Who is faster Bjorn or Torbjorn?
Until Bjorn does 4:21 at an Ironman, it appears that Torbjorn owns the 112 mi ITT bragging rights and as we all know, bragging rights is what it is all about :-).
isn’t “tor” danish for “who’s your daddy”?
Thunder, but close enough. Thunder Bear seems like it owns Bear. Like back in those video games where you “leveled up” from Bear to Thunder Bear. I still vote for Bjorn though…
Perhaps a showdown in Kona next year between “Thunderbear” and “The Bear”…
It will be very interesting… The problem with such a head to head showdown is- Unless Torbjorn swims faster, it wont happen. Bjorn swims a 48-49 while Torbjorn only swam a 52. That gives Bjorn a 3-4 minute lead right off the bat to catch up to go head to head.
BUT Torborn has gone 4:21 and Bjorn hasnt- yet. BUT, without giving away or going into detail about his testing that we did last month, from the #s that we got in the lab, a healthy Bjorn on a perfect day can go scary fast in those conditions… BUT we might not see those conditions in Kona again for another 10 years, AND Kona isnt raced in a lab, so only time will tell and the proof will be in the pudding.
What I think was really interesting is that Torbjorn and Faris for that matter road very well, and so did everyone else (the slowest bike split of the top 5 was 4:33 by Cam Brown). Yes the conditions were ideal for fast riding, but the “runners” chose to ride and limit their bike loss (no double digit times to make up this year) and it showed- Faris won with a 2:54 run while Cam Brown ran a 2:50 to move into 2nd, Reid “only” ran a 2:55. So the big question answered is- can the runners go fast off the bike afer going hard. ie: run 2:40s.? I would say the race was won on the bike again today.
As I stated before the race, if the “runners” go hard on the bike, they will run like the bikers :-).
I guess they are all just triathletes, who choose to burn their matches in different places…
Correct…regardless of the race you have 2 hours worth of matches to light, whether it is Olympic tri, marathon, half Ironman or Ironman. Outside that 2 hours, the rest has to be done on cruise control 
Based on published or imputed CdA figures, the Bear is spotting the Thunder Bear about 15% more watts. If Bear can only ride at 14% more watts than Thunder Bear, then Thunder Bear wins. I figure Bear can definitely hold more watts – just how much more is the question. After seeing that Wisconsin bike ride, I think it would be a close call. Bear is pretty danged powerful and just might have 15% extra watts.
The key word there is “published”…
Anything that is or has been published on Bjorn isnt very recent- the data that we got after his most recent tests in August- well, lets just say- it can be an interesting race next year.
And no one can say that “if bjorn was riding a cervelo imagine how fast he could’ve gone”
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No way. He went 4:33 on a RIDICULOUS day in Wisconsin, just a few weeks after scorching that silly tri in Norway. Bjorn all the way.
-C
I guess they would make quite a good “two-up” time trial team. Imagine a 3 up with them and Steve Larsen when he was at his peak.
That is interesting that Torbjorn has a lower CDA than Bjorn because the reason why everyone says that Bjorns drag numbers are deceptivelly larger than expected is because of his size and on paper at least Torjorn is slightly larger than Bjorn.
BTW I don’t know if you followed the 2peak stuff on Sat but it was interesting how Torbjorn was going faster on fewer watts than Faris and he is a bigger athlete. Not huge differences but interesting to me.
Edit: I guess you did notice the aerodynamic differences on raceday, I just saw thsi thread:
Thunder, but close enough.
I don’t want to be a besserwisser but I’m pretty sure Tor doesn’t actually mean thunder in Danish. Tor is the god of thunder in norse mythology though hence the nickname.
I think Batman would win because all he would have to do is include kriptonite in his utlility belt then Superman would be paralyzed and would be vulnerable to any sort of power Batman could display.
Better yet… who wins in a basketball game… Jordan, or a team of 7 foot tall Ditkas?
I’ll go with Diiit-kah !!!
Da BJORN !! gets my vote.
Its obvious that the guys/gals who did late season IM’s had deep fatigue they might have not known about until mile 70-85 of the bike.
I’d love to see BA qualify early enough in 06(maybe a HIM like Vineman,or IMAZ) then build the rest of the year towards Kona.
Lots of heat training early on too.
That is interesting that Torbjorn has a lower CDA than Bjorn because the reason why everyone says that Bjorns drag numbers are deceptivelly larger than expected is because of his size and on paper at least Torjorn is slightly larger than Bjorn.
I was a bit surprised by this as well when I saw the power for both Faris and Torbjörn in the race. Torbjörn has about 10kg on Faris and quite a bit of height so it’s quite remarkable that he could ride faster on fewer watts if the power meters were calibrated reasonably accurate. Maybe shoulder shape and so has a lot o do with it as well?
The team around Torbjörn seem to work really professionally and paying attention to every detail in racing and training. He keeps a good journal on his website and if you understand danish I can recommend logging on there and read about it. Plenty of interesting info on there.
Too bad they don’t make a SRM Rotor. It would be cool to see your wattage during a race the way they did the Sinballe, Al Sultan on raceday.
<< but I’m pretty sure Tor doesn’t actually mean thunder in Danish. Tor is the god of thunder in norse mythology though hence the nickname. >>
So, it gets you thinking about why his parents would name him that? Perhaps he was lactose intolerant as a baby? I bet some Mylicon or Gas-X would fix him right up, and he’d be just plain old Bjorn then. 
Here’s hoping we get to see both of you fellas toeing the line at Kona '06. That’d give Faris, Normann, et al a bit more to think about on the bike, huh? And may the best Bjorn win!