What's Your Power?
67
Member
836 days
kxux posted 25 weeks ago.
Congrats on getting the power meter.
Just a thought.
I think the question should be more about what is your FTP and how much do you weight - e.g power to weight ratio. The FTP alone will not give you much idea how fast people can go. If I weight 176 and push say 250 for an hour in a race and then some one else who is 165 and pushes the same FTP on the very same bike they will have quite an advantage.
641
Member
1026 days
KitKat posted 25 weeks ago.
kxux wrote:
Congrats on getting the power meter.Just a thought.
I think the question should be more about what is your FTP and how much do you weight - e.g power to weight ratio. The FTP alone will not give you much idea how fast people can go. If I weight 176 and push say 250 for an hour in a race and then some one else who is 165 and pushes the same FTP on the very same bike they will have quite an advantage.
Very good points to bring up!
I weight 130 and my avg for
century rides - 135-145
40-60 miles - 155-180
1 hour - 200
20 min 200-250
This is about 9 months of data
**Pain is weakness leaving the body**
*Smile, it does a body good*
564
Member
678 days
xc800runner posted 25 weeks ago.
kxux wrote:
If I weight 176 and push say 250 for an hour in a race and then some one else who is 165 and pushes the same FTP on the very same bike they will have quite an advantage.
Only if there are sustained climbs, though. On the flats, 250W is 250W, and your speed with vary primarily with how aero you are (CdA). The lighter guy should have a smaller area presented to the wind, thus making him faster, but it's not necessarily the case.
On a long climb, yes, the one with a higher W/kg should be faster.
As far as pure numbers, I haven't tested FTP in the past couple months, but was at 325 average for 53 minutes at my race 2 weeks past, so I'll go with that for the time being (73 kg, so 4.45 W/kg @ 325). In a pure time trial, probably would be 20-25W or so higher.
67
Member
836 days
kxux posted 25 weeks ago.
xc800runner wrote:
Only if there are sustained climbs, though. On the flats, 250W is 250W, and your speed with vary primarily with how aero you are (CdA). The lighter guy should have a smaller area presented to the wind, thus making him faster, but it's not necessarily the case.On a long climb, yes, the one with a higher W/kg should be faster.
Yes you are correct for situations where you are going. There is little more power I would need to get to the top speed on flats than lighter person. But the difference is pretty small until we get to the longer climbs.
Where I race we do not have a lot of flats just many rolling hills or just hills. This weekend I'm doing the Black Bear Tri and there my weight will show up quite a bit ;-).
I recently purchased a power meter and was curious to know where some of you more experienced triathletes sit in terms of sustained power output on the bike. So, lets have it!