There is so much skill involved in cycling, it's a huge element of the sport.
Really. Compared to football, tennis and golf? The skill outweighs the physical element does it? The best bike handler always wins the race does he?
You literally just changed your argument, you said there is no skill involved in cycling, but skill is huge, riding down those descents at that speed is not something a lot can do and even amongst pros (f.e. Alaphillipe dropping riders), catching up every time is a huge waste of energy.
Similarly efficiency in the peloton, if you're having to do even slightly more work closing gaps or fighting for position/losing position/starting climbs too far back or dealing with the increase in speed coming out the corners, it all adds up and by the time you're racing against the world's best climbers, you're already at a major disadvantage, I don't doubt his skills are a huge boost for Sagan, taking him up to just that next level.
Source: I'm a weak bike handler, even a little bit of skills training makes a huge difference.
When did i change my argument?
Obviously there is some skill involved in cycling, if you want to call riding a bike "skill" in a sporting sense. It's effectively just riding your bike though. 5 year olds can do it. To say that cycling takes as much skill at the highest level as football, tennis or golf or that the bike handling is as important as the physical aspect of the sport etc is simply a ridiculous comment.
Do cyclist spend hours practising their bike handling "skills" like football, tennis and golfers spend hours practising their skills. Or do they spend hours riding hard to train for the physical element of the sport?
"Ringo is exactly right", Shonak - 8 September 2016
There is so much skill involved in cycling, it's a huge element of the sport.
Really. Compared to football, tennis and golf? The skill outweighs the physical element does it? The best bike handler always wins the race does he?
You literally just changed your argument, you said there is no skill involved in cycling, but skill is huge, riding down those descents at that speed is not something a lot can do and even amongst pros (f.e. Alaphillipe dropping riders), catching up every time is a huge waste of energy.
Similarly efficiency in the peloton, if you're having to do even slightly more work closing gaps or fighting for position/losing position/starting climbs too far back or dealing with the increase in speed coming out the corners, it all adds up and by the time you're racing against the world's best climbers, you're already at a major disadvantage, I don't doubt his skills are a huge boost for Sagan, taking him up to just that next level.
Source: I'm a weak bike handler, even a little bit of skills training makes a huge difference.
When did i change my argument?
Obviously there is some skill involved in cycling, if you want to call riding a bike "skill" in a sporting sense. It's effectively just riding your bike though. 5 year olds can do it. To say that cycling takes as much skill at the highest level as football, tennis or golf or that the bike handling is as important as the physical aspect of the sport etc is simply a ridiculous comment.
Do cyclist spend hours practising their bike handling "skills" like football, tennis and golfers spend hours practising their skills. Or do they spend hours riding hard to train for the physical element of the sport?
I bolded the parts for you where you changed your argument, as it seems you are not even able to notice that.
Rest of your post is so ridicilous i cant even react seriously but i will try. You obviously know nothing about riding the bike, when you basically say that not much chnages skill wise since you are 5 years old, really?
You really think Sagan would have 100+ wins in his career if he handled the bike like Pinot?
And ofc that riders practice their bike handling skills every day, with riding. Like golfer practices his skill on the course, bike rider practices his bike handling skill during rides.
Btw i was not the first comparing sports, i have just answered to those Woods, Federer remarks. In ANY!!! sport you cant suddenly become best rider ever when you were shit aged 25, that is a fact. You deny this fact, so dont act surprised when being called stupid again.
Avin Wargunnson wrote:
In ANY!!! sport you cant suddenly become best rider ever when you were shit aged 25, that is a fact. You deny this fact, so dont act surprised when being called stupid again.
If it was not obvious, i ment without massive doping program with this sentence.
There is so much skill involved in cycling, it's a huge element of the sport.
Really. Compared to football, tennis and golf? The skill outweighs the physical element does it? The best bike handler always wins the race does he?
You literally just changed your argument, you said there is no skill involved in cycling, but skill is huge, riding down those descents at that speed is not something a lot can do and even amongst pros (f.e. Alaphillipe dropping riders), catching up every time is a huge waste of energy.
Similarly efficiency in the peloton, if you're having to do even slightly more work closing gaps or fighting for position/losing position/starting climbs too far back or dealing with the increase in speed coming out the corners, it all adds up and by the time you're racing against the world's best climbers, you're already at a major disadvantage, I don't doubt his skills are a huge boost for Sagan, taking him up to just that next level.
Source: I'm a weak bike handler, even a little bit of skills training makes a huge difference.
When did i change my argument?
Obviously there is some skill involved in cycling, if you want to call riding a bike "skill" in a sporting sense. It's effectively just riding your bike though. 5 year olds can do it. To say that cycling takes as much skill at the highest level as football, tennis or golf or that the bike handling is as important as the physical aspect of the sport etc is simply a ridiculous comment.
Do cyclist spend hours practising their bike handling "skills" like football, tennis and golfers spend hours practising their skills. Or do they spend hours riding hard to train for the physical element of the sport?
I bolded the parts for you where you changed your argument, as it seems you are not even able to notice that.
Rest of your post is so ridicilous i cant even react seriously but i will try. You obviously know nothing about riding the bike, when you basically say that not much chnages skill wise since you are 5 years old, really?
You really think Sagan would have 100+ wins in his career if he handled the bike like Pinot?
And ofc that riders practice their bike handling skills every day, with riding. Like golfer practices his skill on the course, bike rider practices his bike handling skill during rides.
Btw i was not the first comparing sports, i have just answered to those Woods, Federer remarks. In ANY!!! sport you cant suddenly become best rider ever when you were shit aged 25, that is a fact. You deny this fact, so dont act surprised when being called stupid again.
Firstly, i don't consider riding a bike a skill in the way being able to dribble a football or smash an ace or hit a hole in one is a skill. You don't have to practice riding your bike to be able to do it. Once you've learned to do it you can do it. That's why I say cycling has no skill compared to other sports. If YOU want to consider riding a bike as a skill then that's fine.
And comparing Sagan (a sprinter) to Pinot (a climber) is again twisting the facts.
Bike handling makes up probably less than 10% of the ability of a rider to win a race. The rest is his physical ability. Yes, bike handling helps Sagan a bit. But he'd be completely fucked without his supreme physical ability.
In other sport it's probably the other way around and so to compare cycling to other sports is a waste of time.
And you can improve as a cyclist at a later age if you weren't training right up to 25 and then start training right. World class cyclists need to put the effort in but they also need to be lucky enough to have the physical build to become cyclists. You need to be born with the physical attributes. If you have the physical attributes but aren't training right and then start training right then you can improve drastically. Similarly you can be the most committed youth rider in the world, but if your body wasn't built to be a cyclist you will not make it at the highest level. This isn't the same in skill based sports as the skill carries you through. You only have to look at the number of injury prone footballers to realise that.
"Ringo is exactly right", Shonak - 8 September 2016
Ollfardh wrote:
So there's just bike handling and physical ability? Race intelligence doesn't play a part?
I'm sure ability to tie up shoelaces and wipe arse also play a factor. shall we include those as well in the percentages?
Of course intelligence plays a part, but that's got nothing to do with this discussion. It's my response to Avin's claim that you can compare cycling to skill based sports when talking about ability as youth's.
My simple point is cycling is based more on physical ability which can improve more drastically over time than learnt skills such as those in football, tennis and golf etc thus explaining why it's more possible for cyclists to improve in later years than for other sports people.
"Ringo is exactly right", Shonak - 8 September 2016
When he was at peak form he did, yes. Hasn't been in peak form for a while though has he.
Before I do go. This does prove my point.
Kittel was unstoppable a couple of years ago. His physical ability has dropped maybe 5% and he is half the rider he was. His ability to ride or handle a bike hasn't changed. Thus confirming my argument on the relationship between physical ability and bike handling in cycling.
"Ringo is exactly right", Shonak - 8 September 2016
ringo182 wrote: Firstly, i don't consider riding a bike a skill in the way being able to dribble a football or smash an ace or hit a hole in one is a skill. You don't have to practice riding your bike to be able to do it. Once you've learned to do it you can do it. That's why I say cycling has no skill compared to other sports. If YOU want to consider riding a bike as a skill then that's fine.
And comparing Sagan (a sprinter) to Pinot (a climber) is again twisting the facts.
Bike handling makes up probably less than 10% of the ability of a rider to win a race. The rest is his physical ability. Yes, bike handling helps Sagan a bit. But he'd be completely fucked without his supreme physical ability.
Referring to the bolded part, you do realise that anybody can dribble a soccer ball, serve a tennis ball or hit a golf ball with a little practise, same as riding a bike, but doing it on a level to compete with the best in the world, you have to be amazing, it's the same in cycling, to fight for position in a peloton or descend a mountain at those speeds, it takes a ton of skill and even if you're just 2% worse than your competitors in that department, you're wasting a little bit of energy every time you get caught to far behind, have to move forward, need to catch a wheel back up after a corner or worse, get dropped in a split or hit the deck, over 3 weeks this adds up to a big difference.
And trust me, if Sagan had the bike handling of Pinot, he'd still be good, but he wouldn't win nearly as many races as he does and if he had the same bike handling as an amateur, I doubt he'd win at all in the World Tour.
Also, there's a reason some riders are renown for crashing, do you think they're winning those races?
And yeah, Ollfardh is right about race intelligence, huge factor there as well.
btw, wasn't one of Froome's 'arguments' for how he suddenly became good from being rubbish him saying he had an improvement in bike handling?
When he was at peak form he did, yes. Hasn't been in peak form for a while though has he.
Before I do go. This does prove my point.
Kittel was unstoppable a couple of years ago. His physical ability has dropped maybe 5% and he is half the rider he was. His ability to ride or handle a bike hasn't changed. Thus confirming my argument on the relationship between physical ability and bike handling in cycling.
assuming that he certainly is in decreasing phase, but we can't know it. this is a misleading conclusion, so you are saying he is done like a rider.
When he was at peak form he did, yes. Hasn't been in peak form for a while though has he.
Before I do go. This does prove my point.
Kittel was unstoppable a couple of years ago. His physical ability has dropped maybe 5% and he is half the rider he was. His ability to ride or handle a bike hasn't changed. Thus confirming my argument on the relationship between physical ability and bike handling in cycling.
assuming that he certainly is in decreasing phase, but we can't know it. this is a misleading conclusion, so you are saying he is done like a rider.
Nope. Never said that at all. Please continue to make up things. I'm going now.
"Ringo is exactly right", Shonak - 8 September 2016
Ollfardh wrote:
So there's just bike handling and physical ability? Race intelligence doesn't play a part?
I'm sure ability to tie up shoelaces and wipe arse also play a factor. shall we include those as well in the percentages?
Of course intelligence plays a part, but that's got nothing to do with this discussion. It's my response to Avin's claim that you can compare cycling to skill based sports when talking about ability as youth's.
My simple point is cycling is based more on physical ability which can improve more drastically over time than learnt skills such as those in football, tennis and golf etc thus explaining why it's more possible for cyclists to improve in later years than for other sports people.
If you think race intelligence is that unimportant, I'm forced to conclude you don't know anything about cycling. I would rate it almost as high as physical ability. If race intelligence does not matter, the guy with the most watts/kg or m² should just win every race.
Ollfardh wrote:
So there's just bike handling and physical ability? Race intelligence doesn't play a part?
I'm sure ability to tie up shoelaces and wipe arse also play a factor. shall we include those as well in the percentages?
Of course intelligence plays a part, but that's got nothing to do with this discussion. It's my response to Avin's claim that you can compare cycling to skill based sports when talking about ability as youth's.
My simple point is cycling is based more on physical ability which can improve more drastically over time than learnt skills such as those in football, tennis and golf etc thus explaining why it's more possible for cyclists to improve in later years than for other sports people.
If you think race intelligence is that unimportant, I'm forced to conclude you don't know anything about cycling. I would rate it almost as high as physical ability. If race intelligence does not matter, the guy with the most watts/kg or m² should just win every race.
You are confusing "does not matter" with "Not relevant to discussion".
But it is nowhere near as important as physical ability. The final climb of the day or the final sprint is mostly down to physical ability. How many times to riders get on the right wheel or into the right position and then are beaten by someone who is simply stronger than them?
"Ringo is exactly right", Shonak - 8 September 2016
Ollfardh wrote:
So there's just bike handling and physical ability? Race intelligence doesn't play a part?
I'm sure ability to tie up shoelaces and wipe arse also play a factor. shall we include those as well in the percentages?
Of course intelligence plays a part, but that's got nothing to do with this discussion. It's my response to Avin's claim that you can compare cycling to skill based sports when talking about ability as youth's.
My simple point is cycling is based more on physical ability which can improve more drastically over time than learnt skills such as those in football, tennis and golf etc thus explaining why it's more possible for cyclists to improve in later years than for other sports people.
If you think race intelligence is that unimportant, I'm forced to conclude you don't know anything about cycling. I would rate it almost as high as physical ability. If race intelligence does not matter, the guy with the most watts/kg or m² should just win every race.
You are confusing "does not matter" with "Not relevant to discussion".
But it is nowhere near as important as physical ability. The final climb of the day or the final sprint is mostly down to physical ability. How many times to riders get on the right wheel or into the right position and then are beaten by someone who is simply stronger than them?
And how many times does the strongest rider not win the race? Waaaaay more often.
Kalach wrote:
It does not have to be convenient to compare totally different sports. In fact they are not comparable. I know what you want to say about Ronaldo, Federer etc. But maybe in cycling it does not work like that. If you have ability to suffer and right people around you, maybe you can succeed.
Okey, hockey, Zdena Chara, he should have been judo fighter. But here we go he became one of the best defenders in NHL.
Cycling in general seems to be the most complex and scientific oriented sport I can think of right now. Maybe thats the reason why things like this are happening....Because it seems that in cycling such things (to become somebody from nobody) are feasible.
I totally agree with your point, btw my question is, one thing is to be a partial time cyclist and turning into a good pro team it can give you a great improvement, but another point is if you are already a pro cyclist from many years, it is supposed that you are close at your best, and ok, like Sky support the fact that research in technology and training methods can give you those "marginal gains" it's true, I don't doubt about, but how can you improve? 3% maybe 7/8% at most? and it is a very high percentage of improvement at top level 7/8%
Dont know exactly what do you mean by those percentages? How did you come to those numbers?
Yes it would be very high percentage at high level but how do you know that it is 7/8%?
Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.
_____________________________________________ PCM Velogames Championship - Top Results
* 1st Tour de Suisse ('23)
* 1st Tour de Romandie ('19, '18)
* 1st Tour de Pologne ('20, '19)
* 2nd Tour of California ('19)
* 2nd Tour de Suisse ('18)
* 3rd Tour de France ('23, '21)
* 3rd Giro d’Italia ('22)
* 3rd Vuelta Espana ('23)
* 3rd Autumn Classics ('19, '18)
* 9th Spring Classics ('18)
Guys you are just twisting words and catching for words.
In general, I think @ringo is right in his main point of the discussion that cycling is not comparable with other sport. Physical build is there what is crucial. And obviously, thats why there is a lot of scientific approach needed.
Therefore it may be possible, that right people, team and money may provide you "the best method" and you can possibly become one of the best in the peleton (considering you have some genetic potential) even if you had been mediocre. Maybe before, you were doing wrong things, or applying methods and approaches which did not suit you at all. Once you fixed it and solved what is best for you, even from average rider may become one of the best.
Obviously, at least in cycling it seems that it is possible.
Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.
_____________________________________________ PCM Velogames Championship - Top Results
* 1st Tour de Suisse ('23)
* 1st Tour de Romandie ('19, '18)
* 1st Tour de Pologne ('20, '19)
* 2nd Tour of California ('19)
* 2nd Tour de Suisse ('18)
* 3rd Tour de France ('23, '21)
* 3rd Giro d’Italia ('22)
* 3rd Vuelta Espana ('23)
* 3rd Autumn Classics ('19, '18)
* 9th Spring Classics ('18)
Kalach wrote:
Guys you are just twisting words and catching for words.
In general, I think @ringo is right in his main point of the discussion that cycling is not comparable with other sport. Physical build is there what is crucial. And obviously, thats why there is a lot of scientific approach needed.
Therefore it may be possible, that right people, team and money may provide you "the best method" and you can possibly become one of the best in the peleton (considering you have some genetic potential) even if you had been mediocre. Maybe before, you were doing wrong things, or applying methods and approaches which did not suit you at all. Once you fixed it and solved what is best for you, even from average rider may become one of the best.
Obviously, at least in cycling it seems that it is possible.
