DogBonz

Ok, so pretend that this is Roadie 101 and school me. What is a watt in relation cycling, how is it calculated, and how is it helpful to know these numbers. Now, before someone slaps me with a “Google it” I Googled it and most results are about electricity consumption .

Thanks in advance-

dysFTP

You must be one of those folks who snoozed during HS physics class.

A Watt is a unit of power.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watt

waterrockets 

Start here: https://www.cyclingpeakssoftware.com/power411/

The choices, in order of popularity in the last year or so, are:
PowerTap
SRM
Ergomo
Quarq
Polar
iBike

rm -rf

Plug in different watts to this bike speed calculator and see.

Grumpy McTrumpy

power is power.

whether in terms of electrical consumption or physical work, power is power.

YungBurke

Joule per second.

terrymorse 

In terms that may be more familar to some:
Thank you, google units conversion.

pacificaslim

Here's a pretty good explanation of what people are talking about when they talk about power and watts and whatnot in regards to cycling:

https://www.saris.com/t-powerBasics.aspx

gMoneyYo :)

It is helpful once you add in factors like your weight and CdA (product of coefficient of drag and frontal area, which is also positively correlated with weight).

https://cozybeehive.blogspot.com/2008...ght-ratio.html


2000 watts all by itself is meaningless. I've coaxed my Dad, who is 250 pounds, on to my trainer before and he's put out in excess of 2000 watts.. He's not a cyclist.

But, if I could put out 2000 watts, even for an instant (weighting 100 pounds less) I'd have a rainbow colored jersey.

Flatballer

I'm gonna need to see a power profile for that.

dysFTP

Flatulence doesn't count.

wfrogge

I doubt your non-cycling dad put out 2k watts on the trainer.

gMoneyYo :)

Ahem.. my non-cycling Dad has calves the size of your head. Good genes do that.

dysFTP

Good genes don't let you get to 250 lbs. and I've never seen anyone with calves the size of a man's had on the podium.

gMoneyYo :)

Haha, true, but weightlifting + good genes does.

Treefox

There's a difference between putting out 2000 watts for two seconds to get some numbers on a display and putting out 1000 long enough to win a kilo on the track.


And for the OP, watts = volts x amps.

If your dad were hooked up to a dynamo, he could probably power your house for a few seconds.
(assuming you had a very efficient inverter, but that's another argument)

Treefox

His thighs are bigger than his head:

tanhalt

A watt is a measure of the RATE of doing "work", also known as "power".

OK...so what is "work"? Simple, "work" is a force moved a distance (Work = Force x distance)

Sooo...a watt, or power, is how fast the force is moved a distance. By definition, a Watt is the amount of power it takes to move a Newton of force one meter in one second ( Watt = N x m/s)

Is that simple enough? Got it?

dysFTP

Uh, no. You can't "move" a Newton. A Watt is (by definition) one N of force applied thru 1 meter in 1 second.

Got it?

ljrichar

[QUOTE=gMoneyYo I've coaxed my Dad, who is 250 pounds, on to my trainer before and he's put out in excess of 2000 watts.[/QUOTE]

Nope.

dysFTP

+1

Nothstein put out about 2200 W full tilt and he was, what, 225 lbs. of world-class track sprint muscle?

Machka 

https://www.onelook.com/?w=watt&ls=a
"a unit of power equal to 1 joule per second; the power dissipated by a current of 1 ampere flowing across a resistance of 1 ohm"

Do they not cover this sort of thing in high school physics anymore?

dysFTP

Who's on second?

Grumpy McTrumpy

My powertap max wattage once read 1999.

If you meet me in real life it would be quite obvious that the reading was in error.

I had to delete the file since it threw off all of my various records.

waterrockets 

PowerTap? SRM?