125 kg ?!? 23 kph !?!

["guest@endurance.net" <guest@endurance.net>]

K S SWIGART   katswig@earthlink.net


I want to make sure I understand this SA study right.  The upper
weight that was being looked at was 125 kg?  And these are the 
riders who are under-represented among winners?

Just how many ~275 lb riders are we talking about here?

Did the performer of the study control for the actual number of 
riders that fall into the different weight categories?

To say that there is 0% chance of a 125 kg (275 lb) rider of
winning a ride is not meaningful at all if what we're talking
about is one guy.

Is the ratio of winners to starters significantly (and I am 
talking about statistical significance here) different in the
different weight categories?

I am not saying that statistically significant differences
weren't found in this study, just that the results as reported
by Wolfgang did not address this question.

If South Africa is like the US as far as representation of
light to heavy riders, then you would expect to see fewer 
winners in the heavier weights, if for no other reason that
there are fewer starters in the heavier weights.

It is also entirely possible that heavier riders do not do well
because of their choice of mounts.  It is a common perception
among heavy weight riders that they need a bigger horse, and this
lack of speed on the part of heavy weight riders MAY be able to
be explained away by the fact that their mounts not only have
to lug around a heavier rider, but they also have to lug around
more of their own body weight.  So the 55 extra pounds that a
100 kg rider makes his/her horse carry may not be what is slowing
them down, but rather the 200 extra pounds that the horse is 
carrying because they have selected a bigger horse.

Let's hear from the heavy weight riders, how many of you go out
horse hunting and specifically look for a light/small horse so 
that your horse isn't at a weight (as in total load) disadvantage 
when it starts down the trail?  You can more than make up for 
and extra 50 or 75 pounds of rider weight just by getting a smaller
horse.

I am not being facetious here, if weight carried is significant,
then you can reduce an edurance horse's workload much more by
selecting a smaller horse than you can by selecting a smaller
rider (the variations in horse weights being much greater than 
the variations in rider weights).  So if the study didn't control
for the weight of the horse, then though the results may show
some correlation between rider weight and speed.

Additionally, if we are talking about average!? speeds of 23 kph.
Then that would mean that the AVERAGE time for completion of a
160 km (100 mile) ride would be ~6.9 hrs (faster than the world
record? of 7 1/2 hrs).  So I gotta assume that the study was 
covering distances of significantly less than 100 miles, or I am
understanding things wrong?

And if we aren't talking about 100 mile distances, then what 
distances ARE we talking about?  If the data also includes 
distances of races that are only 10 or 20 miles long, this
could easily explain the differences in outcome.

kat
Orange County, Calif.

kat
Orange County, Calif.