One of the fun things about cycling is that normies like me get to ride the same roads as the pros. However, when watching a race on TV it’s difficult to comprehend how fast the pros really are. Thanks to Strava I can get real numbers to compare myself against them. To be sure, it’s not an entirely fair comparison. They are younger. They are genetically freakish, typically with a high VO2Max. They haven’t spent their youth in smoky bars. They ride in a peloton which cuts wind resistance. They don’t need to worry about oncoming traffic and can use the whole road, which is especially helpful when descending. Oh, and they train a lot, have special diets, and maybe other “supplements” as well.
To compare myself to the pros I sampled a few different types of roads: climbs, flats and descents. On climbs watt/kg are important. You want to be able to put out a lot of power for your weight in order to overcome gravity. So climbers tend to be thin, little guys with toothpick arms who sometimes have eating disorders. On the flats your weight isn’t that important because gravity isn’t working against you, so pure power is where it’s at, which is something the bigger guys excel at. For the descents it’s good to have some weight, but it’s even better to have balls of steel and maybe a little insanity. To my disadvantage I don’t put out much power, I’m kind of heavy, and I don’t have balls of steel. Taint of steel maybe, but my balls are of a softer metal like aluminum or lead. Probably lead given the way old man balls sag.
The Climbs
| The Road | Donner Lake to Donner Summit. 5.1 km at 6.4%, 330 meters of climbing at about 7000 feet of altitude. |
| The Pro | Neilson Powless. Won a couple of big races: Dwars door Vlaanderen in Belgium and Clasica San Sebastian in Spain. Eddie “The Cannibal” Merckx would have been a more apt comparison, but he’s not on Strava. |
| Pro speed vs MAMIL speed | 22.6 km/hr vs. 8.6 km/hr, 2.6x faster |
| The Road | Col d’Eze, France. 10 km at 5.2%, 493 meters of climbing. Lot of pros live in Nice and they train on this road often. |
| The Pro | Sepp Kuss. Won the 2023 Vuelta a Espana, the Spanish version of the Tour de France. |
| Pro speed vs MAMIL speed | 29.0 km/hr vs. 11.9 km/hr, 2.4x faster |
| The Road | Mt. Diablo. 17.3 km at 5.7%, 981 meters of climbing. Used in the Tour of California. |
| The Pro | Rohan Dennis. 2 x World Time Trial Champion. Stage winner at Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana. |
| Pro speed vs MAMIL speed | 25.4 km/hr vs. 11.1 km/hr, 2.3x faster |
The Flats
| The Road | Shasta Gravel Hugger northbound section. 15.8 km at -0.7% (with a nasty headwind). |
| The Pro | Peter Stetina. Rode all three Grand Tours (Vuelta a Espana, Giro d’Italia, Tour de France). Won a number of gravel races including The Rock Cobbler. Rode past me like I was standing still on this section. |
| Pro speed vs MAMIL speed | 37.8 km/hr vs 24.5 km/hr, 1.5x faster |
| The Road | Flat road near me used in the Tour of California. 1.5 km at 0.9%. |
| The Pro | Jasper Stuyven. Won Milan-San Remo, one of the biggest one day races for the pros. |
| Pro speed vs MAMIL speed | 48.3 km/hr vs 27.2 km/hr, 1.8x faster |
The Descents
| The Road | Calaveras Road. 4 km at -4%. Used in the Tour of California. |
| The Pro | Toms Skujiņš. 2nd at 2024 Strade Bianchi to some guy named Pogačar. Almost had his own segment in Faces of Death. (TW: it’s hard to watch) |
| Pro speed vs MAMIL speed | 60.7 km/hr vs. 39.9 km/hr, 1.5x faster |
| The Road | Mount Hamilton Descent. Used in the Tour of California. 10.2 km at -5.8%. Not steep because the road was built to allow horse teams to pull the materials for the construction of the observatory at the top. Lots of hairpin turns. |
| The Pro | Tadej Pogačar. Most importantly he won the Tour of California, but he’s also a 3 x Tour de France winner and too many other races to mention. He’s kind of a big deal. |
| Pro speed vs MAMIL speed | 51.2 km/h vs 35.4 km/hr, 1.5x faster |
Conclusion
Those guys are fast. They are about 2.3-2.6 times faster than me going uphill. If I had really steep climbs to compare, the multiple probably would be even greater as watts/kg play a bigger role, but I usually avoid those climbs. Also, my speeds tend to be in the lower third of riders of my age, which I figure is a pretty self-selecting group, so the multiple is lower for the average MAMIL.
On the descents and the flats the pros are 1.5-1.8x faster. Maybe the multiple on the flats would be lower if I was in a peloton with the lower wind resistance, but then I’d probably panic from being so close to so many other riders. The multiples on the descents would probably be lower if I could use the full road without fear of oncoming traffic as I would be able to smooth out the turns and use the brakes less, but I don’t have balls to fully match their speeds.
The pros’ numbers are made more impressive by the fact that they generally are going at those speeds over the course of a 100 mile race or longer, and they do that day after day, up to three weeks in a Grand Tour. That said, I probably wouldn’t want to change places with them as one shouldn’t confuse pro cycling with healthy physical activity, but like Chauncy Gardner, I do like to watch.
Hard crash!
I felt bad, he wouldnt quit,
The team car eventually caught up to him and pulled him from the race, but he did not want to get off his bike. I think he ended up spending a few days in the hospital.
I was surprised they let him back on the bike.
I kept expecting him to hit a curb.
The guy who put him back on the bike was probably focused on fixing the bike and maybe didn’t see much of the stumbling around. He also probably didn’t want to stay in that spot too long with bikes flying by him on a turn. Let the guy ride to a safer part of the road and let his team handle it.
Brief interview with the rider: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPc0qwYVF4M
Ugly chateau.
Maybe the multiple on the flats would be lower if I was in a peloton with the lower wind resistance, but then I’d probably panic from being so close to so many other riders.
Get your wife to drive in front of you so you can tuck into the draft.
I get nervous and start bleeding speed when I get around 25 MPH, I can’t imagine I’d be feeling very safe and comfortable going ~50% faster than that.
I’ve hit close to 50 mph, but then I start thinking of all the things that could go wrong.
What with something like 25mm of rubber being the only thing touching the road?
Sensei:
And the only protection being spandex, a helmet, and cycling shoes.
Dress for the ride, not the slide.
25mm of rubber being the only thing touching the road
Euphemisms again?
Pope Jimbo:
He’s just making it clear that he’s not some kind of fattire fan.
I rode Going to the Sun Road and back down at night – once. Probably doing a little more than 25mph coming down in a full moon. Was great fun but, in retrospect, not one of the wisest things I’ve ever done.
You’ve reminded me of a piece of advice when in the mountains. If you find a kebab shop, make sure it’s doner kebab and not donner kebab.
Trust me.
You probably don’t want a donor kebab either.
🤢🤮
Donner kababs are donor kababs.
There’s a prosthetic maker in Chicago who is the “go to” guy for making custom molded hockey sled buckets (seats). Thus over the years we’ve had a number of Paralympic skaters drop in to our practices. I’ve also played in the higher tier a few times. So I have seen these guys right up close on the ice. As good as you think you are, these guys are so much faster, so much more maneuverable, so much more accurate with their shots. It’s not even close. It’s like they are a different species.
I used to sail competitively including against guys who have medaled at the Olympics and won the America’s Cup. They could show up in any crappy boat and make it go faster than me. They really are at a different level.
It’s both inspiring and depressing at the same time, isn’t it?
Sail? As they say on the tiktoks Fancy Pants Rich McGee over here
Pie, sailing is cheap to do at first, competitive is not so cheap.
/in America
“It’s both inspiring and depressing at the same time, isn’t it?”
These days it’s more inspiring. I knew guys who trained for years to qualify for the Olympics, then the top level guys would parachute in and win the qualifiers. Four years down the drain. That would be depressing. They ended up representing their parents’ home country, but that kind of feels like cheating. Not that that would stop me from going to the parties at the Olympic Village.
I always found it to be awe inspiring, and, as you know you are out classed, a joy.
For example
Skip ahead to 1:45 or so.
What with something like 25mm of rubber being the only thing touching the road?
A contact patch roughly the size of your thumbprint.
My car has 4 the size of a sheet of paper, aint technology grand?
Everything not mandatory is prohibited
They’re asking a federal judge to declare the order unlawful and stop federal agencies from implementing it.
“This arbitrary and unnecessary directive threatens the loss of thousands of good-paying jobs and billions in investments, and it is delaying our transition away from the fossil fuels that harm our health and our planet,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading the coalition, said in a statement.
Why do I reflexively assume they are characterizing the removal of mandates and subsidies as a “ban”?
And, as always- when did these people ever actually give a shit about jobs or economic growth?
Why is Letitia still holding office and not in prison?
Also, you are no doubt correct. The whole green energy scam is a scam. Cut off their fucking water. If their preferred industry works it will finance itself.
Except in this case it sounds like he’s blocking permits rather than blocking subsidies. I’m all in favor of not subsidizing these projects, but if someone wants to build them, I don’t see a reason not to approve them.
Isn’t that what Biden’s handlers did with the Dakota Access pipeline?
Well, to use their own logic, they should be blocked due to the damage windmills do to avian life, and the sounds hurt undersea mammals.
I think some group did sue to remove the small, old windmills near me, which has led me to believe the greens’ goal is to have us live in caves without electricity. The small bird choppers have been replaced by large, slower moving windmills which is better for the raptors. It seems to have worked as the raptors came back and ate the pigeons that liked to roost on the houses in my neighborhood. Occasionally we’d find a hawk ripping apart a pigeon on our lawn. I consider that a win.
“when did these people ever actually give a shit about jobs or economic growth?”
When they think it will convince people who aren’t in their political party. “See? This is important to you right?” I doubt it works much, because while there are *some* jobs, there are also lots of insiders getting rich, and cases where the money gets spent but nothing gets built.
Meh, let the approval/permitting process go ahead; just don’t provide federal funds.
Let them apply, then let them learn that “permits delayed are permits denied”. The requests for additional information, the meetings and processing, gosh, careful consideration of a permit application can take years. And if they try to litigate the “delay”, well, that just adds time.
Obstruct smarter, not harder.
So, the order “pauses” the process. I don’t read that as saying “No permits will ever be issued forevermore.” The idea that a bureaucratic process can never be paused strikes me as farfetched. In fact, I am sure that all kinds of such processes are paused all the time for various reasons.
What you very rarely, if ever, see in permitting processes is a right to get a permit within a set time period. Without that, I don’t see how pausing a process is illegal or there is any basis for a court to order anything.
Have you considered performance enhancing medication? You should be the best vesion of you.
You mean like becoming a woman? I think they’d still beat me.
Plus, instead of going out and riding, you’d just stay home and play with your boobs all day…
If I had boobs, I’d never leave the house. Except to get a mirror, so I can look at my boobs. -Beavis and Butt Head
the opposite. Sildenafil. makes you more aerodynamic
While Sildenafil might make me more aero, it would divert too much blood from my other muscles.
To me, a non-rider, your numbers seem impressive.
Pros are scary.
I was on the field in KC before the Chiefs played the Bills in 2012 or so.
The Bills were doing warmups by where we were waiting for the pregame ceremony.
Nobody that big should move that fast.
I’ve long heard that the average speeds are around 10 MPH for newbies, with more frequent riders averaging around 13-15 MPH, and the daily riders averaging around 18-20 MPH. All of that is heavily dependent on terrain and total weight (gear + rider). The real key is power/weight ratio.
It’s shocking when you see someone the size of Vince Wilfork start running and realize he’d easily, easily run you down.
if someone wants to build them, I don’t see a reason not to approve them.
The government’s thumb should not be on either side of the scale. BidenWorld was heavily pushing those permits.
Because it IS possible for the Hugo Award to sink even lower.
TW – Gizmodo.
https://gizmodo.com/worldcon-2025-chatgpt-controversy-hugos-2000598351
I blame gamergate
Resigning by BlueSky tweet? Way to reach dozens.
Lol, I can only imagine the shitshow that Bluesky must be.
https://file770.com/seattle-worldcon-2025-chatgpt-controversy-roundup/
The commenters seem like they were lifted directly from a decade or two back. It’s like their communication style has been frozen.
I think this blog was enemy number one for the sad puppies…
I wonder what vox day is up to these days
although vox was rabid puppies not sad…
And of course, Vox Day was a friend of Clarkhat.
what is Clarkhat up to these days
No idea, I’m not on social media.
Another earthquake juust now, not big here, lets investigate
Casually Explained: Cycling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EE8m8mmq1k
old one do not remember if I shared it before
I’ve seen that one before.
Aero…
I think pregnant women probably are aero. It’s like that bulge on the bow of large ships.
Tanks Jaime. Pretty neat how you can now make such comparisons. I climbed Mt Diablo once just so I could go down. It was worth it. Got stuck behind a Porsche 356 (yeah, I’m old). I took him on the inside at an apex. Dumb AF but I was 15 and ,well, dumb AF.
I’ve only gone up Diablo when it’s closed for a special event, which eliminates the danger of getting hit by an oncoming car during the descent, but even then we aren’t allowed to cross the centerline.
Real ID or Selectee
They may run out of lube for the body cavity searches.
https://d1x28xahcwjm2w.archive.is/MX9I0/cd0f89fcefccc25057d9bcfdfc96a9911e0928e2.webp
*Pitches idea for “Sexy TSA Agent” costume to Spirit Halloween*
Perfect. Let’s make the car less comfortable and add cost and weight in the interest of being a nanny.
Owners will receive official notifications by June 20, while a stop-sale has been ordered on new and pre-owned inventory, reports Automotive News. Volkswagen has identified a fix, which is not adding another seat belt, but instead installing a trim piece that will adjust the seat width.
VW Orders Stop-Sale of ID Buzz, Partially Because the Rear Seat Is Too Wide
https://www.thedrive.com/news/vw-orders-stop-sale-of-id-buzz-partially-because-the-rear-seat-is-too-wide
Some enterprising lawyer should sue NHTSA for ADA violation for recalling the extra width.
Too wide for what?
Things that Tres has never said…
Casually Explained: Cycling
Excellent.
About every six months or so, the wife and I talk about moving back to CA, as we both grew up there, me on the Central Coast and she in Norcal. But then we laugh wistfully, thinking about the issues in the state and so on, and turn to other topics.
These pictures don’t help.
In a recall issued last month, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says that the third-row seat of some 2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz vehicles “fail to comply with the requirements of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard number 208, ‘Occupant Crash Protection.’” Say what? There’s way too much room back there.
In other news, car prices keep rising.
Fuck you, I’m outta here
In July 1962, 20-year-old Audrey Backeberg went missing from Reedsburg, Wisconsin. The family’s babysitter said she and Backeberg hitchhiked to Madison on July 7 before they took a Greyhound bus to Indianapolis, according to her missing person report.
The babysitter said she last saw Backeberg walking away from the bus stop, around a corner. Investigators pursued different leads on her whereabouts for years, but the case eventually went cold.
That is until Thursday, when the Sauk County Sheriff’s Office announced Backeberg had been located — “alive and well.”
——-
An abusive husband may have been a factor in her disappearance, Hanson said, but he promised their conversation would remain private. The sheriff’s office also did not disclose what state Backeberg is living in.
No mention of a pack of cigarettes.
Good for her.
Hanson told the Herald he notified Backeberg’s family members, who had mixed emotions but were “elated.”
“She sounded happy,” he told WISN. “Confident in her decision. No regrets.”
Her story should inspire other young women to save themselves.
This “should inspire other young women”
https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-news/minnesota-supreme-court-breasts-not-inherently-sexual-can-be-exposed-in-public
Hopefully not in Poduckville though
Free the Nipple
Just start taking steroids and you’ll be GTG.
https://archive.is/KWYDG
Titty Tuesday T&A.
Stepping on this afternoon’s links
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-allows-trump-implement-transgender-military-ban-rcna204135
The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed President Donald Trump to implement his ban on transgender people serving in the military.
The justices granted an emergency request from the Trump administration to lift a nationwide injunction blocking the policy while litigation continues.
one injunction down; so many left to go.
“The challengers argued in court that the ban violates the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which requires that laws apply equally to everybody, as well as other constitutional provisions.”
This isn’t “the law”. This is military service. They are allowed to discriminate based on things that could affect your performance. Needing pills and shots every day isn’t the same thing as getting a standard issue pair of glasses. And there’s no way I should have been able to serve in my youth.
So… transpeople and women need to sign up for the draft right? I mean, if the laws have to apply equally to everybody…
You’re thinking equality, they think equity
Unfortunately it’s just an emergency request, the actual case needs to go through, but the 6-3 vote on this is encouraging.
It will take years for this to work through trial, appeal, and eventually get back to SCOTUS. Trump will be gone by then.
The purge will have happened.
If gender is a social construct, why did the military create a gender-neutral physical fitness test?
It’s all nonsense on stilts. Even their own bullshit isn’t internally consistent.
“A good traveler has no fixed plans nor is intent on arrival.”
Good advice that has served me well.
Depends on why you’re traveling, preparation is helpful.
I would say “A good traveler can have plans, but should be stoic if those plans don’t come to fruition”. There’s a lot of things that you might want to do when traveling that require planning ahead and even making commitments, after all.
A good traveler has a plan . . . . and a contingency plan . . . and the resources to wing it when everything goes to shit.
Freedom isn’t found in having no plans, it’s in not being owned by them.
I like the old saying about how it’s not about the destination, but the journey.
If you define “travel” as simply going somewhere new or even else, it’s easier to succeed.