Should Mejia have helped Armstrong in
Greg MCSHANE
> In <3uv19f$f...@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu>
> Stump <jst...@umdsun2.umd.umich.edu> writes:
>
>
> Not really. Although Lance was the team captain, he wasn't the
> best rider for G.C. If you recall, Mejia finished 4th in 1993.
> imho, it is Mejia who should have been given more support, both
> last year and this one.
>
> >I wonder if Armstrong was unable to hold his wheel?
>
> The boy can't hang yet in the big mountains.
> That's why Alvaro made the top 20 and Lance didn't.
....and he won't be able to either unless he loses some blubber,
according to the profile in l'Equipe after his stage win Armstrong
is 75kg for 1.77 m. This doesn't compare favorably with Indurain
(79kg for 1.87m) or Romminger (64kg for 1.72m) or for that matter
any of the other guys who are up front in the mountains. If he
wants to climb he's going to have to lose a lot of weight - just
like Boredman did.
Greg McShane
ENS-Lyon
Dave Blake
I seem to recall Lance as being 6'2", or 1.87 m tall. Could be I am wrong
though.
--
---------------------------
Dave Blake
dbl...@bme.jhu.edu
" The more you drive, the less intelligent you are." - Repo man
Eric Harvey
: I seem to recall Lance as being 6'2", or 1.87 m tall. Could be I am wrong
: though.
I think you are wrong here, Lance is listed at 5'10" and 161 lbs, which
puts him metrically at 1.78 m and 73 kg. This is sourced from the
VeloNews Tour de France preview. They claim Big Mig is 6'2" and 172 lbs,
or 1.88 m and 78 kg. This puts Lance's height to weight ratio at
0.0244 kg/m and Big Mig's at 0.0241 kg/m. This difference is only 1.2%
in Indurain's favour. But I don't think Lance's body versus Miguel's
body is the issue, I'm sure the difference lies in things like
V02 max, lactate threshold, and less tangible things like the ability
to recover from day to day.
Eric.
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Wu-chun Feng
>In article n...@newsbf02.news.aol.com, joe...@aol.com (JoexFCI) writes:
>> In <3uv19f$f...@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu>
>> Stump <jst...@umdsun2.umd.umich.edu> writes:
>>
>> Not really. Although Lance was the team captain, he wasn't the
>> best rider for G.C. If you recall, Mejia finished 4th in 1993.
>> imho, it is Mejia who should have been given more support, both
>> last year and this one.
>>
>> >I wonder if Armstrong was unable to hold his wheel?
>>
>> The boy can't hang yet in the big mountains.
>> That's why Alvaro made the top 20 and Lance didn't.
>
>....and he won't be able to either unless he loses some blubber,
>
Huh? While I don't have actual body composition statistics on
Mr. Armstrong, I would bet that he is NOT carrying a lot of BLUBBER,
but that he is carrying more upper-body MUSCLE mass than most
cyclists. In layman's terms, a given volume of MUSCLE weighs more
that the same volume of FAT (or blubber, as you put it).
Remember that Armstrong has a triathlete background; in particular, he
started out with swimming. When he started professional cycling, he
had a huge upper body (take a look at pictures of him in 1992 versus
now). He has worked hard to "rid" himself of his upper-body musculature.
In fact, I read somewhere (I don't recall where) that he has shaved off
about 15 lbs since turning pro.
>If he
>wants to climb he's going to have to lose a lot of weight
>
Probably ...
Wu
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Igor Rivin
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From: gmcs...@ens-lyon.fr (Greg MCSHANE)
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.racing
Date: 25 Jul 1995 12:09:21 GMT
Organization: Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon
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References: <3v1rdn$5...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>
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> >
> Did you see Armstrong after his stage win. As he rolled into Paris
> Armstrong looked gaunt and had deep hollows in his cheeks.
As a matter of fact I did. He isn't nearly as gaunt as Riis for example
-in fact I wouldn't really say he was gaunt at all. I got a better look
at him when he crawled by on the Col d'Oeillon, why I was one of the
public lining the virages having cycled 16km up the thing.
Riis is actually a bad example, since I think he is the same height
as Indurain, but considerably lighter, which indicates that you do not
need to be as gaunt as Riis to do well.
Anyway I'm fed up with people posting how well Armstrong or Boardman
are developing, why can't we talk about people who are showing good
form at the minute? Gotti - great ride from an unknown guy. Buenahora
- who was the most aggresive rider of the tour and no one has mentioned.
Escartin - who managed to beat his team leader St. Tony.
Gotti is amazing -- I think he actually did a fair bit better in the
mountains (on the average) than Pantani, who would win a stage, then
lose 15 minutes.
As for Escartin, the fact that St Tony has been a zero obviously
helped him, as he wasn't as saddled with domestique duties... Also,
Madouas seems to be quite a stud these days.
MikeL56202
the tour for stage wins and to finish. I do not think he was riding to win
mountain stages, but just to finish them and hopefully not lose his
ability to compete on the stages he wanted to win.
Just so some people don't forget, although Madous is certainly a
revelation this year, especially in the mountains, Armstrong dropped him
like a rock on the Beech Mountain stage and all mountain stages for that
matter, at the Tour DuPont. (I know that the TDP is not the TDF, but
Castorama was riding hard at the TDP for stage wins) The point is that,
Madous goal at TDF was to compete on mountain stages, Lances was not.
Let's judge Armstrongs climbing after the year he declares he is going for
GC and not just stage wins.
By the way, after DuPont I had the chance to talk with Ekimov, who
indicated he was amazed at Armstrongs one year improvement, and that he
personally considered him a future TDF contender.
Mark Hickey
> > The boy can't hang yet in the big mountains.
> > That's why Alvaro made the top 20 and Lance didn't.
>
> ....and he won't be able to either unless he loses some blubber
Huh? Why is it that persons of from those funny little islands
just west of Yurrup have this thing about the weight of the
American riders? (I'm making an assumption based on the McX
name - forgive me if I'm wrong in this particular case). First
it's "Fat Greggie" now it's "Lance Blubberbutt"???!!! C'mon,
the guy must have a body fat percentage of about 4%! According
to popular wisdom, you can't climb unless you're short,
anorexic, and bald! That didn't seem to stop Mig from cleaning
up yet again.
True, Lance probably won't ever take the KOM jersey, but he is
a very capable "all-rounder" from whom you will see bigger things
in the future (results, not body parts....).
In fact, all the attention being paid to the American butts has me
a little paranoid about travelling to the UK! ;-)
Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
Greg MCSHANE
> >
> Did you see Armstrong after his stage win. As he rolled into Paris
> Armstrong looked gaunt and had deep hollows in his cheeks.
As a matter of fact I did. He isn't nearly as gaunt as Riis for example
-in fact I wouldn't really say he was gaunt at all. I got a better look
at him when he crawled by on the Col d'Oeillon, why I was one of the
public lining the virages having cycled 16km up the thing.
> He is not fat. He certainly had a lot more massive upper body than many other
> cyclists when he came into the sport since he was a cross over athlete
> and was in more general good condition than the fairly leg heavy build
> of a pro cyclist but he has consistently over the past couple of years
> been building his condition and losing some of his upper body bulk and has
> I must point out been improving as he has been maturing.
I never said he was fat. Boardman wasn't fat when he broke the hour record
the first time (and during the '94 season) but he still managed to lose a lot
of weight between last season and this. That's what you have to do if you
want to climb with the best guys. What I pointed out was that his weight
to height ratio doesn't compare well with the main contenders and while you
might dismiss this as a useless piece of statistics, I'm sure that Pantani
with his 56kg for 1.70m will be laughing all the way up the Alpe d'Huez.
> I wonder if you had been world champiuon by the time you were 22?
Irrelevant. Dr. Ferrari and co. know more about cycling physiology
than anyone yet I don't hear people demanding his palmares.
> Perhaps he is developing
> at his own remarkable pace. Certainly he is not yet a great climber
> for the alps or the Pyrenes but he is a great racer and for you to call
> him fat is awfully easy to do from your comfy chair behind your glowing
> computer screen.
Like I said I did see him quite close up, in the flesh as it were and
not with my arse on a stool, just the other week between Grenoble and
St Etienne. He still seems the wrong shape for a bike rider whether in
real life or in the pictorials. All that triathlon when you are young
isn't goint to make you the toplight/bottom heavy build that you need
for the major tours, as you admit above. Perhaps, as Lemond said in
an interview in Velo Un just before he retired, Armstrong can look
forward to a career like Fondriest (who also won the world championships
very young).
Anyway I'm fed up with people posting how well Armstrong or Boardman
are developing, why can't we talk about people who are showing good
form at the minute? Gotti - great ride from an unknown guy. Buenahora
- who was the most aggresive rider of the tour and no one has mentioned.
Escartin - who managed to beat his team leader St. Tony.
Greg McShane
ENS-Lyon
Jay Wenner
: >
: > >I wonder if Armstrong was unable to hold his wheel?
: >
: > The boy can't hang yet in the big mountains.
: ....and he won't be able to either unless he loses some blubber,
: according to the profile in l'Equipe after his stage win Armstrong
: is 75kg for 1.77 m. This doesn't compare favorably with Indurain
: (79kg for 1.87m) or Romminger (64kg for 1.72m) or for that matter
: any of the other guys who are up front in the mountains. If he
: wants to climb he's going to have to lose a lot of weight - just
: like Boredman did.
Armstrong said he is "big boned," but lost 5 lbs this year. Also,
it _seems_ his plan was to go for a stage win(s), and not worry about
the GC. If Lance hung with the "sprinter's group" through the Alps
rather than bust his ass for GC, he would end up an hour down on GC,
he wouldn't be deterred from escaping (in later stages) for a stage win,
and he would be fresh enough to put in the effort. OTOH, if he was able
to bust his ass, and end up 15 min down on GC after the Alps, then
his chances at a stage win would about small. My point? We don't
really know how well Lance was able to do in the high mts because
he _may_ not have given it his all.
Actually, I think he has had a pretty good year so far both in race
tactics and in riding form.
Jay