Originally Posted by
DaveLeeNC
FWIW, I ran some numbers (I assume they are correct - the calculations are not complicated) with the following parameters.
RPM - 60
crank - 172.5mm
PowerOut - 600w
The average force required here is 125 pounds. It seems reasonable to me (based on my own uninformed opinion which is based on my own cycling which is hardly something to be admired) to think that out of the saddle lugging up a hill requires a peak force of 3x the average. So that comes out to 375 pounds.
Probably not a max output but 'not all that much force' doesn't seem to apply either. Or maybe I made an error here. I spent about 3 minutes on the problem.
dave
120 lbs is indeed the average force required to do 600W @ 60 RPM. But 600W is a lot, a 185lbs person would need a 20% grade to do 6.5 mph at 600W. So in practice, if you can do 600W, you are not struggling up a hill doing 60 RPM at running speeds. For all real life purposes, you do not need but a fraction of your body weight in strength to go up any hill.