We were talking about this before my group ride this morning. Could Normann Stadler ride compete/beat the pros on the UCI Tour? I think a Stadler/Boonen 150 ride would be cool to see.
I mean, he is obviously amazing on the bike, but would using a road bike “slow” him down
It would be pretty funny to see Norman try to hang with Boonen on the pave.
AS he currently is, i really doubt he could hang with the best cyclists in the world. I do think, however, that if he was a cyclist his whole career he would have reached that level.
Could Normann Stadler ride compete/beat the pros on the UCI Tour?
I’m with CUTRI.
Now? He could probably ride in the grupetto, but that’s about it. Beat? Not a chance.
Who’s to say what kind of potential he had - maybe he could have been a decent TT specialist or something if he had focused on riding only from an early age.
Search te threads, rappstar provided the watts about this answer. (which was no more or less)
if he could ride like that, don’t you think he would. if he was truly such an amazingly gifted cyclist he would be making a good bit more money on a world cycling stage…
cycling money is identical to triathlon money,…top heavy.
Normann is amazing on the hog, but cycling is a whle different ball game. That does not mean he could not make it, but not everyone who hauls ass for 112mi can duplicate the same success on the road. Steve Larsen could probably out time trial most of the other pros over 112 miles, but I do not think he was a huge stand out in Europe.
Outside of the time trials, the power requirements for road races are completely different from what a triathlete is trained to deal with. Cranking 300 watts steady for a few hours is whole lot different from doing 150 watts for 3 hours and then suddently 500 for 5 minutes and then 400 for 30 minutes and then 1400 for 20 seconds… and so on.
That’s not even to speak of the bike-handling and pack positioning skills. You can waste a lot of power if you don’t have them. I remember when I got into road races a while back, how I’d get all tired out and these guys with beer guts (and probably half my threshold power) would just happily cruise by without breaking a sweat.
It’s possible that a Stadler has it in his genes to adapt to Pro road racing, but not that likely. Kinda like a distance runner trying to play pro soccer.
-jens