How many watts?

joseph santanie said:

I am 193cm (6'3"😉 and 104 kg (229 lbs) and I think my
maintainable output in watts is 260. Does that sound reasonable
for someone who rides several times per week?

Sounds pretty high to me. I'd guess more like 150 watts.

Art "SWAG" Harris

Quoted message said:

So just to help me calibrate myself, what are "normal" expected values
for sustainable watts for riders of various sizes and levels
conditiong? I am 193cm (6'3"😉 and 104 kg (229 lbs) and I think my
maintainable output in watts is 260. Does that sound reasonable for
someone who rides several times per week?

Depends what you mean by maintainable. For 40 minutes, yes. All day,
not unless you're a professional racing cyclist - 150W is more
realistic. 20mph on a racing bike requires 180-200W.

Quoted message said:

Hi Everyone,

I've been playing with a few of the online calculators and it is both
amusing and informative. But it all boils down to me making wild
assumptions about my power output.

There are no flat and/or windless roads around here for me to do any
quantitative testing for sustainable speed, etc.

So just to help me calibrate myself, what are "normal" expected values
for sustainable watts for riders of various sizes and levels
conditiong? I am 193cm (6'3"😉 and 104 kg (229 lbs) and I think my
maintainable output in watts is 260. Does that sound reasonable for
someone who rides several times per week?

Thanks!

Joseph

This could help:
http://www.thebikeage.com/images/pprof.gif

Bjarne Riis averaged 269 Watts when won the Amstel Gold Race in 1997.
This was 6+ hours race (226 km)
http://www.thebikeage.com/images/SRManriis.png

You could find out who in your area / network has a computrainer or
equivalent and borrow it (or buy one) It will show your power output
as you ride and you could test this over various terrains and distances.

try one run upwind and one downwind or 2 upwind and 2 ....

Interesting data, but the average speed (35 kph) and cadence (71) seem
low for a pro race.
Jeff

Jeff said:

Interesting data, but the average speed (35 kph) and cadence (71) seem
low for a pro race.

The summary data from that graphic include warm-up and cool-down: his
average speed for the race itself was about 41 km/h. His cadence during
the race was about 71 rpm, which doesn't seem low to me at all.

Average wattage for that file (as for most pro races) can be misleading.
The first half of that race was done at quite moderate power while the
last half was pretty brutal. If you're familiar with the difference
between mean and normalized power, you may be interested in this graphic
that traces Riis' one-hour normalized power output:
http://anonymous.coward.free.fr/temp/amstel97-np.png

As an aside, here is a graphic that shows Riis' normalized power over
different periods of time. It appears that during that race his
sustainable power was around 400 watts.
http://anonymous.coward.free.fr/temp/amstel97-npmax.png

Robert Chung said:

Jeff said:

Interesting data, but the average speed (35 kph) and cadence (71) seem
low for a pro race.

The summary data from that graphic include warm-up and cool-down: his
average speed for the race itself was about 41 km/h. His cadence during
the race was about 71 rpm, which doesn't seem low to me at all.

Average wattage for that file (as for most pro races) can be misleading.
The first half of that race was done at quite moderate power while the
last half was pretty brutal. If you're familiar with the difference
between mean and normalized power, you may be interested in this graphic
that traces Riis' one-hour normalized power output:
http://anonymous.coward.free.fr/temp/amstel97-np.png

As an aside, here is a graphic that shows Riis' normalized power over
different periods of time. It appears that during that race his
sustainable power was around 400 watts.
http://anonymous.coward.free.fr/temp/amstel97-npmax.png

Clarification: the data file includes a small amount of what appears to be
warm-up, but the last part of the file appears to have been marred by a
malfunctioning speed indicator. The file itself is 6:23 long and appears
to show 226 worth of racing, but we know the 1997 race was 258 km long and
Riis' winning time was 6:11:19. That's an average of 41.7 km/h. The 1997
race was the last one that started in Heerlen; in 1998 the start was moved
to Maastricht, and average speeds over the different course dropped below
39 km/h.

Robert Chung said:

Jeff said:

Interesting data, but the average speed (35 kph) and cadence (71) seem
low for a pro race.

The summary data from that graphic include warm-up and cool-down: his
average speed for the race itself was about 41 km/h. His cadence during
the race was about 71 rpm, which doesn't seem low to me at all.

OK on the speed but am I missing something on the cadence? Was the
whole race uphill? Or does the average not factor out coasting?

Jeff said:

OK on the speed but am I missing something on the cadence? Was the
whole race uphill? Or does the average not factor out coasting?

Mean cadence for the file is 71, which includes time spent coasting. Mean
cadence is higher during times when reasonable amounts of power were being
produced, e.g., above 150 watts his mean cadence was 87 rpm.

With speed, cadence, and wheel rollout it is often possible to gear
ratios; with the addition of power one can calculate pedal torque. I've
done that sort of thing here:
http://anonymous.coward.free.fr/wattage/components/components.html

Quoted message said:

On a few of the longer 6% grades I was able to
maintain 13 km/h for extended periods. This turns out to be 260 watts
with rough asphalt. I wasn't going all out because I had 100km to go,
but I don't think I could have maintained a higher constant speed
anyway.

Then 260 watts is probably a pretty reasonable estimate.

Quoted message said:

On a somewhat related topic, would it make sense to convert an entire
ride into a "virtual" constant slope for the purpose of calculations?

As a general rule, no. The power needed to overcome slope resistance
scales differently than the power needed to overcome aerodynamic
resistance, and there are different constraints on short-run vs. long-run
power production. That said, what you're trying to do is to find a good
way to estimate your sustainable power and the 45ish minutes it took you
to climb that hill (if the grade of the hill was moderately constant) is
probably a good enough basis for that.

Quoted message said:

The whole point of this (besides being fun) is to determine what sort
of heart rate I should use as a target to generate the maximum power I
can maintain for a long time.

The relationship between HR and power will change over the course of a
ride, particularly on a 540km ride, because of heart rate drift.

Quoted message said:

Late in June there is a ride around here
(Norway) that goes from Trondheim to Oslo via the mountain plateau in
between. The ride is 540 km, and I have only completed it once out of 4
trys. If the weather is nice the winners will do it in under 14 hours.
Since I climb so slowly I have a hard time sticking with a group so I
end up doing large amounts without the benefits of a large group, so 20
hours is my record. The first 150 km is climbing so I usually end up
well behind the fast folks by the time I reach flatlands so it's hard
to find a fast group to work with. If anyone is interested the profile
is here: http://www.styrkeproven.com/styrk2003/images/loypeprofil.pdf

Any suggestions welcome!

That's hard to say. A guy I know who does 24-hour races thinks you should
start slow and then taper off, but he also notices that some of the guys
who do well use the "start fast and hang on" approach. I think there's
enough variation across people that any single recommendation isn't going
to be universally applicable.

Quoted message said:

http://www.kreuzotter.de/english/espeed.htm

If you look further down, it can also solve for trip
distance, trip time, and calories.

Hmmm. That calculator presumes 25% efficiency in converting calories to
joules. Hickey will dispute that.

My main problem on longer rides (magnified on real long rides) is that
I can't hang with the faster people on the climbs, but the people I can
can at least stick with on the climbs generally go too slow on the
downhill and flat sections.

I just finished today a 170km ride that was rolling with 2 steep climbs
and a bunch of smaller less steep climbs. It was also quite windy, but
we had a good tailwind for most of the last 50 km. The first big climb
was after ony 5 km and I lost contact immediately and rode alone for
the next 60 km. I then was caught by a group I could hang with for a
while but on the second climb, I again lost contact. Eventually on the
flat tailwind section I was able to catch them again. But as we neared
the finish there was another climb and while I managed to hang on I was
really suffering. I almost wasn't able to hang on. At the top it was
flat all the way in to the finish and I poured on the coals but no one
wanted to hang on so I did the last 10 km alone over 40km/hr and opened
up 4 minutes on the group I minutes before almost hadn't been able to
stick with on a mild ascent. My time was 5:44 for an average of 29.5
km/h.

So my dilema for the 540 km ride is how much should I push myself to
stay with a group on climbs so I can ride with them slowly on the flats
even if it really takes a lot of energy to stay with the group, vs
riding my own slow tempo up alone and maintaining a higher speed alone
when it's flat. In other words is drafting in a pack that is too slow
for me worth hammering myself on hills? And where is the threshold for
any advantage either way? Difficult to figure, but any tips on a
logical way to go about guestimating a method?

Joseph

Quoted message said:

My main problem on longer rides (magnified on real long rides) is that
I can't hang with the faster people on the climbs, but the people I can
can at least stick with on the climbs generally go too slow on the
downhill and flat sections.

Yeah. As soon as I read that you weigh 104 kg and you put out 260ish
watts, I knew that this would be your pattern.

Quoted message said:

Difficult to figure, but any tips on a
logical way to go about guestimating a method?

Ugh. You've got only a few weeks before the Styrkeproven and, frankly,
there's not much you can do to change your basic situation: you're classic
high power, low power-to-weight. For next year, you need to raise your
power at threshold and (unless you're 2m tall) lose weight to raise your
power-to-weight ratio. Since the issue is your power (and your weight) the
basic way to figure out your power time-decay curve is to stop fiddling
around with heart rate and actually measure power. If you'd had more time,
you could either do this with an on-bike power meter or a trainer-based
power meter (like one of the Tacx ergometers, or a Computrainer, or
similar models).

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Difficult to figure, but any tips on a
logical way to go about guestimating a method?

Ugh. You've got only a few weeks before the Styrkeproven and, frankly,
there's not much you can do to change your basic situation: you're classic
high power, low power-to-weight. For next year, you need to raise your

The hard thing to figure out is when to call it quits when I'm
suffering up a climb with a group. Sometimes of course I have no say in
the matter, but sometimes I think I could hang but I worry it will take
too much energy and the resulting drafting at the top won't have been
worth the extra effort on the climb. Obviously now I just make guesses
along the way. It would be nice to figure some sort of guidelines.

Quoted message said:

power at threshold and (unless you're 2m tall) lose weight to raise your
power-to-weight ratio. Since the issue is your power (and your weight) the
basic way to figure out your power time-decay curve is to stop fiddling
around with heart rate and actually measure power. If you'd had more time,
you could either do this with an on-bike power meter or a trainer-based
power meter (like one of the Tacx ergometers, or a Computrainer, or
similar models).

This is my first year back after almost 10 years of not really riding
that much. My 104 will probably end up around 96 or so. I won't be able
to go lower than that based on my 193cm and general size. 8kg will make
a big difference but my real progress will be in power.

As Eddy Merckx once said about how to become a better rider: "Ride
lots."

An on-bike power meter would be interesting and would provide the
ability to track improvements, but what would be a good use of one as
part of a training regimen? (Looking for an excuse to buy one...)

Power over the long term is obviously limited by a number of things,
but I guess it is mostly a combination of pure strength and aerobic
conditioning. Any suggestions on how to determine my "weak link" so I
can concentrate on it? I'm 35 years old and during these longer climbs
which the 260 watts is based on my pulse was about 165-170 bpm. "Burn"
starts at about 155 bpm and more than 175 bpm is not sustainable for
more than a very short period. Does this sound like my strength is
lower, or conditioning? or impossible to say?

Joseph

Quoted message said:

The hard thing to figure out is when to call it quits when I'm
suffering up a climb with a group. Sometimes of course I have no say in
the matter, but sometimes I think I could hang but I worry it will take
too much energy and the resulting drafting at the top won't have been
worth the extra effort on the climb. Obviously now I just make guesses
along the way. It would be nice to figure some sort of guidelines.

Yeah, absolutely. The issue is that if you need to go into debt, how long
and how deep can you go and still recover? This is a question about
fitness, recovery, how fast the other guys are going, how long the climb
is, and the penalty if you guess wrong. Two days ago in the Giro on the
Colle del Finestre, Savoldelli had to climb at his own pace and let Simoni
go; at the top of the climb Simoni had wrestled two-and-a-half minutes and
virtual pink off Savoldelli's shoulders. Fortunately for Savoldelli (and
unfortunately for Simoni), he didn't panic and was able to claw back
enough time on the descent and final climb to Sestrieres to regain the
maglia rosa, while Simoni was paying the price for his earlier effort.
After 88 hours of riding the Giro was won by 28 seconds. The point is that
even pros screw up their pacing strategies and they've got a lot more
riding on the right answer than you do. But for 28 lousy seconds, this
morning people would be saying that the thing to do is to bury yourself on
the climb; instead, this morning people are saying how wise it is to pace
yourself.

Quoted message said:

My 104 will probably end up around 96 or so. I won't be able
to go lower than that based on my 193cm and general size. 8kg will make
a big difference but my real progress will be in power.

I don't know. I think that losing 8 kg (if it doesn't affect your power
too much) could be a big boost for staying in contact on the climb, and
you'll still have 260ish watts to use on the flat. It would be hard for
you to increase your power by 8% (~8 kg/104 kg) in the short-term; in the
long-term, yes.

Quoted message said:

An on-bike power meter would be interesting and would provide the
ability to track improvements, but what would be a good use of one as
part of a training regimen? (Looking for an excuse to buy one...

and

Quoted message said:

Any suggestions on how to determine my "weak link" so I
can concentrate on it?

http://www.midweekclub.ca/articles/

Quoted message said:

Power over the long term is obviously limited by a number of things,
but I guess it is mostly a combination of pure strength and aerobic
conditioning.

It's mostly aerobic conditioning, unless you're a track sprinter. In
cycling, especially in long endurance cycling, pure strength has almost no
role.

Robert Chung said:

Quoted message said:

http://www.kreuzotter.de/english/espeed.htm

If you look further down, it can also solve for trip
distance, trip time, and calories.

Hmmm. That calculator presumes 25% efficiency in converting calories to
joules. Hickey will dispute that.

Do we have to re-beat this dead horse? Remember, I was right. ;-)

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $695 ti frame

Quoted message said:

My main problem on longer rides (magnified on real long rides) is that
I can't hang with the faster people on the climbs, but the people I can
can at least stick with on the climbs generally go too slow on the
downhill and flat sections.

Quoted message said:

So my dilema for the 540 km ride is how much should I push myself to
stay with a group on climbs so I can ride with them slowly on the flats
even if it really takes a lot of energy to stay with the group, vs
riding my own slow tempo up alone and maintaining a higher speed alone
when it's flat. In other words is drafting in a pack that is too slow
for me worth hammering myself on hills? And where is the threshold for
any advantage either way? Difficult to figure, but any tips on a
logical way to go about guestimating a method?

I have had a similar problem. I'm around 230lb/110kg and 6'10"/2.1m, so
I'm not a natural climber. For a couple of years I struggled on club
rides to hang on hills. I think there are 2 approaches to this problem:
work on your weakness or exploit your strengths. I've pretty much gone
the latter route. My strength is speed on flats where my power to drag
ratio is better than average. I improved this further by riding a lot
with aerobars and developing a very low position on the bike. I found
that this enabled me to catch a group on the flats after being dropped
on the climbs. If I'm with a group on a descent, I'll often ride away,
and if the road stays flat, stay away. In rolling terrain the group will
usually catch me on the next climb, etc. My bottom line is that being a
weak climber means that you need to become a better solo rider, i.e.
approach all rides as if they were time trials.

On long rides (400km has been my max) I've found that trying to match
climb rate with smaller riders is a big mistake. Most of the deep
muscular fatigue seems to come from those times I push too hard, leading
to cramping. For endurance riding you really have to limit the peak efforts.

Quoted message said:

My main problem on longer rides (magnified on real long rides) is that
I can't hang with the faster people on the climbs, but the people I can
can at least stick with on the climbs generally go too slow on the
downhill and flat sections.

I just finished today a 170km ride that was rolling with 2 steep climbs
and a bunch of smaller less steep climbs. It was also quite windy, but
we had a good tailwind for most of the last 50 km. The first big climb
was after ony 5 km and I lost contact immediately and rode alone for
the next 60 km. I then was caught by a group I could hang with for a
while but on the second climb, I again lost contact. Eventually on the
flat tailwind section I was able to catch them again. But as we neared
the finish there was another climb and while I managed to hang on I was
really suffering. I almost wasn't able to hang on. At the top it was
flat all the way in to the finish and I poured on the coals but no one
wanted to hang on so I did the last 10 km alone over 40km/hr and opened
up 4 minutes on the group I minutes before almost hadn't been able to
stick with on a mild ascent. My time was 5:44 for an average of 29.5
km/h.

So you were caught by a group at km 65, lost contact over a hill, caught
them on the flat, then dropped them in the last 10 km. That might not be
indicative that you have trouble on the hills compared to the flats. It
might only indicate that you have more endurance than those in the
group, since your performance is relatively better late in the ride.
You're training for a ride three times as long as the 170 km ride in
question. Maybe the others in this group don't have as much endurance
training.

On the other hand, I suspect Robert is right about your specs. A heavy,
high power rider will have the trouble that you describe. And my
experience won't help you much, since I seem to do better on the hills
than on the flats.

--
Dave
dvt at psu dot edu