Is cycling the most physically demanding sport ?

limerickman

Have been reading some stuff about rowing (Steve Redgraves
Biography : 1984,1988,1992,1996 and 2000 Olympic Gold Medallist Rower) and about hard he trained to reach the top of his sport.
This got me to thinking : you read of cyclists doing 30k kilometres
of training BEFORE the season commences :
Is cycling the most physically demanding sport there is ?
If you consider some other sport to be more physically demanding, perhaps you could tell us why this is so ?

JMAC

Well thats kind of a bad question to ask on a cycling site cause obviously cycling is the hardest most demanding sport in the world. I think the only thing that comes close is marathon racers. Still cycling is harder for sure I don;t think any sport ppl train as much as cyclist in a day. Maybe swimming but thats just weird.

rob of the og

well there's intensity (ie how hard you're working) and extensity (how much you're working) I don't imagine there's many sports requiring more extensive training than cycling, but much of that training isn't all that intensive. A rower probably trains less but isn't bothered about base miles so trains harder (on average) when they're out on the river.

2LAP

I think you can look at this in a number of angles, looking at the elite...

1. Energy expendature - Tour de France reports some of the highest values both overall and for individual stages.
2. Aerobic fitness - Cross country skiiers report higher values due to greater muscle mass used, but they don't need the anaerobic capacity that even endurance cyclists use.
3. Touring - Long rides like the PBP take days to complete non stop... not many events like that.
4. Sprinting - Difficult to compare sprinters in cycling or running however both 200m track sprint and 100m running sprint take around the same time. Cycling sprinters are perhaps the fastest people traveling under their own steam (not including people who travel down hill).
5. Freestyle and trials riders - Very high levels of skill, not sure how you quantify this and compare it to other sports.

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Beastt

Hard to say since there are so many different ways that an activity can be physically demanding. Being an American I often wonder how so many people can watch football, baseball, basketball and golf yet not have any interest in cycling.

Clearly a top-notch Tour de France rider wouldn't last 2 minutes on a football field, (the American kind with the oblong ball). And a football player probably couldn't make it to the end of one stage if given the whole day. The sports are very different so I like to compare the duration of the physical exertion. During 2 to 2½ hours of football, how long does the average player spend in motion on the field -- maybe 15 minutes? Granted they must produce explosive energy during a play but it hardly seems comparable to spending 5-8 hours on a bike riding several of the hardest climbs in the world. The same goes for baseball. How much time do they spend sitting on the bench practicing their aim with tobacco stains or standing in the field waiting for the next pitch? Basketball keeps the players in motion for a greater period of time but it still seems to fall well short of cycling. And golf? In my opinion, golf isn't even a sport, it's a game. The players aren't necessarily athletes. It's all skill. Maybe that's why it's so popular. People in terrible physical shape can still play golf and therefore relate to it.

Certainly I'm biased in favor of cycling because that's what I do. (Not to be confused with doing it well.) One of the more prominent competitors often refers to the Tour de France as, "arguably the hardest sporting event in the world". I'm inclined to agree with that.

rob of the og

Beastt - the key thing is when you say that a cyclist couldn't survive 2 minutes in an American football game - most sports are highly physically demanding but they're all demanding in different ways.

Marathon running is often compared to cycling, but I speak to ex-runners turned cyclists and they find it hugely different - running tends to be at a higher intensity for the whole race, cycling is lower intensity but with short very high intensity periods, hill-climbing or sprinting out of a corner. That's why we have to do the massive milage base - so that you're still fresh enough to put in those big kicks after hours in the saddle. In long distance running there's no slip stream effect so there's no bunch that you need to sprint away from... but you can't sit in when you're feeling tired. swings and roundabouts.

Physically demanding I would say is impossible to quantify, but look at mental toughness - regardless of the physical demands involved no other sport requires its competitors to be out there doing it as much as cycling does. I know a rower and I know he works harder in his mornings on the river than I do in my morning's ride before work. But he takes the next day off when I'm hauling myself back out of bed and going out in the rain again.

limerickman

You make some interesting analogies between cycling and American Football and Baseball.
Take professional football (soccer) here in Europe : the English premiership statistics show that palyers cover, on average 8-9
kilometres running during 90 minutes of football.
Now, you can argue that the pre-requisites for soccer such as
soocer skills aren't factored in to the physical stresses of palying the game for 90 minutes.
However, as a cyclist, I would argue that you and I could run around for 90 minutes and cover the same amount of distance
as our soccer colleagues.
(we may not be skillful but we're probably as fit as the players !).

What is interesting would be compare the fitness of say Ullrich or
Armstrong to Haile Gabrisellasse (Ethiopia marathon runner - and the greatest long distance runner ever).
Is Ullrich/Armstrong fitter than Gabrisellasse ?
If Gabrisellasse started a TDF, could he finish it ?
Could Ullrich run a marathon ?

The only recent case that I read of where an international professional cyclist took part in an endurance sport, was of the case of Udo "IronMan" Bolts (former Telekom Super Domestique rider and Ullrich Svengali).
Bolts took part in the IronMan competition a few years ago and he managed to be well placed at the end of the competition.
His comment afterwards was that if he could swim a little bit better he could have been better placed, is indicative of the
fitness levels that professional cyclists are at.

Maq Dreqan

I would think swimming would be up there, especially any sort of distance or rough water, and the limited chances to breath.

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tomdavis80

No, no, no, no, no.

The problem is that he was training specifically for cycling and not for swimming or running so it's impossible to quantify how well he would have done. This is called the specificity of training. If he was training for all three aspects of the Ironman, oh, absolutely, he'd probably finish first or very close. But you have to keep in mind that a cyclist trains for cycling only, a swimmer trains for swimming only, a runner trains for running only and a triathlete trains for all of these but isn't the best in all of them.

It's impossible to compare how fit a cyclist is to other disciplines due to the fact that they are specific in their training as compared to other disciplines being specific to their sport. Perhaps, the best example we have of how fit a cyclist is in comparsion to other athletes would be Lance Armstrong since he was a triathlete before he became a full time cyclist. He was the one of the top triathletes in the US in the sprint triathlons at 16 years old.

Your analogy with Armstrong/Ullrich competing in a marathon and how well would they have placed? Quite frankly, they'd probably do pretty well with running a marathon in 2 and a half hours to 3 hours in part because they don't train for running specifically but they are already fit. But could they place in the top 10 in a marathon? Probably not. Gabrielasse probably would be able to finish a TDF but would he be competitive with the rest of the elite cyclists? Not a snowball's chance in hell.

Here's food for thought, how would boxing do in comparsion to cycling in terms of being the most physically demanding sport? I think it comes very close because of how hard it is to get hit repeatedly and keep hammering away through 4 rounds much less 12. I did boxing for a while and I was always winded after 3 rounds of sparring and did 4 rounds at a time sometimes but I was always winded at the 3rd round. It hurts like bloody hell, your arms barely can move after swinging away and you're heaving breaths.

Thomas Davis

cycleboy

My vote would go to ultramarathoners. Especially the race from Death Valley to the top of Mt. Whitney. I can't imagine what it must be like running through the hot desert and seeing the mountain getting closer and closer and bigger and bigger knowing you have to run to the top.

limerickman

I simply introduced the example of Bolts in to this discussion because it's the only case where a pro cyclist has managed to
take part in an event other cycling and has performed very well.
It's obvious that he wouldn't have had the time to train at the swimming or running part of the event - but this misses the point.
He competed in the event and because he's very fit was able to maximise his performance DESPITE his poor running,swimming ability.

The analogy with boxing is interesting -
I have boxed at an amateur level and it;s a sport that requires
one to be very fit (physically fit) and it requires one to be able to withstand pain.
I think it's quite comparable to cycling.

tomdavis80

Sorry about the misunderstanding with your example with Bolts. Of course, I'm with you about boxing. I boxed amateur for a few months but didn't have a chance to fight an actual fight. Weighed only 115 lbs when I was training so you can see that it's hard to get fights with other boxers of that weight. It is very much like cycling with its pain element and the fitness level required. It's not something someone who has a great aerobic system can be great at nor is it a sport for someone who has extraordinary eye hand coordination but no capacity to endure pain and a weak aerobic system. It's a very demanding sport that requires LOTS of experience to be decent even.

Thomas Davis

Beastt

Didn't Ned Overend (pro mountain biker, retired), win the Ironman while in his 40s?

Michuel

Subjectively I’d agree with Thomas that boxing’s the hardest sport as physical discomfort comes from the blows as well as the sport’s endurance and muscle demands. Others which seem hard to me are mountaineering in arctic like conditions with prospect of freezing to death or the extreme sports in mountains.

One aspect of cycling which makes it harder than marathoning would be the environmental conditions such as crashes and where injured riders continue to finish(Hamilton,Kelly, Hinault, Pantani), extreme temperatures of heat/cold (Andy Hampsten in Giro), stage racing. But rowers seem to train in much worse conditions than cyclists - I see them on the Thames in shorts/vests no mattewr how bad the weather, throughout the year.

Regarding cross-performance of other events by athletes it seems that participants from other sports make the elite grade in cycling later in life to a much greater extent than cyclists do in other sports (except maybe for the quoted case of Udo Bolts), even though cycling would seem to demand strong technical skills (descending, sprinting, echelons). Eric Heiden came from speedskating, Marty Nothstein from wrestling and in UK Yvonne McGregor (running), Jason Queally(water polo), Jamie Staff (BMX). In 2002 many members of French Olympic rowing squad took up cycling for a season – the most successful being Xavier Dorfman (gold in 2000 Olympic 4’s 2000m, 3rd worlds indoor rowing) who won and was placed against French elites in cyclosportives finishing 10th in Etape,5th Marmotte in his first season and 2nd in season long Grand Trophee event series (he now trains 200km rowing/week).

I would expect the Ethiopean/Kenyan or other world marathon runners to achieve excellent performances in Tour de France, with adequate training.