Do people race less these days?

phreak

Wout van Aert seems to have been ubiquitous throughout this past season, yet he has only raced 49 days. Van der Poel has done even less with just 34 days racing. Even the likes of Pogacar and Alaphalippe have only done 60 and 63 respectively, with Roglic only doing 53 days.

To take a team at random, in 2000 at Telecom, Zabel raced 100 days, Vino 90 days, Ullrich 68, and the likes of Aldag and Bolts well over 70 days. As an example, Vino rode some 4,000km longer that year than Alaphalippe did this year.

Is it a case of bigger squads now so riders simply don't have as big a workload throughout the year? It was especially interesting for MvdP as there have been discussions about burnout with him.

de_sisti

Sean Kelly addressed this point during one of his stints commentating on the Tour, when he said that today's riders are probably making up for days not racing by doing very tough training camps.

phreak

de_sisti said:

Sean Kelly addressed this point during one of his stints commentating on the Tour, when he said that today's riders are probably making up for days not racing by doing very tough training camps.

Aye, during his peak years he probably averaged around 85 race days a year.

bobmcstuff

People used to "race to train" a lot more than they do now I think.

Obviously in a training camp the efforts can be super specific to your target race. Probably less risk as well?

MattFalle

Is that road racing days above or including all the random other stuff some of those guys do - eg a c/x season, mtb, etc?

RichN95.

phreak said:

Wout van Aert seems to have been ubiquitous throughout this past season, yet he has only raced 49 days. Van der Poel has done even less with just 34 days racing. Even the likes of Pogacar and Alaphalippe have only done 60 and 63 respectively, with Roglic only doing 53 days.

There are some extenuating circumstances. XC for Van Aert & VDP and MTB for the latter. Van Aert had appendicitis, Roglic crashed at the Tour, Alaphilippe's dad died.

Generally they do less, but 70 days is fairly usual for a top rider