Honestly, it made me really appreciate how phenomenal those guys in the TDF are. Doped or not, that’s still a lot of work, a lot of pain, and a phenomenal mental effort (not taking anything away from Luke either).
I wouldn’t call it a “good read”. It was mildly intersting and I like that they started out with many reasons why the comparison doesn’t mean anything. Another issue that wasn’t mentioned is that cyclists train to ride every day. Pro triathletes have to split their training. I think the pro triathlete holds his own fairly well considering the imbalance of training focus.
Agree. Swimming and running take a lot of good biking time away. There is also the fact that if a triathlete really is a true uber biker, they sometimes get sucked into the sport of cycling.
So it looks like Roger’s FTP is 427 to Luke’s 365. Rogers is a crazy 5.9 w/kg FTP. Is it possible to be that strong and clean?
For comparison Luke is about exactly 5w/kg. So they are comparing where there is no comparison! LOL. That’s like comparing a “pretty good” AGer in triathlon to Luke.
It wasn’t so long ago that the ST zeitgeist felt that a TDF rider could NEVER hang with even an average triathlete in a 112 mi TT
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Agree. Swimming and running take a lot of good biking time away. There is also the fact that if a triathlete really is a true uber biker, they sometimes get sucked into the sport of cycling.
Like him!
I wouldn’t call it a “good read”. It was mildly interesting
I would mostly agree with this. The conclusion was that they are too different to compare. I kind of knew that before I even read that article.
I think it can’t be ignored what the impact of running 50-60mpw has on the quality of your bike training and what tossing another 5-6 hours of swimming on top of that does to you overall energy levels to put in solid rides. If you can’t ride hard, a lot, your FTP isn’t going to climb over 400.
It doesn’t take a PhD in physiology to understand that riding 14-16 hours per week vs. maybe 25-30 hours per week, your going to have less bike fitness.
A lot of tour riders have lower power output in TT position than on the roadie by 10 to (even 30 or 40 watts) from what we have seen lately. Obviously a FTP of 410 would still be much higher than pretty much all Tri guys. It is pretty crazy to see the difference between mid -high level TdF pros and high level triathletes many times it’s > 20%.
That was like reading an article that compared apples to vacuum cleaners.
Your definition of “good read” must be distorted? This article accomplished absolutely nothing. Its like comparing a 10K road bike to a 15K crotch rocket.
I bet you think “Go Dog Go” is a “Good Read” too?
Just curious, how did you come across measures of the difference?
Btw I love your software, used it in my last two races!
IJ
Just got back from France. Was able to get access to some power data from a team to do some modeling for the TT. Very insightful. On the Tri side we get lots of data from Amberger (always posts his data), Beals (both probably around here somewhere) and a couple other riders we work with.
Well-put
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Your definition of “good read” must be distorted? This article accomplished absolutely nothing. Its like comparing a 10K road bike to a 15K crotch rocket.
I bet you think “Go Dog Go” is a “Good Read” too?
In retrospect, perhaps I should’ve prefaced the article “mildly interesting”. Yes, it’s comparing apples to allen wrenches but, to me, it did provide a bit of a relative benchmark as I can kinda sorta fathom the power of a guy like Luke but then you look at a guy like Rogers and your jaw hits the floor.
Much in the same way you can mentally grasp a 2:50 marathon but a 2:05? That’s faster than I can run a 5k flat out…except they string 8+ of them together non-stop.
Who makes more bank? The average TdF rider or someone who rocks Kona?
They are both trained to excel at what they do. To do anything else would be a waste of time.