UniChris

Joules, watt hours (for the previous poster it's watts times hours not watts per hour), pound feet, newton meters and calories are all units measuring the same thing: energy

Though food (kilo) calories are sitting on the other side of the human body's function vs measures typically quantifying useful work integrated over time.

70sSanO

The formula I saw (not sure if correct) is…

kilojoules = watts (avg?) x time in seconds/1000.

If watts is the average over the ride, (which seems likely) then the calculation with time (in seconds or not) yields the same comparative difference of two rides, in a percentage, as average watts times hours.

I understand using the correct kilojoules calculation can be used to determine kcals.

If this is true, then any perceived workout is meaningless without these actual numbers to support if that workout is better or worse on a heavier or lighter bike riding longer or shorter distances.

John

Sy Reene

Again.. it's semantics on definitions of 'workout'. Your 6 hour completed Century example, at an average of 100 watts, as an example. If your bike weighed instead 5 lbs more, it might take you 5 more minutes of 100 watts average output to finish.

Trakhak

I thank everyone contributing to the thread for giving me an idea of what arguing politics on Facebook must be like. The difference being that here mere wrongheaded doggedness isn't enough to trump science (no pun intended at first).

Trakhak

More from the prophetic Walt Kelly (panel printed some 50 years ago):

70sSanO

it is not semantics. On your completed century you expended a certain amount of energy.

It is just math. Actually, I believe kilojoules is a measurement that is provided on some power meters.

None of this, “I spent this amount of time and I feel put out this amount of effort because I really felt tired on that ride.”

If you don’t have the numbers, it is just a guess based on how you think, or want to think, things should be.

It would be just like riding a bike without any computer mileage or time and feeling you went farther, or faster, or slower.

John

livedarklions

​​​​​​I understand you're supposed to use pepper spray on wrongheaded doggedness.

The funny thing about this phenomenon in bf is a newby coming in and going to tell all us rubes what cycling is all about. It happens a few times a year, and it always ends badly for the newby. This guy ran out of posts today and is stuck at 9 until tomorrow. I expect a flurry of gibberish from him tomorrow after post 10, but I'm done reading it.

livedarklions

Uh, I believe you just described how everyone used to train. You could figure the distance with a map and time it with a stop watch. I don't think such training is in any way meaningless.

I don't think most people need or want to perfectly tailor their workouts.

70sSanO

I’m not saying riding distances at certain times is meaningless. Saying this bike or that bike gave me a better workout, without any numbers is meaningless.

Everyone’s position could be true, or false, but it is still a guess, well for a thread with more than 400 posts, maybe a deep seeded belief.

John

livedarklions

Oh, I get what you're saying now, but even with numbers, the concept of "better" is problematic , and certainly not something that can be defined objectively.

To me, the best workout is the one I enjoy enough to keep going for several hours. I know I'm working enough that the specifics really don't matter for my purposes.

I do know that I use bicycles for more of a resistance training than most people, I usually tool around in the low 20s on the 53x11 gear. I don't meter, but I do think that's a somewhat different workout than the way most people ride. I get a lot of leg and thigh hypertrophy that way, which is not something I would expect much insight into from a power meter. I've never metered though, so I'm not familiar with it enough to know if I'm wrong about that. Feel free to tell me how that statement might be wrong.

Part of the reason I find these "heavier bikes are a different workout" threads funny is that my riding habits are mostly to apply a lot of torque to a 20 pound bike for 1 1/2 to 8 hours. I do the same thing with a heavier bike, I just use lower gears for climbing and accelerating. It's exactly the same workout, I just go a little slower on the heavier bike.

70sSanO

I have no issue with your definition of a better workout. I agree that a better workout can mean more enjoyable, a bit faster, and maybe longer.

My issue is with the basic premise, (and it has been around for a long time in some form), that a heavier bike is better for you because it provides more of a workout. The premise that training on a heavier bike makes someone stronger than training on a lighter bike.

For those, it does comedown to the real numbers of expended energy. No one knows how someone else trains, but if you produce less watts on a lighter bike it is because the rider is not pushing at the same level as a heavier bike. Lord knows there are gear chain combinations that can provide more enough resistance to equal things out.

As the earlier post stated 250 watts is 250 watts. But it if you produce 250 watts on the heavier bike and 200 watts on the lighter bike that is on the engine not the bike.

John

Badger6

Specifically expressed as "power to weight" ratio. It's the same reason that when someone asks me what my FTP is, I express it in w/kg, as opposed to the actual w, because my power to weight is what matters when comparing my performance to another person's performance. BUT, to properly structure my workouts, which are structured, I have to know the actual watts of my FTP so that I can properly establish the effort as measured by the power meter to get the result I am looking for: Endurance, Tempo, Threshold, VO2Max, etc.

I completely agree, this is fallacious. And it is why Perceived Effort (PE) is the least desirable method of training, but if all you have is PE, it is better than nothing. A "better" workout (also pointed out as being wildly subjective) is only had when one pushes themselves harder, in theory a heavier bike forces that if one intends to go the same speed over the earth. But, in some ways, that might be a worse workout, because one may be over training to achieve the same speeds on a heavier bike that they can achieve on a lighter bike, and then is definitely not a "better" workout.


Having trained with a power meter for many years, and making it a point to understand how to use it, nothing I am saying here is earth shattering, ground breaking, or controversial. It is the basics, albeit vastly simplified, of using power to train...bottomline: the weight of the bike will have zero impact on giving a better, or worse, workout in terms of hard numbers. Subjectively, and perceptively, I buy it.

Sy Reene

If you are one who might call doing a century ride a "workout", you need to realize that there are others who will argue that it isn't a workout, because to them a workout requires much more structure and monitoring. And, if you're riding that century, within for example, your Endurance power zone -- let's use your 100 watt example, you will complete that century on your bike in whatever time it takes. Instead, if all else was equal, and your bike instead weighs 5, 10 or 20 lbs more, it will take longer to complete. So with the heavier bike, would the ridden century have been a better 'workout'?

livedarklions

Of course a century is a workout. "Workout" is a general term for any exercise activity to improve one's fitness, so that's a pretty silly argument. If they want to have their own definition of "workout" to specify a particular set of routines and practices, I'm more than willing to let them. Just don't expect me or anyone else to conform to their usage of the term.

And just to be clear, the differences in time are very likely to be rather small, at least for the 5 or 10 pound differences unless this is one very very hilly century.

I use distances as goals not because of some objective formula but because it's a lot more fun for me to think in terms of destinations than time, and that motivates me to ride more. In general, a lighter bike is more fun to ride on longer distances, which likewise motivates me to ride more.

UniChris

I suspect a reason bike weight gets such focus is that you can make a short-term A/B comparison between bikes, and it does impact and also go along with handling qualities. It's also not typically a blind comparison. There is something, plus anything you feel will be magnified by expectation.

Compare to say, rider weight which matters a lot more but can't be quickly changed.

Do people find full vs empty water bottles make a difference? That can be a couple of pounds.

I notice differences in manually handling the frame preparing to leave a refill stop where I've just put another 56 ounces behind the seatpost, but I'm not sure the actual riding feels different. If I have an extra bottle on my back I'll tell myself I need to finish it, and that it feels better to have it gone, forgetting that at least momentarily it's still with me. Last spring I dumped out 40 oz of water midway through a series of attempts on a grade challenge near home, can't say it made any difference, just that it felt silly to be hauling it up.

livedarklions

I think this basic fact is the one that mixes up the weightlifters who come in here and try to argue that the quality of the workout is affected significantly for the better or worse by the weight of the bicycle--weight lifting is, by its very nature, us supporting the weight, but we don't actually support the weight of the bicycle, it supports ours. The whole nature of the machine is to make it easier to propel weight, so it is totally not surprising that it takes a very large difference in weight to produce a noticeable difference in the demands we're making on our muscles UNLESS we actually are lifting the bike. The weight of the bike is a lot more important to someone who has to bring it up to their third floor apartment than someone who just has to lock it in the garage.

unterhausen

I never really noticed how heavy my gravel bike is until I carried it up 9 flights of stairs. It still doesn't seem that heavy when I'm riding it.

tomato coupe

Why didn't you ride it?

viffer

You don't know they're not racers. And even if they aren't who's to say they can't enjoy their chosen sport any way they want?

On the flipside a couple of those serious riders who spent more on their lycra than I did on my bike rode by me today laughing here's another one just out riding because the TDF is on. Now I'll be the first to admit I'm not nearly as fast as I was before getting run over by a drunk driver last year. The training regimen and conditioning have gone to pot. But these two chumps don't know the first thing about me or what I've been through.

Let's just all try to keep it civil and not be too quick to judge one another. Certainly keep the snark to yourself while on the road.

shelbyfv

Cool story.

MaximRecoil

Already addressed, and since you failed to address anything from my previous post and have no further arguments, your tacit concession is noted.

They are interchangeable when stating the formula for work. I already quoted from two sources which used force and weight interchangeably (by putting "weight" in parentheses after "force"), one of them being from a section of a textbook hosted on the University of California, Davis website. Once again:

"Work is defined as force (weight) times distance. If force is measured in lbs., and distance in ft. then the units for work are ft.-lbs."

No, it isn't. Again, your power output doesn't give any indication at all which muscles are being worked, and how they're being worked. For example, you can output say, 200 watts, doing sit-ups, or you could output the same 200 watts doing dead lifts. Those two types of exercises obviously work different muscle groups, and therefore, they aren't the same workout.

Since you failed to address anything from my previous post and have no further arguments, your tacit concession on the whole matter is noted (that's in addition to your several previous explicit concessions).

Badger6

Which also means they are barely comparable. Although in theory one could try to determine how many kilojoules of work were performed (or calories were expended) between doing a given number of sit-ups or riding a bicycle, how would you accurately measure the power output during a sit-up or deadlift? I know how to measure the power output of pedaling a bicycle, which can tell you how many kJ of work were performed, but how would you measure it for the sit-up or the deadlift?

The original, and erroneous, claim made was that a heavier bike is a "better" workout than a lighter bike. Comparing riding two different bikes is useful. Comparing riding a bike to doing Olympic deadlifts is absurd. As has been repeatedly explained by those of us that utilize power meters to actually measure our workouts on a bike to those that clearly don't, or don't know how to understand the data being captured, yet want to keep arguing about hypotheticals informed by perceived effort, or gut feelings...power output and total work performed (as a measure over time, not distance, therefore speed is irrelevant) will be unaffected by a bicycle's weight. It is affected by things like environmental conditions (heat and humidity) and personal preparations for the workout (diet, glycogen stores, hangover, etc.).

Also, a watt is a measure of power, a kilojoule is a measure of work. A watt is an instantaneous measure of power output, and it can be averaged over time. A kilojoule is an expression of power expended over time, thus it is a measure of work

MaximRecoil

It doesn't matter how you would measure it; it's obviously possible to have the same power output while doing sit-ups or dead lifts, which is all that matters with regard to the example. Power output tells you nothing about which muscles are being worked, or how they're being worked. Everything you do, including simply being alive, has a power output. If your power output ever drops to zero it means you're dead. That means there are countless examples of two different activities that work different muscles or work the same muscles differently (which means a different workout effect) but can have the same power output. I already gave one of the countless examples (sit-ups vs. dead lifts).

What does that have to do with anything I've said? I never made or endorsed that claim.

Who compared riding a bike to doing Olympic deadlifts?

Power meters only measure power output, which tells you nothing about which muscles are being worked, or how they're being worked.

Neither power output nor total work performed can tell you anything about which muscles are being worked, or how they're being worked.

Badger6

You did.

GhostRider62

How many calories or Joules one burns only has an impact with how much food I stuff into my face. Here is a real example

I did 66.5 miles at an average speed of 24.1 mph and used 1682 kJoules. This was a low Zone 2 ride. My bike and I weighed 240 lbs. If I plug those numbers into a calculator online or use calories estimates from any of the online applications, I would overeat.