Track cyclists are more impressive than track runners - Jeff Hoogland proves it

It's super impressive.

I wish I could do close to 1,000 watts for 55 seconds. I'm dying at 600 watts for 55 seconds.

Guess the talent thing is subjective but I do respect these guys at least as much as the runners.

Track cycling is not as interesting to me as the road time trials though. Its also more entertaining to me to watch vs marathons. 47.8km only takes 55 minutes too!

That's probably the least impressive sports record I've seen. All he does is sit down and pedal on one of the world's most expensive bikes.

He's also clearly doped to the gills. He's more doped than an NFL player or WWE wrestler.

That's nuts and crazy power. When I still was following all cycling in the '90s, had a subscription to Velonews (and Winning before that), the WR was over 1 minute. Some of it may be from aero gains, but percentagewise, that would be like taking the 400m WR in track down to 40 seconds in the same time period.

Your comment is ignorant and shows your lack of knowledge of athletics and physiology.

Also, track bikes are pretty crude machines and not expensive at all. Single speed & no brakes. They’re really simple machines.

Sadly your answer is also ignorant

Agree with the top half but the professional track bikes are EXTREMELY expensive. The amount they spend on aerodynamics and weight etc.

Probably the most expensive item in cycling ..

As a long-time cyclist and a Cat 1 racer, I think that I know what I'm talking about.

They're not "cheap," but I can buy a BMC Trackmachine for $2200ish. Compare that to a top-of-the-line Pinarello Dogma F with Dura-Ace Di2 that is going to be in the $15,000ish range. Even beefing up the hoops on the BMC isn't going to add a lot of $ - perhaps $1500.

Really, a track bike is as crude of a bike that you can get. It's got one chain ring, one cog in the cassette, and no brakes. The hoops on a track bike are usually more expensive than the frame.

The top cyclist in any discipline is typically much more impressive than the running "equivalent" and I say this after following both sports for decades.

The Cyclingnews article about the bike he used states that the bike costs $9500 and the wheels $5300.

Hope this helps.

Wout.

Even so, they're not the "most expensive." On par with what the pro peloton is riding but not the most expensive.

Hope this helps.

So you were both wrong. That's fine by me.

I am impressed with anyone that becomes the best at what they do.

However, how many athletes have competed in this sport?

Virtually every able bodied person in the world has tried to race someone on foot and if they were any good at it they did it again. If they were great they most likely took it to the next level.

For this reason you really can’t compare ANY sport to track running in terms of impressiveness in beating the world’s best.

It’s really as simple as that.

Coming in with a "Probably most expensive item" at least indicates it is very expensive

Compared to "it's not expensive"

I'll take the relative win :)