- There's a little bit of friendly rivalry
between ourselves and our mates over at GMBN.
Basically we realised
that they are absolutely amazing at riding bikes.
So we have to make ourselves feel a little bit better
with the knowledge that what we do is tougher.
- Yeah, well roadies are
just basically fitter, aren't they?
Can you imagine a mountain biker winning something
like the Tour de France for example.
- There was Cadel Evans actually in 2011.
(camera clicks)
- Yeah, that is a good point.
Well that's an exception.
But can you imagine if a road rider
turned up at a mountain bike race,
they'd absolutely smash it.
- Peter Sagan, he just only finished 35th
at the Olympic mountain bike race last year.
- He did puncture three times though, Si.
Come on, give him a chance.
- Yeah, he did, he punctured three times.
We figured then that we'd probably actually better try
and put this one to the test.
- But what a place to do it.
Here in the beautiful Dolomites in the Alta Badia region.
We've got two rides planned,
both of which are uploaded to our Wahoo ELEMNT.
We're starting here on the climb of the Passo Campolongo
just outside Arabba having had a nice cappuccino.
- Yeah, naturally.
- Now I've got a 35-kilometer route planned.
It's not too long.
But it does take in the climb of the Pordoi
and also the Fedaia finishing by the beautiful lake.
- [Si] That's right.
Now I am doing less than half that distance.
However I'm going straight over that mountain.
Probably not to the top.
It looks a little inhospitable up there.
But I do of course gonna have
a belter of descent on the other side.
- [Matt] You can't really measure difficulty in kilometres.
- [Si] No. - [Matt] Maybe time.
- [Si] Yeah. - So it's all gonna be
about power and heartrate
which we're gonna measure on our power2max powermeters
and also our Wahoo TICKRs.
What is harder?
Off-road or whatever he happens to be on right now
or Tarmac?
And while I'm at it, Si,
you're on a mountain bike wearing Lycra.
What is all that about?
- It's allowed.
I get special dispensation.
- Are you sure?
- Yeah.
(brakes flick)
(rock music)
- Come on, Si, keep up!
(rock music)
- Now you might be wondering what any of this has got to do
with GCN other than potential bragging rights.
The fact is road and off-road
are getting close together again.
Admittedly most of the stuff that the GMBN guys do
is as far removed from Tarmac as it's possible to get.
But don't forget that many, many modern road bikes
are becoming increasingly versatile with their disc brakes
and clearance for big, wide tyres.
Actually a lot of adventure bikes
use just straight up mountain bike wheels and tyres anyway
to give proper off-road ability.
We thought you would genuinely wanna know
just how hard is riding off-road.
Admittedly we're putting this to the test
on a 29er mountain bike.
As we found out recently over the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix
that doesn't make too much difference.
Tell you what,
I just feel like we're making some slow progress here.
I better check actually to see where Matt is.
(funky techno music)
- Now the funny thing about saying which is harder
will obviously depend on how hard you actually try
which on a road bike, at least is where the beauty lies
because you can go as easy or as hard as you like. (pants)
But don't worry.
I realise that road rider's honour is at stake
so I am gonna go hard. (pants)
(funky techno music)
- [Si] Oh my days.
This is one tough climb.
Pretty much just standing on the bike.
It's got me at the limit.
You can see that the ELEMNT is showing me
that I gotta go up there which looks even harder.
Quite frankly you can see how hard actually at a glance.
(pants) Those lights on the side there
are linked up to my power zones.
Green is threshold.
But this being off-road, I'm quite often having to kick up
and see yellow and even red.
That is red at sea level of course.
This isn't at sea level.
We're at 2,409 metres. (pants)
Ah.
(exhales) Defeat.
100 metres from the summit.
Stupid artificial snow cannons.
- Well I'm nearly at the top of one climb
with one climb to go.
I can tell you that the air is pretty thin up here
especially to someone like me
who's pretty unaccustomed to the altitude.
Just looking on here the elevation so far 2,058 metres
meaning I've got about another 160 metres of elevation gain
to the top of the Pordoi.
I'm nearly there.
(funky techno music)
(breathes heavily)
Okay onto the second and final climb of the day,
the Passo Fedaia.
Now I've not ridden this one before
so I'm not too sure what to expect.
But what I do know
is that it's about 7 1/2 kilometres in length,
average gradient of 7%
which is pretty tough by anyone's standards.
I'm just gonna keep it in the blue,
a nice controlled and steady effort,
try to enjoy it as much as I can. (exhales)
Certainly looks beautiful.
- (pants) Ah.
Leaving aside toughness for a minute. (pants)
That is amazing.
Can we see where we're going?
Oh yeah, oh yeah!
That's where we're going.
(triumphant music)
(wheels crunch)
- Finally at the top of the Passo Fedaia.
Time for a coffee. (exhales)
- Now I'll admit at the start of today,
I had pretty much assumed
that given that we were doing less than half the distance
that I would probably get to the finish first.
But unfortunately I can see from my live track
that Matt is actually already there.
On the positive side, though, hopefully that'll mean
that he has actually got the round in.
There is now gonna be a problem though
with our whole experiment because in a few metres
I'm probably not gonna pedal again
until I get to the finish line.
Therefore we're not gonna get any power data.
But I am still gonna be working hard
because although I don't have many muscles,
what I do have are gonna be hanging on for dear life.
Because riding off-road and riding down bumpy descents
really takes it out of you.
I know this is very much mountain biking.
You could definitely get a groad bike down here.
But the principal remains the same even on gravel.
That is that vibrations really, really wear you out
which is why riding off-road
can definitely be tougher than riding on.
The harder the trail, the harder you work.
(pyschedelic music)
- Si, your cappuccino is nearly cold.
It's just about but--
- I had hoped that you'd get me one in.
Thanks, mate.
- Look, you do look a bit worn actually, a bit worn out.
- Yeah, that was quite hard.
- Well let's cut to the chase.
- Yeah.
- Let's see what data you've got.
- Alright.
- I'm interested in what you got there.
- Okay, so I've been out for a little over two hours.
My average power is just 152 watts
which on paper for me is not very much at all.
But I feel like I've worked an awful lot harder than that
if I'm completely honest.
As you say I look a bit tired.
But it has to be said, I've got a big grin on my face.
That was good fun.
- You look like you've had a good time.
My stats are very similar to yours.
Power is quite low.
But when you drill down a bit further,
I had two sustained blocks of climbing.
Obviously both of the climbs there.
I was nudging zones four and five for about 30 minutes each.
Then of course I got the descents as well.
- What's interesting actually
is when you look at those graphs
of your power data on climbs,
it's quite a smooth effort, isn't it?
Whereas when you contrast it with what I was having to do,
making loads of repeated efforts well above thresholds.
So even though my average power isn't that much at all,
in order to maintain momentum
on that really steep gravel track
and dare I say through a couple of snow drifts,
I'm having to work really quite hard.
But then I still don't think that that power
is telling the whole story.
It's my upper body dare I say that's probably the most sore.
There's a lot of vibrations to absorb on that.
- Yeah but ultimately, Si, what is harder?
I think in terms of kilometres,
it has to be riding off-road.
You got that additional rolling resistance
so consequently you don't go quite as fast or as far.
But in terms of how hard it is per hour,
I'm gonna go back to my original point.
I think it's as hard as you wanna go.
- I think you might be right actually.
I do think it is as hard as you wanna go.
However, I will say that riding off-road
does work your body in a different way.
- [Matt] I would like to agree with that.
- I think perhaps maybe I need to go to the gym, Matt.
- Well we've had our say, but what do you think?
What's harder?
Off-road or road?
- Yeah, get involved in the comment section down below.
Before getting truly stuck in there,
do make sure you have subscribed to GCN.
It's very quick.
Just click on the globe.
And if you want some more content, well why not see
just how Matt managed to show the GMBN boys
just how to ride a mountain bike
using all six months of your pro-career experience.
That one is just down there.
- You didn't have to tell them all that.
Or you can click just down here
for how to ride a road bike on gravel.
- Yeah. - That was an experience,
wasn't it?
- Riding road, off-road.
- Oh yeah.
Don't forget to like and share.