Zoncolan Climbing stats

[J.Greene]

Cyclingnews is reportiing that Gibo's win on the Zoncolan was pretty exceptional, even when compared to doped up performances. Check out the quote below.

Simoni goes 1850 metres/hour
1850 VAM
Gilberto Simoni (Saunier Duval-Prodir) conquered the 10.1-kilometre Monte Zoncolan in 1850 metres per hour according to La Gazzetta dello Sport. The speed, 39 minutes over the 1203 metres, 1850 VAM (Velocity Ascended, Metres per hour Vm/h), was faster than that of Ivan Basso on the Maielletta Passo Lanciano in 2006, 1805 VAM. Marco Pantani blasted up the Alpe d'Huez with a 1791 VAM and Danilo Di Luca did the final four kilometres of Tre Cime di Lavaredo with a 1750 VAM.

The irony of Simoni calling Basso an alien or something last year is too much to pass up without comment in a year like this. Pretty amazing for a clean rider in the twilight of his career, who has been riding hard the whole Giro to recover and climb like that. Just saying......

JG

[LegendRider]

Yep, I thought the exact same thing...

[jeffg]

Cyclingnews is reportiing that Gibo's win on the Zoncolan was pretty exceptional, even when compared to doped up performances. Check out the quote below.

Simoni goes 1850 metres/hour
1850 VAM
Gilberto Simoni (Saunier Duval-Prodir) conquered the 10.1-kilometre Monte Zoncolan in 1850 metres per hour according to La Gazzetta dello Sport. The speed, 39 minutes over the 1203 metres, 1850 VAM (Velocity Ascended, Metres per hour Vm/h), was faster than that of Ivan Basso on the Maielletta Passo Lanciano in 2006, 1805 VAM. Marco Pantani blasted up the Alpe d'Huez with a 1791 VAM and Danilo Di Luca did the final four kilometres of Tre Cime di Lavaredo with a 1750 VAM.

The irony of Simoni calling Basso an alien or something last year is too much to pass up without comment in a year like this. Pretty amazing for a clean rider in the twilight of his career, who has been riding hard the whole Giro to recover and climb like that. Just saying......

JG

VAM increaes exponentially as the gradient increases even if you hold the same watt/kg. So, one would expect a higher VAM on the Zoncolan given that it is steeper even if the power/weight performance were the same.

Ironically (or not), the best source on this is Ferrari:

Repeated on the road measuring with a rider weighing 64 kg and pedaling at 300 watts gave the following results:

5% gradient = 1180 VAM (m/h)
6% = 1215 m/h
7% = 1250 m/h
8% = 1290 m/h
9% = 1340 m/h
10% = 1400 m/h
11% = 1475 m/h
12% = 1565 m/h
13% = 1675 m/h

As we can clearly see, VAM values exponentially rise up with every gradient increase.

So, 1805 for Basso on the Laciano is more impressive. While the final 4km of the Tre Cime are very steep, that climb also came after the Pellegrino and Giau passes, so the riders should have been more tired on that stage, and 1750 is quite an impresive number as well.

So, VAM has to be calibrated for the gradient of the climb. Just sayin'

Vai Gibo!

[gt6267a]

is VAM a good test statistic for understanding a hard effort? i.e. rider a could go really hard on a flat and have a very low VAM vs rider b going up a slight incline lightly and have a a higher VAM. rider a put out more effort but rider b has a higher VAM. or, let's take two riders. magnus backstedt and macro pantani. they both climb Alpe d'Huez at the same rate. but did they put out nearly the same effort, no matter what speed they climb? if simoni weighed less than basso ...

i realize that my statements do not really disprove VAM, but it seems like something like wattage is a better marker.

also ... was basso under attack as was simoni on the day in question?

[gt6267a]

jeffg said what i wanted to say better than i did. way to go jeffg!

[benb]

Those guys are flying..

Tyler's 52 minutes up Mt. Washington last year comes out to 1674 VAM. Almost exactly what 13% would register on the above chart.

Of course it was sustained over a greater distance. I'm sure the longer the climb is the lower the VAM will be for a record climb. (On top of grade effects)

[LegendRider]

Can someone take a shot at normalizing Simoni's effort vis-a-vis Basso?

[jeffg]

Can someone take a shot at normalizing Simoni's effort vis-a-vis Basso?

So Basso's performance seems much better if that 1805 was for the whole climb. Evn though the Lanciano was the first mountaintop finish and the riders would have been fresher, Basso's performance seems more impressive any way you slice it.

[Erik.Lazdins]

I don't think normalizing the effort is possible - -

Different days
Different weather
different gradients
different efforts prior to the climbs

All I can say about Gibo is :beer: hats off!

I'm glad to see Gibo get a stage rather than the skewering he got for a comment made last year.

[benb]

Yah.. and while Gibo is riding well he is certainly not riding Superhuman like he who only ever attempted to dope was.

He's looked pretty humbled on some of the stages.

[chrisroph]

That sounded like a brutal stage. I saw somewhere that Di Luca was reportedly riding a 34x29!

[BumbleBeeDave]

Yep, I thought the exact same thing...

It's a shame that this is what the doping problems have done. As soon as someone posts a great effort, we all start wondering . . . :(

BBD

[flyingscot]

The other difference is that Gibo won by not much at all
To have 3 guys finish within 30 seconds of each other at such a brutal stage indicates that Gibo was certainly moving, but not to the extent Basso was last year when he was taking minutes off everybody during every mountain stage. He was in a different league
This year all riders have shown signs of cracking during one stage or another