I watched the video linked earlier in this thread and it was super impressive.
I confess I also like Phil Gaimon’s videos - it’s pretty entertaining stuff and some of the routes he takes have awesome scenery.
It will be interesting to see if Phil Gaimon decides to have a go at the new time (post Covid-19).
Obviously notwithstanding that as others have already noted, there are no doubt some other pro-riders who have equal or better likelihood of also taking the top time for that segment if they chose to.
The point for me is, it’s fun to watch. I’ll probably never travel to that part of the world, never mind rent a bike and ride up that climb so living vicariously through these type of videos is entertaining.
I think it’s useful here to look at world tour riders who have made the move to triathlon.
Andrew Talansky is obviously an excellent rider, and it’s not like he’s dominant on the bike since moving to tri. He’s near the top consistently, but looking back at a handful of results, I don’t see him riding away from the pack in any of them, nor typically winning the bike leg.
That’s not at all a criticism of him, just to say he’s unquestionably a world class cyclist, and the top of the pro triathlon field are also world class cyclists. They may not be Cancellara, Froome, Bernal, etc. But Talansky won the Dauphine, second at Paris Nice, top tens at the Vuelta. He wasn’t just a mid level domestique. The fastest triathletes are faster than we give them credit for.
@G650 I just learned about him THIS week in the same video mentioned here. Had been watching some of Phil’s stuff but did not know about Sander. Interesting to read some of these comments. I’ve now watched exactly 2 of his videos and can see some of that alpha spirit.
I didn’t check again over the weekend, but apparently he put up a second video with for the successful attempt, including a short response video from Phil Gaimon.
He was teed up to race Oceanside 70.3, and since it’s been postponed to October (two weeks after Kona) and he was staying in Arizona for race prep, I am happy he’s found something to do. Watching endurance pros compete and joke on Youtube videos sure beats just feeling sad about my (and their) empty race calendar right now.
On the other hand there is Cam Wurf who has been destroying bike splits in long distance from the start and has recently started to win full distance events. If you follow him a bit it’s clear though that it is not just about translating cycling fitness to tri. CW spent insane amounts of effort bringing his running up to world class level, working with one of the best teams out there. He has achieved though what we thought was impossible - being a contender in full distance and racing for a WT team at the same time.
We will see if it is possible, I tended to think riding for Ineos this season would really hurt his swim and run. (Obviously it’s all in doubt now though regardless).
That said I’m definitely a fan. He’s such an outlier. National team/Olympic rower who picked up a bike and found himself on the world tour. Then started swimming and running and got to Kona.
Well, that remains to be seen. He only started doing both this year. As noted above, I don’t know if you can sustain your swim and run and effectively ride for a World Tour cycling team.
Just to be fair to Phil, He started chasing these KOM’s in retirement knowing full well that any current pro, tri or otherwise could take him off the top. That, but he also wanted to knock off that Sasquatch dude who allegedly doped. Even though he can still compete in sort of the same effort levels as pro’s and even some amateurs he was doing this to have fun dominating strava from an amateur perspective. Of course in due time, even pro’s will want to test the waters of someone getting a lot on online attention and now an offset race schedule.
Caveat being, even though he’s no longer a paid pro, he still trains hard with KOM specificity.
As you can see from the effort comparison, it wasn’t a total domination by LS.
Pacing perhaps influenced by personality – go too hard, pay for it, repeat.
Could it be that Lionel does better than Phil at higher altitude possibly? It looks like most of his time gain was near the end. I recall Phil doing some climbs in Columbia and by his own admission he struggled, though Columbia mtn are quite a bit higher I think.
I don’t know about you guys but when I go for a KOM, I’m usually not going as hard as I can. I often try and out pace the existing KOM. I set up a lap page on my Garmin with average lap speed plus other metrics I ride to. I hit the lap button at the start of the KOM and try to best the average of the existing KOM.
I’m thinking that when Phil went for his KOM he probably paced based on the existing KOM. Time will tell whether he can get it back. I think it’s cool that other pros are finally taking him on.
Been bored lately so I decided to revisit strava Lemmon to see if there’s any updates. Looks like the tag team pair of Sam Long and Tyler Stites both attacked the climb on separate days a couple weeks ago. Tyler was a minute off on his team time trial effort on the main climb but crushed the kom to tippy top. Sam, meanwhile, just set the bar again on the main climb. Just crazy.
