scibby wrote:Ah, here it is! Hmmm fun, why the obsession with cobbles though...
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Good question. There are a number of reasons:
- The challenge. A climb on cobbles is, say, between 3 and 5 times harder than if the road was tarmacked. In order to climb up, you don't just need strength and power, or low weight, you also need handling skills - is as much about balance and control with the whole body as to what the legs can do. It's extremely easy to fall off.
- Cycling history/culture: Some of the greatest races, some called "monuments" are held on the cobbled roads and hills of Flanders - mainly part of the north/west of belgium, and a bit of France. These races have been run for over 100 years. So, it's kind of a way of finding out what these races are like, to get a better understanding of what the racers go through.
- British history. We don't build cobbled roads any more, so these the ones that we have left are odd artefacts of a bygone age. So if you are interested in history, especially what was it like in the golden age of cycling (i.e. before cars were commonplace and affordable), then it is a good way of finding out
- Under standing the dynamics of cycling. One of the things that, certainly for me, makes cycling interesting, is that a race is just about the competitors. The terrain/geography of the course has an enormous impact on the race. Riding in a group makes a vast difference into how much energy is needed compared with on your own, or at the head of the group. So if all the roads were flat, the races would be pretty similar and just come down to sprints at the end. Which can be fun, but would be a bit samey after a while. the obvious thing to do is to put hills or mountains in the way. If you are going up hill, slowly, fighting gravity, then the effect of wind resistance is reduced. Which is way many many big races go through mountain ranges - alps, pyrenees, dolomites, asturia etc. etc. However, the real advantage here is about power to weight, so you end up with skinny little people dominating. So, then, it starts to get as repetitive as sprint races (not quite as much). the other problem is that not everywhere has high mountains. So what to do? This is where the cobbles come in. Because they are so hard to ride (even the flat ones) it also strong riders to ride away from the front, with the toughness of the cobbles overcoming the disadvantages of wind resistance or long high altitude climbs. So these races become ones of attrition - the number of riders that can remain at the end of the race tends to become less and less, as the people attack and so on. Because the races are so tough, they tend to be one day races. But they make for very interesting ones, with different tactics and flow to flat ones that end in a sprint, or high mountain ones. And they also favour a different kind of rider - not the lightest, and not the ones with relatively large amounts of fast twice fibre. Classics riders tend to be heavier, larger and more powerful than hill climbers. But with more endurance string than sprinters. The cobbled races also take place in early spring, when the weather is foul, which adds another dimension, from February to April. And they are some of the most exciting races to watch.
-The Hell of the Worth as more like the tour of flanders in that the cobbles are climbs. But the name is a pun of "The hell of the North", which is a flat race, with cobbled sectors doing the job of hills. It's called "Worth" because it is centred around the Worth Valley - seen in names like Haworth and Hainworth andd Thwaites Worth and so on. Although it spends as much time in the Calderdale, Hebble Valley, Ovenden, Luddenden and Shibden (-den means valley, as does dale).
Anyway, the Tour of Flanders is on a week on Saturday, so send the kids out with their tend, get yourself some Belgian beers in, and settle down in front of Eurosport for what will be an interesting afternoon.