Man v. Machine(Man) 100m race

my friend Seb did this live on tv for a kids programme, against a British junior champion. He just pipped the dude on the line. Sprinters have serious acceleration...

When are you doing this? I wouldn't mind coming up as I'd be interested to have a go against this guy (plus the 47x21 commuting gear on my track bike would probably be about right...)

You really need a starter to hold you as track standing is pointless as one mistake and you've lost it, also make sure that you are strapped in at the peddles properly or if using spd's make sure they are adjusted correctly as you don't want them to give when you are accelerating from the start.

Please get this videoed! Would love to see the result.

It's a picture of Nancy Kerrigan.. Tonya Harding paid for someone to break her knee just before an olympic games

That's horrible. :(

Didnt Tonya Harding end up as a porn star or something after that incident?

i reckon the bike will win because:

a) the runner doesn't have starting blocks
b) the runner will not be wearing spikes (if i've understood correctly that it's taking place on a road)

so even a 10.8 runner will be out to well over 12 seconds (0.8 for the blocks, then prolly the same again for the spikes).

you should be able to smash that.

That's horrible. :(

Tell me about it.. Miss Harding clearly didn't think she was good enough

Didnt Tonya Harding end up as a porn star or something after that incident?

I don't think so...............

If anything I'd reckon trackstanding would be slower than a normal start.

It's quite different from a TT/track start where the either the rider is held, or the rear wheel is held in a track start machine; neither of these require the rider to balance or inch back/forth on the pedals.

I seem to pull away much faster from lights by using my unclipped foot to give me a big push, whilst pushing down with the foot that is clipped in, I then clip in the other foot near the top of the pedal stroke ready to push down with that one. There's a small chance I'll fail to clip in on the downstroke, but I can still put quite a bit of power in, and it's easy to ensure the clip in on the way back up. The scoot along the ground with the unclipped foot provides much more speed that I can get purely from one pedal stroke.

From there you've got 10 seconds of sprinting, wrenching the bars and knocking on the door of the vomitorium.

For similarly fit/athletic cyclist and runner:-

<50m: runner

100m: cyclist

Crossover point somewhere inbetween depending on twelfty different variables.

Didnt Tonya Harding end up as a porn star or something after that incident?

Only in as much as her husband leaked the "wedding night" tape when he was implicated in the Kerrigan assault.

Oh... well... I hope I have not defamed her impeccable character by my inaccurate statement.

So anyway, do you see her boobs in that video?

I'll be honest, they don't appear in the wikipedia article. Go check it out and let us know.

For similarly fit/athletic cyclist and runner:-

<50m: runner

100m: cyclist

Crossover point somewhere inbetween depending on twelfty different variables.

Oh no, Greenbank, there's no way the runner would win over 50 miles. ;)

Usain Bolt V Mark Cavendish - bring it on.

No good, Cav would need to be led out by Hincapie. I reckon Hoy would be better at it.

wilberforce road is the athletics track, so they'll have spikes.

all valuable advice though, team. i'll post the video when it's done.

Hmm.. well the trackstanding works for me.. since I can trackstand.
Assuming no holder, if you can trackstand properly, it will kill trying to clip in for the start.
If you time it right you can rock your body backwards and lurch forward on the gun.
If you were starting with a foot on the ground you've lost half a second just lifting that foot, let alone using it for powering off..

so.... what was the result of this???

( recently inspired by usain's 9.58 world record )
insane in the membrane

picture the scene:

Twilight on the Cambridge University athletics track. Two cyclists getting psyched up, imposters on the territory of the rivals. Waiting. The crowd arrive, murmuring with excitement, and take to the stands. The scent of fear lingers in the air (etc.)

1st race: Second team 100m against old 70's Peugeot. MAN wins by .40s (ish). 12.3 mark, i think.
Frankly disappointing, but a fairly dodgy start. More disappointing the fact that they guy refused to do a re-race with him on my bike and me sprinting.

2nd race: Golden boy runner against beast of a bike. DEAD HEAT after 30m in, runner turns to check the field, sees the bike 'floundering', and carries on. literally a photo finish. Re-race demanded, and, having now listened to the old 'the tortoise and the hare' fable, runners restrains himself and wins. close, around 11.2s mark.

video had trouble getting from the camera to computer, unfortunately.

sounds like your cyclists needed to up their game.

an experienced sprinter with a decent standing start technique and the right gearing would have beaten the runner, or not?

i'm not gonna try and spread any mis-information here, i'm not an experienced sprinter and my starting technique was gash, but we still managed to have a close race. we went in with precious little practise (a few runs in front of the uni library, with speed bumps and 100m marked out by a quick look on google earth). my friend just happens to be the uni runner so it seemed like an amusing thing to do.

i guess the conclusion is that anyone who fancies themselves as a sprinter should have it sown up as when the bike gets going it suddenly doesn't seem like much of a race at all.

sounds like your cyclists needed to up their game.

an experienced sprinter with a decent standing start technique and the right gearing would have beaten the runner, or not?

I would have gone with the cyclist. It seems like it was an experienced runner against a not so experienced (sprinter) cyclist.

excellent story.

cavendish vs bolt FTW. bring it on.

video had trouble getting from the camera to computer, unfortunately.

weak

at 100m you need traction off the line so under 70GI is ideal, you won't reach more than 25-26 in 100m