Which rider do you admire the most?

[n crowley]

Originally posted by Roy Gardiner


My choice is Jacques Anquetil.




He redefined position on the bike; the standard then was low saddle, heels kept low throughout the pedal stroke, and relatively shallow forward lean. Jacques had the saddle high and bars low, the first rider to make his back flat. He had a much higher saddle because he pioneered the raised-heel style now universal. Although much copied his action was in fact unique; try it yourself. On the turbo, raise your heels until your feet are locked in a toes-down stance. Now pedal the full revolution that way. It’s very odd! Now, don’t just push but pull hard on the pedals’ up-stroke; you’ll see it adds great power to it. Then the pain starts. He rode that way all the time.





While I agree with your choice of rider, you still have not got
the basic idea of his pedalling which made it so different from
that of all other riders. What you are describing is little more
than what the inventor of POWERCRANKS claims his cranks can
do, make use of pulling up power of the leg muscles. There is
nothing to be gained from pulling up power. The only advantage
is from unweighting the pedal of the idling leg.
Anquetil's mysterious pedal power came from almost completely
eliminating the dead spot area between 11 and 1 o'clock and
being able to discreetly combine upper body resistance with his
increased lower body hip/leg power when generating the smooth continuous almost constant pedal power which is ideal for time trial events. There is no pain with his style, in fact you are
completely relaxed when riding time trials but it's not as useful
in bunched riding where you are continually accelerating and
braking, you need to be at the front setting the pace as you
cruise along at a steady pace.
But his style's has other advantages, eliminating the root cause
of all "on the bike" lower back pain which is the continuous
back strain associated with natural or round pedalling and even
though it works best with the higher gears, it can also reduce the
workload on the knees and even if you tilt your saddle down for
a safer and more comfortable aero position, there is no sliding
forward. For Anquetil its greatest advantage was in the fact that
being 99 per cent mental , it could not be copied by any of his
rivals; it has to be independently discovered.

 

[Frihed89]

A cyclist i admired a lot was Laurent Jalabert. He was at one time or another in his career a specialist in every department. He won the points title in the TDF, twice, the Spanish tour, three times, and the Italian Tour. He was the king of the mountains in the Spanish tour and the TDF, twice. He won the Spanish tour. He was the French champion and the world champion, plus the world time trial champion.

No, he never won the tour. But it would be hard to find a better all round rider, esp. these days.

But the greatest thing about him was his temperament: humorous and humble. Did anyone ever say anything bad about him?

 

[tafi]

I like strongmen, I aspire to ride like them grinding away with teeth gritted. The big men like Andrea Tafi, Johann Museew, Steffen Wesseman, Dario Pieri and also Jan Ullrich prove that historically the best riders are the big strong bastards who push impossible gears across the plains of northern France and the ardennes of Belgium. None of this spinning rubish, brute force in the big classics!

 

[Roy Gardiner]

Originally posted by n crowley you still have not got
the basic idea of his pedalling which made it so different from
that of all other riders.

You've chosen a pretty confrontational way of putting it - as if it's a simple concept I've been getting wrong for years against the wisdom of my betters - but the choice is yours.

My description was taken from an interview given by him. He descibed the toe-down style as purely the result of pulling as well as pushing. I read it when I was a lad and he was winning, and of course tried to copy it. The pain in the calves was described by the interviewer, and it's exactly what happened to me. Anquetil was reported as saying that he didn't mind giving away his 'secret' because no-one seemed to be able to copy him.

What you are describing is little more
than what the inventor of POWERCRANKS claims his cranks can
do, make use of pulling up power of the leg muscles. There is
nothing to be gained from pulling up power. The only advantage
is from unweighting the pedal of the idling leg.

I never heard of POWERCRANKS but if you mean Powerpedals, yes that's exactly what they do. Because they only turn one way, one does not have to lift one's heel so much on the upstroke.

Research with ordinary cyclists (and some very good ones) has indeed shown pulling up not to be useful. None of them was Anquetil, and his style has never been successfully copied.

As I say, all I can report is what I read and tried for myself; as to the rest of what you said I've no real comment, the only bit I'm a bit baffled about is the elimination of the dead spot from 11 to 1, which I presume is the top of the stroke, not the bottom; how does the heels raised stance help that?

 

[limerickman]

I enjoyed reading the opinions of each of the posters favourites here - all the choices are excellent and indeed each suggestion has been very well put for their respective favourites.

My choice as to who I admire the most is a real blast from the past : Philippe Thys of Belgium.
PT was the first man to win three Tours De France (1913,1914
and 1920).
Had it not been for the intervention of the First World War, I have no doubt that he would have won more T'sDF.
Thy's served (and survived) the whole of the FWW (1914-1918),
in the tenches of Belgium.
Then after hostilities finished, he came back and won the TDF in 1920 !
He also managed to win the Paris Tour and Giro di Lombardy as well.
For me his career is a revelation : his ability to withstand terrible cycling conditions and to win in an era when there was a lot
of shortcuts taken by competitors, is truly exceptional.
If Thys was in the modern era, I think he would be a superstar.

 

[cfsmtb]

Good to see Beryl Burton being mentioned earilier in the thread.

Australians like Australian cyclists, but I'm Tasmanian and that's why my heroes are Ken Self and Danny Clark.

 

[Roy Gardiner]

Originally posted by Roy Gardiner I never heard of POWERCRANKS but if you mean Powerpedals

And I've just read the review in CW... interesting. £plenty, though.

 

[Tuschinski]

Originally posted by Frihed89
A cyclist i admired a lot was Laurent Jalabert. He won the points title in the TDF, twice, the Spanish tour, three times, and the Italian Tour. He won the Spanish tour. He was the French champion and the world champion, plus the world time trial champion.

He was one of my favorites But he didn't win the Points title in the Giro, nor was he road world champion (he indeed was TT world champion)

 

[funknuggets]

Hands down STUD.

Quality competitor, with talent to spare. Flipped around from being sprinter, to climber and made some freaking epic solos. Had some fantastic classic wins. You never knew what that guy had up his sleeve...

 

[n crowley]

Originally posted by Roy Gardiner
You've chosen a pretty confrontational way of putting it - as if it's a simple concept I've been getting wrong for years against the wisdom of my betters - but the choice is yours.


As I say, all I can report is what I read and tried for myself; as to the rest of what you said I've no real comment, the only bit I'm a bit baffled about is the elimination of the dead spot from 11 to 1, which I presume is the top of the stroke, not the bottom; how does the heels raised stance help that?

Sorry Roy for my choice of words. That interview you read
would probably have been an english translation of his french so
the translator probably messed it up. The pulling up is done by the arms not the legs and the discreet arm resistance can add a
lot to the power when it is most required as in the closing stages
of that famous TT against Poulidor (on video), you can see more
clearly how he is using his arms. And on that video, when his
manager is describing how he powered his bike in the closing
stages of that famous double, he demonstrates how the upper
body power was brought into play but of course he did not know
how the power was applied to the pedals. When you eliminate
upper dead spot area, you are also automatically eliminating the lower area. The toes down technique used by Anquetil was the
result of his method of power application, the direction that his
shoes were pointing was the direction line through which he was
mentally applying the power to the pedals from the hips, he never
used direct downward pedal pressure. His power application
started at 11 o'clock, not the 1 o'clock where all other riders'
serious power application began and Anquetil's power ended at
5 o'clock. As I already stated, being 99 percent mental his style
could never be copied, it would have to be independently
discovered and to make matters even more complicated, while
his style appears to be a round pedalling style, it is a linear style
with the power application line feeling parallel to the arm
resistance line and it was this relationship that made the
combination of arm and leg power possible.

 

[n crowley]

Originally posted by n crowley
Sorry Roy for my choice of words. That interview you read
would probably have been an english translation of his french so
the translator probably messed it up. The pulling up is done by the arms not the legs and the discreet arm resistance can add a
lot to the power when it is most required as in the closing stages
of that famous TT against Poulidor (on video), you can see more
clearly how he is using his arms. And on that video, when his
manager is describing how he powered his bike in the closing
stages of that famous double, he demonstrates how the upper
body power was brought into play but of course he did not know
how the power was applied to the pedals. When you eliminate
upper dead spot area, you are also automatically eliminating the lower area. The toes down technique used by Anquetil was the
result of his method of power application, the direction that his
shoes were pointing was the direction line through which he was
mentally applying the power to the pedals from the hips, he never
used direct downward pedal pressure. His power application
started at 11 o'clock, not the 1 o'clock where all other riders'
serious power application began and Anquetil's power ended at
5 o'clock. As I already stated, being 99 percent mental his style
could never be copied, it would have to be independently
discovered and to make matters even more complicated, while
his style appears to be a round pedalling style, it is a linear style
with the power application line feeling parallel to the arm
resistance line and it was this relationship that made the
combination of arm and leg power possible.

This might help to give you a better picture of how he applied
the pedal power in that 11 to 1 o'clock area. He applied it
as if attempting to forcibly slide his shoe over the pedal while
at the same time concentrating on trying to drive the cleat into
the back of pedal and this action can be continued until the
pedal reached 5 o'clock. It was this simple action that enabled
him to do naturally what researchers have tried in vain to do
by mechanical means. But it takes time to get the calves fully
accustomed to their new and much more active work role. For
anyone trying it, it can lead to cramping in the early stages but
that problem is soon eliminated.

 

[Roy Gardiner]

Originally posted by n crowley
Sorry Roy for my choice of words. That interview you read
would probably have been an english translation of his french so
the translator probably messed it up.

No offence taken.

You say that the translation is wrong. I'll have to find it again, I'm sure that it would have been Rene de Latour - no slouch!

I presume you refer to the Maitre Jacques video with Geminiani rabbiting on. I'll have to watch it yet again.

But do you have sources I don't? All my recollection is from published stuff, like Sporting Cyclist and the like, and I don't recall reading the view you're putting forward.

 

[n crowley]

Originally posted by Roy Gardiner
No offence taken.

You say that the translation is wrong. I'll have to find it again, I'm sure that it would have been Rene de Latour - no slouch!

I presume you refer to the Maitre Jacques video with Geminiani rabbiting on. I'll have to watch it yet again.

But do you have sources I don't? All my recollection is from published stuff, like Sporting Cyclist and the like, and I don't recall reading the view you're putting forward.

As you stated, he did not mind revealing his secret to anyone
because even after being told,they could not copy his style. The
explanation for that is that when you first begin to use his style,
all your muscles are being used in a completely different way and
it takes months for them to get accustomed to all the changes.
Riders would not have the patience, if they did not see an
instant improvement, they would be back to their old style.
For that very reason I had intended to invite a group of some of
the worst cycling related back pain victims to Dublin last year but
had to leave it until this year. Within a day or two after getting
all details, they should be pedalling completely pain free but it
will take a season to fully perfect the technique. This group will
have no other option, for them it's a case of, time trial as
Anquetil did or you can't time trial at all.
For that same reason above there are no sources for his style,
nobody else knows how he did it, if they did, it would be used
in all time trial and pursuit events today because the power that
his smooth style generates cannot be beaten by any other
pedalling style.
It is said that a talented sportsman makes a bad coach because
when it comes natural to him, he has great difficulty in passing
details of his style to other sportsmen.
The only mystery that remains for me about his style is how he
happened to start from day one with that technique.

 

[n crowley]

Originally posted by Roy Gardiner
No offence taken.

You say that the translation is wrong. I'll have to find it again, I'm sure that it would have been Rene de Latour - no slouch!

I presume you refer to the Maitre Jacques video with Geminiani rabbiting on. I'll have to watch it yet again.

But do you have sources I don't? All my recollection is from published stuff, like Sporting Cyclist and the like, and I don't recall reading the view you're putting forward.

Is it possible to print a copy of that interview.

 

[Roy Gardiner]

Originally posted by n crowley
For that same reason above there are no sources for his style, nobody else knows how he did it

That's the question I was asking; how do you know?
Another quote of yours

... could never have used clipless pedals, there would have been too much rolling of the pedal and loss of power. Anquetil never pulled on the pedal , he used a far more power forced sliding movement, impossible with clipless pedals..

which is again the first I've heard of this.

Is it possible to print a copy of that interview.

If and when I find it I'll put the relevant bits here. On searching the Internet, the only people saying anything are thee and me, so I guess I should try hard. Once again, I'm intrigued as to your source of knowledge, please tell us.

 

[n crowley]

Originally posted by Roy Gardiner
That's the question I was asking; how do you know?







As already stated it cannot be copied. After taking up competitive
cycling at 43+, I read every book on the subject and my only
objective was to discover the secret of Anquetil's pedalling, after
over ten years experimenting and searching I had to give up.
A few years later as I was cycling home, I passed a physically
handicapped trike rider who was powering his trike by hand
power with normal pedals and cranks in the handlebar area of his
trike. I decided to attempt to biomechanically combine the hand
cranking power with leg power and within a week I was
successful and I also knew instantly that I had solved the mystery
of Anquetil's pedalling. Three years later when I had fully
perfected the technique, the video confirmed that Anquetil used
the identical linear technique.

 

[firegooroo]

By far my favorite cyclist is Lance Armstrong not so much for his accomplishments but for the mere fact that he is almost unhuman. Having survived cancer the way he had done it is heroic to people suffering from that horrible disease. The ability to win the tdf in '99 just returning from all the nightmares is incredible.

He has a new book out called "Every Second Counts" read it very emotional book.

 

[Sprinter_989]

Stuart O'Grady
Tyler Hamilton
Jacky Durand......... yeh thats right the suicidal attack man, he never gives up trying to win in a long break.