Originally Posted by
Smokehouse
Ok wait...
if you guys are going to call BS on me...I'm going to call it on you.
first off...if you're going to sit there and tell me it takes 300 watts to speed up from 38mph to 40 while flying down a large, steep hill...I'm calling BS. Second...weight is not the only factor when it comes to required power. There are a ton of factors involved in determining how much power it takes to move mass...that 180 LBS you incorrectly estimated isn't floating you know...
I claim I was seeing an average increase of a couple of mph while coasting down a giant hill...and many of you call BS. Then then come on here and try to use some open ended math (math that is missing a ton a variables btw) and actually attempt to pass that off as some definitive logic?
"41" indeed...
Uh, actually the numbers were generated with one of the readily available online calculators. I left the rider and bike weight at their default, no additional wind, etc and selected a road bike (with all the defaults for rolling resistance and whatnot) with a rider positioned in the drops. From there, I played with the slope angle until I got a ~40mph figure while coasting. I increased the rider's wattage input until I had a ~2mph gain, which was the result with an additional ~300 watts.