RdBiker said:
Please point to the post where I imply that Contador is the only one doping and the rest are clean. I haven't noticed anyone saying that either. All that people are saying is that a small, light rider winning a flat time trial is suspicous. Those kinds of courses favour the stronger built-riders and on the flats the W/kg number is useless so the guys who can produce the most watts usually win. In order for a guy with little muscle mass to produce more power than a guy with 10s of percents more mass means that his muscle fibers have to be much more efficient and there has to be more of them in the same mass. That is one of the points: how can Contador's muscles be so much more efficient than everybody else's. That brings doping into question. Usually when riders dope they use pretty much the same PEDs so that the field is in a way "level". When some one uses a PED that brings him to a totally new level that takes interest out of the races (in the viewers POV). SO my answer to your question "is it ok to use PEDs unless you are succesfull" is yes. If someone is dominant and the performance can be seen to come from cheating the races aren't as fun to watch.
1)please point to a post where i say... that everyone is saying that Contador is the only one doping?
i'm saying that everyone knows that everyone is doping, so why do they care so much about Contador doping? my point is not that... it's like blaming the crips for everything that went bad in compton when the bloods are shooting up the place just as much.. i'm saying that the whole arguement is stupid because... as i was saying who are you protecting from contador's exploits.. all the other cheat?!? c'mon it's just stupid!
2) you should leave exercise alone before you hurt yourself... LOL!!
it's not more watts and bigger muscles that produce fast riders on the flats... you are right that W/kg is not as accurate a predictor of performance potential on the flat as it is on climbs.. but not for the reasons you give.
on the flats it's mostly about W/CdA... firstly, the little guy has a smaller frontal area than the big guy (i.e. doesn't need to push as much air out of the way and doesn't leave as much of a turbulent low pressure area behind him) so doesn't need to produce as much power as the bigger guy does... so the W/kg thing kinda does go with the trend but over estimates the speed of the little guy...
also the more flexible guy who can get in a better tuck, or the guy with no hump in his back, or the guy with smaller shoulders etc... etc... as well doesn't need to produce as much power... the Cd part of the equation...
the issue is that frontal area is going up by the square but weigh goes up by the cube... not good for the big guy on hills but good relative to his smaller counter parts on the flat.
imagine for simplicity that two riders are cubes... with fictitious numbers just to demonstrate what's happening...
small rider is 1x1x1, weight is 1, frontal area is 1, power is 100... W/kg = 100, W/A = 100
large rider is 2x2x2, weight is 8, frontal area is 4, power is 200... W/kg = 25, W/A = 50
so you can see that large rider's W/kg is 1/4 that of small rider but large rider's W/A is only 1/2 of small rider's... the numbers have a large differences to clearly show the trend... with more realistic numbers you can see that the W/kg is a much larger advantage for smaller guys relative to bigger guys than W/A is for larger size riders is relative to smaller size on the flat... little guys bumps power up a little and he's even with the big guys... big guys don't stand a chance in the hills though. but you can see that on the flat where W/A is the most dominant factor this would be relatively more favourable for larger riders (i.e. not absolutely) and that larger riders absolutely need to produce more power to just stay even with smaller riders... but you can also see that with a sufficiently higher power for the smaller rider he can ride faster than the larger rider even on the flat...
then there's the Cd part where riders can improve their speed with better position and better body type and equipment...
there is also anaerobic capacity which is a factor in these short TTs (why we see guys like Thor Hushovd winning prologues)...
as for muscle efficiency.. i'd guess that Contador, as a three time GT winner very damn likely has muscle efficiency greater than Wiggins'
the bigger guys doing better on the flat is only a trend... you can't bring that trend to the individual level..
another factor that a lot don't consider is the time of the year... some riders are good at this time of the year and some, not so much... Contador loves Paris-Nice and has always been up and prepared for it even as early as it is in the season...
remember i'm not saying he's clean... i'm just saying that among the dirty there is nothing that astounding or unusual about him winning that prologue...