By Olympic runners, I mean from your 100m competitors to the 10,000m and marathon. If you gave them a bike, how would they fare against their fellow Olympians in the velodrome? How would they do in something like the Tour de France?
And vice-versa - if you took an Olympic cyclist’s bike away from them how good would they be at the athletics?
Not very, especially if we’re talking TdF. You use different muscles on a bike. And if you look at sprinters, they usually have a lot of upper-body mass, which you just don’t see in cyclists. And in a long, endurance race like the TdF, there is no substitute for “time on the bike” in terms of just being able to ride that long. A person who is not a cyclist is often going to have problems on a long ride with either his hands, butt or feet before his leg muscles start giving out.
Of course, they’d be leagues better than your average schlub who just got on a bike for the first time.
Especially his butt.
Agree with the above. And for the TdF-style the sprinters going to need, say, three to six months just to learn how to ride (first overcoming the natural urge to pedal harder rather than the more efficient method of pedaling faster, and second learning to ride in a pack and draft effectively).
This is one of the reasons that cyclo cross and cross country mountain biking are such difficult disciplines, the mix of physical abilities make it very hard to do either to a high level.
I have seen cyclo cross riders who are well able to run sub 5 minute miles for perhaps 5 or 6 miles but they are not common at all.
Tri athletes take this on level further, all I can say is that there are some extremely fit people out there.
So, in conclusion, it can be done, but not on a whim, you are looking at a long time and many hours of hard work
To be competitive in the TdF Olympic runners are going to have to take a lot more drugs than they’ve been used to.
Frank Shorter (72 Gold marathon 76 Silver marathon)was fairly competitive as a masters triathlon athlete.
Riding well at a world class level requires a great deal of power as well as aerobic development due to the hills and higher wind resistance when riding.
It really will depend on the individual athlete.
Probably about the same as a professional quarterback if given a baseball and asked to pitch in the major leagues. To be successful, both disciplines require throwing a ball with varying velocities and pinpoint precision. That’s about where the similarities end, though.
I suspect the answer in either case would be “Much better than the average Joe, but not nearly well enough to complete at a world class level without significant aditional training”.
I’m a cyclist and use to be a runner. I’ve even done some tri’s and duathons. They use the leg muscles differently. Even triathletes usually have one part of the discipline that they are better than the other two. To go from being an Olympic runner to a TdF rider, or visa versa, would take years of practice. And why would you?
Actually I take that back. Eric Heiden went from winning much gold in the Olympics as a speed skater to riding in the Tour de France. Still he wasn’t all that great of a rider and was on that TdF team in some part due to his sponsorship potential. Also he was an amazing athlete who could have done well in many sports. One other thing: speed skaters frequently used cycling for cross training in the warmer months. both were good for the quad muscles.
Lance Armstrong was a pretty useful cyclist still in 2006. He managed just under 3 hours in the New York marathon that year. A good time, but only good enough for 856th place. With a bit of money and time behind me, I think I could manage that. Especially if I had his pace team.
For TdF type cycling, the skills training isn’t that significant. Necessary, but could be done in a few months. Not nearly the same level of skill required for TdF compared to pitching or QBing.
But the muscles used and body types required are probably different enough that someone Olympic level in running could never be TdF contender material. I mean, Olympic level means you’re among the top-50 or so people in the world who are genetically perfect for that sport. What are the odds you’re also among the top-50 who are genetically perfect for a different sport? Sure, there’s some overlap between distance running and cycling attributes, but not complete overlap.
As a data point, my former running coach also cycled, and had some amazing calves – to the point that when she flexed one there clearly were two lobes of the muscle. She said that one was from running and that the other was from biking, since the two sports hit different parts of that muscle.
Let’s turn it around a bit - does cross training in other sports potentially add anything to a specialist’s performance in their specialized sport choice? There is the principle of sports specificity (the main point of posts in this thread) but there are also arguments made in the other direction, even beyond the reduction of risk of injury. (A study that documents some cross training transfer effect between running and cycling, but not swimming, even, albeit only slightly, for elite athletes.)
Dahu, remember that Armstrong started out as a child swimmer, then a teen and young adult triathlete champion … and is back to tris now apparently.
I agree with Weirofhermiston. Runners will need to get used to the drugs. That is to say that for thoughtful sports fans, it seems to me that biking at the highest level now requires an entirely new start. If I don’t see times much slower in the TdF stages, I will presume they’re all still doping. It better happen quickly.
Moved to the Game Room.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Yes. JerrySTL pointed out speed skating as one sport that some cyclists can transition to somewhat easily. Cross country skiing is another sport that cyclists often turn to in the off season. Not too surprising as all three of these require strong legs and good aerobic conditioning.
Rowing is another sport with good overlap into cycling - more velodrome events though than a grand tour. Nice mix of endurance, strength and power that can map over. Rebecca Romero won olympic medals in both sports, Chris Hoy started off as a rower IIRC.
Anecdotally I’ve known a quite few rowers swing a leg over the mountain bike and are immediately at a good standard - legs of steel appear to be transferable.
It was mentioned already but Lance Armstrong started out as a triathlete.
Speaking as a recreational cyclist turned amateur triathlete - I would say to a large extent aerobic fitness will carry over from one sport to another. It would take some time to adjust to the new sport but I would bet that most Olympic level runners would be far above most amateur level cyclists pretty quickly.