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Cycling is such a strange sport. It's like Formula 1 for rich fitness enthusiasts. I recently bought an old high-end Look racing bike after taking up cycling fo

by Zigurd 3y ago

Cycling is such a strange sport. It's like Formula 1 for rich fitness enthusiasts. I recently bought an old high-end Look racing bike after taking up cycling for fitness, and I went down the Look, La Vie Claire, Bernard Tapie, Bernard Hinault, Lance Armstrong rabbit hole. Doping is just the surface of what must have been a money laundering cocaine fueled sex crazed decades long party.

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
> It's like Formula 1 for rich fitness enthusiasts. You can't buy the engine for professional cyclists. Even though they were doping, people like Armstong are still individuals with insanely high VO2max levels, beyond anything you could achieve through training alone (i.e. you need genetic good luck too). So I am not sure where you see the similarities with F1 ...
- Zigurd 3y ago
  I meant the milieu, not the sport itself. It's about providing a party for executives of corporate sponsors.
  - alistairSH 3y ago
    Isn’t that true for most pro sports? Skyboxes at football matches, horse racing, etc.
- KeplerBoy 3y ago
  You also need some inherent talent to be competitive in F1. Yes, you can buy yourself in, and you can be taught how to drive the car safely and fast, but that's not enough to win. See lance stroll (not saying he has no talent, but the gap between someone in the top 10% and top 1% of aptitude is large)
- nradov 3y ago
  VO2 Max isn't a particularly good predictor of road cycling race results. Athletes can only sustain their VO2 Max output for about 7 minutes (plus or minus). But stage winners tend to be either sprinters with high anaerobic power output, or climbers who can sustain a high aerobic power-to-weight ratio for much longer than 7 minutes. All pro cyclists have relatively high VO2 Max metrics but this is more incidental rather than something that they specifically train much.
jdietrich 3y ago
>Cycling is such a strange sport. It's like Formula 1 for rich fitness enthusiasts. There's a really interesting cultural divide in that respect. In the heartlands of road cycling it was long viewed as a sport like boxing, a way for tough kids from bad neighbourhoods to make something of themselves. Like boxing, many of the sponsors and promoters were from the same sort of background - businessmen with opaque arrangements and friends in low places. The revenues brought in by the new global audience of middle-class, middle-aged men in lycra has professionalised and legitimised the sport to a significant extent, but there's still a strong undercurrent of the old days and the old ways. Standing outside of that cultural context, the glamour is much more apparent than the grit. Roubaix looks quite scenic from a helicopter, but it's one of the poorest towns in France.

by Zigurd 3y ago

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago

> It's like Formula 1 for rich fitness enthusiasts. You can't buy the engine for professional cyclists. Even though they were doping, people like Armstong are still individuals with insanely high VO2max levels, beyond anything you could achieve through training alone (i.e. you need genetic good luck too). So I am not sure where you see the similarities with F1 ...

Zigurd 3y ago
I meant the milieu, not the sport itself. It's about providing a party for executives of corporate sponsors.
- alistairSH 3y ago
  Isn’t that true for most pro sports? Skyboxes at football matches, horse racing, etc.
KeplerBoy 3y ago
You also need some inherent talent to be competitive in F1. Yes, you can buy yourself in, and you can be taught how to drive the car safely and fast, but that's not enough to win. See lance stroll (not saying he has no talent, but the gap between someone in the top 10% and top 1% of aptitude is large)
nradov 3y ago
VO2 Max isn't a particularly good predictor of road cycling race results. Athletes can only sustain their VO2 Max output for about 7 minutes (plus or minus). But stage winners tend to be either sprinters with high anaerobic power output, or climbers who can sustain a high aerobic power-to-weight ratio for much longer than 7 minutes. All pro cyclists have relatively high VO2 Max metrics but this is more incidental rather than something that they specifically train much.

jdietrich 3y ago

>Cycling is such a strange sport. It's like Formula 1 for rich fitness enthusiasts. There's a really interesting cultural divide in that respect. In the heartlands of road cycling it was long viewed as a sport like boxing, a way for tough kids from bad neighbourhoods to make something of themselves. Like boxing, many of the sponsors and promoters were from the same sort of background - businessmen with opaque arrangements and friends in low places. The revenues brought in by the new global audience of middle-class, middle-aged men in lycra has professionalised and legitimised the sport to a significant extent, but there's still a strong undercurrent of the old days and the old ways. Standing outside of that cultural context, the glamour is much more apparent than the grit. Roubaix looks quite scenic from a helicopter, but it's one of the poorest towns in France.