Strength isn't the issue. The ability to produce power is the issue. All of the strength in this thread would get dropped by decent 120 lb juniors, despite the massive lack of strength in said juniors.

Losing muscle mass isn't the problem. Not being able to use oxygen to create energy effectively and efficiently is the problem.

You may have a point. The comparisons did not compare times, they compared how it felt.

The whole package makes a difference: tires, wheels, frame material, tubing choice, geometry, drivetrain. The last heavy steel bike I had was such a noodle that it felt like I could rip the bars off sprinting. It didn't climb worth doodly. I've traded nice bikes with people on group rides. Some are fast, some are slow. It's not weight really, it's the whole bike package. It's not worth discussing. Some bikes will ride well for you, some less well. It may take some time for a person to find their perfect bike. It's not a simple thing.

If the Fuji doesn't climb well for you, I advise getting rid of it. Find something you like. Not all touring bikes are crappy climbers. Go shopping for modern touring bikes - there are even carbon touring bikes now. You should be able to strip down your touring bike, take it on a club ride and have fun, not noticing the slight extra weight. I run aero alu rims, CX-Ray spokes, and Conti 4KIIs on mine - a steel tandem that does everything well.

Isn't the bike mostly unsprung mass, whereas your body and whatever else is attached to it that's not the bike are sprung mass? Unsprung mass feels like more inertia than sprung mass.

The wheels are unsprung and the bike & rider are sprung weight.
That is why lightweight wheels feel so great on a climb

You can really feel this in extreme cases like a hub motor vs. mid-drive on e-bikes.

Though since we don't technically have a suspension on a road bike, i'm not sure where the delta is

some bikes climb like crap, ride like crap, because they are crap.



Congrats on the 30lb loss!

BTW I can throw 3x the weight difference between my supersix and Trek in a back pack and the supersix still climbs better / faster.

There's also the possibility that muscle added at the gym could actually hinder speed on the bike

by limiting range of motion and muscle firing patterns.

I think that wearing the weight on your body or in a backpack would slow climbing more than having the same weight on the bike. Weight on your body must be resisted by your muscles and therefore aerobic system. When you're moving up and down out of the saddle, you're moving that weight up and down, which takes energy away from climbing. When you're climbing seated, you still have to support that weight somehow. The weight on the bike just rolls up the hill. Naw, it's not the weight, it's just the bike.

As long as one is seated and pedaling smoothly, wheel weight makes no more difference than weight anywhere else. Standing, wheel weight makes a tiny additoinal difference, though almost too small to be measured. https://www.velonews.com/2012/06/bik...-matter_223209
and many other sources with a similar answer. Aero wheels are another story, with a proven advantage at almost any speed, though of course much more noticeable at higher speeds. You might recall Heium lightweight wheels which were only popular for a couple years before folks figured out that they were slower oven an entire ride, being basically parachutes.

well... interesting.. I lost 70lbs a few years ago and I definitely noticed the difference when riding and climbing. I'm not sure how carrying extra weight up a hill could be the same regardless of weight.. Because it sure wasn't for me. I'll add that I never would have hopped on a carbon bike at my peak weight, either, lol.
I will attest, however, that the right bike with the right fit/components can make climbing a lot easier.

Wait what? You don't exactly have to have gymnast level flexibility to ride a bike. Where exactly is your range of motion going to be affected by having more muscle, and why doesn't it affect track cyclists?

If you had lost the 30 lb overnight, riding the Fuji would seem like a dream, but since the weight loss is gradual, you simply adjust. The Fuji still seems heavy, the CAAD still seems light. A lot of it is perception and false memory - If you had objectively measured, for example, your speed up a given climb for a given power output, before and after weight loss, you'd see that losing the 30 lb made a huge difference, regardless of the bike

Pedaling depends on firing multiple muscles in sequence, and as rubiksoval reminds us, strength is not the limiting factor,

so developing one group at the gym can have those thicker and shorter and limit cadence and overall power.

Track cyclists presumably spend a lot of time riding on the track.

Perhaps you have seen body-builder types with bulging muscles who do not perform well athletically because they have trained to have large muscles,

not to do anything with them.

Body builders who don't do well in cycling, don't because they don't practice cycling. Same reason roadies aren't great at bench pressing.

There are different types of fitness. Having one doesn't give you all the others. You have to work at the ones that are important to you.

Hee, hee:

This article explains pretty well what I was getting at:

https://www.cycling-inform.com/funct...using-machines

Body builders who ride also don't do well cycling (relatively speaking in regards to competition).

Sprinting on the track =/= riding on the road.

Without starting up this whole strength and cycling thing again.
Even on the track for sprinting this sort of build isn't a requirement.
Theo Bos is much less bulky than Robert Forstman and also faster!

Pretty much always somebody who only does one thing does it better than someone who does two. But the point is that body building doesn't make it impossible to ride a bike (we were talking about the idea that your muscles will get so big as to limit your range of motion).

Why do you differentiate the wheels and the bike? Is there really a difference?

BB aren't cyclist, but cyclist can have BB type legs. They just chose to specialize. I like to think of them as the torque cyclist vs horsepower.

Doesn't make it impossible, of course not. But certainly affects your ability to do well. You can go to the gym and workout and still be a fast cyclist. You can be a great runner and still be a fast cyclist. You can be a great soccer player and still be a great cyclist, etc., etc.

Not so much with bodybuilding. It's antithetical to the needs of cycling regarding w/kg and w/cda.

Weight of ones body certainly does affect climbing. Gravity does not care where the weight is located. It is maybe not the biggest factor but a factor none the less.

The lighter bike begs to be ridden harder.

This is true. Strength isn't the limiting factor in most cases. There is a debate going about whether increase strength will make a rider more efficient. I'm not aware of anyone saying it will make a rider less efficient. The people against strength training aren't generally against it because it would be detrimental, but because they feel a rider's time is better spent on other things.
Thicker? Yes, but a significant change to muscle thickness takes a lot of time and dedication. It's not the kind of thing that happens during a 10 week offseason training program. Also, muscles can't get shorter. They are attached to bones at each end. It would be impossible to shorten (or lengthen) a muscle without changing the length of your bones.
All cyclists presumably spend a lot of time riding their bikes. Why are only track riders somehow immune?
Most bodybuilders do just fine athletically. The myth that large muscles make you inflexible and unathletic is just that: a myth. Are pro football players unathletic? Are gymnasts? Furthermore, the idea that lifting weights a couple of times per week will make you resemble a bodybuilder is about as crazy saying that a weekly 50 km ride will turn you into a World Tour cyclist. Those guys spend decades building their physiques, take lots of drugs and have great genetics for it.

Gaining weight (including muscle) can be detrimental for people who are riding up hills and requires more energy to accelerate. Gaining a significant amount of muscle (which, again, doesn't happen by accident) could be detrimental to someone's aerodynamics. This is why most top cyclists, depending on their event, are fairly thin. It has nothing to do with mobility.