As a racer I've always been interested in others' power profiles, so as to know what I was up against in racing, as well as to help establish goals for training. (Rate of improvement is also of interest, but that's a step deeper).

Now that my season is over, I'll go first and share this highly confidential data. Please don't forward to Sky, they'll devise tactics to crush me. :(

50 years old
200 pounds, 17% body fat (OK my ideal race weight is 185-190, but it's very hard for me to get there)
mediocre cat 4
5" power: 1250w
5' power: 390w
ftp: 300w

would like to hear similar or at least reactions...

55 yr old CAT5. I've been in 5 ITTs and 3 crits
173-179# depending on the day. 155-165 is probably not going to happen.

Perhaps this will help with the rate of improvement:
Started riding a yard sale bike July 1 2011 ~85 lbs ago. W/kg is not a factor in competitive archery ;-/
Bought a road bike and joined a team in 2013 because "Dude, really? On a 26" hardtail!"
Crashed a truck in June 2013; off for 8 weeks
Surgery in Feb 2014; off for ~8 weeks

According to Golden Cheetah I'm no sprinter and I agree with that assesment. Total of 1769 miles this year

5 sec: 997
5 min: 325
10 min: 314
FTP: ~300

Tom, I've talked with the guys on the team I ride for, and in your age group you seem to fall amongst the average. So does IBO. Racer Ex could chime in definitively.

Me, less than half in all respects of what you fellas see on your numbers. It's a wonder I can walk up stairs.

Shoot, I qualify for pencil-neck geek status. I'm 62. My last test was three weeks ago, and was less than two weeks after getting back on the bike after six weeks off the bike due to the crash. FTP was 230. The test prior to that was 236; it was probably higher prior to the crash. January, February and March high 20' power were 247, 247, and 244, and they occurred during workouts, not tests, so it was probably in the 240-250 watt ballpark. Highest 5' power was 328 watts last June, again during a workout.

I gained about ten pounds in the six weeks off the bike, and the last time I weighed myself was 190. I'm 6'2". I need to get back to about 175, maybe less.

I cannot wait for ShovelHD's ewang post.:innocent:

My reputation precedes me. :)

:roflmao2:

Now that's funny

:)

GC says this about me for the last 28 days: "don't quit your day job"

5 sec power - 656 watts
1 min power - 296 watts
20 min power - 142 watts

Keep it to yourselves.


Thank you.

The Criterium du Dauphine is on NBC sports network and it features the GC contenders for the TdF. The opening stage was a 6.2 mile ITT that the riders knocked out in 13 minutes and change. I was interested in the new TT rigs, rider position, equipment and cadence.

Now we all know that cadence is a red herring, right. I had to put that in for the cadence police. I had my stop watch and calculated cadences for several of the riders realizing that it is hard to get it perfect counting and looking at the watch and sometimes there is not enough coverage to get to 10 seconds.

David Miller 120 rpm
Vasil Kiryienka 116 (one of Dmitriy's guys that he trained when Vasil was a junior)
Contador 120 and Contador looked like a man possessed while out of the saddle. 100+ rpm
Froome 90
Sylvain Chavanel 90

And when the peloton was hunting the break on the lead-in to yesterday's climb, the lead out men were spinning 110+

Froome on the finishing climb of stage 2 was putting in accelerations 120+rpm. It could be as high as 130 rpm but it was so fast it was hard to count.

My point in publishing this pro ewang is that the ability to spin and do many things at various power profiles and riding positions IMO, is also a measure of a cyclists ability. It is much easier to produce power at lower cadence for shorter intervals climbing. I would always self select an 8 minute all out climbing effort on a 2 to 5% grade and keep the cadence lower if what I wanted was a max average power. My legs would load up for sure but who cares. I have a 10 minute rest to spin out the lactate and do it again.

If I do the same route a 110 rpm, I might last 4 to 5 minutes at the same power and in the same position.

I see the power profiles much like the weight room and running track for NFL linemen. They bench press 500 pounds and can run 40 meters in 4.1 seconds. However, they still may not be able to make the starting team. There are just too many facets to being an athlete.

And... I had a discussion a few weeks ago with Roger Young, track coach, about power. Roger liked power meters because he said that power is the racers' currency to buy speed. However, there is a cost to the speed which is weight and CdA. One can have a lot of power but the cost is too great for the required speed or acceleration.

And... there are skills. How good can you corner and do cone turnarounds?

All great points Hermes. I'll address a couple of them.

My power is unpredictable. Being small and light I have to train very hard to increase my power. At times I'm average and at times I'm where I should be if I was 30 years younger. It all depends. My racecraft is good but I struggle with self confidence. The one thing I am very good at is bike handling, and that one skill alone can be a difference maker. The example I will use is last year's NSG 40k where I won the gold. I had separated my shoulder about 9 weeks before this race. I had returned to racing only three weeks before. My power and endurance was way down compared to pre-accident. Definitely not at the top of my game. However, I felt that I had a few advantages. Only a handful of riders knew who I was. As the race progressed I learned that I was handling the overpass climbs well and the flip turns at each end of the course better than others, even in the rain. I attacked about 1km before the final flip turn on the last lap. I got a gap because I caught the controlling teams chatting about the sprint on an up grade. I got a gap, but they chased hard as I knew they would. They were within 10 seconds as I hit that flip turn at 37mph. I nailed the brakes, railed the corner, and punched it back up the grade. When I looked back at the top, I had at least 20 seconds. I won the race in that turn.

Thanks for the food for thought. I know when I did the ITT in Philly, which was "watch your dog run away for a week" flat my cadence averaged higher @94 than it normally does around here. Here is not so flat.
I'm sure that there is a crossover point between power and cadence - a sweet spot if you will.

Wonder how one could determine that.

One way is during FTP intervals or tests. The goal here is to maximize power without blowing up and with no rest. It took me a while but I found that my optimal steady power cadence on the flats is 87rpm. Much higher and my HR is higher with no advantage. Lower and my legs load up. When racing my cadence is way higher. I usually average in the low 100's.

I noticed while watching stage two that on that final climb, Contador's cadence was significantly slower than Froome's. The huge difference surprised me, as I've thought of him as having a pretty fast cadence. Not compare with Froome, whose butt stays glued to the saddle.

My sweet spot was somewhere in the 92 range last time I really checked it out. But it is certainly different for different circumstances. Climbing, I use a higher cadence sitting than standing. Varying things seems to help, but I do better when I keep telling myself to gear down and kick it up. Big impact on limiting fatigue. Crit's it's all over the place.

It's funny how riders are different. My optimal climbing cadence is around 85rpm.

Mine is 75 to 80 until it is not.

I have the ACTN3 gene ACTN3 Genotype Is Associated with Human Elite Athletic Performance. Sometimes, it is better for me to load up my legs climbing but not always.

So that boils down to, for me at least....

If we would have tested him in his early years we could have determined that due to his Scott/Irish genetic makeup he would never be confused with an athlete :roflmao2:

Obviously I'm doing something wrong on several counts. My power metrics are pitifully low, especially watts/Kg. Still trying to lose more weight to improve that metric.

On the subject of cadence, for criteriums, mine is generally 95+ rpm. I think I shift more often than most people.

Climbing is a completely different story. I think my mitochondria are messed up after years of climbing in big gears. (Back in the 1970s and most of the 1980s, our usual low gear for climbing was 42 X 23 or 25 if it was really steep.) My optimal climbing cadence seems to be 70-75 rpm. I keep trying to raise it through training but I seem to just go slower at a higher cadence.

Intervals at the velodrome last night: Z1 90 sec, Z3 2 min, Z2 2 min, Z3 2 min, Z4 30 sec - X3 per set - X2 sets. Did most of the 1st set with VanceMac and a Junior racer who is almost young enough to be my grandson. (OK, I'm exaggerating a bit.) They killed me. Swore I'd take it easier for the second set. Started out with VanceMac. That was a mistake. ;)

After two tough sets of intervals I managed to stay in for almost all of the 40 lap motor game. Fell off at the bell. A 90 inch (50 X 15) gear just wasn't quite big enough.

About 16 miles of tempo tonight after 6 miles of very easy warm up.

Great workout, Cleave.

After 13 weeks of racing I am taking a break week to recharge.

I shift a ton in crits.

Tornado watch last night so I didn't stray to far from home

1 hour included:

17 min @ 85%
2 min recover
28 min @95%
15 min recover (read limp) home

IF 0.94
TSS 80

Cleave, training with a fast junior and Vancemac is a tough workout. It was too bad that Quinn8it was not there as well.

Took a few days of rest and restarted on Tuesday at the cycling gym 3x20. Today, I did a track session in the AM using the motor.

Cool story bro (sincerely).


I've had a dream season so far: 3 wins (including Crybaby Hill), 2 top 10s (including Battenkill), one DNF. Upgraded to 3 and already collecting points for my 2 -- I don't really expect to get there, but it is a measure of how well the season has gone.

Part of it is thanks to focused offseason training guided by @Creatre. I've added 10w to FTP and improved recovery/repeatability, but at 46 years old there's only so much headroom for physical improvement.

5'9 155 lbs (about 7 lbs over ideal weight)
5s: 925w
1m: 630w
5m: 340w
FTP: 280w

Those numbers are completely unimpressive, the only above-average figure is the 1m power. The success I have had this year is not because of fitness. It's due to confidence, timing, and efficiency.

For the last 2 laps of Crybaby Hill, I was off the front with one other guy. He was in front for one lap and I was in front for one. His power for the 2 laps was 40% higher than mine. He is 10 lbs lighter than me, and his power numbers were completely beyond what I will ever be able to generate, meaning he is really very strong. I burned so much less gas because I was better at getting small behind him.

The deciding factor in the race was the final downhill off camber 120 degree turn, the turn that took out the UHC train in the pro race, which I took at 28 mph and he took at 24. From that turn to the finish, he put out 50% more power than me (hitting peak numbers I will never see), but he was 1 second back at the line. A spectator came up to me after the race and said he predicted me to win after the first lap when he saw how confidently I was taking that turn, in the heavy rain.

To be sure, there are plenty of race situations where you need exceptional fitness to compete. But in many situations, you only need enough fitness to not get dropped. And I'll say this, it's incredibly satisfying to beat guys who are clearly stronger.

Confidence, timing, and efficiency. I have to tip my hat to @carpediemracing, who is the archetype for overachieving results. Reading his words and watching his videos is like training for your mind.

Thanks. My goal is to share what I know so that more racers can perform "above their pay scale". Granted, it's hard when it's w/kg, since there's no tactics to that, and it's hard when it's a flat out TT, since again there's no tactics to it (although fit etc are significant). But in flatter mass start races I think most of the racers in a given field are not racing as well as they might. It could be for various reasons, like different goals, but overall it seems that many/most riders make efforts at the wrong times.

I'm working on another clip that may go up over the weekend, depends on how the 3rd edition feels (need to review it now).

cool to read all these posts.

can't help but thinking as i read these accounts that no one here feels like they have the raw horsepower to outclass any field. i think this is exactly what makes racing interesting.

when you know you are not the strongest guy in the field, you don't get complacent and work hard to maximize any advantage one has -- tactics, handling, etc.

i wish i could show up to a race, once, and feel i'm the strongest, but i'm pretty sure it would go poorly. being scared and humble i think leads to better results.