at the data from someone who just completed the Giro and finished top 20 in GC to see if there was a sign of burnt matches early on. That said I was very lazy and only looked at calorie burn which suggested that weeks 1 and 3 were identical as far as kilojoules were concerned (3400/day) vs week 2 which had 3900/day. Obviously the nature of the stages plays a big role here -but I wish we could see Froomie's data too for comparison...

There is a factor I think we tend to forget and that's the impact of the guy in the car, calling the shots. Nicolas Portal does all the races when Froome is involved. He is an ex pro and is absolutely brilliant.

He has a relationship with Froome that goes beyond just trust. Portal knows how to get the most out of Froome and when to hold him back.

You can do what you want to the riders body through training and whatever, but I think they found the trick to manage the mind.

Not to mention an ironman is a fairly steady state effort, in cycling for a one day event and for that matter stage races too, it's about going as easy as possible for as much of the time as possible, and then putting out varying big efforts at critical times.

What...guy in the car?????

How many sticky bottles can Froome get away with (vs Nibali who did not get away with that LOL)!!!

LOL, this thread is going to get more views than the actual Giro thread by the time the TdF and Vuelta are done!

I want to bring up a more extreme example. Maybe that helps to bring across my point.

What does a 10'000m race on the track has to do with a heavyweight boxing match? In terms of physiology not that much. The requirements are very different (in spite of Mo boxing during core training and some boxer jogging as a warm up etc.) But that does not mean that there are no similarities in terms of tactics, mindset and execution.

I'd like to compare Mo Farahs track victories to the Ali approach. After Mo won his first few races relying on a bazing kick, he kind of got into the head of everyone else. And I am not thinking about smack talk here. It was more that nobody wanted to come to the bell with Farah still in the game. So that led to opponents trying to push the pace. (It was like when Frazier or Foreman were trying to beat the sh***t out of Ali and tired themselfes out)
So all those Africans put in surges and exerted themselves, throwing punches. At the same time Mo blocked those punches with the least amount of energy expenditure and just tryed to stay in contention. When they all came to the bell lap, Farah applied his big knock out punch and was the winner once again.

I don't think that Farah thought in similar terms. But when you are a young track runner, maybe you can learn something from boxing and Ali. Here we are in a Triathlon forum and a lot of us get inspired from single sport racing and take things out of it. Be it motivation or training theories ot whatever. But why can't it be the other way round and single sport athletes can get things from our sport.

I don't want to say that there should be no kicking or surging if you want to win a grand tour. But I want to say that you need to keep the bigger picture in mind. Sometimes reacting to an attack can be necessary. The question is how to save/gain the most time with the least energy expenditure over the course of three weeks. And not how to save/gain the most time that you can every single day.

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10k - 30:48 / half - 1:06:40

I bolded the above to show how little you seem to grasp about time gaps in a grand tour.

You realize that Lemond beat Fignon by 8 seconds right? Over the course of weeks of racing.

As for comparing it to a run time, I don't think you can do that. A time trial you probably could, but with team tactics leading to shorter solo efforts (even for 80k), you can't really do that.

FWIW, in my opinion, if you just HAD to put a number to it..........I'd say take the power for the world hour record holder and call that running the 2:02:57 marathon record. Then adjust for weight. So, Froome was right at 400w for sections of his break, meaning that for 10-12 min once and several minutes again, adjusted for w/kg he was at world hour record power after 19 stages of the race.

I think calling it a 2:20 pace is fair especially considering we're not saying that pace was held for the entire stage or entire breakaway.