Not saying you are incorrect, because every body is different. However, you might not be as underweight as you think. Many people consider the 2lbs/inch rule to be a target for bodyweight. This would put you at 148. I am 145lbs, 6'0" and feel that my weight is not a determent for this sport. Over the past couple years I'm sure I've put on a couple pounds in the legs - but this has come at the cost of losing a couple upper body pounds. I can see my ribs and my arms are pretty darn thin. But my core is solid and I have enough upper body strength to properly maneuver my bike. I don't get sick and I have no other health issues so I am satisfied with my weight. If you are really feeling held back by your low weight, you might focus more on nutrition (lots of good calories, vitamins, etc) instead of just trying to pack on the weight.

Just food for thought (pun intended).

PhD student brought in a nice Whole Foods vegan chocolate cake. Since my diet began immediately upon first reading JB's thread, I refrained. My diet approach is simplistic: I eat pretty much what I like, and exclude cookies, cakes, ice cream, chips and beer.

Awesome skills typing while on the toilet!

Get better soon - even self loathing cyclists don't want that sort of weight loss...

Here - have some e-imodium to get you better...

Wow - on that calculation I would be skeletal - 76" x 2lbs = 152lbs or 69kg. Currently around 95-96kg aiming to get down to 92kg - and people already think I'm thin. 2lbs/inch is nuts!

^^ According to Joe Friel, author of "The Cyclists Training Bible," most world class climbers weight less than 2lbs/inch of height. Not saying this isn't nuts, just saying.... well, just sayin'.

5'10" (70 in.) => 140 lbs. ?!?!?! Insane.

LOL - well I guess I will have to give up my goal to become a world class climber then!

Yes. I haven't weighed that since I was a sophomore in high school. And I think I was an inch or so shorter then.

I raced a bunch of this last season at 2.00 in/lbs on the button, a few weeks above and a few weeks below - but more or less, right on the button. (5'9.5 137-139lbs daily variance)
Sometimes I wished I had a bit more weight (the RR that was 30F, snow/hail, & sideways winds comes readily to mind) - but in general I think that it is a good weight target.
As per this and other threads I plan on trying to race a bit heavier this next year, but not by much. I am aiming for 3lbs extra which will be a combination of leg muscle, less fat (yes, I can go lower if I don't cheat w/ sugar) and a bit more upper body muscle (utilitarian purposes such as moving furniture etc)
there were lighter guys than me who tend to go quickly up climbs, there are larger guys than me going up climbs... but that weight is a good "sweet spot" for where you start getting into mountain goat territory.

Don't let weight be a huge hangup - at the top of the last climb at Walla-Walla I made the selection and there were a couple guys around 170... they had muscles and worked the w/kg equation from the other side... they did pretty well too.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that it was insane for everyone, but insane for me.

+1. I can spew low-weight praises all day long. But this all went out the window during my races this year as I watched riders that were EASILY pushing 2.5-2.7 lbs/inch pass me by. I need a serious engine upgrade to push my skinny carcass around. :|

But being under 2lbs/in doesn't mean you would be a world-class climber. If it did I'd be kicking old phart ass all over California: I'm 6' and 140 lbs... 138 a couple weeks ago.

I can't even count the number of times that other riders I've just met have asked how much I weigh. I know they are well meaning but it gets old. They all are fantasizing about making the power they make now at 160 or whatver and weighing what I weigh. But it doesn't work that way for normal people. It certainly doesn't for me. I'm light but I have small lungs, a mediocre v02max and no fast twitch muscles to speak of. But since I'm 6' tall I have plenty of wind resistance. Headwinds stop me dead. I have plenty of will power, so I'd gladly trade a weight problem for 30 watts more @ ftp.

im going to stay out of the argument of whats crazy and whats not hahaha. i thought 130 at 6 foot was a little crazy, but do able.

no worries - i didn't take it that way. I spent a lot of this last season working to be as light as I could be... and at some cost to my engine... now I know (at least a bit) better.

yep - it happens.
a strong engine kicks the heck out of an light, underpowered engine... even when there is climbing (to say nothing of the other 85% of races)
I read a book that changed the whole way I think about weight.vs.performance - I highly, highly recommend it to anyone & everyone in this thread.

Racing Weight you should all go read it, seriously.

I have a copy right here on my desk, actually. And I agree, it changed the way I think about my diet. But from the other perspective: to get leaner. I used to think that to get leaner I needed to cut out as much fat as possible. Now, I've actually increased the fat in my diet and have lost weight.

Yeah - I have not had any true mountain races so far, so I have been first or in the front bunch to the top when we have had short steep climbs with smaller guys generally unable to go with (at 96-97kg).

At the anaerobic end, raw power can easily overcome the weight.

However, as I have this coming up:

https://www.cyclingprofiles.com.au/ma..._TB-Stage3.swf

- a climb comparable to many European ones apparently I need to maximise my W/kg.

post doc brought in a few slices of cheesecake. I demurred at first, but caved and ate one small slice so i won't get called out. Oh well. I was actually antisocial over it yesterday as it was his wife's bday, and I came up with a not so nice excuse of i'm on a diet and can't go. Rather rude of me, come to think of it in retrospect.

Well...tonight wasn't good for the weight loss. It was asian night at the dining hall...om nom nom.

QFT - sometimes the answers are not what you expect.
Example: there was a while when I was running a ton (40 mile weeks, 15-18 mile "long" runs weekly) that my diet was incredibly "fat heavy". It was a bit of a strange answer to the dietary question of the moment, but it worked out great.

as an opener into a rather large metal container of non-arthropod invertebrates, "Fat gets a terribly inaccurate reputation in the modern american mind."

this is tough - and I haven't found a good way to get around it.
Sometimes I'll eat a very small amount, but generally I say that "I just don't eat sweets". My friends and co-workers know that I simply don't, and they don't hassle me about it too much... that said, it has to be a hard and fast rule or it becomes socially messy... so I choose to not eat them (or drink alcohol) for a large part of the year. I understand the situation, sorry :-(

the thing is, i used to the trash collector in my lab: i could be counted on to clean plate on most of the sweet stuff. Looks like that reputation is gonna be hard to shake. But i don't stress over one small slice too much. As for alcohol, hum, i'm sipping a glass of wine as i type this

I used to weigh 135 at 5'10. Raced at 138-142. Sucked.

After my crash, I couldn't get below 145 no matter how hard I tried. I stopped looking at weight. Weight went up to 148-150, threshold and sprint increased substantially.

I think the take home is that if you're in your first few seasons of racing, you should let your body do what it wants to before you start to think that you need to get skinny. I mean, if you're way off the mark then cut down a little bit, but if you're thin and thinking of going thinner, then you should really let your body decide what it wants to do. Eat when you're hungry, but eat healthy. See where it takes you.

Also, this is where power comes in real handy as you can track how you're doing in response to weight changes. If your weight is going up but so is power, fine. If your weight is jumping up and your power isn't then reevaluate. etc etc.

I've been thinking I need to publicly 'out' my weight loss goals..but I have to do it where my wife can't see. She's threatened to divorce me if I get down to skinny bike racer status. I'm 5'9, 185ish currently; I think my stretch goal is 170 and that would be pretty damn lean -- probably not sustainable for me. I could probably maintain 175 if I'm careful.

Heh..my goal weight would bring me to 2.5 lbs/inch..

Cheers - added this to my Amazon list, so now have the following books on the way:

The Rider
Tim Krabbe

The Cyclist's Training Bible
Joe Friel

Racing Weight: How to Get Lean for Peak Performance
Matt Fitzgerald

should be here in 10 days or something...

LOL - I'm in the same boat as you - a wife who rolls her eyes at all this cycling stuff and likes to see me eating hearty meals.

FWIW, my goal weight puts me at 2.66 lbs/inch

;-)

I was 3.24lbs/inch 9-10 months ago (not such a good climbers physique)!