GC contenders and ITT's

m.r.m.

Drafting should stay illegal, but they should reduce the time between riders starting.

Getting caught in a TT is pretty much the only visually interesting aspect of TT's outside of the gear.

bobmcstuff

I actually found this Giro TT very interesting.

And last year's finale, even though I did know Dumoulin would take the jersey.

MishMash95

I think there are a few main components to consider here:
- The all-round riders tend to have higher raw power than the climbers for similar W/kg. From a mathematical standpoint, this means that they can maintain speed on climbs, but the heavier you are, the harder it is to accelerate up a climb, this is why we see Dumoulin for example struggling to have a good surge in his attacks vs Simon Yates who is a good 12-13kg lighter who can quickly punch away.
The main benefit of more raw watts though is the ability to push harder on a TT.

- The demands of riding a fixed high power for a long duration does not suit all riders. When looking at a rider like Yates, he seems to really excel at the shorter and sharper efforts, meaning perhaps whilst having a very good threshold, he has an exceptional anaerobic capacity. Anaerobic capacity (AC) however is rather useless for long time trials as it defines your ability to ride at a high intensity for shorter bursts. AC is incredibly useful for general racing however, as it enables you to make decisive attacks and sneak advantages. (I know Zoncolan is a bit of an exception here, however given the weight advantage, Yates may have been able to ride it at a slightly easier effort than he would have had to for the TT).

- Regarding aero dynamics, smaller riders are more aerodynamic however as others have said, the decrease in frontal area is not linear for increase in height/size. For a flat TT, there may also be an interesting consideration with regard to momentum. Heavier riders will have a slightly higher CdA, however they may be able to carry speed better over the small bumps. In the TT, I saw Yates pretty much getting out of the saddle and sprinting over every slight incline to keep his speed up. Whilst he has a weight advantage up these bumps, given they were all quite shallow, perhaps being able to remain aerodynamic and carry your speed better (as a result of the weight) is beneficial.

I would say in most cases, I think it is unfair to assume riders dont atleast try to improve their TT, but I think a lot of it just does boil down to the fact that guys with less raw watts wont necessarily be able to improve as much. I'm guesstimating here, but assuming Nairo quintana has a W/kg of 6.2-6.4, that puts his FTP in the range of 360-370w, this is still a good 50w lower than the likes of Dumoulin and Froome and does make quite a substancial difference.

rick_chasey

I’ve often wondered if they should do really long 100km odd TTs and make the time lost to the winner 5 seconds per position.

So 10th places loses 30 seconds etc.

They’d be swinging a lot harder and there’s much more room for gaining and losing over that distance.

m.r.m.

MishMash95 wrote:

- The all-round riders tend to have higher raw power than the climbers for similar W/kg. From a mathematical standpoint, this means that they can maintain speed on climbs, but the heavier you are, the harder it is to accelerate up a climb, this is why we see Dumoulin for example struggling to have a good surge in his attacks vs Simon Yates who is a good 12-13kg lighter who can quickly punch away.
The main benefit of more raw watts though is the ability to push harder on a TT.

This is not necessarily true. I think it is more down to the type of muscle fibres you have among other aspects (mitochondrial energy synthesis etc.). For example, Chris Froome and Tom Dumoulin are quite similar in height and weight. Froome can accelerate extremely well but not like Valverde. Tom Dumoulin can't, but neither can Nairo Quintana who is much lighter than all of them. Some riders are punchy and others are less so. Height and weight play a much more minor role than other factors.

MishMash95

M.R.M. wrote:

MishMash95 wrote:

- The all-round riders tend to have higher raw power than the climbers for similar W/kg. From a mathematical standpoint, this means that they can maintain speed on climbs, but the heavier you are, the harder it is to accelerate up a climb, this is why we see Dumoulin for example struggling to have a good surge in his attacks vs Simon Yates who is a good 12-13kg lighter who can quickly punch away.
The main benefit of more raw watts though is the ability to push harder on a TT.

This is not necessarily true. I think it is more down to the type of muscle fibres you have among other aspects (mitochondrial energy synthesis etc.). For example, Chris Froome and Tom Dumoulin are quite similar in height and weight. Froome can accelerate extremely well but not like Valverde. Tom Dumoulin can't, but neither can Nairo Quintana who is much lighter than all of them. Some riders are punchy and others are less so. Height and weight play a much more minor role than other factors.

Whilst I know there are other factors, I was simply talking in terms of the raw physics:
Force = Mass*acceleration, therefore
Acceleration = Force/Mass

This means that regardless of how well suited you are or aren't to putting out "bursty" power, when you put that aside, watt for watt, if both riders are pushing out the same watts (which corresponds to the same force on the pedals), the lighter rider WILL accelerate faster. This gets amplified on hills where the net force you need to overcome as a result of gravity to accelerate is also dependent on mass (as we know), but in order to increase your speed mid-climb, the overall force required for a heavier person gets quite a bit chunkier.

In the case of Froome/Dumoulin/Valverde, going off google, Froome is apparently ~5kg lighter than Dumoulin, and that 5kg does make a difference. Valverde lighter still. Whilst Quintana doesn't attack all that much, when he does, he accelerates incredibly quickly: https://youtu.be/heH_M7lPFp0?t=49 (Random example)

I do agree that there are different physiologies at play as well, riders with a large anaerobic capacity (Yates seems to fall into here) and with different muscle composition will be able to put up higher bursts of force, however weight is still important, even when you don't consider how that force is applied, it changes the end result of a given amount of power a rider puts out. I just wanted to look at it from a more simple point of view which works off of ground truths, independent of selected rider style.
Even if Dumoulin did ride a more punchy style, it would take him a fair few watts to actually accelerate fast enough to get a gap quickly

joey54321

MishMash95 wrote:

Im. Some riders are punchy and others are less so. Height and weight play a much more minor role than other factors.

Whilst I know there are other factors, I was simply talking in terms of the raw physics:
Force = Mass*acceleration, therefore
Acceleration = Force/Mass

This means that regardless of how well suited you are or aren't to putting out "bursty" power, when you put that aside, watt for watt, if both riders are pushing out the same watts (which corresponds to the same force on the pedals), the lighter rider WILL accelerate faster. This gets amplified on hills where the net force you need to overcome as a result of gravity to accelerate is also dependent on mass (as we know), but in order to increase your speed mid-climb, the overall force required for a heavier person gets quite a bit chunkier.

In the case of Froome/Dumoulin/Valverde, going off google, Froome is apparently ~5kg lighter than Dumoulin, and that 5kg does make a difference. Valverde lighter still. Whilst Quintana doesn't attack all that much, when he does, he accelerates incredibly quickly: https://youtu.be/heH_M7lPFp0?t=49 (Random example)

I do agree that there are different physiologies at play as well, riders with a large anaerobic capacity (Yates seems to fall into here) and with different muscle composition will be able to put up higher bursts of force, however weight is still important, even when you don't consider how that force is applied, it changes the end result of a given amount of power a rider puts out. I just wanted to look at it from a more simple point of view which works off of ground truths, independent of selected rider style.
Even if Dumoulin did ride a more punchy style, it would take him a fair few watts to actually accelerate fast enough to get a gap quickly[/quote]

But you can't compare them watt for watt. I know some ex-rower types who are 100-120kg. They put out 350W+or so which is far more than some world tour pros, however, because of their weight they are doing local races. If it was just a watt contest then guys like Fabian Cancellara would have won the tour.

m.r.m.

I agree with both of you in a sense. One must take my height/weight statement in the context of the discussion.

Two riders of identical height weight can have vastly different acceleration ability on the bike due to other factors. Height/weight, muscle mass, type of fibres... it's all just a part of the equation.

cygnet

M.R.M. wrote:

Drafting should stay illegal, but they should reduce the time between riders starting.

Getting caught in a TT is pretty much the only visually interesting aspect of TT's outside of the gear.

Reducing the time between riders would increase the chance of drafting (riders having moto outriders and a follow car, possibly a TV moto and maybe also a comms car to make sure they aren't drafting!?)

Also it would make for difficult logistics getting all these vehicles up the course and back to support multiple team riders in a compressed time window.

A bit of nifty processing would be to overlay previous riders 'on the road' to give a similar race overview on an internet/TV broadcast (Never used Zwift but I imagine something similar)

ShutupJens

cygnet wrote:

M.R.M. wrote:

Drafting should stay illegal, but they should reduce the time between riders starting.

Getting caught in a TT is pretty much the only visually interesting aspect of TT's outside of the gear.

Reducing the time between riders would increase the chance of drafting (riders having moto outriders and a follow car, possibly a TV moto and maybe also a comms car to make sure they aren't drafting!?)

Also it would make for difficult logistics getting all these vehicles up the course and back to support multiple team riders in a compressed time window.

A bit of nifty processing would be to overlay previous riders 'on the road' to give a similar race overview on an internet/TV broadcast (Never used Zwift but I imagine something similar)

The problem with the overlay would be that the camera needs to be on rails, giving the same shot of each section of road.. or you'll end up with an almighty headache

cygnet

Yeah, but eventually they may be able to do real-time image compensation...
Can't drones maintain fixed positions without too much operator effort so could use preprogramed camera sequences from these?
Really basically they could take the rider tracking, stick it on a suitably scaled profile and "start" each dot at the same time as the current rider on screen.

larkim

It'd be a whole lot of effort for just one stage to get the technology set up to do this throughout the whole course with relatively little real benefit.

What they really need is more timing transponders (one per km might be too much, but one per 2.5km wouldn't be too bad) with a column of names down the left hand side of the screen to show relative position, a bit like the current F1 display that is ever-present, with a green up arrow or red down arrow to show the relative movement of the rider between the current transponder and the previous transponder. And then a symbol next to them to indicate if they have finished or not. If you could fit in the time gain / deficit too on screen you'd have everything you needed.

A series of fixed cameras on the last 500m might be able to add the virtual bar on the floor to show the required gain / loss against riders already finished so you'd probably know at 500m out that the rider was likely to finish (say) between the 7th and 8th placed riders who had already finished.

Lanterne_Rogue

Just drive a green van alongside them and Chromakey the background back in. Simple.

Can jazz things up further by having them apparently chased by a lion etc.

larkim

Thumbs up for the Chromakey van suggestion!