so, ive been wondering about this lately.
the fastest south american guys (gutierrez, estrada, jarrin, leiva, berchtold) are pretty damn fast....
and in local races, they regularly beat people like steve smith, cedric gracia, greg minaar and others (who apparently are not not sandbagging)...
our fastest local rider was within 2-3 seconds off steve smith´s pace at last panamerican championships, which is very fast, but still faaaaaaar from the fastest (gutierrez), who in turn is faaaaaaaar from gwin, hill, peat et al, at the world cups...
now, this got me thinking... how is this possible??
our fastest locals train pretty much year-round (unlike the northern hemisphere, were winters are off season), on long (10km+) natural courses. i have seen them train 3-4 times a week, in very different courses,work out, eat right. they usually come from affluent backgrounds, so they start very young and access to bikes/spares/shuttle trucks isnt really an issue.... i remember steve smith saying he trained on a single mountain while he was a kid, shuttled by his mom in the afternoons, and sam hill saying he only trains DH once a week... those are fairly modest trainning programs compared to the fastest locals, who have access to shutle drivers, and almost year-round access to long downhill runs within 2 hours of their houses.
i seriously cannot see how much more trainning can the fastest locals get (since they already ride almost full time), yet even the fastest hardly get among the top 20 at the world cup races... what makes such difference??
the fastest south american guys (gutierrez, estrada, jarrin, leiva, berchtold) are pretty damn fast....
and in local races, they regularly beat people like steve smith, cedric gracia, greg minaar and others (who apparently are not not sandbagging)...
our fastest local rider was within 2-3 seconds off steve smith´s pace at last panamerican championships, which is very fast, but still faaaaaaar from the fastest (gutierrez), who in turn is faaaaaaaar from gwin, hill, peat et al, at the world cups...
now, this got me thinking... how is this possible??
our fastest locals train pretty much year-round (unlike the northern hemisphere, were winters are off season), on long (10km+) natural courses. i have seen them train 3-4 times a week, in very different courses,work out, eat right. they usually come from affluent backgrounds, so they start very young and access to bikes/spares/shuttle trucks isnt really an issue.... i remember steve smith saying he trained on a single mountain while he was a kid, shuttled by his mom in the afternoons, and sam hill saying he only trains DH once a week... those are fairly modest trainning programs compared to the fastest locals, who have access to shutle drivers, and almost year-round access to long downhill runs within 2 hours of their houses.
i seriously cannot see how much more trainning can the fastest locals get (since they already ride almost full time), yet even the fastest hardly get among the top 20 at the world cup races... what makes such difference??
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