Tour de France 2021! (spoilers)

McNulty straight into a ditch. :flushed: Not the best moment to take a peak behind you there. Pick a straightaway not a curve.

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Quintana dropped, still is gonna collect the polka dots. Now I hope O´Connor makes it into yellow. Not to shabby a stage, afterall.
Ok UAE is drilling it now, doesn´t look like he is gonna make it :slightly_frowning_face:

First, this is a logical fallacy known as deflection. Richardson and Phelps are not a part of this discussion. They have no relevance to the discussion. Further, Phelps never failed a drug test.

As for Merckx, please see below….

  1. Eddy Merckx of Belgium tested positive for the stimulant Reactivan at Savona during the 1969 Giro d’Italia, after leading the race through 16 stages. Merckx was found positive at doping control and expelled from the Giro. Merckx steadfastly denied the charges

So basically….

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Oh look guys in the front are climbing 12% gradient climbs on the big ring just like Pogacar yesterday

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That’s a grey area: Vaughters (and others) have claimed a more reasonable max “unenhanced” limit at 5.9-6.0 w/kg with 6.3 w/kg clearly suspicious.

Looks like 3T and there 1x-only bike is gonna make a comeback :rofl:

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Who cares about losing watts cross chaining! Looking pro is more important!! :smiley: I was thinking maybe they are worried about shifting down when climbing at threshold within a peleton?

But no one is doing that….which shows that you either are not listening to what people have posted or that you are just ignoring it.

It is not just that he is “better” than anyone else….it is 1) the degree of his superiority over others, 2) the fact that his data is basically borderline of what most people feel is possible clean, 3) his associations with others who have a doping past but are running his team and 4) the history of the sport.

And to be clear, I’m not saying he is doping….but all of the above taken together is more than enough reason for me to say “Hmmmmm…hang on. “

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the french commentators keep talking about how bad Americans are at bike handling :roll_eyes:

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Has it? Did I miss Froome’s doping ban and Oprah interview?

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How many gels is O’Connor taking? I counted 6 in the less than an hour and he isn’t always on camera.

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Constant. It’s amazing. My stomach would be churning.

Presumably that’s at threshold though, I.e., one hour- so for a shorter climb you would expect a bit more.

Look I don’t think these guys are all clean either, I just think this kind of speculation doesn’t prove anything one way or another.

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Hes gonna be close to 400 Watt up that climb. That´s easily 1200+ kcal per hour. With all the impressiveness about their power and speed and all, how pros not bonk half way through each stage truly blows my mind. And then do that for 3 weeks. How much stuff can one person eat??? Impossible.

I don’t understand how that’s possible too.

That’s exactly why we watch it, right? The more impossible the better! :metal:

Oh, man we reallly don’t need to go there.

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You must have misread what I wrote „the very edge of what is humanly possible“ not „impossible“.

The article states that the upper limit for a clean athlete in FTP is around 6.2Wkg. I assume this number is at sea level.
Pogacar averaged 6.5Wkg for 24:35.
He did so, after riding an HC climb and racing for 110km. A little pre-exertion might have happened for that matter.

Also, the climb starts at 3000ft and tops out at 5000ft.

According to this chart:


His performance level should be effected negatively between 3 and 5.5%.

So with all that in mind, his FTP would be 95 to 96% of a best 24,5 minute effort (so between 6.18 and 6.24), which would be the absolute limit of human capability, without pre exertion, and without elevation (bumping a potential sea level number back up to 6.4 to 6.5 Wkg FTP).

And that is not even his most suspicious ride, which is the 1880 VAM for 16 minutes, after a 40 minute at FTP time trial.

It’s hard to even fathom what power it would take at 66kg to do something like that. The (not amazingly accurate) Bike Calculator gives me around 450W (if he rode entirely seated in the drops). Don’t know how accurate that is, but that would be pretty crazy.

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I believe that’s for a sub-hour (40min?) effort. That link provides far more context than we could go into here.

One for the Aussies!