Giro sprint

Cool photo. Watch the race commisar (sp?) in the background...full view over proceedings.

Anyone watch stage 12 yesterday? How's that Monte Zoncolan climb? 14% average gradient and a 28% at the end!

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by Vo2
Anyone watch stage 12 yesterday? How's that Monte Zoncolan climb? 14% average gradient and a 28% at the end!

They where almost walking to the top. Even the grupetto splattered apart. And this was only the easy side of the Zoncolan 🙂. I watched the last few k's especially the performance of Pantani was promising, and don't forget youngster popovych.

A realy stupid question and most likely in the wrong thread as well but what the hell?
How exactly do they work out the % gradient of a climb? VO2 you said 14% and 28% ???? Please help me to work this out.
Also VO2 I know you've done the Argus what would the gradient of OKW be? (just to cpompare)

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by Lazy legs
A realy stupid question and most likely in the wrong thread as well but what the hell?
How exactly do they work out the % gradient of a climb? VO2 you said 14% and 28% ???? Please help me to work this out.
Also VO2 I know you've done the Argus what would the gradient of OKW be? (just to cpompare)

Ou kaapse weg is about 7k long and gains something of around 280 meters which makes it 4% or a little more on average

Zoncolan this way is 13,5k(twice as long) and 9%(and not 14) on average which makes you gain 1200 meters

So zoncolan is more then twice as steep, with at the end(see graph) the real steep section(3-3,5 times as OKW)

for zoncolan http://www.salite.ch/zoncolan.htm (very detailed salite is a great site for europe)

or http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2003/giro03/?id=stages/stage12

So OKW is average on length and fairly easy on gradient.

a referrence when you would be riding 25km/h on ou kaapse weg in the final 3 k's of zoncolan given the same effort your speed would be 9,4km/h

I still reckon Baldato had more than enough room in that sprint, the photo is all the proof anyone needs to realise that! 😄 😄 😄

Zoncolan looks like abit of a burg....does anyone know where we can download some video of the last few km's? Pantani looks like he's getting it together, its a pitty we wont be seeing him in the TDF 😠

cheers

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by maarten
a referrence when you would be riding 25km/h on ou kaapse weg in the final 3 k's of zoncolan given the same effort your speed would be 9,4km/h

Tx, for the reply maarten, I never thought it's that bad. Do they change their gearsets between stages when they know what's waiting for them in the next stage?

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by Lazy legs
Tx, for the reply maarten, I never thought it's that bad. Do they change their gearsets between stages when they know what's waiting for them in the next stage?

Most riders keep the front cogs the same(in general 39or 42-53). Its just the casette on the rear wheel that's changed the 11-21 or 11-23 will be replaces by a 11-25(normal mountain stages) or 11-28(29) or 12-28(29) for killers stages like zoncolan.
Thats work for the mecanics but changing a casette is fairly easy/fast and lots of times they have special climbing wheels with them with the monster casette already on.

Sometimes the double on the front is changed for a tripple but this is done seldom as its time consuming when you have to do this on all the bikes and most riders find 39-28 enough to get up the killer mountains.

Note that riders(and certainly top GC contenders) have special ligther climbing wheels or often another lighter/different geometry frame for the mountain stages.

but the real killer is

Malga Palazzo

check it out here

http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Dome/1264/climbs/malga_palazzo.html

Just to split some hairs of correctness here - the gradient is actually the elevation gain divided by the horizontal distance. If you think of a triangle the road follows the hypoteneuse which is obviously longer than the horizontal distance and so if you use the road distance in the equation you'll get a somewhat lower figure for the % grade. For grades less than 10% the difference is negligible

I can't help it... I'm paid to pay attention to details.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by maarten
but the real killer is

Malga Palazzo

check it out here

http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Dome/1264/climbs/malga_palazzo.html

That would have to rate as one of the harest climbs in the world, are they going up it this year? 😄

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by steve
That would have to rate as one of the harest climbs in the world, are they going up it this year? 😄

[censored]!! I wouldn't wanna go down that hill, never mind UP it!! 😄
Thats what I bought a car for. :p

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by steve
That would have to rate as one of the harest climbs in the world, are they going up it this year? 😄

Nope Its a little too much.

[censored]!! I wouldn't wanna go down that hill, never mind UP it!!
Thats what I bought a car for.

You probabely burn your clutch befor you get halfway.

Yesterday was an epic stage! Three climbs, rain, there was ice on the road too. A great day for Frigo who likes cold weather, Popovych was promising much but then lost 3 minutes on the final climb. Pantani crashed on the last descent but continued bravely. And Simoni is by far the strongest man on the Giro this year. Can he be a threat to Armstrong, at least on the mountains? I hope so.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by steve
That would have to rate as one of the harest climbs in the world, are they going up it this year? 😄

No, not this year. Yes, there's a lot of outstanding climbs all around Europe. Some of them are very long and steep. But where's the point where we can say "hey, this is turning into torture"?