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Are roadies generally fitter than mountain bikers.
On gravel and off road I have a few KOMs and am typically top 20 from 1,000 or so on most segments. On the road I am usually lucky to be in top 20% and absolutely nowhere near any KOMs (I could excuse myself by blaming my low fixed gear but that doesn't really cover it)
On gravel and off road I have a few KOMs and am typically top 20 from 1,000 or so on most segments. On the road I am usually lucky to be in top 20% and absolutely nowhere near any KOMs (I could excuse myself by blaming my low fixed gear but that doesn’t really cover it)
It's not always just about fitness. I have forgotten how to mountain bike well in the last year or so of road racing and so whilst everywhere but Yorkshire (and, obviously, anywhere the world tour has visited - cheers for taking my local tt segment Dowsett) I can usually top 10/20 most road climbs and segments. This means i'm in for a good run to KOM most non-technical mtb climbs, but on tech descents and climbs I'm barely in the top 20 percent.
He says, wasting his precious time posting on a forum.
He says, proposing to write an app/plugin to optimise KOM sniping, rather than just riding a bike... 😉
Honestly I struggle to motivate myself to do structured training outside on a bike in the UK. None of the climbs are really long enough, there’s traffic and traffic lights everywhere. Dumb strava KOMs at the right intensity are an excellent way to find a good place to do intervals.
Half your motivational excuses are currently null and void, there's barely any traffic and the hills are too short? Surely you can just ride up more of them?
Let's not kid ourselves chasing KOMs isn't "structured training" it's pretend internet competition with strangers. Plus you're not even looking to "train" you're trying to tailor rides to score KOMs as rewards for the minimum possible effort, sort of the opposite of training.
Honestly Nobody has cared about holding a KOM since about 2015. Now all of a sudden we're getting KOM hunter spam threads again, is it lockdown's fault? The fact that it's springtime but all the golf courses are shut or something?
i can imaging this being of use for me.
itll just say no chance all the time.
yet on each individual segment they could be well down the rankings even though it’s one continous segment, go figure??
If for example it's a trail up and over a hill.
Some people will have gunned it to the top, some people will have adopted a "winched and plummet" mentality, both will obviously be well down the rankings for the other segment. And a handful will have raced across the whole thing.
Should try living in Peebles..
Pretty much every KOM/QOM in a 50 mile radius has a Pro/former Pro/former world champ on it, I haven't got a prayer.!
Half your motivational excuses are currently null and void, there’s barely any traffic and the hills are too short? Surely you can just ride up more of them?
Let’s not kid ourselves chasing KOMs isn’t “structured training” it’s pretend internet competition with strangers. Plus you’re not even looking to “train” you’re trying to tailor rides to score KOMs as rewards for the minimum possible effort, sort of the opposite of training.
Honestly Nobody has cared about holding a KOM since about 2015. Now all of a sudden we’re getting KOM hunter spam threads again, is it lockdown’s fault? The fact that it’s springtime but all the golf courses are shut or something?
In your rush to hit your boring denouement, you mistook the two obvious subjects of your surprisingly bitter ire: people who are richer than you and people who are faster than you. Alberto Contador aside, they're mostly different folks.
Part of the problem is the sheer number of segments. Most hills have quite a few - the obvious bottom to top but then you find people have come along, failed to KOM it so they've set up a "bottom to third tree on the left" and "first junction to bend" and God only knows how many other variations on a theme.
Go around Richmond Park and you're scrolling for 20 mins down your Strava record at the end of the ride from the thousands of segments around there. It makes it quite difficult for Strava's segment explorer to throw up anything comprehensive. The only way I find segments worth going for are through complete chance and they're usually mixed road/gravel ones or the longer ones that don't show up on the explorer map.
The Tour of Britain has been through here a few times and a lot of Team GB live in/around South Manchester so none of the road ones are remotely worth going for. ONe of my proudest was a joint KOM I had with Ian Stannard but some other pro battered through it with a massive tailwind a few weeks ago. Bastard. Him, me, Ian Stannard. Not a bad top three. 😉
That all said, the only Strava result I have any pride in is scalping wout van aert in Mallorca. I was something like 546th. 547th was the big man, probably riding up backwards on a wattbike.