Pub Talk - Long Distance Runners..what if?

tailwindhome

Stay with me on this one.

As I was watching the start of the Commonwealth Games 10,000 metres it occurred to me the reason Chris Froome looks so ungainly on a bike is that he has the physique of a long distance runner rather than the shorter physiques we are used to seeing from Southern European and South American climbers.






So

How relevant is muscle mass v heart/lungs for a cyclists performance? In other how much muscle does it take to turn the pedals?

If a world class 10,000 metre runner was given a bit of coaching what sort of time do you think he'd do up the Alpe?

When the guys in Africa who currently would dominate distance running learn to ride a bike, will our expectations of normal human performance need recalibrated?



*Waits for Iain's book recommendation*

mike6

Tall riders often look ungainly, Wiggins seems to be the exception but he had years of track training to smooth him out.

frenchfighter

It is an interesting point. I suspect that in 10-20 years time we will see a lot of Africans tearing the scene up a la Colombians. There are some super talented African riders out there but the support network is so far behind. Reza is a good example of their talent (but not the uber talent I think will come) - he can climb, ride the flat and sprint. To be honest one of my biggest disappointments has been Tekle...I really thought he would come to dominate. Would love to read an interview with him and with those close to him to try and understand why he comes up short.

As an aside, what is your fondness of pubs? You have started about four threads 'Pub talk...'. Probably could just leave that out.

mm1

Interesting question. From memory, Ian Stewart bronze medalist in the Munich Olympics 5,000 metres, European (1969) and Commonwealth (1970) champion at that distance and World Cross-country champion in 1975 thought about switching to cycling and (I think) may have done some road racing without great success.

Also from memory, Chris Boardman's fitness was apparently equivalent to a world class 800m runner.

It is entirely possible to perform well in both sports (indeed a friend of mine has finished top 10 in premier calendar races and been a county marathon champion), but some coming from a distance running background may struggle with top end speed and changes of pace.

skylla

I'm always impressed at how well fellrunners are at riding non-feller riders off their socks..

Pross

I've said recently on here that once the coaching and equipment situation gets sorted out in African countries we will get our first black African Tour winner. All the things that produce top quality endurance runners should be transferable so it should just be a case of coaching and opportunity.

FJS

frenchfighter wrote:

It is an interesting point. I suspect that in 10-20 years time we will see a lot of Africans tearing the scene up a la Colombians. There are some super talented African riders out there but the support network is so far behind. Reza is a good example of their talent (but not the uber talent I think will come) - he can climb, ride the flat and sprint. To be honest one of my biggest disappointments has been Tekle...I really thought he would come to dominate. Would love to read an interview with him and with those close to him to try and understand why he comes up short.

As an aside, what is your fondness of pubs? You have started about four threads 'Pub talk...'. Probably could just leave that out.

Reza is not African though, is he, just a black guy from France.
Tekle is still only 25 years old, still time to improve.
I'm looking forward to seeing Merhawi Kudus in the Vuelta. And Berhane

fleshtuxedo

skylla wrote:

I'm always impressed at how well fellrunners are at riding non-feller riders off their socks..

+1 round my way in Yorkshire, there's loads of good club riders from fell running backgrounds. Doesn't prove anything, but that's good enough for pub talk.

FJS

FleshTuxedo wrote:

skylla wrote:

I'm always impressed at how well fellrunners are at riding non-feller riders off their socks..

+1 round my way in Yorkshire, there's loads of good club riders from fell running backgrounds. Doesn't prove anything, but that's good enough for pub talk.

Also lots of good riders from a rowing background. Think that an (endurance) sports background in general helps taking up cycling at club level...

frenchfighter

FJS wrote:

frenchfighter wrote:

It is an interesting point. I suspect that in 10-20 years time we will see a lot of Africans tearing the scene up a la Colombians. There are some super talented African riders out there but the support network is so far behind. Reza is a good example of their talent (but not the uber talent I think will come) - he can climb, ride the flat and sprint. To be honest one of my biggest disappointments has been Tekle...I really thought he would come to dominate. Would love to read an interview with him and with those close to him to try and understand why he comes up short.

As an aside, what is your fondness of pubs? You have started about four threads 'Pub talk...'. Probably could just leave that out.

Reza is not African though, is he, just a black guy from France.
Tekle is still only 25 years old, still time to improve.
I'm looking forward to seeing Merhawi Kudus in the Vuelta. And Berhane

Just a black guy from France :roll:

i do not know his family tree but I would be very surprised if he does not have pure African genes in him...
It doesn't matter where they grew up overly much in this context, their genetic capability matters much more.
Tekle has been trying for years and has done nothing much. I watch and wait though.
Yeah, those MTN riders are solid.

mm1

FJS wrote:

Also lots of good riders from a rowing background. Think that an (endurance) sports background in general helps taking up cycling at club level...

Yes. Rowers have power and strength that distance runners don't. IMO it is a mistake to think of cycling as simply an endurance sport, a lot of top end is needed that someone who has trained for long steady distance won't necessarily have.

FJS

I think Reza's family is from Guadeloupe (he's born in France though); Caribbeans tend to be more of West African than East African (associated with long distance running) origin.
The nature vs nurture balance in all this is a complicated debate

iainf72

Read the Sports Gene :P

Africa has an enormous genetic pool - Considerably bigger than Europe in terms of variety so there will no doubt be people from some regions who'd be possibly very good bike riders

http://blog.ted.com/2014/03/20/whats-ma ... t-ted2014/

Find the Ted talk and watch it as well. It's fairly mindblowing

Crozza

mm1 wrote:

FJS wrote:

Also lots of good riders from a rowing background. Think that an (endurance) sports background in general helps taking up cycling at club level...

Yes. Rowers have power and strength that distance runners don't. IMO it is a mistake to think of cycling as simply an endurance sport, a lot of top end is needed that someone who has trained for long steady distance won't necessarily have.

agreed - if there is an extrapolation from club level, the long distance rowers that convert are beasts compared to the runners that do

there is obviously great potential in East Africa, but I think you would need to nurture them from youngsters. trouble is cycling is a relatively expensive/equipment heavy sport compared to running, and even with running my running club sends boxes of old/unwanted running kit to Kenya every year and it gets very gratefully received.

a lot of the running is done on dirt roads/trails as well, not sure what the paved roads are like there

in short it would require a huge investment to move the needle there I think. and for that I think 10-20 years is unrealistic given where we are now

fat_cat

Is this not to some extent a cultural thing too.

The more youngsters that are involved in any sport the better your chances of unearthing someone with real talent, and the application to take advantage of that talent. To attract youngsters to the sport, a role model helps, and there aren't enough of these from Africa in cycling at the moment.

You could argue that Chris Froome is African, but I don't know how much coverage his success gets in Kenya for example.

It's not just cycling that struggles with this, swimming is equally effected, and you could say, the opposite applies when looking at sprinters in Athletics, and Heavyweight Boxers. I know there is an argument around genetics here but its an interesting discussion.....

FJS

It can't be a coincidence that many of the top cyclists from Africa are from small Eritrea. And not from any of the other bigger East African countries known for endurance sports. Must be a cultural thing (just like there are loads of Colombian cyclists but hardly any from other Andes high altitude countries). Eritrea was an Italian colony I think. Perhaps a link. Anyone know anything about this?

frenchfighter

FJS wrote:

I think Reza's family is from Guadeloupe (he's born in France though); Caribbeans tend to be more of West African than East African (associated with long distance running) origin.
The nature vs nurture balance in all this is a complicated debate

Fair enough re Reza and Guadeloupe - thought I read he was from a French speaking African country. The genes are not too dissimilar although it would be a huge and unfair over-simplification to generalize into one.
From what I have read, and common sense too, genes are significantly more important.

ocdupalais

When Irish long distance legend, a very fit looking Sonia O'Sullivan, lined up at the start of last year's Ras I thought 'ooh, this should be interesting'... It was.

She got spat out of the bunch after about a mile after the neutralised zone...

seanoconn

It would be interesting to see Mo Farah jump on a bike and head up Alp d'Huez. Although I'm certain your average commuter would give him a run for his money.

It takes more than a little bit of coaching to turn a talented 10,000 meter runner into a competitive cyclist. Thousands of hours of purposeful training on a bike for instance and with regards to Afica, access to coaching/facilities/enviroment, roads/mountainous roads to train on, with a pool of motivated cyclists to train with and be competive against.

The potential is there for aspiring young African athletes and should be transferable but who knows for sure? It's a risk and I can't see anyone pumping in the money to find out. Someone needs a lucky break but there won't be any form of African domination in the world of cycling anytime soon.

mm1

seanoconn wrote:

It would be interesting to see Mo Farah jump on a bike and head up Alp d'Huez. Although I'm certain your average commuter would give him a run for his money.

.

Didn't Farah win the cycling on Superstars once?

Eritrea has a culture of cycling, which has carried on from when it was an Italian colony. Doesn't this highlight the importance of the technical / tactical aspects of the sport? Italy, France and Belgium are always going to produce good all round riders simply because the sport is so deep rooted.

seanoconn

mm1 wrote:

seanoconn wrote:

It would be interesting to see Mo Farah jump on a bike and head up Alp d'Huez. Although I'm certain your average commuter would give him a run for his money.

.

Didn't Farah win the cycling on Superstars once?

I thought that was Kevin Keegan? Or maybe not.

Did Farah's competitors have any commuting experience?

Roberto di Velo

seanoconn wrote:

It would be interesting to see Mo Farah jump on a bike and head up Alp d'Huez. Although I'm certain your average commuter would give him a run for his money.

A mate of mine, who is a pretty handy club runner, just bought a bike and signed up for strava. On his first run out on it he averaged just shy of 18mph.

mike6

Roberto di Velo wrote:

seanoconn wrote:

It would be interesting to see Mo Farah jump on a bike and head up Alp d'Huez. Although I'm certain your average commuter would give him a run for his money.

A mate of mine, who is a pretty handy club runner, just bought a bike and signed up for strava. On his first run out on it he averaged just shy of 18mph.

I came to cycling from running and as as the old saying goes, "I had the heart and lungs but not the legs." Runners rely on different muscle groups, not in isolation, than cyclists. It took me about a year to get my cycling legs to go with my endurance upper body. If it can be called that.
Its was great not to get sore hamstrings anymore, and my wife did comment on the change of shape of my legs.

RichN95.

mm1 wrote:

Eritrea has a culture of cycling, which has carried on from when it was an Italian colony. Doesn't this highlight the importance of the technical / tactical aspects of the sport? Italy, France and Belgium are always going to produce good all round riders simply because the sport is so deep rooted.

I think it's more a case of opportunity rather than anything tactical/technical. There's a well trodden established path to the pros if you're from mainland Western Europe, not so much if you're from Africa.
Look at Britain for example - has grass roots cycling changed much over the last 30 years? (I don't know). But the opportunities for the best young riders have changed considerably. The same with Australia before that. And with more opportunites come more success stories.

derbygrimpeur

I'm a runner & cyclist and am reasonably (perhaps equally) good at both. I think it's easier to go from running to cycling than the other way. A world class runner will have immense aerobic capacity and brilliant VO2. If they get on a bike and pedal a high cadence, that will use more aerobic capacity than reliance on pure power. Elite endurance runners also happen to be very light, so power to weight ratio will naturally be pretty good.

Most elite African runners do it because they need to make money to send home. Running is pretty cheap for them and lots of opportunity. Until bikes and road infrastructure are freely available in Africa, I can't imagine we'll see a huge influx of African riders. It'll only be privileged Africans that make the step up, like that guy that won the Tour last year

But back to the original question, given an elite runner a decent bike, bike fit and a few weeks to get used to it, and I'm pretty sure he'd go very well up the Alpe.

nic_77

iainf72 wrote:

Read the Sports Gene :P

Absolutely. To summarise - the great African runners are blessed with great oxygen handling facilities and long legs with particularly light lower limbs. There was an interesting reference to comparing the elite swimmers with the elite distance runners who were all roughly the same height - they would have almost the reverse body structure (i.e. swimmers have short legs and long bodies, runners have long legs and short bodies)

FocusZing

skylla wrote:

I'm always impressed at how well fellrunners are at riding non-feller riders off their socks..

Yes I can understanding that, running up/down mountains must help develop a similar strong muscle structure. I am sure you have heard of this guy, but for anyone who has not, well worth reading more about him. A humble none of your celebrity waffle athlete personified.




http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joss_Naylor

frisbee

mm1 wrote:

seanoconn wrote:

It would be interesting to see Mo Farah jump on a bike and head up Alp d'Huez. Although I'm certain your average commuter would give him a run for his money.

.

Didn't Farah win the cycling on Superstars once?

Eritrea has a culture of cycling, which has carried on from when it was an Italian colony. Doesn't this highlight the importance of the technical / tactical aspects of the sport? Italy, France and Belgium are always going to produce good all round riders simply because the sport is so deep rooted.

He was absolutely destroyed by a heavy weight boxer. And probably even the guy who did skeet shooting.

RichN95.

frisbee wrote:

mm1 wrote:

Didn't Farah win the cycling on Superstars once?

He was absolutely destroyed by a heavy weight boxer. And probably even the guy who did skeet shooting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL58MXTo9Wg

Farah looks like he's never ridden a bike before. Mind you, cyclists where routinely awful in Superstars back in it's heyday.

On the subject of runners Matthew Busche used to be a high class college cross-country runner, while conversely it was the part which held Porte back as a triathlete.

FJS

RichN95 wrote:

frisbee wrote:

mm1 wrote:

Didn't Farah win the cycling on Superstars once?

He was absolutely destroyed by a heavy weight boxer. And probably even the guy who did skeet shooting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL58MXTo9Wg

Farah looks like he's never ridden a bike before. Mind you, cyclists where routinely awful in Superstars back in it's heyday.

To be fair to him, I don't think 1km uphill plays to his strengths.....

mm1

FJS wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

frisbee wrote:

mm1 wrote:

Didn't Farah win the cycling on Superstars once?

He was absolutely destroyed by a heavy weight boxer. And probably even the guy who did skeet shooting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL58MXTo9Wg

Farah looks like he's never ridden a bike before. Mind you, cyclists where routinely awful in Superstars back in it's heyday.

To be fair to him, I don't think 1km uphill plays to his strengths.....

Remembered that completely wrong, didn't I! Kind of proves the point that there's more to cycling than aerobic fitness. Shudder to think how Farah would go in a big bunch screaming over cobbles.