You’d be a courageous biking fan to wager on anybody apart from Tadej Pogačar, Jonas Vingegaard or Remco Evenepoel to win any of the 5 remaining Excursions de France of the 2020s. However final summer time, simply as Pogačar was celebrating changing into the primary man in 26 years to assert the Giro-Tour double, a Norwegian triathlete declared his intention to battle for the yellow jersey in 2028.
The person in query was no beginner to biking: Kristian Blummenfelt is an Olympic and world triathlon and Ironman champion who holds a number of world information and has been dubbed the ‘fittest human on the planet’. However he’s by no means competed in a standalone bike race, and are available the summer time of 2028, he’ll be 34-and-a-half years outdated – just one male rider, Belgian Firmin Lambot, has received the Tour at an older age, 36 and 4 months, and that was in 1922.
What led Blummenfelt to be so assured and tempted World Tour crew Jayco-Alula to supply him a contract – had been his distinctive information factors: his VO2 max is alleged to be 103ml/kg/min, which even accounting for contested discrepancies in Norwegian testing, locations him above any recognized readings from present or earlier cyclists.
His coach, Olav Aleksander Bu, informed Norwegian media that switching to biking wouldn’t be a retirement plan for Blummenfelt. As a substitute, there was one aim: “It have to be a yellow jersey within the Tour de France; it’s so simple as that”. A couple of months later, Blummenfelt pressed pause on his biking ambitions and withdrew from the Jayco-Alula deal by mutual settlement, maybe for good, stating his intention to assert extra Ironman titles and win a second triathlon gold medal on the 2028 Olympics, having been disillusioned together with his Twelfth-place exhibiting in Paris 2024. Even so, his transient public flirtation with the Tour de France stirred a debate inside biking: to what diploma can uncooked information point out future glory?
Blummenfelt wouldn’t have been the primary athlete to change to biking after competing at a excessive stage in one other sport. Slovenian former ski jumper Primož Roglič, a five-time Grand Tour winner, is essentially the most well-known instance within the twenty first century. Others who’ve made the change efficiently embody Canadian Michael Woods, who ran a sub-four-minute mile earlier than changing into a professional bicycle owner, and Rebecca Romero, a silver medallist in rowing on the 2004 Olympics for Nice Britain who then received gold within the particular person pursuit in monitor biking 4 years later.
However simply possessing a formidable FTP or excessive VO2 max isn’t sufficient, as EF Training-EasyPost’s sports activities director Tom Southam factors out: “You probably have 10 riders with the identical numbers, one will succeed and 9 will fail. Whether or not or not somebody makes it in racing depends upon so many elements”
Triathlete Blummenfelt pressed pause on his aim of profitable the Tour.
(Picture credit score: Getty Pictures)
A type of decisive elements – and one which athletes don’t have any management over – is their genetics. “If an athlete doesn’t have the suitable physiology, they’re by no means going to be an excellent endurance athlete,” says James Hopker, a professor of sport and train science on the College of Kent.
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“How a lot we’re pushed by genetics is a debate in coaching literature, however most research agree that 60% of [athletic success] is genetically decided. When it comes to elite athletes, genetics provides them the essential instruments, however then the person must do an terrible lot of coaching and take the alternatives to make the most effective use of that physiology”.
VO2 max refers back to the physique’s most uptake of oxygen. Merely put, the extra oxygen the guts, lungs and blood can provide to the working muscle groups, the sooner a bicycle owner can trip. Because of this VO2 max is usually held up because the holy grail, the true barometer of a rider’s capabilities. However an athlete can solely function at VO2 max depth for round six to fifteen minutes. If it had been actually the decisive issue, we’d virtually hand Blummenfelt the 2028 yellow jersey proper now. In actuality, VO2 max is only one piece of the efficiency jigsaw, one marker amongst many.
“VO2 max signifies a ceiling,” Hopker says. “You actually want a excessive VO2 max to compete as an elite endurance athlete, however it’s not the be-all and end-all”. Robert de Groot, Visma-Lease a Bike’s head of growth, has recruited athletes from pace skating and quite a lot of ski disciplines. He takes an analogous view on VO2 max. “We’ll by no means once more have a Grand Tour winner with a VO2 max of 70 [ml/kg/min],” he says. Keep in mind that, within the normal inhabitants, a VO2 max of over 65ml/kg/ml is taken into account glorious. “A Grand Tour winner today can be anticipated to have a VO2 max of between 84 and 88, and for sprinters and Classics riders, no less than 70”.
Jason Osborne received a silver medal in rowing for Germany on the delayed Tokyo Olympics in 2021, and twice received the UCI Biking Esports World Championships, in 2020 and 2024. He rode within the World Tour for Alpecin-Deceuninck in 2023 and 2024, ending second on GC on the Tour of Austria in 2023. “As a bicycle owner, my VO2 max is my greatest weapon,” he says. “After I was examined within the lab in Cologne [in his rowing days], mine was 95-96”. No skilled bicycle owner has ever publicly revealed a VO2 max in extra of 96. “From my rowing days, I do know that my excessive VO2 max compensates for having a decrease lactate threshold than a few of my opponents. However a excessive VO2 max is unquestionably not sufficient in biking – it is advisable have good effectivity as properly”
Jason Osborne got here from rowing to win an E world title on a motorbike
(Picture credit score: SWpix.com)
All of the specialists agree. “What’s extra essential is an athlete’s lactate threshold, their FTP in relation to VO2 max,” Hopker says. “The nearer that’s to the VO2 max, and the longer they’ll function in these excessive percentages, the higher the athlete can carry out”. Lactate threshold is the purpose at which the build-up of lactate outpaces its elimination – elite cyclists can comfortably trip at between 85-95% of their VO2 max for extended intervals. VO2 max is trainable however solely to a sure diploma.
“As soon as an athlete reaches their VO2 max genetic ceiling, that’s pretty mounted – they’ll’t get past it,” Hopker explains. “So then it’s all about how a lot energy they’ll produce at sub-VO2 max depth for an extended time frame, and that is decided by their threshold factors. And the great factor is, lactate thresholds are trainable”.
It’s this trainability – inducing diversifications to coaching hundreds and intensities – that’s key. “Even folks with the suitable physiology and promise don’t all the time make it,” Hopker says. “How an athlete responds to coaching is finally what’s going to see them make enhancements of their physiological markers. You’ll be able to have the suitable physiology to start out off with, however then you definately want the mixture of the suitable coaching, atmosphere and alternatives – and a coach who responds and adapts the coaching in response to the response. You probably have that, you’ve an opportunity”.
Think about, then, {that a} bicycle owner’s lactate threshold energy is near their impressively excessive VO2 max energy, they usually can trip at close to their absolute max for a full half an hour within the excessive mountains. They’ve bought the foundations for achievement – so what do they should do subsequent? “Scientific analysis has proven increasingly more in recent times the significance of sturdiness, the power to maintain train for a protracted time frame after which carry out at even larger ranges – after a major quantity of accrued work,” Hopker says. This sturdiness – or fatigue resistance – means having the ability to mount a race-winning assault six hours right into a race, or within the last throes of a three-week Grand Tour.
Osborne remembers his battle with sturdiness upon first committing to biking. “In my first races, I used to be actually fatigued, however my team-mates had been saying how my physique would adapt. Simply doing all these races provides you sturdiness, however it takes time,” he says. “Plenty of riders have excessive five-, 10- and 20-minute energy numbers, however in relation to street racing, you want to have the ability to do this having used 1000’s of kilojoules of power”.
Michael Woods switched from operating to biking
(Picture credit score: Getty Pictures)
For his half, Blummenfelt is satisfied he would be capable to adapt to the rigours of Grand Tour racing. “It’s completely different to trip in a gaggle with triathletes than to trip within the World Tour,” he informed the web site Tri247, “however I believe my engine is my energy, as is having the ability to tolerate a excessive quantity over not simply days however weeks”.
Hopker subsequent highlights physique mass as a vital issue – the one almost definitely to be Blummenfelt’s undoing. “A very powerful factor in elite biking is physique weight and morphology,” says the scientist. “If you consider going uphill, any extra load goes to work towards you”. Blummenfelt is a stocky athlete who weighs 79kg – 20kg greater than Vingegaard. “He could have a shot as a sprinter, however as a GC rider he would battle,” Hopker predicts. “Being a GC rider is all about how a lot energy you may produce for a given weight, so he’d have to provide considerably extra”.
Racecraft calls for
Uncooked information can level in direction of success, however a lot else goes into the combination that formulates a Grand-Tour-winning bike rider: peloton expertise, bunch expertise, avoiding crashes, not carrying round additional pointless kilos, and endurance. Osborne’s expertise bears this out. “I’ve no concern with placing energy down,” he says. “However initially I struggled with the tactical issues and transferring round within the peloton. It took me a while”. Final September, he left Alpecin to concentrate on eRacing and gravel using – he had actually not shamed himself within the World Tour, however nor had he been in a position to repeatedly higher the extra seasoned professionals.
“Good numbers are crucial, however they’re simply a part of the puzzle,” Visma’s De Groot reiterates. “They’re the basics of constructing the foundations, however then the actual work begins. How do you employ these numbers in a race? How do you navigate slender roads, nervous opponents and stress? A rider with no peloton expertise is of no use, regardless of how nice their numbers”
Using effectively in a fast-paced peloton is a talent not each athlete has
(Picture credit score: Getty Pictures)
How groups spot expertise
When biking groups assess a rider with a view to doubtlessly signing them, there are a couple of primary items of information they analyse first. “Watts per kilo, absolute energy and physique weight is what we’ll begin with,” says Robbert de Groot, Visma-Lease a Bike’s head of growth.
“Then we’ll take a look at anaerobic and cardio figures to seek out out if this individual is ready to dash, or in the event that they’re extra suited to being an endurance athlete with none particular acceleration or sprinting capacities. We’ll by no means give them only a one-minute or 20-minute effort to do – we have to do an even bigger profile. Somebody is likely to be very gentle, however on a flat street and in echelons can nonetheless produce huge energy”.
Bike expertise are additionally analysed. “It’s an apparent benefit if they’ve expertise, and much more so in several disciplines, like cyclo-cross, BMX, mountain biking and monitor. However we will’t say it’s solely potential to be an excellent bicycle owner when you’ve been on a motorbike because you had been younger”. When all of the numbers are crunched and merged with different reference factors, a call is made on the athlete’s future and potential.
“There are lots of elements concerned in changing into an excellent bicycle owner, however what is obvious is that above all it is advisable be a top quality athlete in many various sides”. You want good numbers however you additionally have to be tactically astute and know the best way to cope with the intricacies of a peloton.
