Interesting table on female cycling power outputs here:-
http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showthread.php?t=13750

At the top of a DH track, a woman clearly has less “potential energy” if her mass is less than that of a male rider, so even if she rolled it down with zero pedalling, she’d be slower

ahem

(allowing for boobs, natch)

Factor in Aaron Gwin’s famous no chain win. So leg power is out

I think its more to do with upper body strength, mass & air resistance…

Don’t even mention Courage (as a difference), those girls (and Guys) are bloody awesome

because she’s mentally programmed not to take as many risks?

Yup that’s the main reason

Combined with a deficit in absolute strength riding the same course

sharkattack – Member

You just never see the women having any fun on their bikes.

You might not see it, but it’s pretty nonstop if you’re looking in the right places. I think possibly you need to look harder though, for the wimmin.

Testosterone is a hell of a drug.

samunkim

Factor in Aaron Gwin’s famous no chain win. So leg power is out

I think its more to do with upper body strength, mass & air resistance…

Hmmmm. It’s a bit of an anomaly though. Three other people who could/should/would have beaten his time had issues in their run. And also you can’t really just discount leg power as I’m sure he was pumping every contour and working his bike like crazy using every muscle in his body including his legs.

Factor in Aaron Gwin’s famous no chain win. So leg power is out

??????
He would have had to use loads of leg power. Did you see the run? How hard he was pumping every compression?

For those commenting on physical strength. Looking at the current top women DHers they look a pretty lightweight build.

I’m sure if physical strength was holding them back this could be built up.

Look at a professional female swimmer or professional female track cyclist. They’re an absolute powerhouse of muscle which would make ratboy look like a ratgirl.

Back in the day (fields etc) I’m sure I read that Anne-Caro used to take the fastest blokes time in practice and add 30s to it as her target race time, which she invariably hit.

Not exactly bothering the boys for a podium, but better than the current crop.

Girls need to MTFU?

Same question could be asked as to why there’s no known Female, F1 or Rally drivers… what about bobsleigh… none of these are as physical as ripping a bike down a hill.

smatkins1 – Member

For those commenting on physical strength. Looking at the current top women DHers they look a pretty lightweight build.

I’m sure if physical strength was holding them back this could be built up.

Look at a professional female swimmer or professional female track cyclist. They’re an absolute powerhouse of muscle which would make ratboy look like a ratgirl.

They probably don’t have the funding or access to the same drugs.

Stoner, stoner, stoner…

You’re a big chap (IIRC 😉 ). You must have noticed that big guys tend to roll DH faster than smaller ones. Wind resistance innit….

Not to mention that bigger riders tend to cope with bumps/etc better than smaller ones

Men are physically more capable than women, surely that is not in doubt, so for whatever sport men are always going to out perform women.

I guess the question is if the difference in performance gap is greater than the average for all sports, then it would have to be something to do with the talent coming through.

Its hard enough getting women in to sport, making girls to take up DH biking over other sports is never going to be easy. Who is to say that the current crop of girls doing DH mtb is anything like the best physical women to be doing it?

I wonder if taking a similar approach to bobsleigh would work for DH? Find some gifted teenage athletes who aren’t quite world class at heptathlon, 400m, etc, then throw them down a gnarly track and see who enjoys it and has some talent. Then develop them from there. Even if female DHers are as skilled as the men the selection pool still isn’t big enough to get the great athletes or the complete mentalists who’ll put their life on the line for the win.

I know footballers get paid way too much etc etc but one thing you can’t doubt is that the best footballers in the world really are the best they can be, because everyone gets to try football. If you’re good then you’ll make a career of it because there is such easy access and a ton of money as an incentive. Compare that to F1 – tons of money but only 20 jobs and hardly anyone gets to try it.

I took sharkattack’s comment to mean the sort of “Fun” this woman has on her bike.

[video]https://www.vimeo.com/80643645[/video]

I totally agree with him but wouldn’t really expect most of STW to get it. There’s only ONE girl on the WC circuit who has any style at all. The rest (the top 3 included) look **** awful in the air. like they’re scared rather than having any sort of fun with it.

There’s only ONE girl on the WC circuit who has any style at all

Casey Browntown? History of chasing her brothers on MX bikes around Canadian dirt roads. Nice childhood if you can get it.

like they’re scared rather than having any sort of fun with it.

Yep. Hanging on for grim death.

I think all the attempts at maths and science in this thread is missing the point. You need some kind of evolutionary psychologist. Downhill is fekking dangerous and young men are rabid for stuff like that.

WTF? Since when did doing a big whip in a downhill equate to times and winning? And you appear to be suggesting that Rachel, Mannon etc. don’t have fun doing their profession?

If the jumps are designed for men and their speed and power which they are carrying into them, then of course the women will be stretched and struggling.

maybe they need a wimminz take off further back like in golf.

Downhill is fekking dangerous and young men are rabid for stuff like that

I wasn’t. Plenty of other blokes aren’t. Just like plenty of girl/women don’t fit your narrow stereotype. While there could be some truth in it as an average statement (for many reasons, many cultural), it’s the outliers who are the top performers by definition so I don’t particularly hold that the top male DHers are fundamentally more daring/brave/whatever than the top female ones.

I’d argue that a smaller pool in women’s DH leads to slower progress – competition pushes people forward and more competitors at a similar level produces more competition. It doesn’t particularly show that the women are fundamentally less good.

Oh and don’t underestimate just how much less power female athletes have than male ones in power sports (which DH would be classified as given the approx 5 minute race times) which makes a difference out of most corners and the ability to deal with big hits.

It’d be interesting to compare GPS traces on the men and women’s winners at DH competitions to see where the differences are.

Since when did doing a big whip in a downhill equate to times and winning?

It doesn’t but it does show a level of ability that none of the women have.

narrow stereotype

Go visit a skatepark, MX track, dirt jumps, football pitch, sketchy tyre on a rope death swing. Tell me why there are no girls there learning how to do pointless, death defying skills.

I already stated that 😉 You’re seeing the average, the norm, the trend. If you go to enough skateparks, MX tracks, etc, you will find the exceptions. Some of them will be very good. They are the outliers.

Mostly just a numbers thing,

sooo do we have any (physical) sports where women outnumber the blokes and also lead outright? Or will blokes always be ahead due to muscle?

You’re seeing the average, the norm, the trend

Which is what plays out on the world cup circuit.

you will find the exceptions

Yes. In the tiny amount of female participants.

EDIT:

Since when did doing a big whip in a downhill equate to times and winning?

And another thing!
These are the skills that you learn by riding your bike day in day out. Skills that will let you turn the roughest section of a DH track into a massive gap jump that only the most skilled riders can hit.

You might think that ‘playing’ on a bike doesn’t equal results but if you can send a massive gap, hold a two wheel drift, manual and pump properly, you’re going to drop the average rider.

sooo do we have any (physical) sports where women outnumber the blokes and also lead outright

Sharattack – You are bordering on coming across as being a sexist stereo type, but I think I actually get where you are coming from.

Again its the fact that men are more predesposed to the taking risk/danger thing, from cave man days. However for anyone who is happy doing a ‘dangerous’ sport to elite level, when they look at a course it wont be scary at all, it will be a challenge/exciting certainly in no way scary.

I have to disagree that women are generaly less skilled. In my sport (skiing) the women are nearly always technically better than the men, as they can not just use brute force and power to get a result.

Which is what plays out on the world cup circuit.

Exactly my point. But it doesn’t prove anything about the fundamental capability of ‘women’, just about how the current scene is compared to the men. I’ll bet if you suddenly cloned the top 10 women’s DHers 5 times each (and threw in ACC for good measure), you’d see a dramatic progression of their relative pace to the men towards a limit where the physical differences (power) lie.

Sharattack – You are bordering on coming across as being a sexist stereo type, but I think I actually get where you are coming from.

Well that’s the downside of black and white text on a forum.

I’ve actually guided and coached women around my local trail centre. I mostly ride with my girlfriend now and we’ve talked about this at length.

The women I know come to cycling much later in life. Much like some of the male IT bods on STW. It’s not a lifelong obsession like it has been for the professionals and they lack the basic foundation of skills that they would have gained from a childhood of pushing the limits on a bike.

I started riding at about age 5 and never stopped. But my girlfriend spent her childhood watching Disney films and being in her words “a girly girl”. She can and does make it down Alpine DH runs but there’s no drifting or gap jumping or any of the stuff that would take huge chunks of time out of a race run.

EDIT:

But it doesn’t prove anything about the fundamental capability of ‘women’,

Can I just point out that I’ve never said anything about ‘fundamental capabilities’! That would be a bit strong. I’m just saying, it’s a lifestyle thing. There’s about a hundred times more men breaking themselves to beat the clock and their mates or whatever standard they set for themselves. Obviously the talent will rise to the top of the game. The numbers of really early starters just aren’t there for the women.

Because for the top women to match the times of even the top 30 men would require them to double their power output.

In terms of VO2 max I imagine the women (unless genetic freaks) are giving away huge amounts of oxygen take-up to even the reasonably trained men, as it’s measured as ml/m/KG. In short the likes of Gwin and Gee are running at much less approaching their max output, than an women trying to match him obviously in their own races they would be at similar output. They simply don’t have the power output to match the men’s times .

And if your thinking, nah it’s not about aerobic capacity, just listen to how hard ALL of them are breathing at the end of the track.

EDIT. It’s like a well tuned 1.6 straight 4 engine trying to out perform a well tuned 3.0 V8, ain’t ever gonna happen

Combine that with the cumulative toll of all the jumps, and hitting the front rather than rolling the downsides, and the seconds soon mount up.

I wonder how good Shanaze Reade would be at DH. She’s got power to leave everyone for dead (track sprint champion), and the skills to send the massive gaps (multiple BMX world champ). Maybe it would just be her cornering she needs to work on 😆 .

Stoner – yes, if they were travelling in a vacuum towards the earth, then they would travel at the same speed. But mass (inertia?) overcoming resistance in the form of all the friction forces etc that a rider will encounter descending a non-vertical surface is important. And the potential energy stored by an object at a given height is higher for a heavier object.

Roll a pingpong ball down a slope against a squash ball or similar. Which gets to the bottom first?

Well, she couldn’t beat ACC at the Olympics… 😉

She’d be at the same place that the current crop of women. It’s not like they’re not trying, it’s just that the physiological jump to be near a well trained male athelte would take impossible amounts of improvment in power output

Well, she couldn’t beat ACC at the Olympics…

hence my cornering reference. To be fair ACC is a legend and I was really chuffed for her that she won that race. But still, Shanaze was way ahead of her at the first corner due to her pure straight line speed.

It’s not purely about strength, it’s about muscle composition that determines the the stregth to weight ratio. If you take the average man and the average woman, strip them of all fat, bulk them up to 100kg, the man will still be stronger. Every way you cut that the man wins the race, the woman either has to get heavier to match on strength or is weaker.

The 10-11% difference in athletic ability at endurance sports is going to be a factor, stronger aerobic system allows more oxygen per unit of muscle, enables more work to be done, lets the men ‘sprint’ faster for longer. I put sprint in inverted commas because most of the run will be aerobic rather than anaerobic effort. The men have better anaerobic ability in the muscle composition too though.

Evolutionary history means that the average man has better reactions, better vision and better ability to make quick decisions that mean they react to the course better and carry more speed.

I think a large amount of the difference is likely to be caused by the fact that when riding bikes down a hill, the faster you go the easier it gets to a large extend. Bikes just get exponentially faster as ability increases because they roll over obstacles better; once you’ve lost speed over a rock garden it’s hard to get it back. but the men were so fast they jumped most of the rock garden anyway, so didn’t slow at all. There’s a compounding effect.

Evolutionary history means that the average man has better reactions, better vision and better ability to make quick decisions

With respect, this is utter bollards.

I’m also suspicious of your claim that muscle composition varies significantly between the sexes. I think over a population if you stripped away all fat and made the whole; 100kg, you’d have not a massive amount of difference.

I think that whilst there might be an element of not quite powerful enough to hit the same gaps as the guys and therefore compounding loss of speed over multiple obstacle, it’s probably the level everyone is aiming at due to the smaller numbers of women coming through the sport from the grass roots.
Having a field of 10 doesn’t really encourage women to do the sport – it gives them less feedback. If you’re in a field of 10 you have a better chance to podium, but your result is a lot more down to other individuals having a bad/good day. In a field of 50 your position is far more down to you having a good or bad day, and the majority of riders accept that they won’t often podium.

Sharattack – You are bordering on coming across as being a sexist stereo type, but I think I actually get where you are coming from.

Again its the fact that men are more predesposed to the taking risk/danger thing, from cave man days.

I wonder if there’s any real evidence of this? It’s certainly not a result of evolution – in many species the females do the hunting, and in many human societies it’s been the women who do the bulk of the physical work. (How often do you hear of the women heading off to collect water or pound grain or whatever while the men bravely defend the flocks ie laze around all day 😉 )

I have a feeling that assuming the men are more predisposed to danger is a relatively modern thing. Blame the Victorians. 😆

Interesting question I guess.
But. Does it matter ?
It’s not as though there aren’t separate men’s and women’s events anyway .
I’m in awe either way, of those with the balls (?) , skill and fitness , who compete at this level, regardless of their sex.

Again its the fact that men are more predesposed to the taking risk/danger thing, from cave man days.

Unless you’re referring to a different species of archaic human, then from 200,000ya, “cave men” are identical in evolutionary terms to modern humans.

Quite a few people on here talking about muscle mass and size of men v women. Does that mean that bigger riders tend to win DH? How tall are the current riders? Are there any small, skinny men who regularly win?