Have any elite runners become elite cyclists?

By that measure Bolt would be smoked by you and 1,000,000,000 10K runners. Look at runners in their own events.

He may be elite at 2 hour mountain scrambles, but he ain't an elite distance runner. Guy gets beaten badly by kids and local clubbers, and nearly gets chicked the only time he tries a race.

gramps wrote:

Watched some GCN wrote:

Kilian is not merely an elite runner, he's the GOAT at his events: mountain races over 2 hours.

He may be elite at 2 hour mountain scrambles, but he ain't an elite distance runner. Guy gets beaten badly by kids and local clubbers, and nearly gets chicked the only time he tries a race.

If Kilian is an elite runner, then the children and turkey trotters that smoked him are super-elite. Also, I'm beyond super-elite because I have never been close to challenged in the race from my couch to the fridge, which is just as legit an event as what Kilian excels in.

Anyone on here saying that it'll be easy for an elite runner to become an elite cyclist clear hasn't cycled at a decent level before and has no appreciation of the demands of cycling

Go jump on a watt bike in a gym and see how long you can hold 400 watts for.

It's a completely different type of physicality to running at an elite level.

https://cyclingtips.com/2017/06/just-how-good-are-male-pro-road-cyclists/

gramps wrote:

He may be elite at 2 hour mountain scrambles, but he ain't an elite distance runner. Guy gets beaten badly by kids and local clubbers, and nearly gets chicked the only time he tries a race.

That's 2 hours and up - to at least 24 hours in the mountains. Broader range than a 5/10k dude, or 100/200 dude, etc.

Look at his Sierre-Zinal course record. Smoked Wyatt's time there (a sub-28 guy and Olympian).

striderz wrote:

The definitive answer is Mike Woods. I know he’s been named already, but I must emphasize how incredible his case is.

Sub-4 college miler. That’s not world-elite anymore, but still darn impressive.

Injuries forced him to quit and take up cycling in his twenties. He’s not just elite, he became one of the best cyclists in the world. Podium at the World Championships after a few years of training. On short, steep climbs, few in the world can match him.

One wrinkle: because he had such a late start and did not grow up racing bikes, he is a notoriously bad bike handler and his fellow pros know to avoid him in technical situations. He has caused crashes for himself and others and has been terribly injured, like breaking hip and femur terrible.

Being sub 4 minute in the 2000s was significantly more impressive than being sub-4 in the 2010s. I don't remember exactly but I think he was all-american in cross country or a very definite threat to be so multiple times. He also went to the Olympics in Rio, I know that

Watched some GCN wrote:

gramps wrote:

He may be elite at 2 hour mountain scrambles, but he ain't an elite distance runner. Guy gets beaten badly by kids and local clubbers, and nearly gets chicked the only time he tries a race.

That's 2 hours and up - to at least 24 hours in the mountains. Broader range than a 5/10k dude, or 100/200 dude, etc.

Look at his Sierre-Zinal course record. Smoked Wyatt's time there (a sub-28 guy and Olympian).

Blindfolded, I can shoot free throws better than Shaq on his best day. Therefore I am a better basketball player than Shaq.

Watched some GCN wrote:

Kilian is not merely an elite runner, he's the GOAT at his events: mountain races over 2 hours.

I’ve always wondered why Kilian didn’t try to win a Mountain World Championship and go against the Ugandans and Joe Gray? If you want to be the best beat the best.

beat the best. wrote:

Watched some GCN wrote:

Kilian is not merely an elite runner, he's the GOAT at his events: mountain races over 2 hours.

I’ve always wondered why Kilian didn’t try to win a Mountain World Championship and go against the Ugandans and Joe Gray? If you want to be the best beat the best.

That would be like ElG not trying to win 800s. Bad thread drift though by gramps. I was talking about Pooley.

Watched some GCN wrote:

Emma Pooley was a 2010 World Champion, 2008 Olympic medalist, and won a half dozen UCI world cup races and is the current Everesting record holder as a cyclist. She ran a 2:44 marathon while still signed to a cycling team in 2013 and before going back to the Olympics in 2016 again as a cyclist. Shehe has won four long distance duathlon championships, several big triathlons, and is currently a Salomon running athlete, competing in mountain running/ultras.

That's incredible but it kind of makes sense. She's absolutely tiny. I bumped into her on a road ride with some friends (I think she was in town for the Tour of California) and we rode with her for half an hour or so down Calaveras Road. She was on her TT bike and had no problems keeping up with us even on the super twisty road. I couldn't believe how tiny she was. And she was the TT World Champion, which I had always associated with larger athletes. Really impressive.

Ben king ran hs xc and I think was prob more focused on biking, might have quit before senior year, but he wasn’t amazing. Like around 10 minute 2 mile, 16:something 5k

He’s ridden in a few TdFS and has won stages in the vuelta (I think 2 of them)

FinJ wrote:

Distance running is affected by the elasticy of the tendons etc. Cycling is basically about having as much strenghtas possible without gaining weight. Very similar to light weight rowing. A big aerobic engine is important, but economy much less than in running. It takes three years to become world class cyclist if you have the engine

You got it backwards. In rowing and cycling weight gain is fine. In running there is a trade off because more weight equals higher absolute VO2 max and higher total power output, but more weights also increases the energy cost of running by A LOT. You push your entire bodyweight up against gravity with every step. Even little bit of extra weight causes a huge increase in energy cost in running. With biking however there is virtually no trade off. More weight equals higher absolute VO2 max and higher energy output, and since it’s not a weight bearing activity (the wheels bear all the weight), there is no increased energy cost with more weight. In fact, if you can imagine, or if you know any physics, the heavier rider would benefit from being less affected by a headwind (and just general wind friction) than the lighter rider. Hills are the only reason the distance riders don’t straight up become visibly fat, as the sprint cyclists do. Hills are the only situation in which energy cost increases with extra weight. But even so, hills don’t make such a difference that cyclists need to be as light and wiry as marathoners.

It may be confusing because a lot of research is put into making bikes lighter, but that is just because any weight you can spare to take out on a bike is better used as being weight that the rider can put on, therefore having a slightly higher absolute VO2 max and muscle strength with no net weight increase.

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

General consensus is that running helps with your cycling, but cycling does not do much for your running.

That is NOT the general consensus at all. In fact the general consensus is the exact opposite. But it's nice to see that you still consider yourself an expert on everything.

Whilst she was most famous as a cyclist - she started out as a runner. Ran blues XC whilst at Oxford and took up cycling due to injuries.

Has nobody mentioned Chris Froome yet? Don't know if he was a good runner at school, but we all know that every Kenyan schoolboy can be an elite runner.

There is currently a HS runner in France who runs 8:25 for 3000m (elite?). He got tested by the French cycling association on the bike a couple of weeks ago. He scored an FTP of 468W (6.25W/Kg)!!!

For reference, Bradley Wiggins FTP is 440W and 5.3W/Kg. Tom Dumoulin has a 431W FTP and 6.25W/Kg. Triathlete Lionel Sanders has an FTP of 395W.

Of course, Van der Poel has an FTP of 485W and 6.46W/Kg. so Cartieaux does not have the highest stats ever, but...

Side note: his 30s and 7s power sucks, so he would miss all the breaks. He is only a HS kid however...

Runner turning into a cyclist?

Derek Treadwell

In fact, if you can imagine, or if you know any physics, the heavier rider would benefit from being less affected by a headwind (and just general wind friction) than the lighter rider.

I have a PhD in physics. Explain this to me. Wind resistance is not related to mass. It's a function of cross sectional area and velocity. As long as two riders are putting out the same watts, the physically smaller rider with a smaller cross sectional area - likely to have less mass - will be less affected. The more massive rider is likely to have a larger cross sectional area and fare worse in the wind.

I'm also a cyclist. Bigger riders in general do fare better on windy flats. That's because in general, they can pump out higher watts. That's a physiological response, not a physics response. As you correctly mention on hills, bigger riders fare worse. There the metric is watts/kilogram. If a rider can loss weight while not losing watts, they will be a better grand tour rider. This was always the knock on Jan Ulrich, he entered every season 25 lbs overweight and probably should have been 10 lbs lighter to go against Lance.

First paragraph you are right, second paragraph you are wrong. Taller/heavier cyclists are MUCH more affected by headwind (AND tailwind) than small guys.

I'm a very tall, big guy and I got excluded from some small group rides in windy conditions because even with drafting I just couldn't keep up with the guys and girls anymore (when most cyclists are 5'7" and smaller and super skinny it's hard to get much benefit if the wind is blowing really heavy). People also didn't like my unrhythmic pacing, if I was against the wind everyone was complaining about being too slow, but if I would get tailwind I'm suddenly flying. I used to drop entire groups with 40-50+ mph tailwind because they literally went out of gears to keep up (~40-45 mph speed on flat) with their compact chainsets.

You will get popular with the girls tho as tall guy, since the slipstream is very strong so they can ride much faster behind you than behind a small, standard cyclist.