I might agree with you Joseph.
We had a young rider here in my town who was on our track running team as a
freshman and sophomore.
He showed no brilliance in distance running ( a sure sign of a simply normal
VO2 max ) and in fact was much slower than some of the other kids. He then
took up cycling. He's amassed hundreds, possibly thousands of hours on the
bike and is now in Belgium competing for a team there. At 20 years of age
he's dang tough. I'd not be surprised to see him in the TdFrance someday
with his work ethic, mental strength, and hard training attitude. Google
Todd Elenz and you'll see his results.

He will occasionally ski with me in the winter when he's home now and can
nearly kick my butt - I"m no slouch either - !! He has no skiing form, no
technical skills, and BAD equipment, but all the endurance and lung capacity
in the world.

How much can one increase your V02 max simply by training? Certainly we all
have a physiological limit ...

JK


wrote in message
oups.com...

32 degrees wrote:
Kind of OFF TOPIC, but kinda on topic... Just read ( see below ) that
FLoyd Landis was training up to 50 hours/week riding in his early
formative years.
Is this what it takes to get to the top?? wow, thats huge hours. I
remember some elite college skiing buddies mentioning 25 hours a week and
I thought that was huge. Maybe these huge hours that Floyd was doing
early on are what it takes to develop yourself fully for later ??
JK

I've heard it expostulated that anyone with a more or less normal
physiology has what it takes to become a top cyclist. At least in the
physical department. It's then a matter of mental strength and proper
training. Floyd himself says it's all about he who trains hardest and
most wins.

Pros ride about 35,000km a year in training. Call that an average of 3
hours per day, 6 days a week. Actually it's probably more during the
season and pre-season. 50 hours per week seems extreme but I suppose it
helped more than it hurt.

If I won lotto I'm sure I could swing 25 a week. If it were a job as
exciting as bike racing, no problem upping that. I'm sure skiing is the
same.

Joseph


Landis won the junior national cross country race at Michigan's Traverse
City when he was 18.

He graduated from Conestoga Valley High School in 1994 and moved to
Irvine in California where he first raced for TWB - a tiny bike component
company - and then for Chevy Trucks.

However,Landis' cycling career appeared to be over when the latter
sponsorship was yanked in the spring of 1998.

He decided not to return to Farmsersville but stayed in California and
did what came naturally: he rode for hours on end.

"I didn't know what else to do," he says.

Landis was still unemployed after a couple of months of 50-hour training
weeks - but in terrific shape. He and Geoghegan - who'd been a Chevy
Trucks teammate - decided to enter some road races. The pair took
pleasure in creating chaos in the peloton; they'd attack out of the gate
and stage arguments in front of other riders: "It's my turn to go."

http://www.irishexaminer.com/irishex...522-qqqx=1.asp