Cycling - influence of technology III

Have you ever wondered what are the limits of human body? Sure, this topic appears every time world record is broken. Last time it was popular after Usain Bolt's achievements. There is a feeling that you always can always do something that 0,01sec faster, but where does it stop.

To improve your results, you can use some illegal help like Erythropoietin hormone - used as a performance-enhancing drug - but those are only minor gains (interesting fact is that for average people rebuilding their everyday diet is waaay more effective than this). It always puzzled me, what are the directives of defining drugs/operations as legal or illegal. We can find Erythropoietin in every human body and if someone has bigger amount of this hormone, he is usually they have better endurance than others. Some drugs that used to be illegal now are recommended and inversely. The peak of this situation we could see in Federal Republic of Germany some time ago. Women taking steroids broke many world records, but after years it reflected on their health.

One thing we can say for sure is that no matter how hard you try, you will never be as fast as Usain Bolt or Lance Armstrong. Good gens are probably the most important thing, and this is sad :) Those people have slightly different body construction and this makes them "supernatural". They also become stars of their sport. There is an interesting question connected with sport stars: What if, after many years, one of the ideals is accused of taking illegal drugs. Should it be given to the public?

Coming back to technology. How much more can drugs and equipment help us in breaking the limits. Experts says that such records as those on 100m and 200m sprint will last for years, but one day there will be a man who will do it faster.

Some interesting cycling records (notice the dates):

268,831 km/h - Fred Rompelberg 3 X 1995 - speed record on riding behind aerodynamic cover

40,27 km/h - Lance Armstrong 1999 - fastest average speed on Tour de France

78 days, 3 hours i 30 minutes - Nicholas Mark Sanders 17 XII 1994 - 1 X 1997 - fastest around-the-world trip (20 977 km)

132.5 km/h - Sam Whittingham 2008 - flat road, 200m long:

210,4 km/h - Markus Stoeckl 2007 - downhill on 2km road, 45% steep:


And now, for the finish: THE GREATEST RECORD OF ALL:
60,45 km - Christian Adam - riding backwards and playing violin :)

Cycling - influence of technology II

My second post, as mentioned before will show the difference between being a professional sportsman now and then. On the basis of cycling of course.
Moment I started thinking of this was last year's Tour de Pologne. Because of the rain and poor weather conditions cyclists decided not to finish one stage. The explanation was: streets are slippery and it is too dangerous. Sure it was dangerous, but as an only person who puts his road bike on the snowdrift on our school's parking in winter, I can say it is possible. Especially, that the streets of Lublin were full of spectators who wanted to watch cyclists struggle with rain.
Here you can see the whole situation:



And now, let's see the ending of one of the most famous races: Giro di Italia in 1988 (Passo Gavia uphill). Due to the fact it was captured from VHS it's quality is poor, but still, it's worth seeing.



As we can see, it looked like a middle of winter, but the race had to continue anyway. Many of competitors developed serious injuries. Some of them could not get off the bike by themselves.
I wonder, what do you think of it? For me, the old quote: "crowd wants the blood" is still present, and the most popular query in youtube connected with bike is "crashes" :)
Who doesn't risk, doesn't win.

The next situation I want to mention is also visible for everyone who watches any pro race. Every team passing you by, is assisted with their own support car. Adding to this some safety cars, tv scooters, organizers it looks pretty funny. Years ago, when you got a flat tire during the race, you had to stop and change it by yourself. Now, team car immediately comes to you and gives you another bike. The same comes with every other failure. This is great, makes the competition fair. There is nothing more annoying than breaking your bike near the finish line, after 200km of hard riding. However, it kills some funny situations like the one from over 15 years ago, when a cyclist broke his fork (element that holds the front wheel). He found a village with a welder and finished the race :) Sure, he got penalty for external help, but the situation became legendary. Also the moments, when you could see fastest tube changing during the race, were nice :)
Do you think such team support should be forbidden?

As a bonus, two interesting facts about the current weight of bikes. Although, UCI allows only bikes that are over 7,8kg , there are some people how try to build lightest, riding bikes possible. Imagine 2 bottles of 1,5l Coca-Cola, this is a weight of the lightest fully equiped road bike I found :) For a MTB bike (suspension, stronger construcion...) it is about 5kg. I have no idea why such light bikes are not allowed to race. For me, it stops the technology development.
Why is weight so important? Here are some interesting calculations:

For -5 kg on 5km road:

road inclination [%]	distance gain [m]	time gain [sec]
0 (v=40.32 km/h)	16.1	1.44
5	235.7	44.1
25	311.3	248.4

For -0.1 kg on 5km road:

road inclination [%]	distance gain [m]	time gain [sec]
0 (v=40.32 km/h)	0.06 (6 cm)	0.01
24	6.23	5

Notice, that before steep uphills cyclists put off their helmets, glasses, drinks. Every gram counts :)

I don't think that the fact that bikes are equipped in some magical devices to measure power, GPS influences their time. They are mainly used to increase the bike weight or to help with training.
I hope you answer my questions in comments section. On Friday I will write something about illegal ways of improving performance, because remember, PERFORMANCE: it's the name of a game:

PechaKucha 20x20

Hello Guys:)
I've got an extra task for you, for extra points.
Have you heard of PechaKucha ???
I took part in such an event the previous week.
Your task is to check what it is and present your point of view.Give links to interesting sites that present it. What do you think of this new trend? I liked it a lot?
Have Fun!

Cycling - influence of technology

Hi,
My name is Maciek and it's the 3. term I am posting on this blog. As always, my posts will concern my passion: cycling. This time, I will focus on the influence of technology advancement on sport results.
It is not a surprise for me, that for most people watching road cycling on TV is extremely boring (except crashes) and the only valuable thing there, is the landscape they pass - as the race is supposed to be country promotion. Just check this promotional movie for Tour de France (it was really great in IMAX - makes you want to visit France):


For some years now, watching whole race became boring for nearly everyone. In my opinion it was caused mainly by introducing radio communication between cyclists and their staff. It killed all the spontaneous runaways. There is no point in trying to overtake the group, as it knows exactly how fast to ride, to get the leader just before the finish line. It made most of the races look the same - cyclists ride in pelethon together and seconds before finish, supported by team-mates, they sprint. The essence of this strange situation was presented on the last TdF where TV presented information: "The pelethon will overtake the leader in X seconds". It is like watching football game, when you know, it will finish with penalties. If you saw this year's Tour de Pologne in Warsaw, there was similar situation: two cyclists had a big advantage before the rest for 7 of 8 rounds, and on the last one they got caught up.

Dear UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale), please get rid of it, as it was before, or all the races will end like this:


I realize that it is probably impossible. Nowadays cyclists became more important than people who watch the competition. Everything is made for their security and to improve the results (riding in big group is way faster and more comfortable than solo). I will explain this in the next post, which I hope will be more interesting, because of the great videos i prepared. However I would really like information, cyclists receive, to be limited somehow.

Go to other blogs to participate in the discussions this week.
http://uwb2ms.blogspot.com/
http://konwersatorium1pjwstk.blogspot.com/

Self-presentation

Hello Guys!
I have been having e-classes with some of you for over a year, but we do not know much of each other; not even the looks;)
Could you please introduce yourself to all of us by finishing two sentences.
1. I like......
2. The thing that others in the group do not know about me is.....

I will participate in the introductory part as well:)
Moreover, put your personal photos in the profiles.

Presentation drafts

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Before making a presentation send me please the draft of it.

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Create your profiles.
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Presentations

All of you will moderate the blog for a week. Therefore, put yourself on the list(the week when you would like to do it). Remember, this is an obligatory part of the course.

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Choose some theme for your week.Put there links to interesting articles, films, presentations…invention is on your side. Comment on them and make others express their opinion.Your task is to involve your friends from the group. If you want, you can do this task in a pair. Just let me know

The weeks of presentations:
19-25.10
26-01.11 Maciej Hop
02-08.11 Katarzyna Kolbrecka
16-22.11 Michał & Błażej
23-29.11 Krzysztof Wolk, Tomasz Bar
30-06.12 s4419,Wojciech Czajkowski
07-13.12 Michał Opoka, Michał Sereja
14-20.12 Jarosław Brzozowski, Jarosław Jankowski
04-10.01 Maciej Świda + Jakub Tumanowicz
11-17.01 Mariusz 'Flex' Macieja, Damian Popielarczyk