I_like_cereal

Is this slow or average for a cyclist. I am not a racer, nor do I bike with a group. I am just curious.

BTW the road is not smooth, it is the shoulder of a highway in Portland that has ruts, dips, grates, glass, plastic, rocks and the odd car on the shoulder. Not to mention the curving, sloping, and lack of flat spots to get a run on.

My gear up is usually 39/25 sitting the whole time. I would stand, but being that close to traffic with twitchy people driving makes me a might nervous. I could stand on some of the wider sections.

TIA

Velo Vol 

I don't follow what bearing traffic has on whether you stand or sit.

contango 

Depends if you were going up or down

MikeyBoyAz

+1

down you should do that in half that time... especially out of the saddle.

I_like_cereal

That sound you hear is me smacking my head.

Going up.

I am not worried about down.

Elvo

We're also going to have to see your power output and HR to see where you stand.

I_like_cereal

I have neither. Its just a comfortable pace I'd say around a 68 - 75 cadence. Which is about my norm when I did have a computer to tell me what I was spinning at.

I am not winded nor am I slogging. It's just right there at the edge of I push to hard there goes the lactic acid.

DScott

That's slow.

DScott

No, wait! That's fast!

DScott

Pffft. Average speed means nothing!

MikeyBoyAz

I was under the impression that higher cadence actually reduced lactic acid buildup, so perhaps keep the gear ratio and just pedal faster?

ultraman6970

Dont be that bad with the kid, 11.25 mph is not that bad after all.

merlinextraligh

Either you are f**king fast or your inputs are off.

That works out to right around 4.5 w/kg. If you can do that without really railing it, that suggests an FTP north of 4.5 w/kg.

So either your data is off, or you need to go race.

cato_mcfly

How much do you weigh? At 11.25mph @ 6.5% grade (20 lb bike):

150lb rider = 311W
175lb rider = 352W
200lb rider = 393W

I think that is pretty decent for an 8 minute duration. To put out the same power on the flats (no wind):

200lb @ 393W = 27 mph
175lb @ 352W = 26 mph
150lb @ 311W = 25 mph

I did this @ bikecalculator.com .

rangerdavid

Checked the ride home from work today. 3.2 miles, 1230 feet of climbing, grades from 8%-21%. Hill repeats are limited to one.

merlinextraligh

It doesn't much matter what he weighs. It's stil essentially the same w/kg

chado445510

That's a VAM of 1176m/hr. Very respectable.

cato_mcfly

No expert here, but I would think it would think it would matter. While on a 6.5% grade it is a wash, a smaller grade or flat he'll be going faster if he's bigger and more powerful (described above with flats calculation).

jayp410

At 11.25 mph and 39/25 your cadence would have to be 91 (at least according to an online calculator, which is consistent with my experience). Not saying it couldn't be, but it's a lot different than 70.

urbanknight

Faster than I do it.

I_like_cereal

I weigh 153 - 155

Bike weight north of 18 lbs. Its an old steel jamis 853 steel with light weight wheels 20/24 lacing with generic hubs.

What is a "VAM of 1176m/hr." and why is it respectable?

"That works out to right around 4.5 w/kg. If you can do that without really railing it, that suggests an FTP north of 4.5 w/kg" - What does this mean and what is an FTP?

I pushed a little harder yesterday and I did it in 7 minutes. I was feeling that one at the top, ie I was more winded at the top.

svtmike

How do you know it's a 6.5% grade for the entire length?

ericm979

VAM is vertical ascent. It's a good measure of your climbing power. You can get a slightly higher VAM for the same power output when the road is steeper but for climbs over around 7% , grade does not make that much difference.

3850 ft/hr (sorry but I think in sae units for this) for 8 minutes is not bad. It's roughly what a decent cat 4 racer who's a reasonably good but not great climber here in NorCal can do. The good cat 1/2/3 guys here are in the 4500 ft/hr range for a 20 minute climb. Obviously one can go faster for shorter times. If you did it in exactly 7 minutes, and it's really an average 6.5% grade and 1.5 miles, that'd be 4400 ft/hr. Which is well into decent local racer territory.

As a comparison, in the pro ranks, 6000 ft/hr for 30 minutes makes one a stellar climber (who is possibly on drugs, but that's another issue). The autobus (the non-climbers just trying to finish the stage inside the time limit) do around 4000 ft/hr for that time period.

Functional Threshold Power is the power you can average for an hour long full effort time trial. Larger riders obviously make more power, but climbing speed is determined by power/weight ratio, not by absolute power. Weight is already taken into account in the metric.

But unless you have carefully measured the grade, time, and the distance, chances are its not so awesome. Like if you're getting the grade from a sign- that's the max grade on the hill, not the average, which could be much lower.

Homebrew01

merlinextraligh

The 7 minutes works out to 12.85 mph, and 5.3 w/kg. You can produce power above FTP for 7 minutes, so if we assume it was a full on effort, and take 92% ( essentially a CTS field test) that gives an FTP of 4.91 w/kg.

I think that it would be pretty rare to find in someone not training hard to race anywhere close to that. On the Coggan Allen chart (which admittedly has limitations) that puts the OP toward the top of a Cat 1 racer, almost domestic pro.

I tend to believe its more likely that there are some problems with the data assumptions.