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Lists 1

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Imho Armstrong et al. are not classical climbers. Those guys want the top-3. Even Virenques designation as a typical climber can be contested-notwithstanding his 7 pois rouges. Phlebas 20:35, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If Lance armstrong is a climbing specialist, Merckx, Indurain, and other 5time TDF winners are also climbing specialists 213.224.145.22 13:54, 29 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Listing Lance Armstrong here as a great climber dishonors true climbing specialists of the past. Lance Armstrong is the best but not in every sense (good to keep in mind). More than a climber he was a master tactician, a great time trialist and overall cyclist. He was also a good climber but this was not his prominent feature. I vote for removing Lance Armstrong from this list and let him be in others! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.119.46.38 (talk) 11:04, July 4, 2006
I think climbers are usually defined as riders whose main strength is riding uphill, they're not so good at time trialing. Armstrong is an all rounder, as are nearly all stage race winners; Merckx, Indurain, Hinault, Fignon etc. LDHan 22:55, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed references to Armstrong in the list and replaced the image. It's deeply misleading to have an image of an all-rounder at the top of a page about climbing specialists. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.18.21.2 (talk) 13:02, October 27, 2006
Oh and Totschnig is a national TT champ! One good climbing performance in a grand tour does not make you a climbing specialist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.18.21.2 (talk) 13:05, October 27, 2006

Current Climbing Specialists

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I have removed these from the list, for reasons mentioned:

Also I have removed any reference to Santiago Botero since he's been pretty bad since he left Kelme (wink wink), and I removed his picture also, and inserted Marco Pantani, Botero not really a good climber.

Evito 07:44, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I hate lists

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OK, I'll admit it: I hate lists. They grow and grow and grow, there will be arguments as to why such and such should or should not be on the list. I propose that the list is completely removed. It is much more informative to instead give a narrative of several legendary climbers in detail, instead of just name-dropping. I will start this in a week or so unless there is an objection. Julius.kusuma 23:06, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some time may have passed, but I completely agree. The lists are POV and original research so should be removed. Inserting some interesting text into the prose about some of the great climbers is a worthy task. SeveroTC 17:19, 24 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Climbing physics and physiology

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An issue with the second paragraph - this analysis is "first order" physics and may not apply to riders in an aerodynamic riding position. The flow analysis may show an advantage for a taller, thinner, rider with a near horizontal back, independent of weight. Codwiki (talk) 17:35, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Body weight & height

For a uniform density object (mass/unit volume), weight is proportional to the volume and is the cube of a specific linear dimension (for most shapes). For regularly shaped objects, the dimension is fairly easy to see - for ezample a cube-like solid has a volume proportaional to it's side or diagonal. For a sphere, the radius, diameter or circumference can be used (with the right proportionality factor). For a human beings, weight will be roughly proportional to the cube of some linear dimension (or combination of dimensions) but it's likely only a rough estimation. The question is how rough it is. 141.154.250.198 (talk) 16:52, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]


I doubt about the information that body weight is proportional to the cube of body height. We use BMI to understand simillarly weighted individuals. For example a 185cm (6 ft 1 inch),75 kg person has equivalent weight of a person who is 170 cm (5 ft 7 inch) and weighs 63.3kg. It is because they have same BMI (21.9). And according to the defination of BMI, body mass is proportional to square of the height. But if it were cube, then they had to weigh 81.6kg and 63.3 kg respectively to be equivalent. The reason behind the fact that we can find many ultralight climbers is something different. As they also compete with time trialists in time trial (though not as good as them), they must have high absolute VO2 max (though lower than time trialists). Now when this high absolute VO2 max is divided by their low body weight (which time trialists do not have), they have a very high relative VO2 max. That is what makes them great climbers. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 202.125.64.10 (talk) 04:20, 23 March 2007 (UTC).[reply]

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The 2/3 exponential is too big (actually too far from 1:1 which is a linear response) -- silly physiologist be damned. They would conclude that Miguel Indurain had no business winning 5 TdFs. And that only super-lightweights could win the TdF because their advantage in the Hills would be too great. They'd just have to draft on the flats and their time trialling would be good enough. (Pretty simple to work out mathematically. In the time trails, air resistance varies with the square of the velocity and is proportional to cross-sectional area).

But a deeper understanding is that the body does not scale that way. For example, if you double the size of the lung (by volume), you nearly double the lung capacity and you almost double the Oxygen uptake potential and you almost double the lung surface area. The big thing to remember is that the size of the blood capillaries remains the same -- capillaries don't get bigger. What happens is that you get nearly double the number of capillaries.

The last paragraph although true was rhetorical to show why the 2/3 exponent for scaling doesn't work. However, there is a scaling factor and it tends to relate to hydraulics given the fixed size of the capillaries in the muscles and working backwards to the heart. Here is a paper on the subject. http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/08/18/1009974107.full.pdf (Note, it was the first hit on my query "Fractal scaling of Animals"). It turns out that generally 3/4 is a better scaling factor. This has been around for 10+ years.

As the guy above me correctly pointed out, when most of the energy expended in climbing is the change in potential energy in going up and in rolling resistance -- both of which vary linearly with weight (of the man/woman plus the cycle). Whereas in time trialling much more of the energy expended is to overcome air resistance which varies with cross-sectional area and velocity squared.

Yes, the thin, wiry types do have an advantage in the hills, but not by much. However, it is enough. Remo ( Swlenz (talk) 20:09, 2 December 2013 (UTC))[reply]

Yes this needs to be sorted out as if aerobic power scaled to the 2/3 power of mass smaller riders would be at no disadvantage in time trials as this is the ratio at which frontal area of simple shapes scale with mass. 81.152.58.116 (talk) 13:21, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Page Name?

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As there is no article called simply Climbing specialist should this page exist there instead? GoodnightmushTalk 20:32, 16 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it should. There is no need for a distinguishing parenthesis. I will tag climbing specialist for speedy deletion so this article can be moved there. —Akrabbimtalk 22:09, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment on mass and descending

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I've removed a commend from the end of p 2 of "Climbing physics and physiology". The comment made a physically inaccurate statement, in contrast to the well-described comments on weight / wind resistance of the rest of the paragraph; it referred directly to the article; and it used ALL CAPS and exclamation points. Cmsg —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cmsg (talk • contribs) 16:03, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

physics misconception

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the article states that a more massive rider would go faster downhill. However, all beginning physics students learn very early on that all objects fall at the same rate (on a given planet).

the force of gravity (Fg) is equal to Mass (M) * acceleration due to gravity (g)

if we neglect air resistance (merely for simplicity), the sum of the forces =Fg=Fnet=M*a

therefore M*g=M*a therefore the acceleration is equal to the acceleration due to gravity. This is independant of the mass of the rider. Thus, the more massive rider (neglect air resistance, and assuming neither rider is pedalling down hil, or is providing the same force down the hill) will descend at the same rate as the less massive rider.

the article should be changed to reflect this.

Those commenting on the physics of this are well aware of the dyanmics of objects in freefall. The problem is that neglect of air resistance is not appropriate here. Air resistance (rather than mechanical) is generally the limiting factor in a cycle's speed. Given linear air resistance, your force term should include a term roughly proportional to a person's cross-sectional area. This is proportional to volume ^ (2/3), or roughly M^(2/3). Include that term, and the heavier cyclist accelerates faster under gravity (except at very small speeds), and has a higher unpowered downhill top speed. Cmsg 14:18, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually air resistance varies with the cross-sectional area and the square of the velocity. And if you really get into it, that are a lot of things on the bike -- like handle bars, wheels and spokes -- which cause a lot of resistance and they have a relatively greater effect on smaller cyclists. Remo

Gender diversity

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The article does seem to mention a single female climbing specialist. Is this because there are no female climbing specialists, or because the selection criteria for a mention in this article is biased? Pbro (talk) 00:22, 14 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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