Pity our cyclist, it’s Saturday and he won’t shave his face, it might sap his strength but he has to shave his legs or he won’t look serious. He certainly can’t have sex, more strength stealing there, and kissing his wife, whoa, slow down, that could spread some germs. He doesn’t want to get sick so going to that birthday party tonight, that could be dangerous, crap fattening food on platters, touched by possibly sick people, and standing around, no way, think of the guns. Who can drink alcohol before racing anyway? I need some steak and pasta. Darling, I’ll go to your office Christmas party, I promise, if I can sit with my legs up a bit, and take the elevator up to the office on the second floor.
A little browse around the town center Saturday evening instead, can’t do that. That would require walking and standing. I’m an athlete, damn it. And this talk of going to the pool, basta! Every cyclist knows swimming is bad for the legs.
Pre-race Sunday morning breakfast- this oatmeal could stand some butter and maple syrup. In the name of Merckx, non-fat milk please and what part of high glycemic index don’t you understand? Oatmeal, does that contain gluten?
Our cyclist rolls with two teammates to the race. In the car all the talk is pre-race excuses: I’m too heavy, I might be getting sick, my legs are unbalanced (?!), I drank too much coffee, I stopped drinking coffee, I have too much inflammation in my body.
Cycling mythology never dies. In a world were we still can’t predict the day when we will have great legs, there are still a thousand things out there that will give us not-great legs, and I’m pretty sure it’s all crap. Having just read this amazing interview with Freddy Maertens (thanks @pistard), it’s plain what gives you great legs, train like a bastard. And by bastard I mean back to back to back to back 300 km training days. Only professionals need do this, or can do this (who has the time or will?). That, get a lot of sleep and eat well, that is what a professional from Freddy’s day might tell you. No one was losing sleep over their power to weight ratio, no Pros then looked like Chris Froome now. These passistas looked like guys you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley.
Now cyclists train smarter, watt meters and training coaches, weight rooms and soy milk, skinnier and colder. Is there a professional now who just scoffs at such data and just trains long and hard? Look at the legs of riders in the 1970s, almost no one looks like that now and it’s not drugs that did that. It’s unholy training in big gears, some V in the bidon, repeat tomorrow.
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@Gianni
Haha no worries, just that with a career in Finance I'm allergic to bullshit in my non-working hours and that is the major appeal to Rule #9 riding in Belgium. Well I guess its not an absence of bullshit in the literal sense as anyone who has rode pave can tell you but you get what I mean......
More then made up for it with the pictures and the interview as well......just finished it. Thanks again!
Damn straight! The older I get the less I worry about cycling proscriptions. And the more I just ride.
Apparently I'm the same height and weight as The Bulldog; just need to shift some of the sprinters muscle south to the legs. He may look like a retired accountant now, but I still wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley.
I'm much closer in build to modern pros than to those of yore (close being relative of course). It would take way more work to look like a Boonen then a Froome for me. I guess I just have a small frame? I get by just fine working in a fab shop and hauling heavy stuff around, so I don't know if it is really a problem.
I sometimes wonder if the riders of old were heavier because their bikes were also heavier. For instance Alberto Contador weighs in at 62 kg and the UCI bike weight limit is 6.8 kg for a total climbing weight of 68.8 kg, of which the bike's ratio to the total weight of bike and rider is 9.9%.
It's reported that Merckx's bike was about 9.5 kg and that in 1968 he had slimmed to 72 kg. This would make the total riding weight of 81.5 kg, so the bike would be 11.7% of combined weight.
If Contador had to race bikes of the same weight as during Merckx's era the combined weight would be 71.5 kg and the bike's percentage of total weight would be 13.3%.
As the bike doesn't produce any power on its own, this would obviously be a significantly higher percentage of non power generating weight for a lighter rider to haul up the mountains.
@imakecircles
Did you just post something with a fuck-ton of explanatory force? I'm hoping to see some informed (or even uninformed) debate on this hypothesis.
Which current riders do you think best embody the guys from the '70s?
@cyclebrarian
Hard to say, mostly because they didn't make it into the Pro ranks because they are too fat.
But Boonen and Fabs are close, I'd say.
@zeitzmar
Froome, batshit fast as he is, has got to be the Pollentier of the TwentyTeens.
@imakecircles
Its irrelevant because they'd all be on similarly heavy bikes. What would matter is if everyone was on light modern bikes except Bertie.
Fuentes and Ocaña would have been closer to Bertie's weight and still they did fine on their heavy bikes.
Not to start the doping talk, but drugs like EPO are what has made these guys so skinny; in Merckx's day, they needed to eat loads and carry more weight just to have the reserves to finish a grand tour. Watch The Greatest Show on Earth and you see Ole eating a fucking steak pre-race.
I'm reading that Freddy Maertens interview now...fascinating.