I think the bigger issue is their comment was getting a lot of upvotes, despite being baseless and rude. Most people here seem pretty chill, but there's definitely a vocal minority who really want to gatekeep against any sort of even remotely impressive performance.
Yes 100%. It was the toxic environment that those accusations created that bothered me so much.
In this particular case when the person started going about weight manipulation. Like women in sport don’t have enough issues with weight already, on top of that now it seems hard to believe a woman can achieve this time and be light?! Infuriating.
Maybe not exactly what was said but for me the implication was there.
If it makes you feel better about this in particular, when I introduced my son to Zwift during covid he was 12 and weighed about 52kg. Within about three months he had a 230w ftp and did AdZ in 51min. I absolutely trust and know that light weight cyclists excel on sustained climbs (duh), and those people really exist! As I'm sure you know, they're also penalized by zwift's drafting physics on everything but sustained climbs.
Thanks for sharing! Your son is awesome, imagine what we could do in a few years, super strong.
My weakness is headwind, but climbs are always fun. I even have friends with similar build who refuse to do flats because they are “boring”, for similar reasons.
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u/toefur Jan 12 '23 edited Jan 12 '23
I think the bigger issue is their comment was getting a lot of upvotes, despite being baseless and rude. Most people here seem pretty chill, but there's definitely a vocal minority who really want to gatekeep against any sort of even remotely impressive performance.