chewybrian 

It's just what the title suggests; can you average watts equal to your weight for one hour of riding?

If you don't have a fancy power meter, just go here:
>>>https://bikecalculator.com/veloUS.html<<<
Enter your weight under "weight", and again under "power". Play high/low with "distance" until "time" equals 60 minutes. That is the distance you need to make in an hour to average a power output equal to your weight.

Difficulty will vary based on weight and fitness. Mr. Beanz probably does this every week. A newbie might need to lose 100 pounds to have a chance. If you can meet the challenge, I'd say it indicates a reasonable fitness level. You probably could finish a century, or hang with the pack on a short B or C level club ride.

Have you met the mark? If not, could you? Do you need to lose weight, gain power, or both, to get there? If you're not sure, give it a go and let us know if you made it.

VegasVic

21.85 mph

Not a chance in hell. Couldn't do that even if it was downhill the entire way.

chewybrian 

I made a run early Monday morning. Going into a 6 mph headwind, riding in the drops, I needed to make 17.6, so I set out on an 18 mile route. I decided to go for a negative split, so I tried to hold about 17.8 on the first half. Well, I forgot to figure the time lost on a couple stoplights (doh!), so I had to ramp it up in the second half to get back on pace. I got to 18 miles in just a hair under 59 minutes.

I had to work pretty hard to get it, but I wasn't crushed.

Seattle Forrest

Takes some work, but yes. It would be easier to meet this challenge if I lived in a flat place, though.

CraigB

If all the environmental conditions in the chart could be met and maintained, then yes, I think I could, though it would cook me pretty thoroughly by the end of the hour. It would require a flat road, no wind, a temperature of 75F and a speed of 18.95 MPH. Slight variations in terrain, wind and air temps would blow that all to hell, though. As a practical exercise, a few weeks ago my scouting ride for this coming Sunday's TT route, including a couple of traffic stops that I won't have under race conditions, had me at 16.5. That was with a lot of turns, some acute-angle RR crossings, a little bit of climbing and a decent headwind on half the course.

jethro56 

no,no,yes,yes

CBuff

Looks like I need to losse a little more weight (10#?) and get a little bit stronger (+1 MPH) to get there.

goldfinch

I need to go 16.5 mph for an hour. I can't. I need to be stronger more than I need the weight loss. If I was at 110 pounds I could only go .5 mph slower.

contango 

I just checked out my evening ride back from the pub. 14.1 miles in 57:41 elapsed time (including time stopped at red lights and a couple of pauses as my GPS sent me on a wild goose chase. Assuming no headwind and no gradient (which overall was probably about right) it reckoned my power was about 180 against a weight of 240. If we take out the time lost due to red lights and the brief forays down dead ends the power goes up to more like 200-210 (I took a best guess at 5-6 minutes worth of lost time at slow to stopped).

To match my weight would have taken me 48.28 minutes (so about 48:15), which I think would mean assuming more time spent stopped than would be accurate. It's interesting to see that even working with the power of 200-210 it gives figures of about 40 cal/mile which is good to know, since that's what I've used for a while as an approximation.

chewybrian 

You're shooting for 110 pounds?! How tall are you? I'm a little under 210, and I sure could not lose 100 more.

I did notice how little weight moves the needle, but I thought about it in terms of bike weight. How much are people paying to upgrade to lighter weight components, to save a few ounces, if that? When you use the program, and add 10 pounds to your bike, it only costs you something like a minute every hundred miles on flat ground. It made me feel better about my 'kitchen sink' strategy. Yeah, I have a spoke wrench, a cassette tool, a folding tire... in my bag.

This makes sense to me, living in flat Florida. Many times I've been cruising along at a nice clip and forgotten that my bike had loaded paniers on board. You only notice the weight when you change speeds, and your inertia works to maintain the old speed.

Aero strategy, on the other hand, does have a big impact. Look how the numbers move when you switch to the drops, or aero bars. It gives me the idea that removing spacers, switching stems, even using skinnier tires could have an impact on your speed. This impact also makes sense. Just feel the change when you use the drops in a headwind. If you were already cruising comfortably, it's easily worth one cog to go to the drops.

elcruxio

I need to go 20.15 miles in one hour... I've kinda done that already.

I did a ride whilst on vacation at my parents cottage. Long empty roads for miles around so didn't have to stop for stop signs or lights. Two hours with a small break in between. Average speed for the first hour was 34km/h (21.14mph) and 31km/h (19.25mph). Average speed for the both combined was 21.19mph so yay! I did it!

Then again sadly that doesn't say anything about my average wattage on long rides...

goldfinch

Just short of 4'11." I need to at least get to 110.


Yes, interesting. I have thought about getting a nice lightweight carbon bike and then think about how my bike gets tossed around in all the traveling we do and I worry that I will hurt it. Maybe I won't worry so much about a lightweight bike and just get a basic road bike with skinny tires. I'll save a bunch of money too. Unless I get a custom Gunnar or something.