Originally Posted by SabreMan
Let me take a different example. I am not a very graceful swimmer. I tend to flail about. In swimming a lap in the pool a smaller portion of the energy I expend goes into moving me foward, as compared to a master swimmer swimming that same lap. I must expend more energy to complete the lap than the master swimmer.
Probably, this example does not transfer very well to biking, since most bikers (even me) don't flail that much in riding
Glenn in Omaha
Originally Posted by DannoXYZ
True, if you've got a highly inefficient pedal stroke where you're pushing down at the bottom and stretching the crankarm, there's a lot of wasted energy that doesn't go into moving you forward. ...
not to be argumentative
but SabreMan is quite right - even for cycling, especially for cycling
while everyone considers 'efficiency' as something at the cellular level, the real world really is much more.
His swimming example does hold water in cycling as well. Muscle contraction, to create rhythmic movement as a pedal stroke, opposes the contraction cycle of other muscles. The total efficiency of the system is how well they interact as well as their individual efficiences. Thats a major reason why athletes 'train'. And if someone's not sure about swimming relative of 'exertion' to 'form', jump in and do a few laps.
'Form' or efficiency in anything (Fosbury Flop) takes you to higher levels of performance for the same 'expenditure' of work.
Easily demonstrated by any rider if they cover a 'course' at a set/constant speed using different cadences.
There's no question the same rider, riding the same 'course', will do less 'work' than he/she did sometime prior to an extended training period, be it either weeks or months.
I can try to rummage thru some of the older studies which have clearly ID'd this. But subjectively this is proven every day by millions of riders and other athletes.
Running, riding, swimming - you name the activity - efficiencies vary for a person as well as between people.
For the OP, if its important, your wife and you will have different 'power' curves and different expenditures to cover the same 'course', even done side by side.
This is true for every known engine, especially the human one.
And, even though some speak of the sameness of cellular efficiency and chemistry, that will also vary greatly under changing temps, pH and a bunch of other determining factors.
We, as orderly humans, all would love to have some 'equational' correlation thats simple and direct. But I don;t think thats in the cards considering the complicated machine being considered and the huge number and variation of the variables involved. Ballpark is prolly the best one can have, outside of a strictly controlled environment.