Login required to started new threads

Login required to post replies

Prev Next
Re: 2019 Stage 6 TDF 24% grade - Geraint Thomas seated on the climb; how is this possible? [GreenPlease] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
GreenPlease wrote:
I’m kind of surprised nobody has talked about the handling implications of going up a grade that steep while seated. Basically a wheelie.
In road there really aren't any handling implications. Even if you do pop the front wheel up with each pedal stroke, nothing happens, it just falls back to the ground and you keep riding.
Quote Reply
Re: 2019 Stage 6 TDF 24% grade - Geraint Thomas seated on the climb; how is this possible? [twain] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
Practice! I have heard Wales is full of steep hills so Geraint probably gets plenty of practice. Riding short to mid length climbs at 50-60rpm at threshold can develop a lot of strength to push through sections like this.
Quote Reply
Re: 2019 Stage 6 TDF 24% grade - Geraint Thomas seated on the climb; how is this possible? [twain] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
I will chip in only this :

When I started cycling with a club in Yorkshire, most club-runs would go up something that steep. Simple reason - Yorkshire people are so tight with money that the road design process is broadly thus : drop a blob of molten tarmac at the top of the hill and let it roll down the shortest route to save on raw materials. Result : roads that scare horses.

Add in the following : anyone turning up with anything lower than 42x24 was getting abuse for being “soft” (at best) and it was considered bad form to actually use the 24 unless you were only 12 years old. You might even be accused of being “from the South” with their “fancy ways” which was tantamount to saying “please leave our club”. So by age 16 you can pretty much ride up the side of a house in 42x21. By 30, your knees don’t work.

In fact, where I grew up*, you needed an FTP of 5W/kg just to do a newspaper round**.

Wales - from what I gather - is similar. So no surprise for me :-)


** I exaggerate only slightly, but the first time I saw the “Four Yorkshiremen” Monty Python sketch, I thought it was a documentary.
* <5 miles from where the Brownlees were raised. Reason Ali rode so hard up Palani last year? He heard there was free food at the top.
Quote Reply
Re: 2019 Stage 6 TDF 24% grade - Geraint Thomas seated on the climb; how is this possible? [burnthesheep] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
burnthesheep wrote:
GreenPlease wrote:
I’m kind of surprised nobody has talked about the handling implications of going up a grade that steep while seated. Basically a wheelie.


The relative "slam" most of those pros ride at would have them a lot more forward climbing seated than the average B-group wannabe race bike would be.

I'd guess their "bar tops" seated climb would be what a lot of clubbies ride at as their "down" position.

Fair point
Quote Reply

Prev Next