Wiggo…Did he put the record "out in the long grass"???

awavey

Dowsett had also broken his collarbone in the run up and commented before his record attempt, his training numbers had taken a hit and werent nearly at the peaks they were before his off and he's also still the only one to do it so far who has actually said a) he enjoyed it b) believes he could have gone further and c) now wants to regain the record

whether that amounts to 7 laps further,thats a big question that is a heck of distance on the track riding solo on top of the 212 other laps, albeit only another mile in effect, sowe might be doing Wiggo a disservice by thinking his record is beatable and that maybe just because we assumed it would be super heroically further out of sight than it appears.

and I thought ignoring the localised weather pressure effects, London was supposed to be the faster track of the two, because the temperature control was much better, Manchester feels like an oversized aircraft hanger in comparison to the pringle, or velosseum as some press hacks were trying to label it yesterday.

mididoctors

well theres one way to find out

oldwelshman

frenchfighter wrote:

How many metres do you think you can gain by going properly into the red at the end?
5km/h faster? For 30-60 seconds? 40-80m (0.04-0.08 km).

Not sure whether those extra metres are worth the apparent no-effort-at-all wind down

If he went into the red for 30 seconds he would have actually gone slower and done less it is a very thin line.
You would not get 5km/hr faster he was already doing 54km/hr so to increase by 5km/hr would not have been possible, maybe another 0.5 to 1km/hr max but he looked close to limit last few laps.

Daz555

oldwelshman wrote:

Don't forget rider position, all the wattage and pressure calculations in the world are of no use if you do not hold your position on the bike.

True, but given the same position (good or bad) thick air is still going to hurt your distance.

Wiggo's position on the day was excellent - he very rarely dipped his head only slightly and I hardly saw him rocking at all.

Daz555

gaffer_slow wrote:

Is someone going to risk failure when there is likely more chance of failure than success?

The conditions mean that record is alive I hope. Had Wiggo had great conditions and gone upwards of 55.5km then I think we'd all be waiting around for years for anyone to have a go.

As it stands - what if someone of Dowsett's class gets to have a go on a really really good day - the sort of day that gets you a whole km back in comparison to Wiggo - well on that day Dowsett is only 500m short. Does not seem impossible to me.

hammerite

The thing with a Dowsett attempt is that he's done it now and has the experience. Although he looked shot at the end I think he was well within himself for the first 45-50 mins, then ramped it up. He pretty much said that to ensure he didn't blow up. Maybe because he's held the record and has that experience he'd throw caution to the wind and go a little harder from the start.

RideOnTime

Makes me tired just reading this...

Yellow Peril

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