I’m curious how any pros analyze other pros data to gain an advantage? Do they adjust their training? Or just identify weaknesses that can be exploited with race tactics?
I doubt many pros bother to dig into another rider’s data (some do, like Payson…at least for his podcast).
Their coaches, however….yeah, they certainly dig into whatever data they can get.
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Pros look at each other to “find out” what they’re doing.
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You don’t need Strava to know that Keegan is putting in monster training volume.
Human nature tho 
I suppose. Aren’t there plenty of world tour pro guys that leave all their stuff public and are arguably faster than Swenson though? I don’t follow many pros because it makes me jealous and depressed that I can’t always ride 25+hrs a week, but I’ve seen threads/articles of people analyzing their training camps and races and all that.
I generally think at the highest levels it comes down to genetics anyways. The 100th best rider in the world is putting in identical time/volume/intensity to the top 5 guys in the world. Those top 5 guys are simply better able to absorb the volume/intensity, recover from it and express it after spending 3000kj’s in a race or after a week+ straight of racing and/or they’re slightly better mentally at digging a little deeper into pain and suffering.
That’s a normal long tempo ride for anyone with an FTP in the high 300’s 
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Which is not the same as digging into the data.
I think it would be very useful to know the segment times/watts etc
Especially if the same course was being raced each year, or being trained on.
This seems like a move to compete against the field at World’s without giving them too much info on his form. It clearly didn’t matter competing in the races here.
It’s too late for that.
Teams already know what he was capable of, when he was at both Road Worlds and Gravel Worlds.
I agree, but they won’t know what form he’s in later this year when it comes around again. I don’t know, I can’t think of any other reason he would bother doing this. If anyone has an idea that makes sense, I’d love to hear it.
Good point.
Can’t think of any other sport that indiscriminately releases their entire training regiment practically as it happens.
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Yea, I’m actually surprised any pro has their Strava or training public. And I never understood the argument of: well it’s not useful to look at the data because if you can’t do the power you can’t do the power. Looking at a power profile may not be very useful, but going over training blocks could absolutely be useful for the competition.
Example. Let’s say you have a competitor who does a strict polarized approach with easy rides and hard VO2. And for three years he gets beat by Keegan who does long tempo rides. Maybe the competition decides to just mimic Keegan’s training since it appears to work. Or they look at the periodization timing of his training blocks. Like, oh, he does a VO2 block X weeks out from this event. We’ve been doing it Y weeks out, let’s try doing it X now.
The main point is, if you’ve got a guy winning almost every American race year after year, it’s not unheard of to study his training and replicate it.
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What he did in the past in two particular races is not the same as all the training data leading up to future races.
(Not to mention he was not racing Road Worlds to win)
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I took a peek at his last workout he did the other day with Finsty - mostly at the time/distance and KJ’s but never at his training regimen. I just thought he did some massive massive rides and was pretty amazed. I’d be a little surprised if any of his competition really tried to decipher his training for any secrets because at that level, I don’t really think there is much that isn’t already known. I mean, his coach is pretty well known. In any case he probably got spooked or annoyed after that Ben Delaney interview with his coach and so many people digging into his strava.
It does remind me of when I was playing high school football though, there was a team that basically new all of our plays based off of our formation. We told our coach, and he got so pissed off and said, “who gives a crap, they still have to stop you!” Same thing out on the racecourse, they still have to beat you.
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No you can’t, you can only download the route gpx with no other ride data or personal data.
Let’s also take a minute to be happy that Fintsy went to another team as opposed to teaming up with Keegan.
It will make for better racing.
Hump
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I think you highlighted exactly why you would want to keep your training secret. Look at the NFL and CFB fining and suspending coaches for filming other teams. Knowing the plays is a massive advantage. And does make it a lot easier to stop them. Ask any football coach and they’d tell you that knowing the other team’s playbook is a huge advantage.
Same goes for cycling. A good parallel I think is weightlifting. You can argue that, “who cares what training they’re doing, you still have to lift more weights.” That’s shortsighted in my opinion. Yes you have to lift heavier weights to win, much like you have to put out more power in cycling to win (very generalized I know but it makes the point). But having the training data to see how the competition gets to that point is a big advantage. Do you think any weightlifting coach is going to willingly give out their athlete’s detailed training data? If you continue to do the same training style year on year and keep losing, it’s probably a smart idea to change things up, and why not look at the winner’s training for guidance.
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Maybe if I purge all my data I can get to 6 W/kg. That must be the trick, it is all this data holding me back
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The Sauce for Strava extension lets you download someone’s .fit file with all the data.
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