On Bicycles, and.... what else is there?

Milan-San Remo is the longest of the classics, in many way a throw-back to the old days where lack of television coverage meant speed and intensity was hard to convey, and lacking that, race organizers had to impress the fans with sheer magnitude: of rugged riders riding superhuman distances over impossible terrain. The thing is until the 1960's Milan-San Remo wasn't particular long by professional standards. It's held fairly close over its history to its present distance of 293 km (1 km shorter than 2014). Here's the course distance from two sources: http://www.milansanremo.co.uk/ through 2009, and http://cyclingnews.com since 2010: The iconic Poggio was added in 1960 to reduce the finishing pack, an inland deviation which increased the distance from 281 km to 288 km. Then in 1982 the Cipressa increased the distance to 294 km to make the end game even harder. Le Manie was added to further increase the attrition in 2008. This last climb was removed in 2014 and ...

There will be a new point schedule for the 2015 Tour de France green jersey competition : Tour course director Thierry Gouvenou explained the rationale for the changes to the flat stages. "We have made some changes to the green jersey competition next year," Govenou said. "When we are almost certain that the stage will end in a sprint, we will add a little bonus to first place." "Previously we've had 45, 35 and 30 points for the top three positions respectively. Now we will award 50, 30 and 20 points. The person who wins the stage will have a bigger advantage over the others, and it's something which brings the pure sprinters back into the frame for the green jersey." More points for first, but the same points for the top 2 and fewer points for the top 3 and beyond for the sprint stages. From 2013 results, Sagan with his domination in the rankings would still have won. But 2nd would now be Coquard, a GC rider. All of the sprinters would hav...

The 2015 Tour was announced, and although it has a brutal series of Alpine finishes, it's a relatively short one. The total distance is only 3344 km, historically low, although this distance falls right on an exponentially decaying schedule I fit to the distances from 1945 to 2010. Here's the plot: I like long Tours as I find them more epic. The "epic" aspect doesn't show up well on television, but I have limited exposure to the television coverage anyway. However, I appreciate the finishes more if the riders have worked harder to get there. Modern racing has, however, to a large degree neutralized long stages. There's a constant temptation to shorten the routes and focus more on providing novel aspects each day to get people to watch Eurosport. Maybe I'll go to watch some of the race next year. The concentration of Alpine stages facilitates this.

After the climbs I just described, I did some serious lifting, first riding south from Grenoble to Bourg d'Oisans which involved significant elevation gain except on gradual grades along the D-series roads. Traffic was busy on these highways, and the riding was scenic for sure but not super-fun. Rain, which was forecast for the afternoon, arrived a bit early, and I was happy for the rain coat and rain pants I had packed for my trip. Riding with my stuffed backpack, a floppy rain jacket, and black rain pants didn't make for the Euro-racer experience, but it was effective. I stayed dry and warm. In Bourg d'Oisans, I had time to pass, and hung out for a bit in the main town. As the afternoon passed the rain picked up and I saw only a few riders. Riding was doable, as it wasn't super-cold (probably around 15C in the town, colder at elevation). But the 60 km I'd done to get there were enough. The next day dawned surprisingly cold, at least by my standards. In t...

Back in 2010 I did a regression of the Tour de France total length since WWII. There was a clear overall trend of course length reduction. In the 1920's, a typical route was 5500 km. By the 2000's that had decreased by 2000 km. The effect of this was profound: the Tour went from an ultra-endurance event with stages starting hours before dawn, unable to sustain body mass, to one where riders are able to devote considerably more time to recovery each day. Since then I like keeping tabs on the distance to see how it's doing relative to that trend. After all, while most of the public focuses on the final 20 km of each stage, it's the up to 200 km preceding that which provide the real character of the event, wearing down riders and teams and tapping into the human body's endurance limits. Without those preceding kilometers, the Tour loses some of its character. Even with the pack still together, it's what I call the "unseen attrition" of the effort....

Chris Horner published his blood values on his web site . I didn't have much interest in this. Indeed, I was much more interested in the America's Cup then in the Vuelta. It's not because I'm not interested in bike racing. Rather it was because it all seemed so unreal, so "not normal", that I just wasn't interested. Horner won. Curious. The data were published in raster form, and would require transcription (or OCR) to do anything interesting with. I didn't have the interest + time to do this. But then I saw this blog post which links to a spreadsheet with the transcribed data. Back in 2009 I made the following plot, which I posted to my blog the following year, showing the reticulocyte percentage in Lance Armstrong's blood, which he published online, plotted versus his hematocrit. It's generally considered a sign of transfusion when the hematocrit increases with a low reticulocyte percentage. Reticulocytes are the young blood ce...

This Tour de France has experienced truly epic increases in people calculating how much power riders generate on climbs, typically towards assessing whether Chris Froome is practicing illicit performance enhancement. One of the more popular practioners of this assessment is VeloClinic, for example in his Haiku-esque Tumblr page . In previous years, there has been a good deal of discussion about VAM, Ferrari's statistic of rate of vertical ascent. Since climbing primarily involves mass overcoming gravity, VAM is related to power/mass, but but it's only a crude instrument, since the more gradual the climb, the greater the fraction of power going into wind resistance and rolling resistance. Additionally, it is possible to sustain higher VAM for shorter climbs compared to longer ones: on shorter climbs you can use your anaerobic energy reserves more rapidly, increasing the energy per unit time, which is power. Furthermore, at higher altitude oxygen concentrations in the atmos...

Today I rode the trainer for the first time since my crash a month ago. I borrowed Cara's cyclocross frame because it's small and I can more easily get my leg over the top tube. Previously leg mobility was limiting on me being able to get on the bike, but today I tried and I could do it. Pedaling has also been a concern but I was able to turn the pedals without too much problem. The limiting factor is more muscular than aerobic: I did just a few minutes today. But that's a starting point. I've also been going to the gym, doing light weights, and I think that's helping, even if it leaves me tired. I see my general practitioner tomorrow, the first time since my crash, so maybe he can give me some advice on my progress. In Tour news, it's been all Froome. I realized last year, his first year on Sky, that I'd seen him years before.

L'Equipe recently posted a nice article on the history of time trialing, including the hour record. The posting included a wonderful photo of Jacques Anquetil , an unsurpassed time trialer in the history of professional bike racing. Jacques' peak was the late 1950's and early 1960's. He won the Tour 5 times, perhaps with the assistance of blood transfusions in the later years. Anquetil was famous for his extreme toe-down pedal style. It's typically recommended the foot at the bottom of the pedal stroke be at a relatively shallow angle, for example 15 degrees. But Anquetil's foot was at a much steeper angle: closer to 45 degrees. It's hard to argue this approach slowed him down at all, but I've not seen it imitated by accomplished racers. The dominant time trialist of today amomg the ProTour ranks is clearly Tony Martin . His most recent victory is the first individual time trial in the 2013 Tour de France , which is ongoing as I write this. De...

Its t injury +26 days, and I'm still hobbling around. Generally I'm hobbling better than the day before, but not always. I'm not working from home any more, instead braving my Caltrain commute with its close to 1 mile of walking each way (assuming I take the MUNI 10 bus and the VTA light rail in Mountain View). I can do this but it's tiring. I have more functional strength in my adductors on the right, injured leg. I can do push-ups. Getting on and off a bicycle would still be an issue. I've not thought much about riding since last Thursday: I was in Martha's Vineyard and was able to straddle a small hybrid bike, but pushing off with the injured leg just seemed too hard. I'm overdue to try again, but since I live on a 17% slope, the barrier to entry is higher. No "quick spins around the block". Virtually every road in Potrero Hill of San Francisco is steep. It's frustrating. I've gone to acupuncture 4 times, and while it...

I'm improving a bit day-to-day. My walking is getting better, but I'm still hobbling. I feel a bit of pain at my hip, but the worst part remains the inner upper thigh. This is consistent with what I've read about iliopsoas pulls: the one motion where my progress has been slowest is the clamshell move, laying on my left side with knees bent @ 90 degrees, then pivoting my leg at the hip and foot, and raising my knee. The knee just won't rise. Sitting with an orange Theraband between my knees I can spread them, but the mass of my leg is too much for me right now. This is likely the weak link in my recovery. It's the part most likely to cause sharp pain. Two big sports events yesterday to distract me. One was the Tour de France. The big story on the stage, of course, was the Orica-Green Edge bus getting jammed under the finish arch. This was an error, of course: they said were sent through by finish line officials, but the officials claim they told the bus to...

There's recently been a big story about how Lance Armstrong's biological passport blood values from 2009 were "consistent with doping". My response was "this is news?" It was news back in 2009, when Lance was boldly publishing his blood values on-line to prove his cleanliness, perhaps thinking people would pay attention only to that his hematocrit was well under the 50% limit, until it was pointed out by Jakob Mørkeberg, a Danish researcher, that the blood values he was posting appeared consistent with doping. His response: "What do you call a guy who graduates last in the class in medical school? Doctor." Funny, dude, but it did nothing to address the analysis. You don't need to be a medical expert to see something was amiss. Here's a plot I made at the time: Lance came out of the second rest day that Tour raging. A year later, out of contention, he came out of the second rest day fatigued and uncompetitive. Lance skipped hi...

My pick for the bottom step of the Tour podium was Ryder Hesjedal. Unfortunately, I never got a chance to see whether he was up to the task. He crashed on the sixth stage and abandoned before the next stage . For as long as I've followed cycling, crashes in the Tour, Vuelta, and Giro have taken their toll on the general classification. Serious contenders are either taken out of the race outright, or lose so much time they are no longer in a position to contend. Crashing is a part of racing. Bike racing isn't about finding he physiologically superior rider, although physical aptitude a part of success. It's also about strategy, about tactics, and about luck. Luck is a critical component to the interest of cycling. Crashing is just one component of cycling's luck. Bike racing is carried out on real roads, for example, and real roads provide the risk of changes in weather, shifts in the wind, and debris which can lead to punctures. And since real roads aren'...

The obvious candidates from the sprinters this year are Cavendish, Sagan, and Greipel. Cav is the lock for the green jersey. Lean, mean, and focused, he's frustrated from falling one point short in the Giro, and is coming into the Tour looking for intermediate sprint points. The green is about consistency in the sprint finishes and reaching intermediate sprints over initial climbs that the gorilla sprinters can't. Cav lost 4 kg before the Tour for this purpose. For raw sprint wins, Cav's at a disadvantage this year. Sky's focused on the yellow, and with Cav's focus on staying light, he's not going to have the brute power a monster like Greipel has, or be conserving strength for the final like Sagan. So I don't expect the usual Cavendish domination this time. Greipel has been a true monster in sprints this year, and I think he's the guy for the big sprints. Sagan was unbeatable in the Tour of California and races following, but he hasn't gone...

A few weeks ago I posted Tour de France picks. This is my last chance to update them before the big show rolls in Liege. Here's a good start list if you need to know who the contenders are. First and second I see no reason to change: Wiggins and Evans are the class of the crowd. Last year, Evans was at 34 one of the oldest winners in history. If he were to win this year, he'd be exceeded only by irmin Lambot, who won when he was 36 in 1922 ( Wikipedia ). I think Evans loses a bit this year, while Wiggins finally figured out his preparation, spending solid blocks on Tenerif with focused climbing and time trial work. Wiggins also has superb teammates backing his up in Froome and Rodgers. I had De Gendt third but he's not racing, so Hesjedal gets the promotion. He's not raced since winning the Giro, so he has a good chance of having sufficiently recovered to put in a good effort in France. I had Andy Schleck next, but of course Andy won't be there, so he...

I'm committing early, for maximum credit when my predictions bear fruit. Wiggins Evans DeGendt Hesjedahl Andy Schleck I'm not convinced Hesjedahl, while he was strong enough to barely win the Giro, is fast enough in time trials to win this Tour, and lacks the explosiveness or superior aerobic power on climbs to gain back the time there. DeGendt was stronger at the end of the Giro, though, and he was faster in the time trial despite an epic effort the day before. That's a good sign for the Tour. He's also relatively young, so is still improving and discovering his abilities. And forget about Frandy. Still, you can't ignore their prior success, so I don't see them dropping further than fifth. Wiggins is possessed this year: a man on a mission. If he doesn't crash, I think he's the strong favorite. Evans looks good but is getting a bit old, and will have a hard time holding off a Wiggins who can avoid bad luck.

The trend continues that the big bike companies (manufacturers isn't quite the term, since so few of them actually manufacture anything... perhaps "branders" is a better term...) are delivering aerodynamically optimized road frames designed for use in mass-start road races. These bikes go way back, at least as far back as the Kestrel Talon. But the use of the bikes at the top pro level really began with the Cervelo Soloist (Bobby Julich won Paris-Nice on the bike). Then the Cervelo SLC and SLC-SL really got things rolling. Then Ridley came out with the Noah and Felt with the AR, and Fuji with the SST. And these are just the bikes of top-level pro teams. Kestrel updated the Talon (and Talon-SL), and Litespeed came out with its stunning Archon-CF; neither of these bikes got pro-level attention, however (Kestrel briefly sponsored third-tier Rock Racing, but Rock used their stiffer RT-800). Yet except for the Cervelo, all of these frames seemed to encounter resistance...

This year the Tour de France climbed L'Alpe d'Huez , the " Old La Honda " of the Tour. The "official" climbs is 13.8 km long according to Wikipedia , and gains 1099 meters according to Strava , an average grade of 7.96% (the GPS recorded distance depends on trajectory through the switchbacks, for example, and in any case GPS isn't that accurate on distance along curvy routes). It was climbed during the Tour de France stage 19 this year. The climb was complicated by riders arriving at the start in small groups. Timing thus needed to consider the finishing time, well documented by the race, but also the starting time. According to Wikipedia : Since 1999 photo-finish has been used from 14 km. Other times have been taken 13.8 km from the summit, which is the start of the climb. Others have been taken from the junction 700m from the start. The following times were posted as "official" by the Inner Ring on Twitter: I assume these are ...

In its live coverage of stage 18 of the Tour de France today, CyclingNews posted the following update: 17:35:28 CEST Andy Schleck powers under the red kite, with his grimace beginning to curl into a grim. Over 60km off the front for the Luxembourger. 17:35:56 CEST Schleck has a shade under 3 minutes over Evans, but 3:30 over Contador. 17:36:34 CEST Pierre Rolland sets the pace for Voeckler. The Frenchman is battling to hold on to his yellow jersey here. 17:36:58 CEST Voeckler needs to close the gap to 2:35 to hold the yellow jersey. 17:37:24 CEST Evans and Voeckler lead the yellow jersey group in pursuit of Schleck. 17:38:19 CEST Schleck appears to have slowed in the final kilometre, his efforts have finally begun to tell in this steep upper section of the climb. He should take yellow by a handful of seconds, but it might be close. When it was all done , despite being dropped by several of the riders in his group, Voeckler managed to close the gap to 2:21, saving his ye...

A lot has been said and written about Voeckler's remarkable climb to Plateau de Beille in stage 14 of this year's Tour. Voeckler had an advantage of 1:49 over second-place Fränk Schleck, 2:06 over Cadel Evans, and 2:18 over Fränk's brother and teammate Andy Schleck. Due to time and fitness lost in a crash, race favorite Alberto Contador was 4 minutes down. Any of these riders were considered a threat to overtake Voeckler, although the consensus most likely scenario was Voeckler would limit his time losses and hold onto the yellow jersey by maybe 30 seconds. Strava KOM: around a half-hour slower than Voeckler's time. Yet it's safe to say it was a shock to almost everyone when Voeckler not only held on to his lead over all other contendors for the yellow, but was a primary activist in chasing down attacks. I'd have expected Voeckler, by any reasonable measure outmatched in that group, to take a very conservative approach to the climb, following the smooth...