Giro and climbers body size

[cnighbor1]

with the Columbia racers winning and placing high on the Giro mountains stages is the winning climbers body size changing
we had in past 120 pounds 5'- 2'' to 5'-5'' great climbers. the Chris Fromm tall lanky type maybe 160 lbs.
Indurain was 6' and about 165 lbs.
Now we have the shorter Columbia rider about 5'-4'' and a medium powerful body about 140 pounds
Is this new norm for climbers

[ultraman6970]

IMO No, is not a new norm, you have climbers of all forms and shapes. There are some generalities about weight and body mass but technically speaking you never know for certain what the guy can be super good at.

Koichi nakano did not even look like a sprinter (height wise and compared with the european ones) and the dude won world cups for almost 10 years.

Indurain was tall but he was not heavy, add that the rumours and there you have a climber. For example valverde and contador don't look like climbers, average everything with them. Kelderman is heavy for a guy that can climb so good.

IMO modern training systems (better bikes than 30 years ago) plus their natural talents is what makes them so good climbing, as an example... seen sprinters that became sprinters due to training only.

[martl]

light guys -which usually means they aren't tall either- make good climbers, if a big, strong rider can climb with those, he is a contender for GC for his advantage in TTs (see Indurain, Merckx, Ullrich, Basso).

I am not a big man at 1,74m/60kg, (5 ft 7/ 132lb) and when i visited the Tour de Suisse paddock in 2003, i noticed i was bigger than most pros.

[benitosan1972]

The less weight you carry up a hill... It's rare for any larger-types to be good climbers, although tall & lanky (still gonna be lightweight) will work too, but it pays to be the size of a lawn jockey.

[Black Dog]

At the end of the day it all comes down to sustained power to weight ratio. Regardless of size.

[Ti Designs]

This is either a form of self torture or a source of excuses. The bottom line is if you ride a bike, you're probably gonna have to get over a hill (or an overpass if you live in Florida). You can look at the pros all you want, just keep in mind that they're probably on drugs. It makes it easy to say "I don't have a climber's body, I can't do that". My answer to that is you can get better at it.

I turned 50 earlier this month, on my birthday I rode up 50 hills over 3 rides. Most people I invited didn't show up, something about not being good at climbing. The one person who did every hill with me is a very talented sprinter - given 250 yards and a town line he'll ride away from you. He's not a climber, but he's figured out how to get up a hill...

I may have been a climber when I was 17. 125 pounds, 5'10", fitness to burn. Now I'm old, 20 pounds heavier, still 5'10". I'm not a climber any more, but I'm really good at faking it.

I've never been a sprinter - that's for guys with upper body strength. Somehow I've beaten national champions to the line when ice cream was at stake. Sprinting is the fun part of riding, I may not be built for it (thanks mom & dad) but I do it enough to get kinda good at it.

I'm not a flat speed guy - they're all big and strong, and I'm me. Somehow I've got the flat speed thing down to a science. Earlier this year I had a cop behind me get on his P.A. and say "Cyclist, you're breaking the speed limit.... That's so cool" That made my whole day.

It can't hurt that I have to teach all these things to my racers. Trying to teach something you can't do just looks stupid, so I need to learn. That said, I know there are some riders who are going to be far better at some of these things almost as soon as we start working on them. That's the best part of coaching - seeing what actual talent can do with what you know.

My point was really to stop watching the Giro and go riding.

[christian]

with the Columbia racers winning and placing high on the Giro mountains stages is the winning climbers body size changing
we had in past 120 pounds 5'- 2'' to 5'-5'' great climbers. the Chris Fromm tall lanky type maybe 160 lbs.
Indurain was 6' and about 165 lbs.
Now we have the shorter Columbia rider about 5'-4'' and a medium powerful body about 140 pounds
Is this new norm for climbers

Indurain wasn't a great climber. He was just good enough uphill that his TT skills made him dominant.

[fiamme red]

I've never been a sprinter - that's for guys with upper body strength. Somehow I've beaten national champions to the line when ice cream was at stake. Sprinting is the fun part of riding, I may not be built for it (thanks mom & dad) but I do it enough to get kinda good at it.Mark Cavendish is 5'9" and 150 lbs. Certainly not a lot of upper-body muscle. Some of the best road sprinters are built like him.

[laupsi]

Just completed the Tour of Tucker Co. in WV this past weekend. 56+ miles, over 6K of climbing. Winner of the combined 40+/50+ field, (he was in the 50+ category mind you), was Gunnar Shogren.

Gunnar is no small guy, (relatively speaking) would say he's about 10-15 lbs heavier than me, (I'm at 155lbs currently and stronger than I've been in a few years). His time was almost 30 minutes faster than mine.

This was a climber's course, if Gunnar ain't a climber he sure made those of us lighter types look marginal at best!

[shovelhd]

I see that a lot in Masters road racing. Big guys that can pump out over 5w/kg for 30 minutes or more are the ones dictating the selection.

[nathanong87]

to get good at climbing, one must do some climbing.

[cfox]

I see that a lot in Masters road racing. Big guys that can pump out over 5w/kg for 30 minutes or more are the ones dictating the selection.

agree. Pros and amateurs are different in many, many ways. One big difference is the distance they race; if master's races were 160 hilly miles, big guys wouldn't dominate road races. The cumulative affect of dragging all that weight uphill over that long a race adds up to a lot of fatigue. 60 miles? no problem. A lot of these 'roid-head masters that have been popped over the last couple of years have looked like linebackers, and these were guys dominating crits, TTs and road races.

[Lewis Moon]

At the end of the day it all comes down to sustained power to weight ratio. Regardless of size.

This.

[Lewis Moon]

I see that a lot in Masters road racing. Big guys that can pump out over 5w/kg for 30 minutes or more are the ones dictating the selection.

:eek:

[cnighbor1]

thanks for all the great replies!
Charles
PS I started riding in Detroit in 1949 on a Rudge. Detroit has long rolling terrain. when I moved to Seattle in late 60's and started riding again on a new Cilo racing bicycle the hills were something I never seen or rode before. It took better gearing and a long time to get over mentally the hesitation of climbing them
Than I moved to San Francisco Bay Area and encountered real mountains. Still in aw but I am now willing to try to get up them at age 77

[laupsi]

thanks for all the great replies!
Than I moved to San Francisco Bay Area and encountered real mountains. Still in aw but I am now willing to try to get up them at age 77

This isn't a Strava post but I'm giving you KUDOS regardless :)

[jlwdm]

The really small climbers can be impressive on individual climbs, but not many are threats in races like the Tour de France. The teams are too strong at the Tour, not as strong at the Giro.

A number of years ago the strong teams started eliminating some of the pure climbers in the first week of the Tour. The strong teams pushed the pace and hurt the climbers on the flats and destroyed them in the wind with echelons.

The pure climbers get to win stages, but not contend for the overall very often.

Jeff