Originally Posted by
asgelle
And have you considered the converse, that once up to speed, a heavy bike takes less constant pedal pressure than a light one to maintain speed? Wouldn't this negate any training benefit from accelerating the heavy bike?
Yes, but I don't think that an advantage except in the special case of tandems. Single bike wind resistance is going to be independent of weight so watts will be the same, except with a touring bike when watts will be higher for a given speed. It's my opinion that one will last longer if one doesn't peak one's pedal pressure too much. Would you agree? One has to integrate pedal pressure around the stroke to get power. For instance, I find it easier to maintain speed on the flat on a road bike with clipless rather than with platforms.
One of my points is that, since the bike is so much heavier, even if one were riding platforms on the flat, one would get a different feel because the bike doesn't accelerate noticeably during the downstroke, so that pressure and pedal rate is more constant throughout the power portion of such a stroke. The bike is always pushing back.
And there are no flat roads. Every time one comes to a slight incline, one is off the back and has to accelerate to get back on. There's that limit to convenient pedal pressure again.
That's how one gets by on a tandem with one's wife, though. Watts/lb. may suck, but there's a 40% wind resistance advantage except in a crosswind. So the hope is to get off the front and hurt the single riders enough so they are a little softened up for the climbs. It's no good if they can stick our wheel. And tandems are notorious for slingshotting short rollers. So that is an advantage, but it's not very large because single riders learn pretty quickly to give it everything they've got at the top of the hill and get on.