Go Back  Bike Forums > Bike Forums > Road Cycling
Reload this Page >

Power vs. Category

Search
Notices
Road Cycling “It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle.” -- Ernest Hemingway

Power vs. Category

Thread Tools
 
Search this Thread
 
Old 03-25-07 | 07:01 AM
  #26  
Senior Member
20 Anniversary
 
Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 4,609
Likes: 507
From: Albuquerque, NM
Originally Posted by donrhummy
For those of you racing (and with power meters) is it correct for you? Are you placing in the cat that it says you should be?
The purpose of that table was never to predict or correlate racing category. It is meant to be a tool to look at an individual's areas of strength and weakness to make appropriate training adjustments. Andy was disturbed that so many people were misusing it that for a while he removed the category designators, but people kept the older versions in circulation so they were put back. A full explanation of power profiling is here, https://www.cyclingpeakssoftware.com/...11/profile.asp, and to extract two quotes,

"... such category-based values would seem to have limited practical use - after all, the best measure of a rider's competitive ability relative to that of others is their actual race performance, not their power output."

"... the primary comparison would therefore be the rider against themselves, and not (directly) against others. Such information could be then used to help plan an appropriate training program, evaluate the effectiveness thereof, and to possibly identify events where an individual might be expected to achieve the greatest success."
asgelle is offline  
Reply

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are Off
Pingbacks are Off
Refbacks are Off



Contact Us - Archive - Advertising - Cookie Policy - Privacy Statement - Terms of Service -

Copyright © 2026 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. All rights reserved. Use of this site indicates your consent to the Terms of Use.