USADA announced a couple days ago that Thorfinn-Sassquatch, aka. Nick Brandt-Sorenson, has accepted a lifetime ban for his 2nd and 3rd doping infractions in the sport of cycling. It is too bad it takes so much time and money to deal with such a douche. Think about how many better ways there are to spend that money. Cyclingtips did a pretty good article on Nick. I’ve even been threatened with litigation from posting on him. I’ve had my fun with this whole thing, so I’ll just leave it at that, except, Adios dickhead.
2nd, do you think that the speed that are being reported at the Tour de France are accurate? They are always showing the sprints at 75 kph. Then a couple days ago, when Steve Cummings won, the descending speeds recorded were off the charts. Multiple riders were over 120 kph. Marcus Burghardt’s, BMC, Strava file said that his max speed was 130.7 kph. For those who use mile per hour, that is 81.213. That doesn’t seem possible? There is a huge difference between 50 mph and 65 mph. I’ve never come close to 80, especially at a place like the Tour where there are so many other riders, plus spectators, obstacles, etc.
Lastly, it rained 10 inches up near Cable a couple nights ago. I was just there on Saturday and now it is completely underwater. I talked to Dennis last night and he said that he is nearly land locked by flooded rivers and streams. Can you imagine how much water that would be.
One inch of water over a square mile is just about 17.4 million gallons of water. So 10 inches would be 174,000,000 gallons of water per square mile. Multiple that by 100’s of square miles the storm covered and it is unbelievable. Man, the weather sure has been changing recently.
Big wind day at the Tour. Looks sketchy. Should make for an exciting racing the next couple hours.
Marcus descending fast. I have to assume he isn’t going over 80 in this position.
Strava summary.
This is a road less than 2 miles from Dennis’.
This road is pretty much toast.
Topeka is about ready to see some weather this morning too.
Tucker keeping an eye on me through a Starbucks window.
Those high max speeds are coming from Strava. There is some inaccuracies in their calculations which are apparent on short and fast sections.
The 81mph for Marcus Burghardt looks pretty clearly like a error in the data https://www.strava.com/activities/636667328/analysis/3835/4123
He does get up to 60-70 in other parts of the file, and those areas do look correct, don’t look like errors.
I believe Strava uses GPS data points so it throws out any computer provided data on speed \ or wheel sensor although Marcus was not using a wheel sensor. The faster you go based on GPS the higher the greater margin of error. Strava ends up over exaggerates a lot of distance \ elevation data points. Im guessing in attempt to prevent cheating etc.. things are based off of strava’s GPS data points. You can look at his GPS track to get a better idea I think.
I always felt that closer to 70mph was terminal velocity for free wheeling.
Careful actually writing his name. The wife might sue you for trademark infringement due to their clothing company.
I agree with Bob, I too believe terminal velocity on a bicycle to be 65-70mph. Even on stright decents were you are basically free falling you still don’t hit 80mph. I always joked if you dropped a cyclist out of an airplane you still wouldn’t fall much faster.
Those speeds are spikes from strava algorithm.
I think Davis phinney or Ron Kiefel claimed 93 mph on Fremont pass. Sounds just about possible as an upper limit at altitude on a good road with good visibility.
Carlos – There is no way that Davis or Ron went 93 down Freemont. I think you could go that fast somewhere, but not there. I know the terminal velocity on a bicycle isn’t anywhere near 65-70. Those guys on snow are going way over 100. I’m not sure the fastest ever on pavement, but I’ve been in the 70’s before and could have gone faster with more road and balls.
Link to speed records, mainly on snow. 138 mph is the fastest so far.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_records
55 to 81 in .01 seconds. Nope.
I was going to say earlier (but forgot)… The fastest I’ve ever been “clocked” on a bike was 66MPH, and that was also going down Fremont pass (heading towards Leadville). If Phinney claimed 93 MPH, then he’s wrong. No way a cyclist could go that fast without hanging onto the window of a moving car (and he’d probably get the wobbles in so doing).
130km/h, where is the sensor? that’s my first question… estimated or an accurate measure from an actual sensor?
as for cheating, its not right, but there are cheaters in every facet of life from business through to sports to even home life… when there are gains/attention to be had, people will cheat.
human nature in some regards. It ain’t fair but its just a fact of life.
hard to catch them all… and empires are built on catching them from security commissions to cop shops to lawyers/judges to divorce courts etc… cheating is just a fact of life. It ain’t fair but sometimes sht happens.
His cadence doesnt seem right, either. 215rpm? I doubt it..
Not even with a 2115 rpm cadence? (inaccuracies abound)
oops an extra ‘1’ slipped in there. Make that 215 rpm
FYI, it’s not Strava. It’s the device. The device calculates speed based on gps data and the gps data are not accurate.
Strava is doing no checking on any of the values the gps device writes. It’s not Wayz or Google Maps. It doesn’t know where you are. It does some stuff to make nice map pictures, but that’s different.
Kind of makes me put a sensor on my fork. Last weekend in Iowa, I noticed the Strava map showed me cutting across the course diagonally quite a few times. Plus, my average speed was only 27.5, which seemed really low.
The faster you go based on GPS the higher the greater margin of error. Strava ends up over exaggerates a lot of distance \ elevation data points
Strava only reads from the file provided by the device. If the device is wrong, Strava does not correct it. To prove my claim: write your own GPX file as if you were flying in a plane and upload it. Strava will accept it and process it like all other files.
Mapping the gpx track is an entirely different function and 100% cosmetic.
Those speeds are spikes from strava algorithm.
No. The device calculates and writes speed as a field with each data point. Strava doesn’t sanity check files.
Write one yourself with some implausible route that can only be achieved in a helicopter and upload it. It uploads/calculates your efforts just like a file from a gps device.
Yeah, actually, you could just put a Powertap wheel on your bike too. Strava will show speeds from the wheel and not GPS. I use Powertap wheel and Garmin, and that’s the way it works. I think, in the few crashes or close calls I’ve had, I think I remember seeing in the speed data when the rear wheel locks up, even though you’re still moving.
(I’ve also seen in the data, spikes in cadence when cadence is recorded by the hub itself, >150 rpm, result from coasting and then starting to pedal, where you kind of “hit” the chain, not smooth – I’ve seen in the cadence data from crashes, the moment the pedals strike the ground a handful of seconds after locking up the back wheel, because there is a spike in cadence the moment I hit the ground).
I have a sprint in Nevada MO that says I did over 200 mph. It is only on strava, not on my garmin or any other of my files. I tried to tell strava about it a couple times but I don’t think anyone else cares about a little sprint in a small town so it was never taken down.
https://www.strava.com/segments/4737175
lol, 328 kph @ 99W Nick, you’ll be keeping that record for quite a while.
I did 63 mph in a race in upstate NY a number of years ago and I will admit that, with the draft coming off other riders, I was scared.
The second time down the hill we were noticeably slower (it felt very different) and we were still at 55 mph.
Those speeds are insane.
Years ago I had a Vetta cyclocomputer. One day after passing under some power lines it seemed to go haywire and my speeds were off the chart for the entire day. My max speed was 264 mph and I think my average was somewhere in the 140 mph range. As I crossed under the power line on the way home, the cyclometer suddenly started recording normally. It never erased the outlandish speeds. I retired the cyclometer and would show off how fast I could go. Last I checked it was still there.
Cateye Solar, cheap training tubulars, no helmet of course, 66 MPH. Downhill of course but I’m pretty sure that I only had a 53×13 to work with.
Just before that progressive curve on Peak to Peak coming down from Peaceful Valley towards Raymond where someone has died on a motorcycle about once every three years since then (1984.)
Precisely why people shouldn’t care if Thorfinn Sassquatch cheated or faked all of those KOMs, because we really can’t trust Strava KOMs to begin with.
Exactly Steve,
You’ll notice strava did nothing with your bad readings but map them. It’s not Wayz. It doesn’t know where you are. It doesn’t know the difference between a building and a road. It just reads what’s provided.
An old-school wired computer that uses a sensor on the rolling wheel is far more accurate.
Ken,
We used to sell Vetta. There was one problem we could not get past. When the computer was placed nesr a wireless printer, the signal was close enough to the Vetta transmitter so that the computer immediately read 100mph. it did the same thing near traffic sensors on rides. Occasionally, the Cateye wireless computers do the same thing.
The first time the Vetta went nuts, my wife remarked at how well the new sprint training workouts were coming along for me.
On a little different note. Cycling news article recently analyzing sprint speeds at TDF. 47 mph for the flat sprints. Damn! Have they always been that fast?
Spikes from lack of strava algorithm might be a better way of putting it.
Fremont is the fastest I know. Quite easy to get into the high 60s there. I’m sure a seasoned pro and Colorado native could go a lot faster. How much faster I don’t know. Maybe someone could ask Ron or Davis.
Strava, schmava. Steve had me at “Adios dickhead!”
Cleanest the petition has ever been (yep)! It must be the proliferation of carbon fiber!