"pure climber's" metabolisms?

neeb

It's always said that pure climbers like to accelerate repeatedly on long climbs whereas time trialling / climber crossover pros such as Wiggins and Froome prefer to go steady. What does this mean regarding the metabolism of the pure climber? Are they better in the VO2 max and anaerobic zones than at FT, and if so, why? Or is it something to do with their low weight and how this affects tactics?

bahzob

Froome is capable of some pretty quick accelerations that leave "natural" climbers behind as well as he showed last year on the Ventoux and on Monday in the Vuelta. Still get your point and it's an interesting question.

One factor may be physics. Pure climbers tend to be lighter so change pace more rapidly especially if they combine this with a sudden increase of difficulty, hence why attacks are often made on the steeper sections.

Their objective in doing this is to get the rest to "burn a match" http://www.cycleops.com/es/entrenamiento/recursos-de-entrenamiento.html?view=entry&category=training&id=286:burning-matches-for-optimal-performance. So one answer may be that "pure" climbers can force the rest to burn matches to keep up. This will be especially effective they can put in an effort that is just below their "match burn" level but requires the others to use a "match" to catch up (again most often of steepest sections). A counter to this, as Froome showed over the weekend, is for the follower to save their matches and ignore the challenge knowing that their steady pace will eventually catch up.

Not sure you will get an answer though. Its not just down to physics and physiology but also psychological. Repeated accelerations is a bit of a high risk/high reward betting strategy, some feel comfortable with this, some not. Similarly ignoring an attack and keeping a steady pace requires a steady nerve too. The natural instinct is to respond even if the best one is stay calm. It may also require some luck like Froome had on Sunday, when he let 3 more "natural" climbers get away but they ended up bickering amongst themselves rather than working together to bury him.

bahzob

bahzob wrote:

...Repeated accelerations is a bit of a high risk/high reward betting strategy, some feel comfortable with this, some not.

Reason for this is that even the best riders don't know their limits for sure so won't know they have used up their last match until its gone. There was an interesting interview with Contador following his loss to Froome on Saturday. He said he was at his limit and was not sure if he made the attempt to keep up he would be able to or not. So given how close the finish was he played safe.

JayKosta

neeb wrote:

...
What does this mean regarding the metabolism of the pure climber? Are they better in the VO2 max and anaerobic zones than at FT, and if so, why? Or is it something to do with their low weight and how this affects tactics?

====================
Actual metabolism doesn't have anything to do with it. As you mentioned it's VO2max, power/weight ratio, lactate/pain threshold, etc.

Jay Kosta
Endwell NY USA

phreak

Is that kind of tactic really seen nowadays though? You certainly don't see climbers giving several digs before riding away from their opponents like you used to, for probably quite obvious reasons.

I mean even the best climbers of today like Quintana or Nibali tend to move steadily away rather than explosively so. Even Contador can't really attack in the same way as he used to (ala his duel with Rasmussen for instance).