2016 'PRO' cycling discussion.

[euan]

Recent study showed that live metrics had no real influence on the ability of a rider to pace themselves

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2755 ... t=Abstract

[Rondje]

But really all Quintana has to do his not attack so early.

Hmm, yes and no. No because this entire Vuelta showed Froome is the most vulnerable at the start of a climb. When an other team then Sky makes the pace and it's a bit to hard for Froome he gets dropped and has to find his own pace. Then he has to regain time on his competitors, sometimes it work but yesterday showed it doesn't always work as he was too late to catch up on Quintana. Yes because most of the times, or on shorter (and probably longer) climbs Froome managed to get back and then distanced some of them.

So either they have to start hard and then when gapped go to the former pace to keep Froome distanced and not blowing themselves up, or they have to gamble, go full out and hope he doesn't come back on his own pace.

[KWalker]

i see all their points. one can go on feelings and use the pm to pace, but i guess they could probably use any other metric that ties to RPE decently. the sad thing is that the pm had no influence on yesterday's stage's action, quintanas lack of balls did. He attacked eventually, but sat there pacing Contador almost scared to do anything for much longer.

[Leviathan]

Its hard with Quintana. Always looks like he didnt WANT to do more, but Im sure sometimes its just he couldnt. Just cause he doesnt gurn like Tommy doesn't mean he isn't done like a dinner instead of being done up like a kipper.

[xena]

i see all their points. one can go on feelings and use the pm to pace, but i guess they could probably use any other metric that ties to RPE decently. the sad thing is that the pm had no influence on yesterday's stage's action, quintanas lack of balls did. He attacked eventually, but sat there pacing Contador almost scared to do anything for much longer.

Spot on. Quintana just does not take the race on. He his so scared to lose. He his the strongest rider in this race so far yet still sits there worrying about Bertie who was over a minute down. He already threw the tour away in 2015 with this lack of "confidence" and if he loses this tour to Froome by 30 secs etc he will only get what he deserves and don't rule this out= Quintana and Froome getting tired and a recovering Bertie from his injury's going on a long one and getting big big time. If your feeling good then use it because you might not feel so good the next day.
This all reminds of the 2014 Vuelta when all the big GC contenders would not take the race on and allowed Froome to get back in contention with their stupid tactics [ lack of them more like]

Sky and Froome don't do anything else but ride with power data. Froome can look down and exactly know what his body is doing and it would give Sky a idea of the sort of numbers Quintana etc are doing so they can judge their effort something that would not be possible so accurately with out the data. Reminds of the story of Armstrong getting Ferrari on the phone when Pantani went for a long one. I don't think the study in a 20 km TT is relevant in a racing situation when riders are at the limits and the data would then be valuable.

[euan]

An all out paced effort is the same as an all out paced effort regardless of the duration or context. Froome actually said in an pre stage interview that he had struggled to ride the climb before so intended to do it at his own pace, now that may have been informed by power meter data at the time. But a good rider knows how to ride at those efforts and the outcome would have been the same regardless of the presence of power data or not.

If Nairo had chosen to do something similar rather than play games, think Contador's attack on Etna in the 2011 Giro, then Froome wouldn't have gotten no where near him.

[micky]

My 2 cents; Froome went simply bloody hard, cause someone pace himself when he's trying to save himself (not lose too much time), while he almost went back to Quintana.

[Nefarious86]

It's not the power meters causing the problems, it's race radio relaying real time splits. Quintana seems to back off every time someone starts to gain on him as if the messages make it all to hard to push on "if they're already gaining time anyway", likewise Froome uses it as motivation to reel people in or hold a gap knowing he has xx.x time to work with.

[tymon_tm]

agree on the radios, but the access to real time data doesn't help either. for instance a rider can be highly motivated, the adrenaline kicks in, but if he sees his numbers are close to maximum he won't make a move. I bet 99% of riders know their numbers very well and many of them make decissions during the race based on what their computers show.

[Nefarious86]

Red mist can do funny things...

[maquisard]

Especially on this forum!

[Nefarious86]

Careful, you might get a strongly worded PM haha.

[bikewithnoname]

I reckon Froome will take the stage today, just sayin'

[bikewithnoname]

Looks like I was right, be interesting to see what happens on the more regualr longer slopes on Saturday.

[KWalker]

If riders knowing their numbers translated to results then couldn't Pierre Rolland just diesel his way to TdF victory now that JV has found all his missing power and aero?