Hobbyjogger High wrote:
The Land of Rising Sun wrote:
Yuki Sato.
Good point IF he was a competetive swimmer. I only see running data on him. This, among other stuff, may mean that he just started with a wrong sport. Not that he was good at his level in swimming and than crushed running.
It depends on what you mean by competitive. But he made the Junior Olympics as a youth swimmer. Obviously, he was better at running.
Mike Woods!!!
7th at world juniors in the 1500 (2004)
3rd at UCI world champs last year.
https://www.businessinsider.com/michael-rusty-woods-runner-cyclist-2017-5
Ah so you've never heard of Revel? Some rando 2:30 marathoner could run a 2:15 easy and be world class on those courses. Especially in cheaterflys.
To be a wc biker you have to be a wc biker. You're not comparing yourself to the runner just yet. You've got to be in the saddle for more hours in competition, and likely doing more hills (which uphill cycling is harder than running) .
To be a wc biker you're probably churning out 6 w/kg at a minimum sustained over hours and maybe 4000m of climbing.
I just checked a 2:10 olympic marathoner on strava - they trained up to 14 hrs per week in olympic training but usually closer to 10-12.
I compared that to an Olympic cyclist and saw 15 easily, some weeks up to 30 hrs. Training at a high level of 30 hrs is insane if you think about it.
I'd throw my hat in with the cyclists.
Cyclthis wrote:
reed wrote:
at first I was going to say that they'd be equal, but then you need to consider what pools of people are drawn to those sports. whoever has the most participants probably has the best elite athletes. So I'd say that runners beat the cyclists. there could be some outliers who go against this logic, but that's fine.
more people around the world are doing running events than cycling events.
You might be wrong.
In reality the most talented athletes chase sports that actually pay.
Galen Rupps salary is measly compared to the 100th ranked cyclist.
The TdF alone has more money being paid to cycling athletes than all the professional running salaries and race purses combined. The TdF is also the most attended sporting event in the world. Single stages often attract a million fans plus. You'd have to combine all the Olympics to equal a single years TdF fan count.
Fitness-wise, not even close.
TdF riders use more calories per stage than a marathon racer does in a single race. Then they do it again the next day.
TdF riders expose themselves to extreme danger even death every stage.
If Gale Rupp ever experienced a 45 mph crash while wearing basically underwear he would quit the sport forever. Mist would. Pro road cyclist are nuts.
Cyclist can train high end aerobic system 4 to 6 hours a day, everyday. (Equivalent to a long run everyday)
Cycling actually takes athleyic skill.
Most elite disrance runners couldn't dribble a basketball and run at the same time without tripping.
The most telling fact though is the chicks.
I have never ever seen presenters on the podium of a running race that look like the ladies awarding the daily winners of the TdF.
Of course, the most dominant runner today is Caster Semenya so you running fans get to gawk at that. You really got that going for you. In that regard, running is more dominant than cycling if you're a hermaphrodite with y chromosomes....
You compared one great runner but someone like Bolt (or probably dozens or even the top 100 sprinters were probably making bank.
Regular folks have short attention spans. A 9-10 second race is about all they want to watch.
All you need for running is a pair of legs.
A huge percentage of this world doesn't even know if they have a talent for biking...
Neither are athletes wrote:
Interesting question, but I think trying to answer it is pointless. The best ‘athletes’ from any country are not cycling or running, they are playing team sports as this is where the fame and money is.
Top athletes are in:
Football (soccer) - most countries
Ice hockey - Canada, northern US and parts of Europe
NBA/NFL, maybe MLB - USA
Baseball - some Latin American countries, Japan and Korea
Cricket - India
China - not sure
I think we can agree that cyclists train more than runner (hours per day) but training that much would be counterproductive for a runner. More people have access to running than cycling which should make it more competitive. How about triathletes and swimmers, where do they fit in?
This is actually the best answer - follow the real money.
really?.. wrote:
Big Mig wrote:
Miguel Indurain had a resting pulse rate of 28 bpm
Is that like his VO2 max of 88 that was actually 79? Another made up number?
No it's true! Keep in mind that the 28 bpm heart rate was during the racing season. I recall there was one year that his heart only beat 7 times during the entire off-season. It was so powerful, it would make the license plate of his car rattle like he had a subwoofer in the trunk. His muscles would produce so much carbon dioxide that he couldn't expel it through his lungs. His kidneys would concentrate it and he would pee dry ice. His friends called him Maquina de Humo ('Fog Machine') because of it.
kipfarah wrote:
All you need for running is a pair of legs.
A huge percentage of this world doesn't even know if they have a talent for biking...
I find all of this "percentage of the world" stuff totally irrelevant. Ditto the "who makes more money" stuff. The question was "who is the better athlete- world class marathon / world class cyclist." On this earth, right now, there are world class marathoners. On this earth, right now, there are world class cyclists. Which, of these two existing parties, is the better athlete?
My vote goes with the cyclist. There is more to athletics than simple cardiovascular biology. As has been pointed out, the range of variables is much greater in cycling than in running. In order to be a world class cyclist, you have to be extremely good at MORE stuff than is demanded of a world class marathoner. Athletics are about concentration, agility, reflexes, etc just as much as they are about how much oxygen your physiology processes or whatever else. A marathon runner just has to run, one foot in front of the other, really fast for about two hours. That's pretty much all that is demanded of a world class marathoner. A world class cyclist has a $hitload more stuff to pay attention to than a runner, if he is going to be a world-beater. Plus, he has to do it for longer. That makes a difference, guys. The amount of time you have to be "on" mentally in a competition makes a difference. A world record marathon race is run in a little over two hours. No world class bicycle race on earth is finished in even twice that time. The stakes are higher for the cyclist, in the event of a mistake or miscalculation. These things all factor into being a world class athlete.
There's no question, cyclist takes it. If you all want the marathoner to best the cyclist in some metric, you've got to change the question.
psyentist wrote:
Ah so you've never heard of Revel? Some rando 2:30 marathoner could run a 2:15 easy and be world class on those courses. Especially in cheaterflys.
To be a wc biker you have to be a wc biker. You're not comparing yourself to the runner just yet. You've got to be in the saddle for more hours in competition, and likely doing more hills (which uphill cycling is harder than running) .
To be a wc biker you're probably churning out 6 w/kg at a minimum sustained over hours and maybe 4000m of climbing.
I just checked a 2:10 olympic marathoner on strava - they trained up to 14 hrs per week in olympic training but usually closer to 10-12.
I compared that to an Olympic cyclist and saw 15 easily, some weeks up to 30 hrs. Training at a high level of 30 hrs is insane if you think about it.
I'd throw my hat in with the cyclists.
You obviously don't understand a thing about cycling training. They ride for hours but these rides are nowhere near the intensity of even an easy run. The long hours needed to cycle is due to the fact that much more time is needed to force the adaption compared to running. Two hours of running per day (14 hours per week) for most of the athletes is tops beyond which it's hard to recover. Cycling for two hours a day is not that big of a deal.
psyentist wrote:
Neither are athletes wrote:
Interesting question, but I think trying to answer it is pointless. The best ‘athletes’ from any country are not cycling or running, they are playing team sports as this is where the fame and money is.
Top athletes are in:
Football (soccer) - most countries
Ice hockey - Canada, northern US and parts of Europe
NBA/NFL, maybe MLB - USA
Baseball - some Latin American countries, Japan and Korea
Cricket - India
China - not sure
I think we can agree that cyclists train more than runner (hours per day) but training that much would be counterproductive for a runner. More people have access to running than cycling which should make it more competitive. How about triathletes and swimmers, where do they fit in?
This is actually the best answer - follow the real money.
BS again. May be you would argue that video games attract best athletes because this is where all the money is in Asia. Money has nothing to do with best athletes.
‘Money has nothing to do with the best athletes’...lol. You cannot be serious, right? Money is the ONLY thing for many top athletes, not to mention their family, coaches etc that pushed them there in the first place. If you really believe the best athletes in the US are going into distance running and cycling, you’re crazy. Maybe true for Ethiopia and Kenya.athletes follow the $$$
The Land of Rising Sun wrote:
Hobbyjogger High wrote:
Good point IF he was a competetive swimmer. I only see running data on him. This, among other stuff, may mean that he just started with a wrong sport. Not that he was good at his level in swimming and than crushed running.
It depends on what you mean by competitive. But he made the Junior Olympics as a youth swimmer. Obviously, he was better at running.
I would say he's internationally competetive. So he made youth Oly at swimming and regular Oly at running. He isn't a top star runner or swimmer though. So he kinda kept his level... Not performed above expectation. Also we don’t know how much effort it took.
More or less proves a point of mediocre swimming shape transfer. Not there is none, just not as good as, say from running to cycling.
qw wrote:
psyentist wrote:
I just checked a 2:10 olympic marathoner on strava - they trained up to 14 hrs per week in olympic training but usually closer to 10-12.
I compared that to an Olympic cyclist and saw 15 easily, some weeks up to 30 hrs. Training at a high level of 30 hrs is insane if you think about it.
I'd throw my hat in with the cyclists.
You obviously don't understand a thing about cycling training. They ride for hours but these rides are nowhere near the intensity of even an easy run. The long hours needed to cycle is due to the fact that much more time is needed to force the adaption compared to running. Two hours of running per day (14 hours per week) for most of the athletes is tops beyond which it's hard to recover. Cycling for two hours a day is not that big of a deal.
Lol, reading isn't your forte? I said the same wc cyclists were training closer to 4 hrs per day.
Runners aren't running all out at 14 hrs per week either. Yes cycling easy is easier than running easy, but wc cyclists are't just pedaling at 100w for 4hrs. Lol.
mcbalbust wrote:
kipfarah wrote:
All you need for running is a pair of legs.
A huge percentage of this world doesn't even know if they have a talent for biking...
I find all of this "percentage of the world" stuff totally irrelevant..
Well that's either because you're a biased idiot, or because you're an idiot full stop.
If you think a huge percentage of the world not trying a sport doesn't affect the quality/depth of that sport and is "totally irrelevant", then you clearly aren't concerned with "thinking" at all.
Well that's because... wrote:
mcbalbust wrote:
I find all of this "percentage of the world" stuff totally irrelevant..
Well that's either because you're a biased idiot, or because you're an idiot full stop.
If you think a huge percentage of the world not trying a sport doesn't affect the quality/depth of that sport and is "totally irrelevant", then you clearly aren't concerned with "thinking" at all.
You are the one which is the fool here, buck. Did you even read the question which began this thread? It has nothing to do with depth of worldwide talent or overall number of participants.
Given:
World class marathoner A
World class cyclist B.
Which one is the better athlete?
That's all.
Explain to me how world population of participants is at all relevant to that question? Doesn't matter if seven billion people run marathons and two people are cyclists, worldwide. You still have the same question. A world class marathoner, a world class cyclist, which is the better athlete?
Sit down before you make an even bigger anus of yourself, buck.
mcbalbust wrote:
You are the one which is the fool here, buck. Did you even read the question which began this thread? It has nothing to do with depth of worldwide talent or overall number of participants.
Given:
World class marathoner A
World class cyclist B.
Which one is the better athlete?
That's all.
Explain to me how world population of participants is at all relevant to that question? Doesn't matter if seven billion people run marathons and two people are cyclists, worldwide. You still have the same question. A world class marathoner, a world class cyclist, which is the better athlete?
Sit down before you make an even bigger anus of yourself, buck.
Ha Ha, what a tool. You think that, in your example, the best of the only two cyclists in the world could be a better athlete than the best of seven billion runners! Ha ha ha ha ha.
Best laugh I've had all day, even if it's at the expense of a special needs poster.
------- wrote:
Cyclists. They have close to 100 race days/year
Try closer to 180
Get this, the TDF riders spend more hours racing one stage race, 23 days than an NBA player plays in an entire season lasting six months.
Impossible to compare.
But one big difference is, that road biking is a team sport and Marathon running is not.
+1000! This is the funniest post that I've ever read, on any subject. GOAT.