Ulrich's Power?

velobob said:

Just curious if anyone has a quick and dirty way to estimate Ulrich's power from today's individual TT stage in the Giro where he road 50km in 58:48. Must be huge!

velonews.com9890.0.htmlOpen ↗

E.g. calculator here:
w3.iac.netvelocity.htmlOpen ↗

Supposing flat road (wasn't it?) and no wind, with 470 W the speed would be 50.3 km/h. So Ullrich probably has FTP somewhere between 460 - 480 W.

sidewind said:

Supposing flat road (wasn't it?) and no wind, with 470 W the speed would be 50.3 km/h. So Ullrich probably has FTP somewhere between 460 - 480 W.

That is ... extremely ... amazing. Wow. I'll keep my day job.

I don't know exactly what Ullrich's CdA is, but estimating that its around 0.5, then from www.analyticcycling.com I get the following estimate:

Weight of bike + Rider = 90 Kg
Effective frontal area = 0.5
Speed = 14.167 m/s = 51 Km/hr
Air Density = 1500 m elevation
0 degree road slope
.004 Coef. of rolling resistance
POWER REQUIRED: 425.3 Watts

There is a HUGE unknown in this equation though: What is Ullrich's CdA? The more aero his position, the less power required to go 14 m/s. At any speeds greater than 14 m/s, the power increase is HUGE. Check it out.

So, I would say that give Ullrich's CdA is between 0.4 and 0.5 and there was a headwind and tailwind section on the course, Ullrich's FT is around 430-440 watts.

EpicriderGMAC said:

I don't know exactly what Ullrich's CdA is, but estimating that its around 0.5, then from www.analyticcycling.com I get the following estimate:

Weight of bike + Rider = 90 Kg
Effective frontal area = 0.5
Speed = 14.167 m/s = 51 Km/hr
Air Density = 1500 m elevation
0 degree road slope
.004 Coef. of rolling resistance
POWER REQUIRED: 425.3 Watts

There is a HUGE unknown in this equation though: What is Ullrich's CdA? The more aero his position, the less power required to go 14 m/s. At any speeds greater than 14 m/s, the power increase is HUGE. Check it out.

So, I would say that give Ullrich's CdA is between 0.4 and 0.5 and there was a headwind and tailwind section on the course, Ullrich's FT is around 430-440 watts.

err FA=0.5 implies CdA=0.25 as per ACC defaults. And why did you ever use 1500m density? That TT was as close to sea level as you're gonna find.

Density can make quite a large difference ... I calculated 1.18x kg/m3 from temperature, air pressure and RH.

As can Cda of course but a WAG of 0.25 for a large guy like Jan (in May) likely isn't miles off.

Wind is always the biggest unknown and it sounded variable on the day.

My guess would be 450W +/- 25W for his average power over the TT. I'd sure like to see one of THOSE SRM files ...

rmur

rmur17 said:

My guess would be 450W +/- 25W for his average power over the TT. rmur

You're right in there. Some of the smaller Giro winners like Garzelli have had one-hour power around 420-430 watts.

sidewind said:

E.g. calculator here:
w3.iac.netvelocity.htmlOpen ↗

Supposing flat road (wasn't it?) and no wind, with 470 W the speed would be 50.3 km/h. So Ullrich probably has FTP somewhere between 460 - 480 W.

not flat at all - the first 1.5K was gently rolling, with one good grade, and then they hit a 10% grade, Jan was the first to not slow down any what so ever. This grade was not shown in any of the TV coverage. From the 10% the road continued on a 6%+/- pitch until just past the 2/3 mark of the course where the remainder of the course was in fact downhill. I was able to walk the enitre couse prior to the start of the Stage 1.

HR

Hookyrider said:

not flat at all - the first 1.5K was gently rolling, with one good grade, and then they hit a 10% grade, Jan was the first to not slow down any what so ever. This grade was not shown in any of the TV coverage. From the 10% the road continued on a 6%+/- pitch until just past the 2/3 mark of the course where the remainder of the course was in fact downhill. I was able to walk the enitre couse prior to the start of the Stage 1.

HR

cyclingnews.comgiro06Open ↗

I stand by the profile here. This is as flat as they come ..

rmur

rmur17 said:

cyclingnews.comgiro06Open ↗

I stand by the profile here. This is as flat as they come ..

rmur

not a good profile picture - very misleading. Need to check the course profile we had in the news paper, you'd have thought they were TTing mount Everest LOL.

HR

Hookyrider said:

I was able to walk the enitre couse prior to the start of the Stage 1.

HR

umm, you're talking about the first time trial. This thread is about stage 11, the second and longer TT.

Would have been a pretty long walk for you.
:p

peterpen said:

umm, you're talking about the first time trial. This thread is about stage 11, the second and longer TT.

Would have been a pretty long walk for you.
:p

geez I didn't even notice the "entire" bit. Yes definitely we're talking Stage 11 in Italy not Belgium :p or Holland :p

rmur

This all supports my contention that people who don't engage in a sport can have no real appreciation for what the greats in that sport are really doing. Everything looks pretty easy on TV or when sitting in the stands. But if you're a very fit and fast amateur runner, and can do a 5-minute mile, there's little doubt in your mind about how unworldly it is to be able to run 5-minute miles for an entire marathon, including hills and turns and often beastly heat. Same for a very fit and fast cyclist, who can maintain 400 watts for maybe a minute or two - and then contemplate being able to maintain that for an hour or more. I found a similar phenomenon in academia - the smarter you are, the more able you are to appreciate the vast chasm between you and the true geniuses in your field.

peterpen said:

umm, you're talking about the first time trial. This thread is about stage 11, the second and longer TT.

Would have been a pretty long walk for you.
:p

Stage one - I'll go back to sleep, thank you.

HR

I have friends ask me if I could stay on the wheel of those guys, just sucking the wheel. Let's see. Say 450 watts for an hour for an Ulrich (probably on a bad day). My FT is about 285 (on a good day). I would save say 30% sucking his wheel. I would need 315 watts for an hour. So I guess that would be NO. And that's if it's flat, any incline and I'd be screwed.

I love figuring stuff out like that. Those guys are amazing.

HammerHead said:

I have friends ask me if I could stay on the wheel of those guys, just sucking the wheel. Let's see. Say 450 watts for an hour for an Ulrich (probably on a bad day). My FT is about 285 (on a good day). I would save say 30% sucking his wheel. I would need 315 watts for an hour. So I guess that would be NO. And that's if it's flat, any incline and I'd be screwed.

I love figuring stuff out like that. Those guys are amazing.

Even though the course was flat, he probably rode the upwind leg at ~AP+20W (at least that would be the right strategy), so it would probably take ~325W to draft him for that segment.

RapDaddyo said:

Even though the course was flat, he probably rode the upwind leg at ~AP+20W (at least that would be the right strategy), so it would probably take ~325W to draft him for that segment.

Actually, Ullrich was quoted saying that he didn't really "fire on all cylinders" until after he got his first split. After realizing he was going well, he opened it up.
Wonder what his time would have been if he'd used the "right strategy"?
😉

peterpen said:

Actually, Ullrich was quoted saying that he didn't really "fire on all cylinders" until after he got his first split. After realizing he was going well, he opened it up.
Wonder what his time would have been if he'd used the "right strategy"?
😉

This sounds right. Ullrich's time at the first check was well off the pace, he did hold back! That means wind or no wind, he was the fastest TT'er there. Not surprising, I suppose, given his track record of fast TdF TT's.

-bikeguy

bikeguy said:

This sounds right. Ullrich's time at the first check was well off the pace, he did hold back! That means wind or no wind, he was the fastest TT'er there. Not surprising, I suppose, given his track record of fast TdF TT's.

-bikeguy

Wind or no wind (and there probably wasn't much to speak of anyway given the very quick times), it was a great ride by Ullrich. Hope he can get his climbing legs under him and give Basso some real competition at the Tour.

Basso is making mincemeat of the Giro field and there are five mountain stages yet to come!

rmur

peterpen said:

Actually, Ullrich was quoted saying that he didn't really "fire on all cylinders" until after he got his first split. After realizing he was going well, he opened it up. Wonder what his time would have been if he'd used the "right strategy"?😉

Better than it was. There's no doubt that the fastest pacing strategy on a flat course with wind is to ride the upwind segment at higher power, typically one's MP for that duration. It sounds as though he rode the downwind segment at higher power than the upwind segment. The fact that he rode the course as fast as he did speaks to his incredible power, not good strategic use of his power.

RapDaddyo said:

.... not good strategic use of his power.

There are reasons for Ullrich's pacing strategy that may not be apparent to amature cyclists. It goes deeper than "What is the optimal power for the upwind vs. downwind section".