Stress score for Giro?

Robert Chung

From the live commentary to today's stage:

"The peloton isn't in a great hurry today, and is still together after 83
km of riding. As mentioned before, this is how the Italians race in the
Giro. It's very different to the Tour or the Vuelta, when the attacks
start from the gun and don't stop until at least one rider "breaks the
elastic" and the peloton stops chasing for a while. In the Giro, the speed
tends to increase as the stage goes on, and the overall average speed is
generally lower than the other two Grand Tours.

Although the racing can be slow at times, this style should put less
stress on the riders"

warren

In article <2gemh1F1usmgU1@uni-berlin.de>, Robert Chung
<me2@privacy.net> wrote:

> From the live commentary to today's stage:
>
> "The peloton isn't in a great hurry today, and is still together after 83
> km of riding. As mentioned before, this is how the Italians race in the
> Giro. It's very different to the Tour or the Vuelta, when the attacks
> start from the gun and don't stop until at least one rider "breaks the
> elastic" and the peloton stops chasing for a while. In the Giro, the speed
> tends to increase as the stage goes on, and the overall average speed is
> generally lower than the other two Grand Tours.
>
> Although the racing can be slow at times, this style should put less
> stress on the riders"

So you think lower average speed equates to less stress? You'll need
more information about the racing besides average speed to make an
accurate estimate about the amount of stress on a rider.

-WG

Robert Chung

warren wrote:
> In article <2gemh1F1usmgU1@uni-berlin.de>, Robert Chung
> <me2@privacy.net> wrote:
>
>> From the live commentary to today's stage:
>>
>> "The peloton isn't in a great hurry today, and is still together after
>> 83 km of riding. As mentioned before, this is how the Italians race in
>> the Giro. It's very different to the Tour or the Vuelta, when the
>> attacks start from the gun and don't stop until at least one rider
>> "breaks the elastic" and the peloton stops chasing for a while. In the
>> Giro, the speed tends to increase as the stage goes on, and the
>> overall average speed is generally lower than the other two Grand
>> Tours.
>>
>> Although the racing can be slow at times, this style should put less
>> stress on the riders"
>
> So you think lower average speed equates to less stress?

Nope, not me. Jeff does.

Jeff Jones

"Robert Chung" <me2@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:2gffspF28u32U1@uni-berlin.de...
> warren wrote:
> > In article <2gemh1F1usmgU1@uni-berlin.de>, Robert Chung
> > <me2@privacy.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> > So you think lower average speed equates to less stress?
>
> Nope, not me. Jeff does.
>
....and I didn't say lower average speed = less stress.

It was more a comment on the fact that they do less "racing kilometres" in
the Giro compared to the Tour/Vuelta. Analyse a typical stage and you'll see
what I mean. Sometimes in the Tour they can be racing for the first 100km at
50 km/h before it settles down, and it picks up at the end, the same as the
Giro does. In the Vuelta the stages are shorter, but they're still generally
flat out from the gun, maybe with an interlude in the middle before getting
hard again at the end.

The average speed in the Tour and Vuelta is typically higher than the Giro,
which is a by-product of the style of racing. I guess my basic premise is
that more racing kilometres = more stress on the body.

Jeff

Robert Chung

Jeff Jones wrote:
> "Robert Chung" <me2@privacy.net> wrote in message
> news:2gffspF28u32U1@uni-berlin.de...
>> warren wrote:
>>> In article <2gemh1F1usmgU1@uni-berlin.de>, Robert Chung
>>> <me2@privacy.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> So you think lower average speed equates to less stress?
>>
>> Nope, not me. Jeff does.
>>
> ...and I didn't say lower average speed = less stress.
>
> It was more a comment on the fact that they do less "racing kilometres"
> in the Giro compared to the Tour/Vuelta. Analyse a typical stage and
> you'll see what I mean. Sometimes in the Tour they can be racing for
> the first 100km at 50 km/h before it settles down, and it picks up at
> the end, the same as the Giro does. In the Vuelta the stages are
> shorter, but they're still generally flat out from the gun, maybe with
> an interlude in the middle before getting hard again at the end.
>
> The average speed in the Tour and Vuelta is typically higher than the
> Giro, which is a by-product of the style of racing. I guess my basic
> premise is that more racing kilometres = more stress on the body.
>
> Jeff

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...t_uids=14514543

Jeff Jones

"Robert Chung" <me2@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:2gfhsoF2aj14U1@uni-berlin.de...
>
>
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...=pubmed&dopt=Ab
stract&list_uids=14514543
>
OK, but I'm not sure if that's quite the same thing (it's close).

Maybe I'm using the wrong definition of "stress" but I'd say that a 40 km
ride done in 50 minutes is harder on the body than a 40 km ride done in
1hr20min, even though the time on the bike for the latter is considerably
longer. Or taken to an extreme, doing 1 km in 1 minute will knock you around
more than doing 1 km in 2 minutes.

Jeff

Robert Chung

Jeff Jones wrote:
> "Robert Chung" <me2@privacy.net> wrote in message
> news:2gfhsoF2aj14U1@uni-berlin.de...
>>
>>
>
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...=pubmed&dopt=Ab
> stract&list_uids=14514543
>>
> OK, but I'm not sure if that's quite the same thing (it's close).
>
> Maybe I'm using the wrong definition of "stress" but I'd say that a 40
> km ride done in 50 minutes is harder on the body than a 40 km ride done
> in 1hr20min, even though the time on the bike for the latter is
> considerably longer.

Well, in general I'd agree, but is a 40km ride done in 50 minutes harder
than a 1hr20min ride where you cover 22km in the first hour and 18km in
the last 20? I don't know, and that's why I was wondering whether the
piano beginnings of Giro stages really compensated for the fortissimo
endings.

BTW, here's a related study, same authors, for only the Tour and Vuelta:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...t_uids=12750600

Jeff Jones

"Robert Chung" <me2@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:2ggleuF2dhp5U1@uni-berlin.de...
>
> Well, in general I'd agree, but is a 40km ride done in 50 minutes harder
> than a 1hr20min ride where you cover 22km in the first hour and 18km in
> the last 20? I don't know, and that's why I was wondering whether the
> piano beginnings of Giro stages really compensated for the fortissimo
> endings.
>
To me, a Giro stage goes like: piano - crescendo - fortissmo, whereas a Tour
stage starts fortissimo (or forte) with a lot of sforzandos, has a short
piano interlude in the middle, then crescendos to fortissimo punctuated by
the odd sforzando at the end. I don't know whether they go faster at the end
of a Giro stage than a Tour stage, but to me it seems to be similar. The
main difference is the piano beginning at the Giro.

> BTW, here's a related study, same authors, for only the Tour and Vuelta:
>
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...=pubmed&dopt=Ab
stract&list_uids=12750600
>
Interesting as well. Has anyone compared the Giro and the Tour like this? I
guess the previous study did, although it was only n = 1. And is using only
three ventilatory thresholds a good measure of workload on the body?

Jeff

Robert Chung

Jeff Jones wrote:
>>
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...&db=pubmed&dopt
=Abstract&list_uids=12750600>
>>
> Interesting as well. Has anyone compared the Giro and the Tour like
> this? I guess the previous study did, although it was only n = 1. And
> is using only three ventilatory thresholds a good measure of workload
> on the body?

I don't know of anyone else who has, mostly 'cuz the data would be hard to
come by. These guys had access to HRM data. One of the things you'll
notice is that the data were supplied by Spanish teams, and the Spanish
don't send many teams to the Giro. There must be data hiding in the Mapei
vaults somewhere that one could use to compare the Giro and the Tour. Use
your cyclingnews.com leverage to get Squinzi to open up. One of the
coauthors of these two studies told me they were trying to get a couple of
riders to use SRMs on the Tour and the Vuelta, but the riders balked. I
wondered myself about the three interval weighting scheme and my rough
estimate was that if one used a more finely graduated (or continuous)
scale the Vuelta was no less "stressful" than the Tour (using HR load;
Coggan has developed a stress scale based on power but, alas, we don't
have power data).

I didn't know the word "sforzando." I like it, and anxiously await its use
in the live commentary.

Kirby Krieger

"Robert Chung" <me2@privacy.net> wrote in message news:2gh2d5F2oda3U1@uni-berlin.de...
> Jeff Jones wrote:
> >>
> <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...&db=pubmed&dopt
> =Abstract&list_uids=12750600>
> >>
[Snippitysnap]
>
> I didn't know the word "sforzando." I like it, and anxiously await its use
> in the live commentary.
>

Ditto.

sfor·zan·do (sfôrt-sän"d½) also for·zan·do (fôrt-sän"d½) --adv. --adj. Abbr. sf., sfz. Music. 1.
Suddenly and strongly accented. Used chiefly as a direction. --n., pl. sfor·zan·dos or sfor·zan·di
(-d¶). A sforzando tone or chord. [Italian, gerund of sforzare, to use force : s-, intensive pref.
(from Latin ex-; see EX-) + forzare, to force (from Vulgar Latin *forti³re, from Latin fortis,
strong; see FORTIS).] --sfor·zan"do adv.

Jeff Jones

"Robert Chung" <me2@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:2gh2d5F2oda3U1@uni-berlin.de...

> I didn't know the word "sforzando." I like it, and anxiously await its use
> in the live commentary.
>
Just going with the music dynamics analogy. Sforzando = attack!

warren

In article <2gh2d5F2oda3U1@uni-berlin.de>, Robert Chung
<me2@privacy.net> wrote:

> Jeff Jones wrote:
> >>
> <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...&db=pubmed&dopt
> =Abstract&list_uids=12750600>
> >>
> > Interesting as well. Has anyone compared the Giro and the Tour like
> > this? I guess the previous study did, although it was only n = 1. And
> > is using only three ventilatory thresholds a good measure of workload
> > on the body?
>
> I don't know of anyone else who has, mostly 'cuz the data would be hard to
> come by. These guys had access to HRM data. One of the things you'll
> notice is that the data were supplied by Spanish teams, and the Spanish
> don't send many teams to the Giro. There must be data hiding in the Mapei
> vaults somewhere that one could use to compare the Giro and the Tour. Use
> your cyclingnews.com leverage to get Squinzi to open up.

Squinzi? How about one of the coaches? I made a comment to one that I
thought the Tour was harder than the Giro but he said the Giro was
physically harder than the Tour, in large part because the clmbs tend
to be harder, mostly because they tend to be steeper.

Even though it's mostly Italian teams in the Giro they race very hard
(overall) because they care so much about it. The Italians don't care
nearly as much about racing well in the Tour and most other countries
don't care as much about the Giro as they do the Tour.

-WG

Sonarrat

"Robert Chung" <me2@privacy.net> wrote in message news:<2gh2d5F2oda3U1@uni-berlin.de>...
> Jeff Jones wrote:
> >>
> <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...&db=pubmed&dopt
> =Abstract&list_uids=12750600>
> >>
> > Interesting as well. Has anyone compared the Giro and the Tour like
> > this? I guess the previous study did, although it was only n = 1. And
> > is using only three ventilatory thresholds a good measure of workload
> > on the body?
>
> I don't know of anyone else who has, mostly 'cuz the data would be hard to
> come by. These guys had access to HRM data. One of the things you'll
> notice is that the data were supplied by Spanish teams, and the Spanish
> don't send many teams to the Giro. There must be data hiding in the Mapei
> vaults somewhere that one could use to compare the Giro and the Tour. Use
> your cyclingnews.com leverage to get Squinzi to open up. One of the
> coauthors of these two studies told me they were trying to get a couple of
> riders to use SRMs on the Tour and the Vuelta, but the riders balked. I
> wondered myself about the three interval weighting scheme and my rough
> estimate was that if one used a more finely graduated (or continuous)
> scale the Vuelta was no less "stressful" than the Tour (using HR load;
> Coggan has developed a stress scale based on power but, alas, we don't
> have power data).
>
> I didn't know the word "sforzando." I like it, and anxiously await its use
> in the live commentary.

I'm disagree somewhat, because terms like "fortissimo," "piano,"
"crescendo," etc. refer to volume, not speed. (A sforzando is like an
exclamation point on a single note or chord.)

There are perfectly acceptable Italian terms in music which DO refer
to speed and which could be applied in commentary - 'adagio' or
'lento' for slow, 'andante' for a casual but not draggy speed,
'vivace' or 'presto' for fast, and 'accelerando,' 'stretto' or my
favorite, 'stringendo,' for the final mad sprint to the line.

-Sonarrat.

Jeff Jones

"Sonarrat" <sonarrat@stormloader.com> wrote in message
news:21429691.0405131005.73dbb96c@posting.google.com...
> "Robert Chung" <me2@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:<2gh2d5F2oda3U1@uni-berlin.de>...

> >
> > I didn't know the word "sforzando." I like it, and anxiously await its
use
> > in the live commentary.
>
> I'm disagree somewhat, because terms like "fortissimo," "piano,"
> "crescendo," etc. refer to volume, not speed. (A sforzando is like an
> exclamation point on a single note or chord.)
>
I know they refer to volume and not speed, but I didn't think up the "piano"
analogy in the first place. Robert and I merely extended it - probably
beyond its capacity. Of course it would make more sense to use a speed
analogy, but that's the beauty of the subtle differences in language.

Jeff (thinks Crescenzo d'Amore is a pretty cool name for an Italian, but
that's another thread)