Peleton speeds
DemostiX
1. Where are there comparisons of peleton speeds? Now and then it is
the speed of the peleton that is commented on by critics of doping
Do racing strategies affect peleton speed so much that speed
comparisons have not and cannot be made across years for the same
extended segments of races?
2. Why are the domestiques for stage winners not subject to greater
scrutiny. Aren't they the ones who have done the heavy lifting?
Harry Travis
Washington, DC
Geraard Spergen
It's peloton. One e two o's.
b...@mambo.ucolick.org
1. http://groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles.racing/msg/a8a018ac017d9bf7
Click on the "message from discussion" if you want
to see the context. The dominant effect on the average
speed in the Tour is that the distance has been
getting shorter over time. In the year 3000, it will
presumably be run as a 100 yard dash by genetically
modified athletes for the entertainment of
pod-people couch potatoes with very short
attention spans.
2. No, nobody has ever scrutinized domestiques,
because the only time July People ever think
about domestiques is when they have an
accusation to throw around.
Ben
Robert Chung
>
> 1. Where are there comparisons of peleton speeds? Now and then it is
> the speed of the peleton that is commented on by critics of doping
Peloton, not peleton.
Here're the average speeds of the winner since 1947. Not quite the
speed of the peloton, but this may give you an idea:
http://tinyurl.com/63hvaf
> Do racing strategies affect peleton speed so much that speed
> comparisons have not and cannot be made across years for the same
> extended segments of races?
In combination with weather, yes.
> 2. Why are the domestiques for stage winners not subject to greater
> scrutiny. Aren't they the ones who have done the heavy lifting?
Because the people doing the testing aren't interested in no-name
domestiques.
Robert Chung
wrote:
> http://groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles.racing/msg/a8a018ac017d9bf7
Yeah, I remember that. Nice presentation.
Here's another nice presentation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JYIJPjpCFc
carl...@comcast.net
wrote:
Dear Ben,
From what I've been hearing, I would have expected the dominant effect
to be the steady weight reduction of the bicycles.
:-)
Or paving. Many post-war passes weren't paved.
Or lower rolling resistance. I hear tires have improved.
Or more gears. Wonder what the 5-6-7-8-9-10 chronology looks like?
Or improved training. Many pros in the early part of that graph
smoked.
Or increasing prize money. Economists talk about incentives.
Or better drugs--EPO, for example, was approved for medical use in
1989. Draw a horizontal line from the 1989 data point--interesting,
isn't it?
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
jean-yves hervé
<ec3cac5c-3a0d-4d13...@o40g2000prn.googlegroups.com>,
"carl...@comcast.net" <carl...@comcast.net> wrote:
Or better TV coverage. Riders notoriously used to start riding hard for
each stage around the beginning of the daily broadcast.
jyh.
Davey Crockett
|
| Or lower rolling resistance. I hear tires have improved.
The sealed bearing has had a dramatic effect on speed.
Not to downplay the other factors though.
In reality it's a combination of factors that permits Davey to ride a
"25" almost a minute faster than he did 50 years ago. ;)
--
Davey Crockett
ila...@gmail.com
wrote:
In the 1990's the bikes themselves were doped with clip on's such as
Spinacchi which increased speeds by a couple of kph. Another increase
in speed around that time was the introduction of world cup points
determining salary, so that there was more motivation for lesser
riders to finish well and the influx of new riders from the US, East
Block, etc., who were not interested in old peloton traditions of
going slow except for the last 2 hours. Finally, Hinault's retirement
meant the end of big bosses who would severely punish any attempt to
speed up the tempo, Indurain basically let everyone do what they
liked, including winning stage from him, as long as he won the GC.
-ilan
Donald Munro
> In reality it's a combination of factors that permits Davey to ride a "25"
> almost a minute faster than he did 50 years ago. ;)
Davey must be a doper according to French gym teachers.
Tom Kunich
news:720471e7-280e-46d0...@d1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
>
> In the 1990's the bikes themselves were doped with clip on's such as
> Spinacchi which increased speeds by a couple of kph. Another increase
> in speed around that time was the introduction of world cup points
> determining salary, so that there was more motivation for lesser
> riders to finish well and the influx of new riders from the US, East
> Block, etc., who were not interested in old peloton traditions of
> going slow except for the last 2 hours. Finally, Hinault's retirement
> meant the end of big bosses who would severely punish any attempt to
> speed up the tempo, Indurain basically let everyone do what they
> liked, including winning stage from him, as long as he won the GC.
Nahhh, it MUST be drugs. Just ask the genius's here.
b...@mambo.ucolick.org
wrote:
Regarding the last point, you're cherry-picking by
taking 1989 as the starting point. It's a large excursion
(slower for a given distance). You could equally well
take 1988, or 1990, and then the effect is much less
impressive. The same rider won in 1989 and 1990,
so there's no good reason for you to pick 1989 as
the start unless you think that rider had a doping
program and it was significantly different in 1990.
In any case, there were two points to take away
from these plots:
1. People are always trying to infer the prevalence
of dope from the fact that the Tour is faster now than
in Coppi/Merckx/the heroes of my teenagerhood's day.
This is idiotic because it ignores the strong evolution
of total distance with time.
2. There are long term secular trends in the residuals
from the relation of speed to distance (the plot at
http://www.ucolick.org/~bjw/misc/rbr/tdf.year_speedresid.png ).
The meaning of these trends is unclear. They may have
something to do with the total climbing, trade teams,
the introduction of live TV coverage, the UCI point
system, or doping techniques.
Finally, if you want to contribute something that
suits your skill set, how about timing yourself up
dirt and paved climbs with similar elevation gains
and estimating the difference it would have made
to total times?
Ben
Donald Munro
> Finally, if you want to contribute something that suits your skill set,
> how about timing yourself up dirt and paved climbs with similar elevation
> gains and estimating the difference it would have made to total times?
And do it with only a 46x19.
carl...@comcast.net
Dear Ben,
What about the other five points?
:-)
***
It seems odd to argue that a winner one year could not be doping the
next year.
And 1989 is when EPO was approved, probably two years after bicyclists
began using it and dying from the side effects:
"Physicians say they believe athletes began using the drug almost with
the beginning of clinical trials in 1986. Then the deaths began. In
1987 five Dutch racers died suddenly. In 1988 a Belgian and two more
Dutch riders died. In 1989 five more Dutch riders died, and last year
[1990] three Belgians and two Dutch riders died."
--NYT May 19, 1991
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE7DF123DF93AA25756C0A967958260&sec=health&pagewanted=all
It sure looked as if EPO was widely (and incompetently) used by Dutch
and Belgian riders from 1986 to 1990. Plenty of riders have been
caught using it since then, but they couldn't have used it from 1947
to 1986 because it wasn't available.
***
But drugs are hard to get data for.
So what about distance and multi-stage bicycle races?
Let's look at the TDF 1903-2007 versus the Giro 1909-2008.
This crude chart shows how the TDF clearly gets shorter over the
years, while the Giro gets a little longer or stays the same:
http://i33.tinypic.com/1196n36.jpg
The gaps represent the missing WWI and WWII years.
Trend lines for just the post-WWII years would be a bit different, but
over that time span the TDF is clearly getting shorter, while the Giro
is staying about the same.
(And if distance is the main thing, then why ignore the pre-WWII TDF
years?)
Anyway, if the main thing that raises speed is reducing the distance,
then the Giro speeds should stay the same or even be getting slower,
because the Giro stays the same length or gets a little longer.
But no, the Giro didn't get slower. It got faster.
This chart that shows the average km/h per kilometers-in-a-Tour/Giro:
http://i35.tinypic.com/23u9ces.jpg
Two famous multi-stage races. Both get faster over the years, even
though one stays about the same length.
If I had to guess, I'd guess that shrinking distance accounts for
some, but not more than half the speed change in the TDF, since the
Giro gets faster at about half the TDF rate while getting longer or
staying the same.
In other words, something else accounts for the increasing speed of
the relatively static Giro distance--paving, prizes, aerodynamics, EPO
and other drugs, more gears, better tires, team tactics, training,
etc.
It could even be that the Giro speeds are rising slower not because
its distance stays the same while the TDF shrinks, but because there's
simply less interest in the Giro and less pressure to increase speeds--
a smaller field, less prize money and fame, no Armstrong, etc.
***
As for the paved roads versus dirt roads that interest you, it wasn't
just the passes. It's hard for us to remember how common dirt roads
were after the road and how rough the pavement was compared to modern
roads.
Here's a calculator that allows adjusting the road surface:
http://www.analyticcycling.com/ForcesSpeed_Page.html
Change the slope to 0.00 and here are the speed differences:
RR m/s km/h
imaginary no RR 0.000 11.77 42.372
wooden track 0.001 11.64 41.904
smooth concrete 0.002 11.50 41.400
asphalt 0.004 11.23 40.428
rough asphalt 0.008 10.69 38.484
gravel,dirt,mud 0.012? 10.15 36.540
That's quite a bit of the ~42 to ~31 km/h average of the TDF from 1947
to 2007.
***
A gaggle of photos of some drawbacks of the early post-WWII TDF show
that it wasn't just a longer Tour that slowed things down.
A 1947 TDF bike with thorn-catchers front and rear:
http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/v/aldoross/pd/Vietto_brake_1938.jpg.html?g2_imageViewsIndex=1
A 1948 poster of a paved descent--I wonder if they still have the
stream flowing over the road?
http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/v/aldoross/pd/Eaux1.jpg.html
This 1948 TDF road up the Croix-de-Fer looks like mud and gravel:
http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/v/aldoross/pd/BobetBartaliBrule.jpg.html
But maybe it's paved? Hard to tell.
The 1947 TDF winner, Robic, changing a flat in 1948 and having a
little trouble with his chain:
http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/v/aldoross/pd/Robic_1948.jpg.html
Note the aerodynamics of the twin front water bottles and bulging back
pockets, plus the second spare tire under the seat, ready for the next
use of the frame pump.
A 1949 poster showing a TDF descent:
http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/v/aldoross/1949TdF/map1949.JPG.html?g2_imageViewsIndex=1
A 1949 TDF photo, showing riders climbing on dirt with pumps and tires
that they had to change themselves:
http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/v/aldoross/pd/ColVars49.jpg.html
Chains tended to fall off in the 1949 TDF:
http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/v/aldoross/pd/Magni_49TdF.jpg.html
Note the less-than-professional support crew.
You thought down-tube shifters might slow you down? Here's what some
riders used in the 1949 TDF:
http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/v/aldoross/pd/Long2Lever.jpg.html
(The two shiny levers between the seat tube and seat stays.)
More 1949 TDF awkward shifting--look above and below the front chain
ring:
http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/v/aldoross/pd/Corriere.jpg.html
Nicely paved, but the 1950 TDF rider is walking, carrying his bike in
two pieces:
http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/v/aldoross/pd/danguillaume/Danguillame.jpg.html
Kubler's 1950 TDF bike, thorn catchers front and rear:
http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/v/aldoross/pd/Ferdi+Kubler+1950.JPG.html?g2_imageViewsIndex=1
Kubler hasn't been riding on clean, paved roads.
The 1950 TDF, descending the muddy dirt Izoard:
http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/v/aldoross/pd/Izoard.jpg.html
A really long rear thorn-catcher on a 1951 TDF bike:
http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/v/aldoross/pd/biagioni51.jpg.html
The 1952 TDF peloton climbing--looks like dirt, but it's hard to be
sure:
http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/v/aldoross/pd/ventoux52jpg.jpg.html
Coppi climbing the Alp d'Huez in the 1952 TDF--again, looks like dirt,
but it's hard to tell. He's carrying a spare tire around his shoulders
and a gonfleur on his seat tube:
http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/v/aldoross/pd/alpedhuez.jpg.html?g2_imageViewsIndex=1
A close-up of Coppi's 1952 TDF bike--you can just see the thorn-
catcher scraping the front tire behind the fork:
http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/v/aldoross/pd/Coppi52_1.jpg.html
The 1953 TDF, two spare tires (the caption says two under the seat
plus one around his shoulders), frame pump, and gonfleur--he must be
expecting to fix a few flats:
http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/v/aldoross/pd/Schaer+in+Yellow.JPG.html
Plus the goggles on his left elbow, dangling toestraps, exposed
cables, and a big open pocket on the front of his jersey to improve
aerodynamics.
The 1952 peloton has some things to learn about drafting:
http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/v/aldoross/pd/swiss_frontier_jpg.jpg.html?g2_imageViewsIndex=1
http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/v/aldoross/pd/Landerneau.jpg.html
The 1952 TDF, not exactly Landis having water bottles handed to him
from the support car:
http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/v/aldoross/pd/water_ballet.jpg.html
The 1953 TDF riders were willing to share a beer on the road:
http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/v/aldoross/pd/Astrua_and_Bobet_1953.jpg.html
The 1957 TDF, a slightly larger water bottle than Landis used to cool
himself off:
http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/v/aldoross/pd/Pintarelli.jpg.html
The 1957 TDF--a bit of rough road:
http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/v/aldoross/pd/Cailloux.JPG.html
Yes, most of them have gotten off to push their bikes.
Sprinting in the final kilometer of the 1961 TDF stage 7:
http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/v/aldoross/pd/JSta61.JPG.html?g2_imageViewsIndex=1
Yes, water-bottle still in place, frame pump handy, something
(possibly lunch) sticking up out of his back pocket, downtube
shifters, brake cables flying proudly in the breeze.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
Robert Chung
RicodJour
wrote:
> On Jul 18, 9:47 pm, DemostiX <travis.ha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > A couple of naive questions:
>
> > 1. Where are there comparisons of peleton speeds? Now and then it is
> > the speed of the peleton that is commented on by critics of doping
>
> > Do racing strategies affect peleton speed so much that speed
> > comparisons have not and cannot be made across years for the same
> > extended segments of races?
>
> > 2. Why are the domestiques for stage winners not subject to greater
> > scrutiny. Aren't they the ones who have done the heavy lifting?
>
> 1. http://groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles.racing/msg/a8a018ac017d9bf7
>
> Click on the "message from discussion" if you want
> to see the context. The dominant effect on the average
> speed in the Tour is that the distance has been
> getting shorter over time. In the year 3000, it will
> presumably be run as a 100 yard dash by genetically
> modified athletes for the entertainment of
> pod-people couch potatoes with very short
> attention spans.
I'm waiting for the Leica eye replacement set that will have wireless
live coverage beamed directly into your eyeballs. That way I can nod
vacantly at people, pretty much like I do now, but I'll be watching
the Tour de Sprint. Daydreaming wears me out.
R
carl...@comcast.net
Dear Robert,
Such eloquence!
The TDF time trial riders were using 57-tooth front rings this week,
and 53x11 (or higher) is routine nowadays in the Tour:
http://tour-de-france.velonews.com/article/80552/technical-qa-with-lennard-zinn---bikes-at-the-tour
When did the TDF peloton switch from 52x12 to 53x11?
(Or were they using custom 53x11 back in the old days?)
Was the higher gearing due to the Tour getting shorter?
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
Ted van de Weteringe
> When did the TDF peloton switch from 52x12 to 53x11?
Never. They switched from 54x12 to 52x11 or 53x11 when the 11 came
available. That was around 1990? Not sure.
Robert Chung
wrote:
> On Jul 22, 11:02 am, Robert Chung <rech...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Jul 21, 9:59 pm, "carlfo...@comcast.net" <carlfo...@comcast.net>
> > wrote:
>
> > [snip]
>
> > Dumbass,
>
> Dear Robert,
>
> Such eloquence!
Thanks. It seemed to fit.
SLAVE of THE STATE
> Was the higher gearing due to the Tour getting shorter?
Klueless Newbie Dork,
No. It has more to do with there being more available cogs on the
back.
Add a cog and one can add a high gear with no penalty, as the same-ole
gears are still there, if desired.
In fact, the addition of cogs has allowed bigger and smaller gears
without sacrificing gear ratio spacing, and racers have, across the
years, taken advantage of both ends.
carl...@comcast.net
<myfulln...@xs4all.nl.invalid> wrote:
> carlfo...@comcast.net schreef:
>
> > When did the TDF peloton switch from 52x12 to 53x11?
>
> Never. They switched from 54x12 to 52x11 or 53x11 when the 11 came
> available. That was around 1990? Not sure.
Dear Ted,
Not arguing, just curious.
Any links for exapmples of TDF front or rear gears? Back to 1947?
I'm browsing through "Dancing Chain," but Berto doesn't say much about
gear teeth.
52x12 = 4.333 3.78% lower
54x12 = 4.500 -- --
52x11 = 4.727 5.05% higher
53x11 = 4.818 7.07% higher
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
carl...@comcast.net
Dear Slave,
Do you think that this advantage might have something to do with the
increasing speeds of the post-WWII Tour, the Giro, and the Vuelta?
The last two haven't been getting shorter, but they've been getting
faster.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
carl...@comcast.net
<myfulln...@xs4all.nl.invalid> wrote:
>
> > When did the TDF peloton switch from 52x12 to 53x11?
>
> Never. They switched from 54x12 to 52x11 or 53x11 when the 11 came
> available. That was around 1990? Not sure.
Dear Ted,
Here's a page with a good but undated photo at the bottom left of
Bartali and his bike:
http://www.theracingbicycle.com/Tullio.html
The photo itself, which may not be TDF:
http://www.theracingbicycle.com/images/Bartali.jpg
Blown up and marked,it looks like 26 teeth on half the front sprocket,
a 52-tooth:
http://i33.tinypic.com/25syjvc.jpg
The smallest rear sprocket, as usual, is too hard for me to try to
count.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
Ted van de Weteringe
> Here's a page with a good but undated photo at the bottom left of
> Bartali and his bike:
Bartali was not around for the 12 to 11 switch. As I said, it happened
at 1990 or thereabouts. Regarding the 52, 53 or 54 chainring: I have no
idea what they used before the 80s. In the 80s, sprinters like Van
Poppel used a 54 when there was still no 11 cog; I have that from the
man himself (on tv). Later, when the 11 was there, chainrings shrunk
again, mostly back to 52. Now everybody uses a 53 for normal road races,
upwards to 56 for TTs.
Carl S. may now tell us something about gear developments on the track.
carl...@comcast.net
<myfulln...@xs4all.nl.invalid> wrote:
> carlfo...@comcast.net schreef:
Dear Ted,
Bartali's 1953 bike (world road title) was reviewed in 1974:
It had a 53x49 front and a 14-15-16-17-18 rear.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
carl...@comcast.net
wrote:
> On Jul 22, 5:21 pm, Ted van de Weteringe
>
> <myfulln...@xs4all.nl.invalid> wrote:
> > carlfo...@comcast.net schreef:
>
> > > Here's a page with a good but undated photo at the bottom left of
> > > Bartali and his bike:
>
> > Bartali was not around for the 12 to 11 switch. As I said, it happened
> > at 1990 or thereabouts. Regarding the 52, 53 or 54 chainring: I have no
> > idea what they used before the 80s. In the 80s, sprinters like Van
> > Poppel used a 54 when there was still no 11 cog; I have that from the
> > man himself (on tv). Later, when the 11 was there, chainrings shrunk
> > again, mostly back to 52. Now everybody uses a 53 for normal road races,
> > upwards to 56 for TTs.
>
> > Carl S. may now tell us something about gear developments on the track.
>
> Dear Ted,
>
> Bartali's 1953 bike (world road title) was reviewed in 1974:
>
>
> It had a 53x49 front and a 14-15-16-17-18 rear.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Carl Fogel
A little more from WoolJersey, this time Van Impe's much later 1976
TDF bike:
The bike has 52x42 front double and a six 13-14-15-16-17-18 rear.
But "This model was most likely used for criteriums."
The 1976 reviewer says, "Of course, gearing is changed from stage to
stage [TDF]. But I'm told nothing much lower than 42x24 is used (just
too slow), nor anything bigger than 55x13. Twelve speeds have become
standard for most Tour riders."
Apparently, in 1976 there were TDF riders using ten-speeds.
Nice detail: "The chainwheels have seen a tiny bit of filing at one
point where a crack has been known to develop."
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
ila...@gmail.com
<myfulln...@xs4all.nl.invalid> wrote:
> carlfo...@comcast.net schreef:
My recollection is that sprinters started using the 53x11 around 1993,
I recall an article about Blijleven (sp sorry) being one of the first
sprinters to use it around that time.
-ilan
SLAVE of THE STATE
wrote:
Dunno how much such a thing would help quantitativly. I suppose it is
possible.
I don't see any way it could hurt.
Not having to spin quite so fast during high sustained speeds might
help fatigue in a marginal way.
Having a lower gear might help fatigue too in some instances and again
in a marginal way.
Cog additions would help every rider, as they are pretty much
available to everyone.
Cadence has been claimed to be a red herring, but I rarely eat fish.
dave a
> My recollection is that sprinters started using the 53x11 around 1993,
> I recall an article about Blijleven (sp sorry) being one of the first
> sprinters to use it around that time.
>
> -ilan
Are you sure it wasn't 1984 after Spinal Tap came out?
/dave a
SLAVE of THE STATE
Hmmm... that was probably Campy, so I dunno.
For Shimano, Hyperglide came out in 1990, so that would have
theoretically made the 11 possible for them, as Uniglide only went
down to 12.
b...@mambo.ucolick.org
wrote:
> On Jul 19, 11:43 pm, "b...@mambo.ucolick.org" <b...@mambo.ucolick.org>
> wrote:
>
> > Regarding the last point, you're cherry-picking by
> > taking 1989 as the starting point. It's a large excursion
> > (slower for a given distance). You could equally well
> > take 1988, or 1990, and then the effect is much less
> > impressive.
>
Dear Mr. Fogel,
I have read your midterm assignment. Frankly,
I am quite disappointed. You are going to have
to do a lot better to pass Experimental Methodology
and Data Analysis. I do not need to remind you
that if you don't pass this semester, you will have
to retake it in the fall when Professor Chung teaches
it, and I don't think you'll want that.
There are several issues with your midterm:
-Your plots look crap.
-You don't understand "cherry picking" data.
-You have failed to design a proper methodology:
Given a distance-average speed relation in the Tour,
it is possible to say that distance is a predictor
of speed, thus that a speed difference is not an
a priori sign of doping, since one must take out the
distance effect. You claim a lack of distance-
speed relation in the Giro. But this does not
disprove distance as a predictor of speed in the Tour.
You are attempting to prove a negative.
-You have failed to recognize that the Giro and the Tour
are very different races and thus you cannot assume,
for example, that their speed improvements should be similar.
-Finally, and this is the worst problem for this class,
your crap plots and poor data visualization have caused
you to miss the fact that the Giro does, in fact, have
a fairly similar speed-distance relation to the Tour.
Let us begin with the data. I use the compilation from
http://www.bikeraceinfo.com/giro/giroindx.html
a few discrepant points (avg speed != distance/time)
were corrected.
First, one of the problems with your plots is that
we are studying a relation between distance and speed,
but you plotted both as time series and included the
prewar data. A time series is sometimes valuable, but
introduces considerable noise to this problem. See
http://www.ucolick.org/~bjw/misc/rbr/giro.dist_speed_prewar.png
speed vs distance, prewar and postwar coded separately.
It is clear that the prewar and postwar Giros are nearly
disjoint. Also, the prewar Giros are nearly all slower.
The war changed everything, and even though Europe in
1947 was still a collection of nearly shattered countries,
the prewar era is simply too different to use for
comparisons.
The attentive researcher will already notice that the postwar
Giros show a speed-distance relation, although with scatter.
This is what you did not detect due to poor visualization and
failure to recognize the pre/postwar difference.
http://www.ucolick.org/~bjw/misc/rbr/giro.distance_speed.png
http://www.ucolick.org/~bjw/misc/rbr/tdf.distance_speed.png
The relation is not as clear as for the Tour; in part this
is because there were never Giros as long as the >4400 m
Tours of the 1940s and 1950s. If you care, the relations
have power law slopes of about speed ~ distance^-0.52 for
the Tour and -0.46 for the Giro; the difference is not
statistically significant. (The actual fit values depend
on how you treat the scatter, which is about 6% in speed,
not that large really.)
Note that the longest Giros are early and the shortest are
late, so it has been getting shorter during the postwar,
although less strongly than the Tour. You missed this
because you included short prewar Giros.
The attentive researcher will also note that the Giro is
slower than the Tour at a given distance. As anyone who
watches knows, they are different races. Is it because
the Giro has more mountains per km, because the riders
go (or used to go) piano on the first 100 km of flat stages,
or because the field is weaker and less competitive?
Who the hell knows? But this shows us that we cannot
use the change in Giro speed with time to predict the
fraction of change in Tour speed with time that is due
to distance, as you attempted.
Now we turn to the time series of the **residual**
from the distance-speed relation.
http://www.ucolick.org/~bjw/misc/rbr/giro.year_speedresid.names.png
http://www.ucolick.org/~bjw/misc/rbr/tdf.year_speedresid.names.png
Interestingly, the Giro really has been getting
faster than one would predict from the distance
alone, while the Tour does not show such an effect.
(It's possible that there is an effect in the Tour
and it's masked by the strong distance-year relation,
but teasing that out is a hard statistical problem.)
But these trends are only clear in multiple-year
averages.
It's possible that the Giro is getting faster due
to any number of reasons: better dope, more TV coverage,
better training, faster bikes, riders not having to
work in factories in the off season. You can't tell
from this data. You also can't point to a specific race
speed, or the speed in a given year, and use it as
evidence for doping, which is what the original
questions and the ramblings of Antoine Vayer were about.
Both the Giro and the Tour show a spike in average speed
in the early to mid-1990s and a decline after about
1998 or 1999. It is tempting to link the rise to the
introduction of EPO (which may have been before its
formal therapeutic approval, though) and the decline
to hematocrit testing and/or the EPO test (2000).
There's probably truth to that.
But even then you have to be careful about specific instances.
Bugno and Berzin didn't do ultra-fast Giros, but they
don't have the best reputations. There's a big spike
in Giro speed in the early 1980s with Hinault,
Saronni and Moser among others, and that doesn't have
anything to do with EPO. Was Hinault so mean he
scared the mountains down? Did they make a superflat
Giro for Moser's benefit? Who the hell knows?
It's much easier to do this analysis for running
track records, because variances in course, team
strategy, TV time, and so on are taken out.
http://www.ucolick.org/~bjw/misc/rbr/running.wrprog.png
There's a huge mid-90s effect on the 5000m and
10,000m records, but nobody ever talks about this,
because distance runners aren't stupid enough to
get caught, or the IAAF isn't stupid enough to
catch them.
Finally, the photos of early postwar Tours you scraped
from wooljersey.com were very nice, but I don't
remember saying I'd accept extra credit assignments.
Good luck on the final,
Ben
Robert Chung
wrote:
> Dear Mr. Fogel,
[snip]
Usually I'd say something like, "Ooooh, that'll leave a mark" but
strong the Dunning-Kruger in this one is.
carl...@comcast.net
<myfulln...@xs4all.nl.invalid> wrote:
> carlfo...@comcast.net schreef:
>
> > When did the TDF peloton switch from 52x12 to 53x11?
>
> Never. They switched from 54x12 to 52x11 or 53x11 when the 11 came
> available. That was around 1990? Not sure.
Dear Ted,
You may be right--they were using 52x14 and 52x13 as top gears in the
early 1950s, but I haven't found a 52x12 yet.
So far, Lemond in 1989 is the earliest 54x12 that I've found.
Some ratios that appear in the quotes below:
39x24 1.6250
???? ??? Hinault 44x24 1.7500 7-speed
39x21 1.8571
???? ??? Merckx 44x21 2.0952 worst climbs
39x18 2.1667
???? ??? Merckx 44x19 2.3158 normal climbs
53x21 2.5238
1953 TDF Anquetil 1st 52x18
2.8889---1950s------
53x18 2.9444
1953 TDF Anquetil 2nd 52x17 3.0588
1934 Magne singlespeed 49x16 3.0625
53x17 3.1176
1953 TDF Anquetil 3rd 52x16 3.2500
53x16 3.3125
1946 ??? Coppi 51x15 3.4000
1953 TDF Anquetil 4th 52x15 3.4667
53x15 3.5333
1952 GPdN Bobet 52x14 3.7143
1953 TDF Anquetil 5th 52x14 3.7143
53x14 3.7857
1959 TDF Riviere 53x13 4.0769----1950s------
1963 TDF Poulidor 53x13 4.0769 Merckx, too
1966 TDF Aimar 55x13 4.2308
1976 ??? Maertens 55x13 4.2308
???? ??? Maertens 53x12 4.4167
1989 TDF Lemond 54x12 4.5000 (the 8-second stage)
55x12 4.5833
1970 TDF Merckx 51x11 4.6363 (yes, 51x11)
53x11 4.8182
55x11 5.0000
1953 TDF Anquetil 5th 52x14 3.7143
1953 TDF Anquetil 4th 52x15 3.4667
1953 TDF Anquetil 3rd 52x16 3.2500
1953 TDF Anquetil 2nd 52x17 3.0588
1953 TDF Anquetil 1st 52x18 2.8889
???? ??? Merckx 53x44 13-14-15-16-17-18-19 six-speed (normal
climbing)
???? ??? Merckx 53x44 13-14-15-16-17-19-21 six-speed (bad climbs)
***
These are from:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/features.php?id=features/2007/woodland_gears
"When Antonin Magne won the first Tour de France individual time-trial
in 1934, he therefore did it on a single gear of 49 x 16."
"After the war, in 1952, another Frenchman, Louison Bobet, slammed his
bike into 52 x 14 - pretty much the highest gear that machinery would
provide - when he reached the wind-blown final stretch of the Grand
Prix des Nations in 1952."
"The next year [1953] Jacques Anquetil fitted a single 52-tooth chain
ring and a one-step, five-speed freewheel that gave him 14-18."
"Roger Rivière used 53 x 13 to win a rolling time-trial in the Tour of
1959. By 1963, Raymond Poulidor was riding 53 x 13 - and winning."
"Eventually British time-triallists caught up with abroad and they
went still higher. Poulidor was one of the strongest riders in the
world but quite ordinary British amateurs began to think a chainring
three teeth larger was the least they could use. Where time-trials
were won once at 125rpm, they were now topped by 56-tooth rings turned
at just 80rpm."
"Peter Valentine, a coach who devoted his life to a campaign for fast
pedalling, used to complain that time-triallists used gears so high
that they weren't so much pushing the pedals down as pushing
themselves up from the saddle. Bizarrely, not until Freddy Maertens
used 55 x 13 in 1976 did Continental professionals get anywhere near
what British club riders were using on Sunday mornings."
***
These are from:
http://www.kc3a.com/pj_divers/tourdefrance_en.php?th=ressources/tour_evenements_en.inc.php
"1966 -- Lucien Aimar [TDF winner] tested a 55 x 13 gear."
"1970 -- "Merckx [winner], testing a 51 x 11 gear, won the stage
Valenciennes - Forest."
"1989 -- "Lemond won le Tour 8" ahead of Laurent Fignon, after making
up his 50" late in the final time trial; he used a 54 x 12 gear and
tested the triathlon-style handlebars in the stage Dinard-Rennes."
***
This is from:
http://le-grimpeur.net/blog/archives/18
Big gearing for racing started to come into vogue in the 1950s. Fausto
Coppi in 1946 reportedly used a 51×15, but Louison Bobet soon took it
to a 52×14. Hinault was in awe in his early years over Freddy
Maertens’s 53×12, which the latter used to devastating effect, and
slowly worked his way up to harder gears for his soon-to-be dominant
time trialling.
For climbing, a narrow range of gearing was the norm, but also bigger
gears than those used today. Eddy Merckx, for example, was a big fan
of the 44-tooth chainring (typically paired with a 53) for climbing
with a 6-speed freewheel 13-19; for particularly tough mountain races
or stages he would opt for a 13-21.
By Hinault’s time, the chainring set-up was typically 53-42 with a 7-
speed cluster. Hinault’s gear evolved from a low gear of a 42-22 to a
42-24 (47.3 inches compared to 45.8 inches for today’s popular 39×23)
as he changed his climbing technique to focus more on seated efforts.
As he said: “I sit further back and pedal more smoothly.”
***
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
carl...@comcast.net
wrote:
> a few discrepant points (avg speed != distance/time)
> were corrected.
>
> First, one of the problems with your plots is that
> we are studying a relation between distance and speed,
> but you plotted both as time series and included the
> prewar data. A time series is sometimes valuable, but
> introduces considerable noise to this problem. See
>
> http://www.ucolick.org/~bjw/misc/rbr/giro.dist_speed_prewar.png
>
> speed vs distance, prewar and postwar coded separately.
> It is clear that the prewar and postwar Giros are nearly
> disjoint. Also, the prewar Giros are nearly all slower.
> The war changed everything, and even though Europe in
> 1947 was still a collection of nearly shattered countries,
> the prewar era is simply too different to use for
> comparisons.
>
> The attentive researcher will already notice that the postwar
> Giros show a speed-distance relation, although with scatter.
> This is what you did not detect due to poor visualization and
> failure to recognize the pre/postwar difference.
>
>
> The relation is not as clear as for the Tour; in part this
> is because there were never Giros as long as the >4400 m
> Tours of the 1940s and 1950s. If you care, the relations
> have power law slopes of about speed ~ distance^-0.52 for
> the Tour and -0.46 for the Giro; the difference is not
> statistically significant. (The actual fit values depend
> on how you treat the scatter, which is about 6% in speed,
> not that large really.)
>
> Note that the longest Giros are early and the shortest are
> late, so it has been getting shorter during the postwar,
> although less strongly than the Tour. You missed this
> because you included short prewar Giros.
>
> The attentive researcher will also note that the Giro is
> slower than the Tour at a given distance. As anyone who
> watches knows, they are different races. Is it because
> the Giro has more mountains per km, because the riders
> go (or used to go) piano on the first 100 km of flat stages,
> or because the field is weaker and less competitive?
> Who the hell knows? But this shows us that we cannot
> use the change in Giro speed with time to predict the
> fraction of change in Tour speed with time that is due
> to distance, as you attempted.
>
> Now we turn to the time series of the **residual**
> from the distance-speed relation.
>
Dear Ben,
Ah, I see!
We should ignore TDF data before 1947 because--
(It's inconvenient? There are gaps that might disturb the mathematical
purity
of the charts? I'm trying to think of a big difference between the
1939
and 1947 Tours, but I'm coming up empty. Rules? Equipment? Drugs?)
Fixing your own TDF flats from 1947 to 1955 is just a minor detail.
(True, the riders carried 3 spare tubulars, a pump, and a gonfleur,
but that
was all just for fun--the thorn catchers were for show, not in hopes
of avoiding
speed killing time delays fixing flats.)
We can't possibly compare the multi-stage Giro to the multi-stage TDF.
(After all, it's in Italy, not France, and held at a different time of
year. I wonder if the Giro had the same pre-1956 TDF rule against
getting a new
wheel to fix a flat? That might have made the Giro speeds rise more
slowly
over time. The multi-stage Vuelta goes back past 1947, but it doesn't
shrink
in distance yet gains speed, so we mustn't compare it to the Tour--
after
all, the Vuelta is held in Spain, not France.)
The lack of drafting evident in those early TDF photos wouldn't
affect
speed.
(The riders must have looked at your charts and posts, realized
that shrinking distance would be the main cause of higher speeds in
future years, and not bothered with modern wheel-sucking team tactics.
The current Tour would go just as fast if riders relaxed and spaced
out two or three bike lengths on those long, dull stretches, right?)
Every TDF data point past 1989 is higher in speed.
(But that's nothing to do with the growing use of EPO, the first
really
effective drug in decades. The speed increase must be due to the
shrinking
distance, not more gas in more tanks. Until every rider signs a
statement
that he doped, we can dismiss doping out of hand.)
(Oddly, the older they get, the more riders admit to routine, rampant
doping.
If the newer riders are purer but faster, was doping holding the older
riders
back? Maybe your charts show that the shrinking distance has led to
the end
of doping?)
More gears, lower gears, higher gears, and better shifting had no
effect on speed.
(Heck, the modern Tour would be happy to use Anquetil's 1953 5-speed
single-front
52x14-15-16-17-18 time trial bike. Bobet liked it so much that he went
to a 52x14
the next year, too. Cadel Evans hates all those choices and longs for
the elegance
of foot-long shift-stems on the seat tube, but the sponsors just won't
listen to
him. He'd be just as fast on a 5-speed corncob.)
Riding uphill and downhill in the mud over what are now paved passes
couldn't have
slowed earlier Tour riders down, any more than graveled roads did.
(The mud lubricated the tires so they spun faster, while sinking into
the rut
kept the riders on track, somewhat like banking.)
Good luck attracting more students.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
carl...@comcast.net
wrote:
[snip]
Yikes!
While enjoying the Wiki article about TDF doping, I came across this
little tidbit that shows how some things changed besides distance in
the post-war Tour:
"Tom Simpson dies in the Tour"
"Tom Simpson was the leader of the British team in the 1967 Tour de
France and was optimistic he could make an impact on the event. After
the first week he was sixth overall, but a stomach bug began to affect
his form and he lost time in a stage including the Col du Galibier. In
Marseille, at the start of stage 13 on Thursday 13 July, he was still
suffering the effects as the race headed into Provence on a
blisteringly hot day, and he was seen to drink brandy during the early
parts of the stage. In those years, the organisers limited each rider
to four bottles of water, about two litres - the effects of
dehydration being poorly understood. During races, riders often raided
roadside bars and cafes for drinks, and filled their bottles from
fountains."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doping_at_the_Tour_de_France
Everyone knows about Simpson dying full of amphetamines in 1967 and
there's usually mention of dehydration, but I didn't know that there
was a damned _rule_ limiting Tour riders to four bottles of water.
D'oh!
I always assumed that all those jolly pictures of earlier Tour riders
stopping to fill bottles at fountains were just evidence of the
impromptu nature of the early Tour.
Hmmm . . . I wonder if the modern peloton would be slower on the
shorter Tour with water rationing and riders stopping to fill their
own bottles?
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
Robert Chung
wrote:
> but I didn't know that there
> was a damned _rule_ limiting Tour riders to four bottles of water.
Dumbass,
b...@mambo.ucolick.org
wrote:
> On Jul 23, 4:18 am, "b...@mambo.ucolick.org" <b...@mambo.ucolick.org>
> wrote:
>
> >http://www.ucolick.org/~bjw/misc/rbr/giro.dist_speed_prewar.png
>
> > speed vs distance, prewar and postwar coded separately.
> > It is clear that the prewar and postwar Giros are nearly
> > disjoint. Also, the prewar Giros are nearly all slower.
> > The war changed everything, and even though Europe in
> > 1947 was still a collection of nearly shattered countries,
> > the prewar era is simply too different to use for
> > comparisons.
>
>
> We should ignore TDF data before 1947 because--
>
> (It's inconvenient? There are gaps that might disturb the mathematical
> purity
> of the charts? I'm trying to think of a big difference between the
> 1939
> and 1947 Tours, but I'm coming up empty. Rules? Equipment? Drugs?)
>
> Fixing your own TDF flats from 1947 to 1955 is just a minor detail.
We should ignore the data before the war because
the data itself shows that it is different.
http://www.ucolick.org/~bjw/misc/rbr/giro.dist_speed_prewar.png
And we know that infrastructure, technology and society
changed greatly from the pre to postwar periods, so it's
not like I picked a division arbitrarily. You could always
throw a few of the late-30s Tours or Giros into the analysis,
but it would change very little. Gonfleurs, flats, chainwheels
and EPO do not change the fact that the Giro of 1950
had more in common with the Giro of 1990 than the
Giro of 1910.
> We can't possibly compare the multi-stage Giro to the multi-stage TDF.
> ...
> The lack of drafting evident in those early TDF photos wouldn't
> affect speed.
> ...
> Every TDF data point past 1989 is higher in speed.
> ...
> More gears, lower gears, higher gears, and better shifting had no
> effect on speed.
> ...
> Riding uphill and downhill in the mud over what are now paved passes
> couldn't have
> slowed earlier Tour riders down, any more than graveled roads did.
> ...
> Good luck attracting more students.
All of these things should matter (except the
chainwheels, which are nearly insignificant - even
if they saved a minute per TT, that is very important
to the winner and undetectable in the average speed).
You can see a time effect to a degree in the Giro
residual speed versus year plot, if you understand it, and
if you respect the data well enough to construct that plot.
http://www.ucolick.org/~bjw/misc/rbr/giro.year_speedresid.names.png
But you can't simply deduce the magnitude of these
effects from the arguments you made, or conclude
that distance isn't an effect. It appears to be the
strongest effect. On all the other effects, I don't
deny them, I only say the data are rarely simple
enough to show their existence.
There's a saying, "When the facts are on your side,
pound the facts. When the law is on your side, pound
the law. When neither the facts or the law are on
your side, pound the table." You're pounding the table.
As for attracting more students, I seem to have to
beat them away with a stick, if for no other reason than
the profusion of badly documented online calculators.
Doesn't anyone use online slide rules anymore?
Ben
Donald Munro
> Dumbass,
Would'nt a . be more appropriate than a , ?
Robert Chung
Yes,
carl...@comcast.net
wrote:
Dear Ben,
1948 Bobet and Bartali climbing in the mud of Croix-de-Fer
http://i35.tinypic.com/v2ryhx.jpg
2003 Armstrong descending in a peloton the paved Izoard:
http://i37.tinypic.com/6em4o0.jpg
Is the odometer really the only important difference that you can see
affecting the average speed of those two kinds of Tours?
If you insist on pure data and statistics, what would you predict the
average speed next year would be if the Tour lengthened to 1948's
distance?
Do you think that the average speed of the Tour would recognize your
claims about distance, however you put them, and drop back to the 1948
level?
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
b...@mambo.ucolick.org
wrote:
> On Jul 24, 12:13 am, "b...@mambo.ucolick.org" <b...@mambo.ucolick.org>
> wrote:
>
> > All of these things should matter (except the
> > chainwheels, which are nearly insignificant - even
> > if they saved a minute per TT, that is very important
> > to the winner and undetectable in the average speed).
> > You can see a time effect to a degree in the Giro
> > residual speed versus year plot, if you understand it, and
> > if you respect the data well enough to construct that plot.
> > http://www.ucolick.org/~bjw/misc/rbr/giro.year_speedresid.names.png
>
> > But you can't simply deduce the magnitude of these
> > effects from the arguments you made, or conclude
> > that distance isn't an effect. It appears to be the
> > strongest effect. On all the other effects, I don't
> > deny them, I only say the data are rarely simple
> > enough to show their existence.
>
> > There's a saying, "When the facts are on your side,
> > pound the facts. When the law is on your side, pound
> > the law. When neither the facts or the law are on
> > your side, pound the table." You're pounding the table.
>
>
>
> 1948 Bobet and Bartali climbing in the mud of Croix-de-Fer
> http://i35.tinypic.com/v2ryhx.jpg
>
> 2003 Armstrong descending in a peloton the paved Izoard:
> http://i37.tinypic.com/6em4o0.jpg
>
> Is the odometer really the only important difference that you can see
> affecting the average speed of those two kinds of Tours?
>
> If you insist on pure data and statistics, what would you predict the
> average speed next year would be if the Tour lengthened to 1948's
> distance?
>
> Do you think that the average speed of the Tour would recognize your
> claims about distance, however you put them, and drop back to the 1948
> level?
>
Luftiges Carl,
Of course I think climbing a mountain in mud is
slower than doing it on the road. As I said, I don't
deny that the advent of paved road surfaces, quick
wheel changes, Kenacort and EPO, or even lighter
bike weight (!) should make a difference in the
speed. (I only deny that chainwheel size will have
more than a minute effect.) I merely say that the
secular trend in the Tour distance makes it
impossible to use the speed improvement over
the years to prove anything about road surfaces
or doping - a foolish errand many people have
embarked on.
You would need far more data (for example, the
amount of climbing in each Tour) and better models
to try to squeeze the juice out of this lemon.
If the Societe de TdF came to its senses and
made next year's Tour as long as that of 1948,
I don't know how slow it would be. Since I don't
have a model to separate the time trend from the
distance trend, I can't say. But would the Tour
magically get slower if run at the 1948 distance?
Hell yes! Compare the 1948 and 2008 Tours:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/veloarchive/races/tour/1948.htm
http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2008/tour08/?id=stages
The Tour of 1948 had a single 120 km TT, and
17 of 20 road stages were over 200 km, the final
stage a 286 km monster. (In other Tours of the
40s and 50s, the final stage could get as long as
350 km.)
In 2008, the "long" ITT is 53 km, and only 4 of 19
stages are over 200 km. 2008's Tour is 3391 km
and 1948's Tour was 4922 km, 50% longer raced
in the same number of days. Today's riders aren't
prepared for that. They just aren't trained for that
kind of distance and recovery, and not all the
carbs and dope in the world could make them
keep up the average speed.
Anybody, today's riders or 1948's, would have to ride
slower on the longer course just to survive and recover
from day to day. How much slower, I can't say, but
I would bet not a trivial amount, more than 10%
slower. (Based on, for example, guessing at
how one's TT pace declines for a 50% longer
distance, and remembering this is magnified by
the need to recover for the next day.)
Ben
carl...@comcast.net
wrote:
>
> The Tour of 1948 had a single 120 km TT, and
> 17 of 20 road stages were over 200 km, the final
> stage a 286 km monster. (In other Tours of the
> 40s and 50s, the final stage could get as long as
> 350 km.)
>
> In 2008, the "long" ITT is 53 km, and only 4 of 19
> stages are over 200 km. 2008's Tour is 3391 km
> and 1948's Tour was 4922 km, 50% longer raced
> in the same number of days. Today's riders aren't
> prepared for that. They just aren't trained for that
> kind of distance and recovery, and not all the
> carbs and dope in the world could make them
> keep up the average speed.
>
> Anybody, today's riders or 1948's, would have to ride
> slower on the longer course just to survive and recover
> from day to day. How much slower, I can't say, but
> I would bet not a trivial amount, more than 10%
> slower. (Based on, for example, guessing at
> how one's TT pace declines for a 50% longer
> distance, and remembering this is magnified by
> the need to recover for the next day.)
>
> Ben
Dear Ben,
Hmmm . . . wonder why you picked 1948 instead of 1947? Big distance?
Let's compare that year, 1948, to its neighbors.
1947 4640 km 21 stages 31.412 kmh
1948 4922 km 21 stages 33.443 kmh
That's odd. Both the speed _and_ the distance rose about 6% the next
year.
Apparently, increasing the distance doesn't always slow things down.
What happened the year after your example of 1949?
1948 4922 km 21 stages 33.443 kmh
1949 4808 km 21 stages 32.121 kmh
That's odd. The distance dropped 2.3% and the speed dropped 4.0%.
Apparenty, shrinking the distance also shrank the speed.
But that's what you called cherry-picking earlier.
You'd bet that next year's TDF would be "more than 10% slower" if it
were as long as the 4922 km 1948 Tour.
Presumably, that means 10% slower than the current ~41 kmh average
speed of recent Tours.
More than 10% slower than ~41 kmh would be less than 37 kmh.
In other words, the riders who covered 41 km in 60 minutes would now
take at least 66:30, an extra 6 and a half minutes. (Or more depending
on what "more than 10% slower" means.)
What kind of drop in average watts would dropping from 41 to 37 km/h
represent?
The riders would be using same bikes, team tactics, roads, drugs, and
so on, but if they're really tired, they can skip the 3-hour rest-day
rides and the 90-minute warmup rides before the TT stages.
:-)
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
b...@mambo.ucolick.org
wrote:
> On Jul 25, 1:17 am, "b...@mambo.ucolick.org" <b...@mambo.ucolick.org>
> wrote:
> > On Jul 24, 10:43 am, "carlfo...@comcast.net" <carlfo...@comcast.net>
> > wrote:
>
> > > 1948 Bobet and Bartali climbing in the mud of Croix-de-Fer
> > > http://i35.tinypic.com/v2ryhx.jpg
>
> > > 2003 Armstrong descending in a peloton the paved Izoard:
> > > http://i37.tinypic.com/6em4o0.jpg
>
> > > Is the odometer really the only important difference that you can see
> > > affecting the average speed of those two kinds of Tours?
>
> > > If you insist on pure data and statistics, what would you predict the
> > > average speed next year would be if the Tour lengthened to 1948's
> > > distance?
>
> > > Do you think that the average speed of the Tour would recognize your
> > > claims about distance, however you put them, and drop back to the 1948
> > > level?
>
> > made next year's Tour as long as that of 1948,
> > I don't know how slow it would be. Since I don't
> > have a model to separate the time trend from the
> > distance trend, I can't say. But would the Tour
> > magically get slower if run at the 1948 distance?
>
> > Hell yes! Compare the 1948 and 2008 Tours:
> > http://homepage.ntlworld.com/veloarchive/races/tour/1948.htm
>
> > 17 of 20 road stages were over 200 km, the final
> > stage a 286 km monster. (In other Tours of the
> > 40s and 50s, the final stage could get as long as
> > 350 km.)
>
> > In 2008, the "long" ITT is 53 km, and only 4 of 19
> > stages are over 200 km. 2008's Tour is 3391 km
> > and 1948's Tour was 4922 km, 50% longer raced
> > in the same number of days. Today's riders aren't
> > prepared for that. They just aren't trained for that
> > kind of distance and recovery, and not all the
> > carbs and dope in the world could make them
> > keep up the average speed.
>
> > Anybody, today's riders or 1948's, would have to ride
> > slower on the longer course just to survive and recover
> > from day to day. How much slower, I can't say, but
> > I would bet not a trivial amount, more than 10%
> > slower. (Based on, for example, guessing at
> > how one's TT pace declines for a 50% longer
> > distance, and remembering this is magnified by
> > the need to recover for the next day.)
>
> > Ben
>
> Dear Ben,
>
> Hmmm . . . wonder why you picked 1948 instead of 1947? Big distance?
Carl, *you* picked 1948! I used it because that's the
year you mentioned in your post, and showed the
picture of Bobet and Bartali.
1947 and 1949 are mildly different from 1948, but the
gap between them and 2008 is tremendous. For example,
1947 had one stage over 300 km and 1949 had two.
These are unthinkable in today's Tour.
> Let's compare that year, 1948, to its neighbors.
>
> 1947 4640 km 21 stages 31.412 kmh
> 1948 4922 km 21 stages 33.443 kmh
>
> That's odd. Both the speed _and_ the distance rose about 6% the next
> year.
>
> Apparently, increasing the distance doesn't always slow things down.
>
> What happened the year after your example of 1949?
>
> 1948 4922 km 21 stages 33.443 kmh
> 1949 4808 km 21 stages 32.121 kmh
>
> That's odd. The distance dropped 2.3% and the speed dropped 4.0%.
>
> Apparenty, shrinking the distance also shrank the speed.
>
> But that's what you called cherry-picking earlier.
Yes. It is cherry-picking. As I explained earlier,
the distance-average speed relation has a scatter
of about 6%. That means, if 1949 happens to be a
bit shorter and 4% slower, it is a less than 1-sigma
deviation from the mean relation - not statistically
significant. Real data has scatter, which is why
drawing conclusions from small numbers of points
is cherry-picking. We don't know the cause of the
scatter - more mountains, more wind, team tactics,
bad weather, riders' whim?
> You'd bet that next year's TDF would be "more than 10% slower" if it
> were as long as the 4922 km 1948 Tour.
>
> Presumably, that means 10% slower than the current ~41 kmh average
> speed of recent Tours.
>
> More than 10% slower than ~41 kmh would be less than 37 kmh.
>
> In other words, the riders who covered 41 km in 60 minutes would now
> take at least 66:30, an extra 6 and a half minutes. (Or more depending
> on what "more than 10% slower" means.)
>
> What kind of drop in average watts would dropping from 41 to 37 km/h
> represent?
>
> The riders would be using same bikes, team tactics, roads, drugs, and
> so on, but if they're really tired, they can skip the 3-hour rest-day
> rides and the 90-minute warmup rides before the TT stages.
No really, people who ride 50% longer have to ride it
slower, especially if they have to do the same again
the next day. I am sure you realize this and are just
twisting slowly in the wind. If not, you could perform
an experiment by riding 1.5x as much as your daily
ride for a few weeks and recording your times. You
have to do both the 1x and 1.5x rides really hard
though, TT pace, on-the-rivet. Anybody can lollygag
1.5x as far without upping the lollygag pace, but
racing longer is another matter.
Ben
Ted van de Weteringe
> you could perform
> an experiment by riding 1.5x as much as your daily
> ride for a few weeks and recording your times. You
> have to do both the 1x and 1.5x rides really hard
> though, TT pace, on-the-rivet.
Damn, Carl gets all the good assignments.
William Asher
Teacher's pet.
--
Bill Asher
SLAVE of THE STATE
> Real data has scatter, which is why
> drawing conclusions from small numbers
> of points is cherry-picking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_t_distribution
It happens because it has to.
> ... riders' whim?
People go faster and slower because they want to. Yeah, I think so.
Donald Munro
>> you could perform
>> an experiment by riding 1.5x as much as your daily ride for a few weeks
>> and recording your times. You have to do both the 1x and 1.5x rides
>> really hard though, TT pace, on-the-rivet.
Ted van de Weteringe wrote:
> Damn, Carl gets all the good assignments.
Just give Ben an apple or some good porn links.
carl...@comcast.net
Dear Ben,
I'd probably be twisting in the wind if I were a long-distance rider.
Drafting is usually forbidden in long-distance events.
And I'd also be twisting in the wind if I were a Tour rider on a long
Tour. There's little sign of modern drafting tactics in the Tour for
decades after the war.
So do I get to draft behind a motorcycle for most of the short ride
that you propose, the way that Tour riders do in the modern peloton on
the shortened Tours?
Do you think that modern drafting exaggerates the speed difference
between the long and the short Tours? Enough to have an effect on your
charts?
***
Instead of twisting in the wind, let's take it easy now:
What about rest days?
"No, really, people who ride 50% longer have to ride it slower,
especially if they have to do the same again the next day."
What's the value of "especially" when they _don't_ do the same again
the next day?
Will the number of rest days matter when we try to estimate how much
next year's Tour will slow down if we lengthen it from ~3500 km to
~4900 km?
That is, what if there are 5 rest days instead of the modern 2?
Heck, what if it there are no rest days at all?
You _did_ consider how the number of rest days varied from 5 to 0 in
the first twenty or so long Tours after the war, right?
Carl Fogel
William Asher
This response reminds me of a Calvin Trillan article about an argument he
had with a friend over who makes the best hamburgers in America. Trillan
was saying it was some hole-in-the-wall joint in Kansas City (I think).
His friend was arguing it was a Bob's Big Boy in California somewhere. So
Trillan goes out to the specific BBB in CA his friend tells him about and
has a burger (The New Yorker was paying, why not?). Trillan tells his
friend that it was nothing special. So his friend says, "But did you get
it with a side dish of fresh-cut tomatoes? You have to have it with the
fresh-cut tomatoes."
--
Bill Asher
b...@mambo.ucolick.org
wrote:
Dear Carl,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewbacca_defense
I look forward to the results of your experiment
where you ride 1.5x as long as your usual. You
may draft behind a motorcycle, much closer than
UCI/ASO rules allow, as long as the motorcycle
accelerates to match the speed that keeps you
on the rivet. You may discover that motorpacing
is not easier than riding by yourself. It's just
faster.
Good luck with your experiment.
Ben
Ryan Cousineau
William Asher <gcn...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Tell me more about this gig where you get to eat hamburgers and write
about it for a living.
Is there one with beer in it?
--
Ryan Cousineau rcou...@gmail.com http://www.wiredcola.com/
"In other newsgroups, they killfile trolls."
"In rec.bicycles.racing, we coach them."
William Asher
You have to be like this guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_Trillin
(And I now notice I mis-spelled his name above. I must go paint my tongue
black in shame.) I think the hamburger story is in American Fried.
If you could fill Trillin's shoes at TNY, I'm sure they would let you write
about beer and food.
--
Bill Asher
Mark
I think a hamburger with a beer in it would be kinda squishy.
Mark J.
b...@mambo.ucolick.org
Calvin Trillin, IMO, basically re-invented foodie-ism
(before there was such a word as "foodie") by making
it legitimate to write about vernacular food and food
culture - hamburgers, Kansas City barbecue, diner
food, pizza, bagels, taureaux piscine. I'm sure there
were others involved (like Jane and Michael Stern)
but Trillin should get a lot of the credit for broadening
food writing beyond fancy restaraunts and saucier-worship.
People like Anthony Bourdain and Jeffrey Steingarten
wouldn't be in print without him.
And every andouillette joke in RBR owes something
to Calvin Trillin.
Ben
Ryan Cousineau
Mark <mandml...@NOSPAM.comcast.net> wrote:
> Ryan Cousineau wrote:
> > In article <Xns9AE77C4B9...@130.133.1.4>,
> > William Asher <gcn...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >> carl...@comcast.net wrote:
> >>
> >>> Dear Ben,
> >> This response reminds me of a Calvin Trillan article about an argument he
> > Tell me more about this gig where you get to eat hamburgers and write
> > about it for a living.
> >
> > Is there one with beer in it?
>
> I think a hamburger with a beer in it would be kinda squishy.
>
> Mark J.
It's a chance I'm willing to take.
Robert Chung
wrote:
> Calvin Trillin, IMO, basically re-invented foodie-ism
> (before there was such a word as "foodie") by making
> it legitimate to write about vernacular food and food
> culture - hamburgers, Kansas City barbecue, diner
> food, pizza, bagels, taureaux piscine.
I'm almost sure you must've meant taureau pasteque. That's a more
exciting variant of those quease-inducing eating contests where skinny
Japanese guys eat 6 hotdogs a minute: the contestants speed eat a
watermelon--but do so while sitting on a chair in a bullring.
> People like Anthony Bourdain and Jeffrey Steingarten
> wouldn't be in print without him.
Damn that Calvin Trillin.
carl...@comcast.net
wrote:
Dear Ben,
Er, my point _was_ that drafting, whether motorpacing or in a peloton,
is faster for the same effort.
You know, the kind of drafting that the long-distance riders don't get
to use?
So again, tell us what you predict--will a rider speed drafting a
motorcycle (or a peloton) be much faster for the 1.5x distance than a
rider who isn't drafting?
Loved your even less informative response to the question about the
wildly varying number of rest days in the early post-War Tours.
Of course, 0 to 5 rest days for the first twenty tours after WWII was
quite a change from pre-war Tours, whose data, like the post-war
Vuelta and Giro (long-distance multi-stage races, often with the same
riders in the same year) you threw out because it didn't fit your
theory.
The rest-day pattern for the first 8 post WWI Tours from 1919 to 1926
was mostly _14_ days off, 15 days riding, with 1925 dropping to 11
rest days and 1926 to 12.
The next 13 Tours before WWII from 1927 to 1939 had only 2 to 7 rest
days, averaging just under 5.
Funny thing, the big jump in average speed between the wars came when
they _cut_ the rest days in 1927, not when the distance dropped a few
years later.
From 1919 to 1926, the eight Tours averaged 24.0 to 24.8 km/h (okay,
we round 1924's 23.972 up).
But then the average speed jumped up about 10% to 26.8 km/h in 1927,
as soon as the rest days drop from 12 to 5.
The 1927 distance was 5377 km, reasonably close to the 5375 to 5745 km
distances of the eight previous post WWI Tours. It was almost as if
something other than distance was the major factor affecting speed.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
carl...@comcast.net
> In article <Xns9AE77C4B9FF43Fkldel...@130.133.1.4>,
> "In other newsgroups, they killfile trolls."
> "In rec.bicycles.racing, we coach them
Dear Ryan,
"I hate to bring up a subject that may cause you to break out in
hives," Calvin Trillin, "but what were you thinking of paying me for
each of these columns?"
"We were thinking of something in the high two figures, " Navasky
said.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
carl...@comcast.net
To be fair, I should have pointed out that the average _stage_
distance dropped significantly as the rest days dropped, since the
total distance stayed about the same in 1927.
Gets a little more complicated, doesn't it, when more than raw speed
and total distance are involved?
Of course, we should just throw out all that data, since those pre-
WWII guys trained like this:
http://static.photo.net/attachments/bboard/00L/00LWh5-36998884.jpg
Oh, wait, Merckx smoked about two packs a day--never mind.
Anyway, if you add better training, roads, drugs, gears, tires,
aerodynamics, team drafting tactics, prize money, road support, and
things like not having to fix your own flats or fill your own water
bottles or stop at tables in the early post-war feed zone--maybe a
chart showing all that would be a bit complicated, too.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
b...@mambo.ucolick.org
wrote:
> On Jul 27, 2:46 pm, "carlfo...@comcast.net" <carlfo...@comcast.net>
> wrote
> > On Jul 26, 2:16 pm, "b...@mambo.ucolick.org" <b...@mambo.ucolick.org>
> > wrote:
> > > > So do I get to draft behind a motorcycle for most of the short ride
> > > > that you propose, the way that Tour riders do in the modern peloton on
> > > > the shortened Tours?
>
> > > > Do you think that modern drafting exaggerates the speed difference
> > > > between the long and the short Tours? Enough to have an effect on your
> > > > charts?
>
> > > > What about rest days?
>
> > > > "No, really, people who ride 50% longer have to ride it slower,
> > > > especially if they have to do the same again the next day."
>
> > > > What's the value of "especially" when they _don't_ do the same again
> > > > the next day?
>
> > > > Will the number of rest days matter when we try to estimate how much
> > > > next year's Tour will slow down if we lengthen it from ~3500 km to
> > > > ~4900 km?
>
> > > > That is, what if there are 5 rest days instead of the modern 2?
>
> > > > Heck, what if it there are no rest days at all?
>
> > > > You _did_ consider how the number of rest days varied from 5 to 0 in
> > > > the first twenty or so long Tours after the war, right?
>
> > > Dear Carl,
>
> > >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewbacca_defense
>
> > > I look forward to the results of your experiment
> > > where you ride 1.5x as long as your usual. You
> > > may draft behind a motorcycle, much closer than
> > > UCI/ASO rules allow, as long as the motorcycle
> > > accelerates to match the speed that keeps you
> > > on the rivet. You may discover that motorpacing
> > > is not easier than riding by yourself. It's just
> > > faster.
>
Hum Opoots,
What you present is not an argument. It is a
Whack-a-Mole game that you are calling an
argument.
I didn't take into account the number of rest days,
the total elevation gain, year-to-year weather
variations, whether Bartali felt more comfortable
on Coppi's wheel or vice versa. I didn't claim to,
either. In principle, all of these factors could explain
some of the scatter about the distance-average
speed correlation. As you found, even something
like the number of rest days is subject to scatter
and covariance with other parameters (stage distance).
With a thousand Tours and a thousand measures of
all of this data, you might be able to do an analysis of
variance and determine a few of the more important
factors. But none of this erases the distance-speed
correlation, which also has an understandable physical
reason: racers who go farther go slower, due to fatigue.
Most riders have experienced that for themselves.
Your position is sort of like this: I go and measure
heights of fifty schoolkids age 4-10 or so. I discover
that height is well correlated with age. You object
that I have not controlled for boy/girl, income level
of parents, ethnicity, weight of kids, and thickness
of their shoe soles, most of which are correlated
with height. Indeed I have not, but none of this
erases the age-height correlation.
Ben
P.S. Riders in early postwar Tours weren't dumb;
they knew about drafting. Riders in the modern Tour
don't draft the lead moto. Occasionally a car or
TV moto gets too close in the finale and a rider
drafts it, for a short time. When this happens, as in
Gent-Wevelgem a few years back, you hear about
it because the other team directors scream bloody
murder.
b...@mambo.ucolick.org
> On Jul 27, 2:01 am, "b...@mambo.ucolick.org" <b...@mambo.ucolick.org>
> wrote:
>
> > Calvin Trillin, IMO, basically re-invented foodie-ism
> > (before there was such a word as "foodie") by making
> > it legitimate to write about vernacular food and food
> > culture - hamburgers, Kansas City barbecue, diner
> > food, pizza, bagels, taureaux piscine.
>
> I'm almost sure you must've meant taureau pasteque. That's a more
> exciting variant of those quease-inducing eating contests where skinny
> Japanese guys eat 6 hotdogs a minute: the contestants speed eat a
> watermelon--but do so while sitting on a chair in a bullring.
Sounds like the bull vs. poker-players game at rodeos,
but with food. If only I had known about taureau pasteque,
I would have meant it! But alas, no. There's an
old Calvin Trillin article where he hears about
"taureaux piscine" and spends much of the article
rambling around southern France eating and
trying to figure out what the hell taureaux piscine is.
It turns out to be, as far as I can tell, the French
equivalent of NECKCAR. You have a bull, a
bullring, a sort of wading pool, and about twenty
idiots. If one of the idiots manages to be in the
wading pool at the same time as the bull, he wins.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOtWJeGhVs4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChNfeJDwTus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ0oQiqjbeA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxJVmOoOc3Y
> > People like Anthony Bourdain and Jeffrey Steingarten
> > wouldn't be in print without him.
>
> Damn that Calvin Trillin.
Anthony Bourdain is a putz, but a funny one.
He pisses off people who want their food to be
lovingly caressed by European-trained Zen
masters and can't handle the idea that restaurant
kitchens are high stress places where sometimes
people throw pots, or knives. Someone's gotta
do that. Also, he's not one of those people that
raves about the beauty of earthy peasant cuisine
and then pretends offal doesn't exist. I wonder
if he's written about andouillette.
Ben
Davey Crockett
http://www.info-camargue.com/IMGFORUM/img_537764.jpg
http://uzes.24hactus.com/media/02/01/1656216496.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChNfeJDwTus
They used to have bullfights in Antibes until the land was bought up
and there's a monstrous Marineland eyesore there now
--
Davey Crockett
-
Fuck the New World Order
Fly your Nation's Flag
http://darkstar1.azurservers.com:6080/rbr/englishdragon.jpg
http://darkstar1.azurservers.com:6080/rbr/dixie.gif
Robert Chung
wrote:
> It turns out to be, as far as I can tell, the French
> equivalent of NECKCAR. You have a bull, a
> bullring, a sort of wading pool, and about twenty
> idiots. If one of the idiots manages to be in the
> wading pool at the same time as the bull, he wins.
We have universal healthcare here.
> Anthony Bourdain is a putz, but a funny one.
> He pisses off people who want their food to be
> lovingly caressed by European-trained Zen
> masters and can't handle the idea that restaurant
> kitchens are high stress places where sometimes
> people throw pots, or knives. Someone's gotta
> do that. Also, he's not one of those people that
> raves about the beauty of earthy peasant cuisine
> and then pretends offal doesn't exist. I wonder
> if he's written about andouillette.
I think he may have. I don't begrudge Bourdain his niche -- I just
wish he were a better writer. I sorta like Bill Buford better. And as
for Trillin, I think he owes a lot to MFK Fisher.
carl...@comcast.net
Dear Ben,
Darn, you didn't take the bait to "analyze" the 1926-1927 data, when
the number of rest days dropped from 12 to 5, the daily distance
dropped, and the speed jumped up 10%!
That 10% speed jump in 1927 really looked good, didn't it?
But the real reason wasn't the rest days.
Here's the historical explanation, as opposed to the statistical
explanation:
"1927. Desgrange was convinced that the teams were combining to fix
the outcome of the race. At the very best, even if they were honest,
they helped a weaker rider do well. He also felt that on the flat
stages the riders did not push themselves, saving their energy for the
mountains. Like today, the flat stages were ridden in a controlled,
slower pace with the final result decided in a sprint. There was more
of this 'economical' racing in 1926 than in any previous Tour."
[Riders lollygagging on the flat stages? Horrors!]
"To Tour boss Desgrange this went against everything he thought 'his'
Tour should stand for. He wanted the Tour de France to be a contest
where unrelenting individual effort in the cauldron of intense
competition resulted in the supreme test of both the body and will of
the athlete."
[Desgrange thought the Tour should test athletes, not equipment. The
original retro-grouch, he had everyone ride generic bikes from 1930 to
1939, barred teams from using derailleurs until 1937 (a decision by
his successor, Goddet), and grudgingly accepted aluminum in 1931, five
years after they were introduced.]
"He [Desgrange] made the flat stages [of 1927, the year speed jumped
10%] team time trials. Each team went off separately on these stages.
An individual rider could ride ahead of his team to seek a better
time. This made the Tour even harder [but faster, huh?] as there could
be no easy days of just sitting in. Every day required an almost
supreme effort. . . ."
[Try to imagine a modern star trying to stay _ahead_ of his team
peloton on the flats, stage after stage--things have changed, haven't
they?]
"But with the time-trial format the race was even more grueling and
demanding [but faster, right?] because there was no time during a
stage to rest. A team had to keep driving itself hard hour after hour,
day after day. To relax would be to lose time to a rival."
--"The Story of the Tour de France," McGann, p. 84-5
The same sort of speed jump was seen ten years later in 1937, which
ran 1.7 km/h faster than 1936. But once again, the historical
explanation is much more convincing that the statistical approach.
(After all, the 1937 Tour was only 23 km shorter than 1936.)
The 1937 Tour was the first time that the pro teams were allowed to
use crude derailleurs instead of flip-flop hubs. Before 1937, the
individuel and tourist-routier riders, who were allowed to use
derailleurs, routinely beat the team pros up the climbs. The pros
usually made up their climbing losses on the descents and flats.
(Oops! I forgot that better gearing doesn't affect average speed.)
The 1937 Tour, won by Lapebie, has some other interesting details that
don't quite fit on a chart of average speed versus total distanc:
"A few minutes before the start of the stage [15], as Lapebie was
warming up, half o his handlebars came off in his hand. The bars had
been partially sawn through, sabotaged. . . A new set was found and
mounted on his bike. But, the new set didn't have a water bottle cage.
In those days, bottles were not mounted on the frame. . . . Lapebie
had to sart the stage without water. The strict rules regarding
handing up water and food at only specific designated points meant
that getting water early could cost him time penalties."
Since someone sabotaged his handlebar, Lapebie simply cheated, just as
he'd been doing all along:
"On the climbs Lapebie had received lots of pushing from the
spectators. The officials told Lapebie, over and over, that he would
be penalized if he continued to get pushed up the hills. He replied to
the judges that he was asking the crowds not to push him, but he was
helpless in the face of their enthusiasm and therefore could not stop
them. In fact, he later confessed, he was encouraging his partisans to
help him up the mountains. He had been guilty of this in both the
earlier Alpine stages and the Pyrenees."
"That wasn't all of it. Lapebie had been holding on to cars on the
climbs and drafting them on the flats. On the Aubsique, whe he was
closing in on Maes, he was lifted up the mountains by holding on to
one automobile after another."
"The officials penalzied Lapebie with a firm slap on the wrist: a 1
1/2 minute time penalty. The Belgians [blamed for the handlebar
sabotage] erupted in fury. Lapebie had cheated his way back into Tour
contention and the penalty inflicted left him far better off than if
he hadn't cheated and been penalized. The French riders threatened to
leave the race if the penalty were increased. . . "
"The next day, Stage 16 from Pau to Bordeaux, things grew even more
interesting. Maes [Lapebie's main rival, a Belgian] flatted. Lapebie
attacked and got a good gap. After getting his bike repaired, Maes
chased, trading pace with Gustaaf Deloor. Deloor was a Belgian [like
Maes], but he was riding as an individuel. Not being a member of the
Belgian Team, he was not allowed to assist Maes. This was strictly
against the rules. As Maes closed in on the Lapebie group, they came
to a level train crossing [in France!]. The signalman lowered the gate
just in front of Maes and Deloor right after Lapebie had gone through.
Maes dismounted and got his bike under the barrier and continued the
chase. He finished the stage 1 minute, 38 seconds behind Lapebie."
"Because of the illegal help Maes got from Deloor, the officals
penalized Maees 25 seconds. Feeling that the railway may had
intentionally acted to delay Maes and angry at the penalty that now
put Lapebie now [sic] only 25 seconds behind Maes, the Belgians quit
the race. Maes, even though he was in Yellow [!], withdrew from a race
he felt was being run in favor of the French. . . "
"L'Equipe says that Lapebie's greater skill in using his derailleur
significantly contributed to his winning margin [only 7'17"]. Vinci
[2nd place], who was not so adept, was forced to use gearing that at
times wasn't optimal. [And probably didn't hang on to cars up climbs.]
The 1937 derailleur was a far from perfect device. As Lapebie came
into the Parc des Princes velodrome for the finish of the final stage,
his chain came off. [And you wonder why so many Tour bikes have chain
watchers!] A quick fix and he rode into history."
--"The Story of the Tour de France," McGann, p. 137-9
That's the kind of stuff that doesn't work with your simplistic
average speed versus total distance theory, which ignores changing
roads, drugs, training, tactics, gears, tires, aerodynamics, rest
days, rules, support, flat fixes, and on and on and on. You have to
ignore the Vuelta and the Giro and just about every other stage race,
where the historical speeds rise without the drop in distance.
Incidentally, remember your demand that I start going 50% farther on
my daily ride, working hard at it?
Think about the hour record:
http://www.wolfgang-menn.de/hourrec.htm
The riders setting the hour record were presumably working hard.
But the speed doesn't drop as the distance increases. It rises.
From 1893 to 1996, the unfaired upright bicycle hour speed (and
distance) record increased from ~35 km to ~56 km, about 60% farther
and faster.
The chief changes were getting rid of horrible 7-tooth inch-pitch rear
cogs (much less efficient than , sneaking off to higher altitudes like
Mexico City, and improving the aerodynamics.
But the speed rose even during the inch-pitch era (and Coppi barely
bettered the 7-tooth records with his 15-tooth), the later records
were set near sea level, and the aerodynamics didn't go to extremes
until after Merckx.
(Well, there were drugs, too. A certain Italian rider is said to have
used five doses of amphetamines to set his record.)
Even something as simple as the hour record (no derailleur, no other
riders, flat as a pancake, no flats to fix) doesn't follow the
statistical theory that you embrace for the far more complicated TDF.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
Michael Press
<9619643b-5f00-4554...@c58g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>,
"b...@mambo.ucolick.org" <b...@mambo.ucolick.org> wrote:
I like him. Read one of his books. He talked about
his progress through the kitchen. Young he wanted
to be like the old hands. One day he looked at his
burnt, scarred hands and saw that he had arrived.
One chapter is titled "Who's cooking your food?"
--
Michael Press
Howard Kveck
"b...@mambo.ucolick.org" <b...@mambo.ucolick.org> wrote:
> Anthony Bourdain is a putz, but a funny one.
> He pisses off people who want their food to be
> lovingly caressed by European-trained Zen
> masters and can't handle the idea that restaurant
> kitchens are high stress places where sometimes
> people throw pots, or knives. Someone's gotta
> do that. Also, he's not one of those people that
> raves about the beauty of earthy peasant cuisine
> and then pretends offal doesn't exist.
ilked that in "Kitchen Confidential" he would tell the reader a couple of hard
and fast rules about the business then a couple chapters later he'd give an example
that disproved the rules he'd just laid out.
> I wonder if he's written about andouillette.
I don't think so, but he has written about Rachael Ray. Not much difference.
http://blog.ruhlman.com/ruhlmancom/2007/02/guest_blogging_.html
--
tanx,
Howard
The bloody pubs are bloody dull
The bloody clubs are bloody full
Of bloody girls and bloody guys
With bloody murder in their eyes
remove YOUR SHOES to reply, ok?
b...@mambo.ucolick.org
wrote:
> The same sort of speed jump was seen ten years later in 1937, which
> ran 1.7 km/h faster than 1936. But once again, the historical
> explanation is much more convincing that the statistical approach.
> (After all, the 1937 Tour was only 23 km shorter than 1936.)
One can't do a meaningful statistical comparison of a single
pair of years, so I wouldn't bother.
> That's the kind of stuff that doesn't work with your simplistic
> average speed versus total distance theory, which ignores changing
> roads, drugs, training, tactics, gears, tires, aerodynamics, rest
> days, rules, support, flat fixes, and on and on and on. You have to
> ignore the Vuelta and the Giro and just about every other stage race,
> where the historical speeds rise without the drop in distance.
As I showed, Carl, it works well for the postwar Giro.
>
> Incidentally, remember your demand that I start going 50% farther on
> my daily ride, working hard at it?
>
> Think about the hour record:
>
> http://www.wolfgang-menn.de/hourrec.htm
>
> The riders setting the hour record were presumably working hard.
>
> But the speed doesn't drop as the distance increases. It rises.
>
> From 1893 to 1996, the unfaired upright bicycle hour speed (and
> distance) record increased from ~35 km to ~56 km, about 60% farther
> and faster.
>
> The chief changes were getting rid of horrible 7-tooth inch-pitch rear
> cogs (much less efficient than , sneaking off to higher altitudes like
> Mexico City, and improving the aerodynamics.
>
> But the speed rose even during the inch-pitch era (and Coppi barely
> bettered the 7-tooth records with his 15-tooth), the later records
> were set near sea level, and the aerodynamics didn't go to extremes
> until after Merckx.
>
> (Well, there were drugs, too. A certain Italian rider is said to have
> used five doses of amphetamines to set his record.)
>
> Even something as simple as the hour record (no derailleur, no other
> riders, flat as a pancake, no flats to fix) doesn't follow the
> statistical theory that you embrace for the far more complicated TDF.
Mein Gott! Luftiges Carl, you've discovered that as the
speed rises in hour record attempts, the distance covered
rises as well! I am helpless to respond before the power of
this argument.
Ben
Michael Press
Howard Kveck <YOURh...@h-SHOESbomb.com> wrote:
> In article <9619643b-5f00-4554...@c58g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>,
> "b...@mambo.ucolick.org" <b...@mambo.ucolick.org> wrote:
>
> > Anthony Bourdain is a putz, but a funny one.
> > He pisses off people who want their food to be
> > lovingly caressed by European-trained Zen
> > masters and can't handle the idea that restaurant
> > kitchens are high stress places where sometimes
> > people throw pots, or knives. Someone's gotta
> > do that. Also, he's not one of those people that
> > raves about the beauty of earthy peasant cuisine
> > and then pretends offal doesn't exist.
>
> ilked that in "Kitchen Confidential" he would tell the reader a couple of hard
> and fast rules about the business then a couple chapters later he'd give an example
> that disproved the rules he'd just laid out.
>
> > I wonder if he's written about andouillette.
>
> I don't think so, but he has written about Rachael Ray. Not much difference.
>
> http://blog.ruhlman.com/ruhlmancom/2007/02/guest_blogging_.html
I like Anthony Bourdain. His faults are his own, and he does
not pretend otherwise. He is a very, very good cook.
He shows us some of the workings of the business without
diminishing our sense of wonder; while at the same time
he rips pretense point by point, and serves up his victims
with a pippin in the mouth.
--
Michael Press
Marian
wrote:
> The 1957 TDF--a bit of rough road:
> http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/v/aldoross/pd/Cailloux.JPG.html
> Yes, most of them have gotten off to push their bikes.
I think I was on that road during my recent trip across China! :)
-M
carl...@comcast.net
wrote:
Dear Ben,
Yes, the speed and distance increase for the hour. It's almost as if
riders are going faster as something changes over the years.
Odd how it doesn't follow your universal distance theory predicts,
isn't it? In fact, not much follows your theory. The races just keep
getting faster as time goes by, whether the distance increases, stays
the same, or decreases. Gosh, maybe there are other factors that you
can't look up in five minutes on the internet?
But if you're helpless, let's try something where you can get some
help.
Tell us how many watts you think the TDF riders gained when the Tour
shrank from 1947 to present.
That is, how many watts were they holding back in 1947? Feel free to
use those online calculators that you dislike.
What were those same TDF riders doing the same years when they rode
the Vuelta or Giro?
Why did they go just as slowly in shorter stage races in 1947 as they
did in the TDF?
Why did they keep going faster, year after year, until they all go
about the same higher speed nowadays?
It can't be distance--the Giro shrank much less than the TDF and the
Vuelta ended up about the same distance (it actually got longer in the
middle of the 1947-2007 years).
Watts up with that?
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
SLAVE of THE STATE
wrote:
> On Jul 29, 7:38 pm, "b...@mambo.ucolick.org" <b...@mambo.ucolick.org>
> wrote:
>
> > On Jul 29, 2:07 pm, "carlfo...@comcast.net" <carlfo...@comcast.net>
> > wrote:
> > > The riders setting the hour record were presumably working hard.
>
> > > But the speed doesn't drop as the distance increases. It rises.
>
> > speed rises in hour record attempts, the distance covered
> > rises as well! I am helpless to respond before the power of
> > this argument.
>
> > Ben
>
> Dear Ben,
>
> In fact, not much follows your theory.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Carl Fogel
Dumbassmunch-
I was able to follow it. You're just dumb.
hth,
SoTS
Howard Kveck
Michael Press <rub...@pacbell.net> wrote:
Have you tried his Les Halles Cookbook? I think it's pretty damn good for the
French classics. Plus the recipes are frequently delivered in his amusing style,
sometimes prodding the reader to try making things they normally wouldn't. Off the
top of my head, the rillettes are great and the pâté de campagne is outstanding.
Michael Press
Howard Kveck <YOURh...@h-SHOESbomb.com> wrote:
On my to do list. Thanks.
--
Michael Press
carl...@comcast.net
Dear Slave,
Wonderful!
Since you understand the less-distance=more-speed theory, will you
take a stab at explaining why the same riders in the same years in the
same era increased their speed in the Giro and the Vuelta just about
as much as they did in the Tour de France?
The Giro didn't shrink nearly as much as the TDF, and the Vuelta
increased in length in the middle of the post-WWII period before it
lapsed back to the same old distance.
It's almost as if bicycle speeds rose after WWII, whether they were
being ridden in the TDF, the Giro, or the Vuelta, regardless of
distance--kind of like Paris-Roubaix and the hour-record, come to
think of it.
There are, after all, a few things besides distance that affect
average speed. They just don't fit into a chart too well--better
drugs, diet, training, support, gears, tires, aerodynamics, roads,
tactics, incentives, and so on.
Here's a nice example of a 1950 delay that isn't often seen in the
modern Tour:
http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/v/aldoross/pd/Wet+Conditions.JPG.html
A less impressive delay in 1948:
http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/v/aldoross/pd/Thunderstorm_1948.jpg.html
I'm sure that you can follow the idea.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
SLAVE of THE STATE
wrote:
>
> Dear Slave,
>
> Wonderful!
>
> Since you understand the less-distance=more-speed theory, will you
> take a stab at explaining why the same riders in the same years in the
> same era increased their speed in the Giro and the Vuelta just about
> as much as they did in the Tour de France?
Okay, pretend I'm thinking about it ...
... ... ...
... ...
...
Um, no.
> ...
>
> There are, after all, a few things besides distance that affect
> average speed. They just don't fit into a chart too well--better
> drugs, diet, training, support, gears, tires, aerodynamics, roads,
> tactics, incentives, and so on.
What about better looking hookers at the team hotel?
Put THAT in you calculator, Mr. Fogel!
"What about THAT, Mr. Fung?"--Barry Scheck (O.J. Simpson double-
murder trial)
b...@mambo.ucolick.org
wrote:
> On Jul 29, 7:38 pm, "b...@mambo.ucolick.org" <b...@mambo.ucolick.org>
> wrote:
>
> > Mein Gott! Luftiges Carl, you've discovered that as the
> > speed rises in hour record attempts, the distance covered
> > rises as well! I am helpless to respond before the power of
> > this argument.
>
> > Ben
>
> Dear Ben,
>
> Yes, the speed and distance increase for the hour. It's almost as if
> riders are going faster as something changes over the years.
>
> Odd how it doesn't follow your universal distance theory predicts,
> isn't it? In fact, not much follows your theory. The races just keep
> getting faster as time goes by, whether the distance increases, stays
> the same, or decreases. Gosh, maybe there are other factors that you
> can't look up in five minutes on the internet?
>
> But if you're helpless, let's try something where you can get some
> help.
Nebech,
Indeed, the speed and distance of the hour record
increase as the years go by. If they didn't, it wouldn't
be much of a record, would it?
An hour record attempt is not like a Grand Tour.
The day after an hour record attempt, you put
your feet up and drink beer. The day after a
Grand Tour stage, you ride another Tour stage.
Cumulative fatigue is important.
I don't have a "universal distance theory." I showed
an empirical distance-speed correlation for the
postwar Tour. It turned out there is a similar
correlation for the postwar Giro. I didn't predict the
results for the hour record, Paris-Roubaix, or the
Tuesday Night World Championships. However,
I do think that in rides limited by fatigue, longer
ones will be slower. Perhaps you could look
up some randonneur times and see if that holds
for 200km vs 600km brevets.
> Tell us how many watts you think the TDF riders gained when the Tour
> shrank from 1947 to present.
>
> That is, how many watts were they holding back in 1947? Feel free to
> use those online calculators that you dislike.
>
> What were those same TDF riders doing the same years when they rode
> the Vuelta or Giro?
>
> Why did they go just as slowly in shorter stage races in 1947 as they
> did in the TDF?
>
> Why did they keep going faster, year after year, until they all go
> about the same higher speed nowadays?
>
> It can't be distance--the Giro shrank much less than the TDF and the
> Vuelta ended up about the same distance (it actually got longer in the
> middle of the 1947-2007 years).
>
> Watts up with that?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewbacca_defense
(The basis of humor is repetition.)
If I could guess numbers for wattage differences
1947-2007, (a) would they be believable, and (b) what
would we do with them? Is it plausible that riders
on a 300km stage in 1947 were 20 watts lower than on
a 200 km stage in 2007? 50 watts? 100? I don't know.
More data, let alone guesses, might just confuse you,
and the existing data seem to be adequate for that.
The Tour has always been the most important race,
and so even though it is the longest, riders race it
the hardest. (As late as the 80s, one of the reasons
Sean Kelly won Paris-Nice so many times is that
many of the others were using it to get in shape.)
In fact, even today, the Tour is faster than the Giro,
contrary to "they all go about the same higher speed
nowadays."
http://www.ucolick.org/~bjw/misc/rbr/tdf.distance_speed.png
http://www.ucolick.org/~bjw/misc/rbr/giro.distance_speed.png
There are many reasons why the riders might go
faster now. However, we have not solidly demonstrated
that any of them have an effect discernable in the
total Tour average speed. The prospects for doing that
are small because of the strong distance-speed
correlation. This is a conservative statement. I say
"The data aren't good enough to tell" and you accuse
me of perfidiously refusing to speculate.
Feel free to support your own speculation with some wattage
calculations, PubMed links on time to fatigue, and the
impact of gonfleur weight on climbing speed. Or you
could just buy a PowerTap and go for a few rides. Maybe
start training with the local racing group. It's better
than asking for other people to do your homework.
Ben
Donald Munro
> What about better looking hookers at the team hotel?
I demand a rise if I have to inspect their
breasts too.
SLAVE of THE STATE
wrote:
> More data, let alone guesses, might just confuse you,
> and the existing data seem to be adequate for that.
"Might?" You don't have to cherry pick Carl's responses to have a
high confidence level. Just use the shorthand "*will* confuse you."
> There are many reasons why the riders might go
> faster now. However, we have not solidly demonstrated
> that any of them have an effect discernable in the
> total Tour average speed. The prospects for doing that
> are small because of the strong distance-speed
> correlation.
I say it is also because it would cost too much to draw that out in a
precise sense. Great, a lot of hard work to do something that really
doesn't matter in the sense of high precision & accuracy.
As if saying "going from poorly made and maintained roads to high
quality and well-maintained roads would ceteris paribus contribute to
higher speeds" is outlandish because it appears to the fool as some
unsubstantiated /a priori/ argument. In fact, "the empirical data"
behind the apparent /a priori/ argument does exist. People have gone
down excellent roads and crap roads, and they know what it can do for
speed, regardless of the direction of the wind. "The data" just
doesn't exist in the formal sense that a pseudo-scientist thinks it
"ought" to exist. And this, I think, is the essence of your closing
advice. Quantative data and ensuing conclusions can get expensive.
Qualitative guidance is often adequate to the task at hand.
> This is a conservative statement. I say
> "The data aren't good enough to tell" and you accuse
> me of perfidiously refusing to speculate.
>
> Feel free to support your own speculation with some wattage
> calculations, PubMed links on time to fatigue, and the
> impact of gonfleur weight on climbing speed. Or you
> could just buy a PowerTap and go for a few rides. Maybe
> start training with the local racing group. It's better
> than asking for other people to do your homework.
Good advice, since asking him to think is like asking a pig to fly.
You sure are patient.
Cheers!
William Asher
Viagra can help with that.
--
Bill Asher
carl...@comcast.net
wrote:
>
> There are many reasons why the riders might go
> faster now. However, we have not solidly demonstrated
> that any of them have an effect discernable in the
> total Tour average speed. The prospects for doing that
> are small because of the strong distance-speed
> correlation. This is a conservative statement. I say
> "The data aren't good enough to tell" and you accuse
> me of perfidiously refusing to speculate.
>
> Feel free to support your own speculation with some wattage
> calculations, PubMed links on time to fatigue, and the
> impact of gonfleur weight on climbing speed. Or you
> could just buy a PowerTap and go for a few rides. Maybe
> start training with the local racing group. It's better
> than asking for other people to do your homework.
>
> Ben
Dear Ben,
Ah, so Armstrong was racing his hardest in the 2001 TDF rain stage?
"Tour organisers were forced to bend their own rules to avoid the
disqualification of almost the entire peloton after Erik Dekker led a
breakaway into Pontarlier. The Dutchman led the 14-man breakaway,
which collectively set a Tour record after the last of them to cross
the line finished 26min 31sec ahead of the peloton, nearly four
minutes longer than the previous record for post- war Tours between a
break and the peloton. That left all except the breakaways outside the
permitted time limit, which race officials chose to extend rather than
reduce the Tour to a 14-man contest. O'Grady was among the front group
and regained the yellow jersey."
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20010730/ai_n14402737/pg_2?tag=artBody;col1
"Breakaway" meant that they decided not to lollygag, to use your
phrase, and take it easy in the rain with the rest of the peloton--the
kind of tacit relaxation that led Desgrange to change the rules in
1927 and produced a 10% speed jump.
Let's see, that stage, Colmar to Pontarlier was 138 miles. The
"breakaway" of undistinguished riders who just wanted to get out of
the rain finished in 4:59:18. The rest arrived 26:31 later.
I get ~27.7 mph versus ~25.4 mph--it was so big a difference that
Armstrong and most of the rest of the Tour would have been
disqualified for missing the time cut, except for the rule that the
Tour can change its rules whenever it seems like a good idea.
The slugs-in-the-rain example was simply dramatic and narrow enough to
draw a lot of attention. Even the guys left behind didn't try to claim
that they were hoarding their precious reserves for the mountains.
Do you have a graph for rainfall versus average speed?
Or for average speed versus how strictly the time-cut rule is
enforced?
:-)
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
carl...@comcast.net
Dear Slave,
I look forward to your gallery and charting of average speed versus
your rating of the podium girls in multi-stage events!
Here's a good starting point:
"Spain was so old-fashioned [in the first 1935 Vuelta] that huge
offence was created after the stage from Séville to Cáceres when one
of the Belgians tried to kiss the girl who presented his bouquet. The
woman was unmarried and it was outrageous to kiss her in public.
François Adam was lucky to escape without being tied to a donkey and
hauled out of town."
http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2006//vuelta06/?id=/features/2006/woodland_vuelta
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
William Asher
<snip>
>
> Do you have a graph for rainfall versus average speed?
>
Carl:
Do *you* even remember what point you are supposedly arguing?
--
Bill Asher
b...@mambo.ucolick.org
wrote:
> Ah, so Armstrong was racing his hardest in the 2001 TDF rain stage?
>
> "Tour organisers were forced to bend their own rules to avoid the
> disqualification of almost the entire peloton after Erik Dekker led a
> breakaway into Pontarlier. The Dutchman led the 14-man breakaway,
> which collectively set a Tour record after the last of them to cross
> the line finished 26min 31sec ahead of the peloton, nearly four
> minutes longer than the previous record for post- war Tours between a
> break and the peloton. That left all except the breakaways outside the
> permitted time limit, which race officials chose to extend rather than
> reduce the Tour to a 14-man contest. O'Grady was among the front group
> and regained the yellow jersey."
>
> http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20010730/ai_n14402737...
>
> The slugs-in-the-rain example was simply dramatic and narrow enough to
> draw a lot of attention. Even the guys left behind didn't try to claim
> that they were hoarding their precious reserves for the mountains.
I remember that stage, 2001 stage 8 from Colmar to
Pontarlier. I watched it on TV as it happened. The finale
was an exciting textbook example of breakaway tactics.
Dekker, Servais Knaven and Aitor Gonzalez (before he
got too good, lost motivation, got popped, and started
sucking, in whatever order) attacked from the breakaway,
and then Dekker and Knaven worked Gonzalez over.
Andrei Kivilev (RIP) was in the breakaway, finishing
33 min ahead of Armstrong and the other favorites.
However, his GC advantage was only 13 min after
stage 8. A good rider, he would finish 4th in Paris,
9:53 behind Armstrong. A footnote to the 2001 Tour is
that on stage 4, USPS and Once had put the hammer
down on a rolling cross-wind stage. The entire
Cofidis team, including Kivilev, was caught out
and lost 18 minutes. This is why Kivilev was only
13 min ahead after stage 8.
Had Kivilev not lost those 18 minutes, the GC teams
including USPS would have had to chase the stage 8
break for real. If they had not, Kivilev would have won
the 2001 Tour. As it was, they were lucky he had a
couple of significant losses (I think he did badly in
the mountain ITT). The legend of LANCE and of
Bruyneel the master tactitian could have looked different.
Teams (Cofidis on stage 4, USPS on stage 8) can't
afford to slack off much in the Tour. If you don't
race hard, it will punish your mistakes.
Ben
Bob Schwartz
> On Aug 1, 2:38 pm, "carlfo...@comcast.net" <carlfo...@comcast.net>
> wrote:
{snip}
Dear stommeling,
Some people have figured out that there is no point
to following up Kunich. And some people are pretty
fucking stoopid.
Of course, that is totally unrelated to this thread.
Completely unrelated. No connection at all.
Cheers,
Bob Schwartz
b...@mambo.ucolick.org
wrote:
Tzaddik,
Please do not confuse the TOM9000 with the
next-generation CARL386. CARL386 uses
advanced artificial neural network technology
to generate responses spanning a much larger
weirdspace. It's not as superficially outrageous,
but it is less predictable. I know the code inside
and out (well, except for the part that looks up
pictures of old bicycles - that's just a plug in to the
Google API), and I have no clue where it gets
this shit.
The disadvantage of ANN technology is that the
only way to train and improve the code is for
people to keep talking to it. JFT was doing a
heroic job over on r.b.tech, but I think he put
the Tour ahead of training CARL386, and who
can blame him? So I had to pick up the slack.
Ben
Donald Munro
> Some people have figured out that there is no point to following up
> Kunich. And some people are pretty fucking stoopid.
>
> Of course, that is totally unrelated to this thread. Completely unrelated.
> No connection at all.
Dumas,
You should be working on integrating POET technology into
your bots to keep up with the competition. And limericks
don't count.
Donald Munro
> "Spain was so old-fashioned [in the first 1935 Vuelta] that huge offence
> was created after the stage from Séville to Cáceres when one of the
> Belgians tried to kiss the girl who presented his bouquet. The woman was
> unmarried and it was outrageous to kiss her in public. François Adam was
> lucky to escape without being tied to a donkey and hauled out of town."
Must have been a pony not a donkey. Or could be made into one.
Bob Schwartz
> The disadvantage of ANN technology is that the
> only way to train and improve the code is for
> people to keep talking to it. JFT was doing a
> heroic job over on r.b.tech, but I think he put
> the Tour ahead of training CARL386, and who
> can blame him? So I had to pick up the slack.
Dear Oelewapper,
You say talking to the CARL386 improves the code.
Shall I ask it to produce a measure of its code
quality? Surely this is something we can quantify.
Cheers,
Bob Schwartz
Donald Munro
>> The disadvantage of ANN technology is that the only way to train and
>> improve the code is for people to keep talking to it. JFT was doing a
>> heroic job over on r.b.tech, but I think he put the Tour ahead of
>> training CARL386, and who can blame him? So I had to pick up the slack.
> You say talking to the CARL386 improves the code. Shall I ask it to
> produce a measure of its code quality? Surely this is something we can
> quantify.
<http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel1/2225/8871/00391466.pdf?arnumber=391466>
carl...@comcast.net
wrote:
Dear Ben,
Actually, TDF teams routinely slacked off after a hard stage. When
everyone did it together, it wasn't as noticeable--
At least until they _really_ made it obvious:
"The [post-WWII] racers continued to see the Tour as particularly
dangerous (and for many, poorly paid) work, characterized by suffering
and sacrifice [3]. Their occasional refusal to 'work' after the war
went neither unnoticed nor unpunished. When they paused to bathe in
the
Mediterranean during a particularly hot stage in 1950, the press
humorously reported their escapade; not amused, the organizers fined
them [4]. Two years later, the racers slowed their pace for more than
half the sun-drenched, two-hundred-kilometer sixteenth stage between
Perpignan and Toulouse; this time the organizers responded by
canceling the day's prize money. To do so, they invoked a prewar rule
requiring stage winners to average at least thirty kilometers per hour
to qualify for prize money (the Belgian Andre Rosseel, who won the
stage, had averaged twenty-nine kilometers per hour). . . ."
"Commentators pointed out that the 1952 itinerary was especially
difficult, the weather that year particularly bad, and the early
stages unusually bad, and that after the slowdown the racers had
covered the last eighty kilometers of the stage at a very fast pace.
Even Desgrange, they noted, had avoided canceling prize money.
Instead, he had reduced prizes by 10 or 25 percent, or paid a few
contestants to race hard, thus guaranteeing a sufficiently high
average pace for the stage winner even as the rest of the pack
meandered along. [6]"
"Unmoved by these arguments, Jacques Goddet [Tour director] justified
the cancellation of prize money in a lengthy editorial titled, 'Why
the Racers Must be Harshly Treated.' Describing the slowdown as a '115-
kilometer-long strike' . . . . Meanwhile, his coorganizer, Felix
Levitan, responding to a radio journalist's criticism of the racers'
uncompetitive conduct, defended them as simply having taken a day off
during a very eventful, exciting Tour. [8]"
[As opposed to an ordinary, uneventful and unexciting Tour?]
"Prominent racers, such as the retired two-time Tour winner Andre
Leduqand the young Breton star Louison Bobet, rallied to the racers'
defense. [10] Bobet, who was not competing in 1952 but soon became the
first racer to win three consecutive Tours, argued that 'one has to
know what it is to suffer on a bike to understand that one cannot do
battle continuously at the pace at which today's races are run . . .'"
"The organizers, while admitting that the racers were incapable of
racing hard all the time, sought to force them to do just that, lest
the race's image suffer when contestants slacked off."
http://books.google.com/books?id=M-vUF6Y_4RUC&printsec=frontcover#PPA215,M1
After that introductory material, the book gets to the 1978 Tour
strike on the split stage from Tarbes, where the riders lollygagged
along at about 12 mph on the first half and then walked their bikes
the last hundred yards to the finish line, protesting the awful
transfer from the previous stage, slowed by unexpected traffic, which
left many of them without sleep in wretched hotels. That half of the
split stage was annulled. The book points out that the same sort of
strike about similar complaints in 1977 in Paris-Nice led to better
conditions for Paris-Nice in 1978.
***
Photos of Tour racers showing that sometimes they didn't always race
as hard as they could:
Page up for the 1950 Mediterranean bathing expedition:
Page up for the riders walking across the finish line in 1978:
***
A few odd photos to remind us how conditions improved, all from "An
Intimate Portrait of the TDF," which is mostly photos of riders _off_
their bicycles, sitting around in hotels.
Gradually riders gave up stopping for lunch, a cold drink, or flats,
so average speeds rose:
Eating lunch in the 1922 TDF:
http://i38.tinypic.com/2djq7oj.jpg
Getting A cold drink in the 1922 TDF:
http://i37.tinypic.com/2rqcdpd.jpg
Bottecchia fixing yet another flat in 1924:
http://i36.tinypic.com/j9ovas.jpg
***
It's hard to imagine Armstrong and Landis sharing a cramped bath tub
after a stage instead of stretching out in a hot tub. Hot water was
scarce in post-war France, and hotels didn't cater to swarms of Tour
riders.
Robic sharing the tub with another rider:
http://i38.tinypic.com/2i8kd8y.jpg
Pingeon and fellow bathers:
http://i35.tinypic.com/2mqvm74.jpg
Let's hope that Coppi had already enjoyed a hot bath and wasn't having
to soak his sore body a bit at a time:
http://i35.tinypic.com/30saxaq.jpg
***
Of course, there wasn't much hope of air-conditioning in French hotels
in the summer back then, but it's hard to find a photo of what wasn't
available. This picture of Bahamontes heading home after quitting in
1957 reminds us just how differently Tour stars traveled back then:
http://i33.tinypic.com/sf8175.jpg
From the same book, a few details about Rik Van Steenbergen, who rode
in two TDF's and won the 1949 Toulouse stage:
"To survive [after 1945] young Steenbergen traveled all over Europe in
search of a cycling contract. Often he went to Switzerland, one of the
few neighboring countries spared the shortages of war. He always came
back richer, arms full of watches, which he rushed to sell at a
profit. . . ."
"He constantly criss-crossed Europe, pocketing slim profits, going
sleepless behind the wheel of his car. He raced night and day, summer
and winter . . . For him, one pair of socks was enough for the season,
and when those socks had holes in them, he raced without them in just
his leather shoes."
Not exactly the modern tour rider's life.
***
As a final sidelight on the kinds of things that slowed the post-war
Tour down besides distance, remember the flats that riders had to fix
themselves until 1956?
And were still fixing in 1959, judging by this photo of riders with
pumps and gonfleurs and spare tubulars:
http://i35.tinypic.com/dqiwc1.jpg
Back then, flats from glass were more common than they are now because
plastic bottles weren't available. That's obvious to modern riders.
But nails on the roads were a much, much bigger problem back then.
For fun, try to name the two main sources, now almost vanished, of all
those nails strewn on French roads into the 1960s.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
raa...@gmail.com
wrote:
>
> After that introductory material, the book gets to the 1978 Tour
> strike on the split stage from Tarbes, where the riders lollygagged
> along at about 12 mph on the first half and then walked their bikes
> the last hundred yards to the finish line, protesting the awful
> transfer from the previous stage, slowed by unexpected traffic, which
> left many of them without sleep in wretched hotels. That half of the
> split stage was annulled. The book points out that the same sort of
> strike about similar complaints in 1977 in Paris-Nice led to better
> conditions for Paris-Nice in 1978.
>
> ***
>
> Photos of Tour racers showing that sometimes they didn't always race
> as hard as they could:
>
> Page up for the 1950 Mediterranean bathing expedition:
>
>
> Page up for the riders walking across the finish line in 1978:
>
>
> - Show quoted text -
thank you carl for your excellent find.
carl...@comcast.net
Dear R,
Glad you enjoyed it.
This one is hard to believe, but I can't prove that it was a publicity
stunt:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles.tech/msg/87139456f513b1bc
Back when the Tour started, they didn't fool around with flame wars.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel