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 <[email protected]>, Robert Chung
<[email protected]> 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 <[email protected]>, Robert Chung
> <[email protected]> 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" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> warren wrote:
> > In article <[email protected]>, Robert Chung
> > <[email protected]> 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" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:2gffspF28u32U1@uni-
> berlin.de...
>> warren wrote:
>>> In article <[email protected]>, Robert Chung
>>> <[email protected]> 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/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&-
db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=14514543

 

[Jeff Jones]

"Robert Chung" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
>
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&-
db=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" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:2gfhsoF2aj14U1@uni-
> berlin.de...
>>
>>
>
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&-
db=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/query.fcgi?c-
md=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12750600

 

[Jeff Jones]

"Robert Chung" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> 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/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&-
db=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/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve-
&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" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
> Jeff Jones wrote:
> >>
> <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrie-
> ve&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" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

> 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 <[email protected]>, Robert Chung
<[email protected]> wrote:

> Jeff Jones wrote:
> >>
> <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrie-
> ve&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" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> Jeff Jones wrote:
> >>
> <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrie-
> ve&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.

 

[Sonarrat]

"Robert Chung" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> Jeff Jones wrote:
> >>
> <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrie-
> ve&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" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> "Robert Chung" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:<[email protected]>...

> >
> > 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)

 

[Stewart Fleming]

Jeff Jones wrote:

> 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.

I hadn't realized that this was the meaning of the word
"score" that you were using in the subject line...

 

[Sonarrat]

In article <[email protected]>,
"Jeff Jones" <jeff@cyclingnews-punt-com> wrote:

> "Sonarrat" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > "Robert Chung" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:<[email protected]>...
>
> > >
> > > 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)

I think it's probably a "stage" name, but I agree and he's
on my LessYourImage fantasy team...

-Sonarrat.