Things you have recently learnt
Comments
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the number of great Belgian climbers would support your case. As mentioned by others a headwind replicates a long climbpinno said:
Hills are intermittent effort and you get short breaks.briantrumpet said:rick_chasey said:It’s a different kind of fatigue on the flat when there’s never a moment when you’re not putting pressure through the pedals.
Absolutely... quite possibly why I prefer hilly areas, for the constant change of effort, and not least if there's a wind, the turbulence the hills create give some variation in direction & speed of wind.
But a good friend of mine who used to go cycling with the Euskaltel boys in winter (he lives in Bilbao and came from a small village not far from Guernica). He said 'you don't build any condition on the hills', which initially, came as a bit of a surprise statement.
A little bit of what he was trying to say was lost due to him being Spanish but he did say that you can build stamina, strength, fitness (and you learn technique and pacing yourself) but you don't build condition. You can use hills to measure your condition.
I was going out into the Cotswolds on a regular basis and I got slower and more tired but I used to hate flat rides. They bored me. He said that if you want to do long hilly rides, do at least 2, preferably 3 flat rides to every hilly ride. Since then, I have changed when and where I ride but I have a cheat and that's the rollers. They maintain the souplesse that I find, I cannot maintain if your constantly riding hills.
[I know there will be a few bods out there champing at the bit to contradict me but i'm going to stick my neck out on this and also chuck in the caveat that every one is different and there are those who can sustain 90+ rpm uphill all the time but i'm not one of them. Also, Zwift and digitally supported home trainers have become so common, training has changed since then].
Unfortunately, due to another hip replacement, my plans to do the Marmotte went out of the window but replicating a sustained effort up a 6 to 8% gradient like the Galibier can be done by finding a flat road of roughly the same length (6 miles approx.) and drive into a stiff, block headwind, where you never or rarely stop pedalling.
This was what my friend suggested. He was a non-cycling fan (and a smoker and drinker) for years until 7 years ago, at the age of 34 hopped on a bike and within 4 years, he completed the Marmotte! Which is quite an achievement.
This was his technique in his preparation, devoid of alpine climbs in the UK.
So I have learnt to like the flat rides and enjoy the rhythm that you can maintain in a way that hills don't allow you to sustain and in a cadence that is pretty much constant.
I have to stretch for far longer after a hilly ride than after a flat ride.
I am lucky, I can choose both or a mixture here. Flat ride out and hilly home is my preference.0 -
Given cycling is such a limited motion, I think where you grow up riding doesn’t shape you all that much in terms of physical abilities.0
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Indeed. Road racing in the UK at the amateur level is mainly glorified crits with 5 to 15 mile loops.rick_chasey said:Given cycling is such a limited motion, I think where you grow up riding doesn’t shape you all that much in terms of physical abilities.
I struggled to find courses where there was decent climbing in them yet we do produce climbers (GT, TG, TP, BW etc).
I would ride along with track guys who could leave me sitting down whilst I was flat out, off the saddle and sprinting.
So where/how do these climbers show their ability to get selected? Is it just simply physical fitness/endurance and then see where the cookie crumbles? How do you go about being a pro if you are 58kg's and can climb but can't keep up in your average cat 1/2 RR, getting spat out the back all the time?seanoconn - gruagach craic!0 -
I think at the elite level, to be considered you need to be winning everything anyway.pinno said:
Indeed. Road racing in the UK at the amateur level is mainly glorified crits with 5 to 15 mile loops.rick_chasey said:Given cycling is such a limited motion, I think where you grow up riding doesn’t shape you all that much in terms of physical abilities.
I struggled to find courses where there was decent climbing in them yet we do produce climbers (GT, TG, TP, BW etc).
I would ride along with track guys who could leave me sitting down whilst I was flat out, off the saddle and sprinting.
So where/how do these climbers show their ability to get selected? Is it just simply physical fitness/endurance and then see where the cookie crumbles? How do you go about being a pro if you are 58kg's and can climb but can't keep up in your average cat 1/2 RR, getting spat out the back all the time?
If you're 55 kilos and you can't keep up in a flat cat one race you won't make it as a pro regardless.
If you look at the Dutch climbers and their route to professional racing - they were still sticking everyone in the gutter and riding off the front as juniors.0 -
And in a nutshell that's why neither or us are elite level!!rick_chasey said:
It's more mentally being able to actually max it out for that 3-5 minute effort. I can hit a higher perceived solo "max" uphill than on the flat, so clearly my brain is lacking some motivation on the flat.First.Aspect said:
It is windy where you are, right, and that's actually a reasonable proxy for a hill. My local highest road goes up about 120 at 4%, but can often have a 15-20 mph headwind. My hamstrings and back and where the chain is on the cassette tell me that's similar to a steady grind at 8%.rick_chasey said:The challenge i find the hardest on the flat is if you do decide to do shorter, faster efforts.
I find it much more mentally taxing having to hold that unsustainable level for x amount of time without the brow of a hill to aim for.
But the fatigue I get in my legs around here versus the stop-start and then hill/descent rides I used to do in London/Surrey is very different.
I used to do long rides on rolling semi desert roads. Literally tumbleweed country. Sometimes the only option was frooming - target times to the next mile post, average speed etc. Don't miss it.0 -
Good fortune regarding where your parents chose to live, near a club and hilly routes?
I've owned and ridden bikes of one sort of another since I was a nipper, only having a car for ~7 years, but I only began riding for fitness in '17 at the age of 43.
Looking back, I find it a bit Alanis ironic that we lived in Dolgellau for several years, when I was just in junior school. Yet on what I'd these days consider my doorstep, I had various climbs heading including up to Cadair Idris; Fron Serth heading to Cross Foxes; the infamous Bwlch Y Groes; Hirnant Pass etc.
What a waste, yet no knowledge of a cycling club, nobody I knew was into cycling in a big way and heading out into the wilderness so young isn't normally the done thing. My life and cycling could have been so different if I'd began climbing back then (getting out to the South Downs and usually smashing it up the climbs has been great for me physically and mentally in recent years) and riding for fitness, but hey ho.
To do a similar climb now, I have to cycle ~25 miles from SO18 to Petersfield or just beyond and even then the biggest average 3%+ climb in Hampshire is only ~630 feet over ~4 miles.================
2020 Voodoo Marasa
2017 Cube Attain GTC Pro Disc 2016
2016 Voodoo Wazoo0 -
I had a club mate when I first started cycling (end of the 80s) who was about that size. He still managed to win crits and was a decent time triallist at local level. In these days he would have got picked up through the BC system and I've no doubt he'd have made it onto a WT team. He moved to race in France but ended up in a team based in the flatlands near the Belgian border originally and struggled as it was all proper crit type racing, he did eventually ride briefly for a Pro Conti team.pinno said:
Indeed. Road racing in the UK at the amateur level is mainly glorified crits with 5 to 15 mile loops.rick_chasey said:Given cycling is such a limited motion, I think where you grow up riding doesn’t shape you all that much in terms of physical abilities.
I struggled to find courses where there was decent climbing in them yet we do produce climbers (GT, TG, TP, BW etc).
I would ride along with track guys who could leave me sitting down whilst I was flat out, off the saddle and sprinting.
So where/how do these climbers show their ability to get selected? Is it just simply physical fitness/endurance and then see where the cookie crumbles? How do you go about being a pro if you are 58kg's and can climb but can't keep up in your average cat 1/2 RR, getting spat out the back all the time?0 -
Pfft, I have no natural talent on the bike. I could train like a monk and I doubt I'd make cat 1.First.Aspect said:
And in a nutshell that's why neither or us are elite level!!rick_chasey said:
It's more mentally being able to actually max it out for that 3-5 minute effort. I can hit a higher perceived solo "max" uphill than on the flat, so clearly my brain is lacking some motivation on the flat.First.Aspect said:
It is windy where you are, right, and that's actually a reasonable proxy for a hill. My local highest road goes up about 120 at 4%, but can often have a 15-20 mph headwind. My hamstrings and back and where the chain is on the cassette tell me that's similar to a steady grind at 8%.rick_chasey said:The challenge i find the hardest on the flat is if you do decide to do shorter, faster efforts.
I find it much more mentally taxing having to hold that unsustainable level for x amount of time without the brow of a hill to aim for.
But the fatigue I get in my legs around here versus the stop-start and then hill/descent rides I used to do in London/Surrey is very different.
I used to do long rides on rolling semi desert roads. Literally tumbleweed country. Sometimes the only option was frooming - target times to the next mile post, average speed etc. Don't miss it.1 -
I suspect (key word doing heavy lifting), that truly talented kiddos, the ones that end up climbing at 6 W/kg, will hit 5 W/kg with relatively little traning. If you're 58 kg, and look like a fiddle, but push 5 W/kg, you'll have relatively little aero drag and do 300 W.pinno said:So where/how do these climbers show their ability to get selected? Is it just simply physical fitness/endurance and then see where the cookie crumbles? How do you go about being a pro if you are 58kg's and can climb but can't keep up in your average cat 1/2 RR, getting spat out the back all the time?
Yes, that's not rouleur power, but will keep you in the wheel of many many people. I guess it'd be obvious there's this tiny kid keeping up in the flats and smashing anything uphill longer that 2-3 minutes.
Isn't there a video of Primoz Roglic on his first bike race, pretty much trashing everybody on a mountain bike?0 -
Pross said:
I had a club mate when I first started cycling (end of the 80s) who was about that size. He still managed to win crits and was a decent time triallist at local level. In these days he would have got picked up through the BC system and I've no doubt he'd have made it onto a WT team. He moved to race in France but ended up in a team based in the flatlands near the Belgian border originally and struggled as it was all proper crit type racing, he did eventually ride briefly for a Pro Conti team.pinno said:
Indeed. Road racing in the UK at the amateur level is mainly glorified crits with 5 to 15 mile loops.rick_chasey said:Given cycling is such a limited motion, I think where you grow up riding doesn’t shape you all that much in terms of physical abilities.
I struggled to find courses where there was decent climbing in them yet we do produce climbers (GT, TG, TP, BW etc).
I would ride along with track guys who could leave me sitting down whilst I was flat out, off the saddle and sprinting.
So where/how do these climbers show their ability to get selected? Is it just simply physical fitness/endurance and then see where the cookie crumbles? How do you go about being a pro if you are 58kg's and can climb but can't keep up in your average cat 1/2 RR, getting spat out the back all the time?
Yep, it's all Kermesses in Belgium and they are brutal.
seanoconn - gruagach craic!0 -
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Update. Bought some Topeak Shuttle Levers (https://road.cc/content/review/topeak-shuttle-levers-12-287031) on a recommendation, as they are a) steel reinforced and b) have a nice tiny lip to try and dig into the gap between the tyre and the rim.surrey_commuter said:
it is easy to forget how bleak the fens arerick_chasey said:That I can’t get my tyres off my wheel whilst stranded in a very cold blowy field….
They were tough to put on originally but I couldn’t even get my levers in underneath the tyre.
Luckily the wife was home to pick me up. I got rather cold.
Now to see if better tyre levers will help or if I need to rethink my tyre choice…
Turns out even that was too tricky to get inbetween the rim and the tyre.
Resorted to placing my heel on the tyre and pulling up the rim. That seems to finally shift the bead out of the edge of the rim into the middle so I could then hook in the levers etc.
Pothole left a bit of a dent in the rim which is annoying.
Little worried what will happen when I'm stranded again but I think I'll have to resort to the heel thing again.0 -
That there's a debating technique called the Gish Gallop
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop0 -
😬briantrumpet said:That there's a debating technique called the Gish Gallop
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop0 -
Obvious but now with evidence:
https://www.ft.com/content/f716bea0-21eb-4ac5-923e-e268d307f3e6The one per cent are not as clever as they think
his man was suffering from the Davos Fallacy: the notion that very high earners are also very clever. But at the top end of incomes this isn’t true, according to a new study of 59,000 Swedish men. The highest-earning 1 per cent and the brainiest 1 per cent seem to be two largely separate groups, with little overlap. If that’s so, how should we treat each elite?Up to wages of about €60,000, cognitive ability did predict income: the cleverer you were, the more you earned. But above €60,000, the relationship broke down. In fact, the top 1 per cent of earners had slightly lower cognitive ability than the men two percentiles below them, despite being paid more than twice as much.
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How is their intelligence tested?rick_chasey said:Obvious but now with evidence:
https://www.ft.com/content/f716bea0-21eb-4ac5-923e-e268d307f3e6The one per cent are not as clever as they think
his man was suffering from the Davos Fallacy: the notion that very high earners are also very clever. But at the top end of incomes this isn’t true, according to a new study of 59,000 Swedish men. The highest-earning 1 per cent and the brainiest 1 per cent seem to be two largely separate groups, with little overlap. If that’s so, how should we treat each elite?Up to wages of about €60,000, cognitive ability did predict income: the cleverer you were, the more you earned. But above €60,000, the relationship broke down. In fact, the top 1 per cent of earners had slightly lower cognitive ability than the men two percentiles below them, despite being paid more than twice as much.
The 1% might be extremely good in one area and average at other things.0 -
*it's all in the article, and you can copy the link into https://12ft.io/ to read*
just dont close the cookie box0 -
Cheers.rick_chasey said:*it's all in the article, and you can copy the link into https://12ft.io/ to read*
just dont close the cookie box
I'm too average to bother though to be honest, sigh.
Being a bit thick does make life a bit more bearable though, clever people must be doing mental handstands all the time, very tiring.0 -
I wouldn't know myself but i expect people are just people.focuszing723 said:
Cheers.rick_chasey said:*it's all in the article, and you can copy the link into https://12ft.io/ to read*
just dont close the cookie box
I'm too average to bother though to be honest, sigh.
Being a bit thick does make life a bit more bearable though, clever people must be doing mental handstands all the time, very tiring.0 -
Extreme high earning is more about risk and attitude to wealth rather than intelligence.0
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That's consistent with my expectations. If you take the example of someone who is extremely intelligent, but has limited social skills, there aren't many ways for them to beyond very wealthy. Hedge funds and an ingenious invention would be the ones I could think of.rick_chasey said:Obvious but now with evidence:
https://www.ft.com/content/f716bea0-21eb-4ac5-923e-e268d307f3e6The one per cent are not as clever as they think
his man was suffering from the Davos Fallacy: the notion that very high earners are also very clever. But at the top end of incomes this isn’t true, according to a new study of 59,000 Swedish men. The highest-earning 1 per cent and the brainiest 1 per cent seem to be two largely separate groups, with little overlap. If that’s so, how should we treat each elite?Up to wages of about €60,000, cognitive ability did predict income: the cleverer you were, the more you earned. But above €60,000, the relationship broke down. In fact, the top 1 per cent of earners had slightly lower cognitive ability than the men two percentiles below them, despite being paid more than twice as much.0 -
I'd also conjecture that the 'most intelligent' (whatever that is) are more likely to have doubts which might hold them back from being gung ho about their specialist subject. A little bit of ignorance could, perversely, be a good thing when taking risk.0
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massively object to the assumption very smart = low social skills.TheBigBean said:
That's consistent with my expectations. If you take the example of someone who is extremely intelligent, but has limited social skills, there aren't many ways for them to beyond very wealthy. Hedge funds and an ingenious invention would be the ones I could think of.rick_chasey said:Obvious but now with evidence:
https://www.ft.com/content/f716bea0-21eb-4ac5-923e-e268d307f3e6The one per cent are not as clever as they think
his man was suffering from the Davos Fallacy: the notion that very high earners are also very clever. But at the top end of incomes this isn’t true, according to a new study of 59,000 Swedish men. The highest-earning 1 per cent and the brainiest 1 per cent seem to be two largely separate groups, with little overlap. If that’s so, how should we treat each elite?Up to wages of about €60,000, cognitive ability did predict income: the cleverer you were, the more you earned. But above €60,000, the relationship broke down. In fact, the top 1 per cent of earners had slightly lower cognitive ability than the men two percentiles below them, despite being paid more than twice as much.
IMO low correlation unless we start talking neurodiversity - autistic etc.0 -
Look at high achievers in general. The Alex Ferguson types, it's well documented the bloke worked 24/7 with near complete attention. Not great in terms of family balance though.0
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You've missed the point. It is not that someone who is intelligent has low social skills, but that you can't earn a fortune unless you have good social skills. Therefore the correlation between earnings and intelligence breaks down because other skills become important.rick_chasey said:
massively object to the assumption very smart = low social skills.TheBigBean said:
That's consistent with my expectations. If you take the example of someone who is extremely intelligent, but has limited social skills, there aren't many ways for them to beyond very wealthy. Hedge funds and an ingenious invention would be the ones I could think of.rick_chasey said:Obvious but now with evidence:
https://www.ft.com/content/f716bea0-21eb-4ac5-923e-e268d307f3e6The one per cent are not as clever as they think
his man was suffering from the Davos Fallacy: the notion that very high earners are also very clever. But at the top end of incomes this isn’t true, according to a new study of 59,000 Swedish men. The highest-earning 1 per cent and the brainiest 1 per cent seem to be two largely separate groups, with little overlap. If that’s so, how should we treat each elite?Up to wages of about €60,000, cognitive ability did predict income: the cleverer you were, the more you earned. But above €60,000, the relationship broke down. In fact, the top 1 per cent of earners had slightly lower cognitive ability than the men two percentiles below them, despite being paid more than twice as much.
IMO low correlation unless we start talking neurodiversity - autistic etc.
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How bloody marvellous Nils Frahm's music is
It's just a hill. Get over it.0 -
I would guess that there's a sizeable chunk that work smart as opposed to utterly hard.focuszing723 said:Look at high achievers in general. The Alex Ferguson types, it's well documented the bloke worked 24/7 with near complete attention. Not great in terms of family balance though.
Obviously the best would be working hard and smart.0 -
Luck, mainly.TheBigBean said:
You've missed the point. It is not that someone who is intelligent has low social skills, but that you can't earn a fortune unless you have good social skills. Therefore the correlation between earnings and intelligence breaks down because other skills become important.rick_chasey said:
massively object to the assumption very smart = low social skills.TheBigBean said:
That's consistent with my expectations. If you take the example of someone who is extremely intelligent, but has limited social skills, there aren't many ways for them to beyond very wealthy. Hedge funds and an ingenious invention would be the ones I could think of.rick_chasey said:Obvious but now with evidence:
https://www.ft.com/content/f716bea0-21eb-4ac5-923e-e268d307f3e6The one per cent are not as clever as they think
his man was suffering from the Davos Fallacy: the notion that very high earners are also very clever. But at the top end of incomes this isn’t true, according to a new study of 59,000 Swedish men. The highest-earning 1 per cent and the brainiest 1 per cent seem to be two largely separate groups, with little overlap. If that’s so, how should we treat each elite?Up to wages of about €60,000, cognitive ability did predict income: the cleverer you were, the more you earned. But above €60,000, the relationship broke down. In fact, the top 1 per cent of earners had slightly lower cognitive ability than the men two percentiles below them, despite being paid more than twice as much.
IMO low correlation unless we start talking neurodiversity - autistic etc.0 -
I don't think high earners are lucky. Some clearly are, but not the majority.rick_chasey said:
Luck, mainly.TheBigBean said:
You've missed the point. It is not that someone who is intelligent has low social skills, but that you can't earn a fortune unless you have good social skills. Therefore the correlation between earnings and intelligence breaks down because other skills become important.rick_chasey said:
massively object to the assumption very smart = low social skills.TheBigBean said:
That's consistent with my expectations. If you take the example of someone who is extremely intelligent, but has limited social skills, there aren't many ways for them to beyond very wealthy. Hedge funds and an ingenious invention would be the ones I could think of.rick_chasey said:Obvious but now with evidence:
https://www.ft.com/content/f716bea0-21eb-4ac5-923e-e268d307f3e6The one per cent are not as clever as they think
his man was suffering from the Davos Fallacy: the notion that very high earners are also very clever. But at the top end of incomes this isn’t true, according to a new study of 59,000 Swedish men. The highest-earning 1 per cent and the brainiest 1 per cent seem to be two largely separate groups, with little overlap. If that’s so, how should we treat each elite?Up to wages of about €60,000, cognitive ability did predict income: the cleverer you were, the more you earned. But above €60,000, the relationship broke down. In fact, the top 1 per cent of earners had slightly lower cognitive ability than the men two percentiles below them, despite being paid more than twice as much.
IMO low correlation unless we start talking neurodiversity - autistic etc.0 -
I think the opposite.TheBigBean said:
I don't think high earners are lucky. Some clearly are, but not the majority.rick_chasey said:
Luck, mainly.TheBigBean said:
You've missed the point. It is not that someone who is intelligent has low social skills, but that you can't earn a fortune unless you have good social skills. Therefore the correlation between earnings and intelligence breaks down because other skills become important.rick_chasey said:
massively object to the assumption very smart = low social skills.TheBigBean said:
That's consistent with my expectations. If you take the example of someone who is extremely intelligent, but has limited social skills, there aren't many ways for them to beyond very wealthy. Hedge funds and an ingenious invention would be the ones I could think of.rick_chasey said:Obvious but now with evidence:
https://www.ft.com/content/f716bea0-21eb-4ac5-923e-e268d307f3e6The one per cent are not as clever as they think
his man was suffering from the Davos Fallacy: the notion that very high earners are also very clever. But at the top end of incomes this isn’t true, according to a new study of 59,000 Swedish men. The highest-earning 1 per cent and the brainiest 1 per cent seem to be two largely separate groups, with little overlap. If that’s so, how should we treat each elite?Up to wages of about €60,000, cognitive ability did predict income: the cleverer you were, the more you earned. But above €60,000, the relationship broke down. In fact, the top 1 per cent of earners had slightly lower cognitive ability than the men two percentiles below them, despite being paid more than twice as much.
IMO low correlation unless we start talking neurodiversity - autistic etc.
Not least the basic social mobility problems across the world0 -
Give me an example of a lucky high earner.rick_chasey said:
I think the opposite.TheBigBean said:
I don't think high earners are lucky. Some clearly are, but not the majority.rick_chasey said:
Luck, mainly.TheBigBean said:
You've missed the point. It is not that someone who is intelligent has low social skills, but that you can't earn a fortune unless you have good social skills. Therefore the correlation between earnings and intelligence breaks down because other skills become important.rick_chasey said:
massively object to the assumption very smart = low social skills.TheBigBean said:
That's consistent with my expectations. If you take the example of someone who is extremely intelligent, but has limited social skills, there aren't many ways for them to beyond very wealthy. Hedge funds and an ingenious invention would be the ones I could think of.rick_chasey said:Obvious but now with evidence:
https://www.ft.com/content/f716bea0-21eb-4ac5-923e-e268d307f3e6The one per cent are not as clever as they think
his man was suffering from the Davos Fallacy: the notion that very high earners are also very clever. But at the top end of incomes this isn’t true, according to a new study of 59,000 Swedish men. The highest-earning 1 per cent and the brainiest 1 per cent seem to be two largely separate groups, with little overlap. If that’s so, how should we treat each elite?Up to wages of about €60,000, cognitive ability did predict income: the cleverer you were, the more you earned. But above €60,000, the relationship broke down. In fact, the top 1 per cent of earners had slightly lower cognitive ability than the men two percentiles below them, despite being paid more than twice as much.
IMO low correlation unless we start talking neurodiversity - autistic etc.
Not least the basic social mobility problems across the world0
