Highest power output?? - Page 2

Thank you for that link

Thats very strong

RapDaddyO, I've seen a lot of your insightful and knowledgeable posts, but this is the first time I think I've seen your numbers, which are impressive regardless of your age. I have to assume you haven't raced much with that kind of power, otherwise you would be at LEAST a Cat III. You could ride away from the Cat IV peloton putting out that kind of wattage, and that's here in SoCal! Do you realize they pretty much match up with the Cat I who posted from Ohio who is probably less than half your age? I guess the good news for me is that I'll be 37 next year, and they give me hope for many more years of improvement...sounds like I'll need it. Boy, power certainly is the measurement of truth, isn't it? Of course, it doesn't account for racing skills though.

For reference, I'm a 2nd year Cat IV in SoCal (whose lower power numbers will remain unpublished after seeing yours) who is confident in seeing some podiums next year. If you come to SoCal for some Cat IV races, please let us know which ones in advance so we can look out for you!!! I think I'll go ahead and make those my 'B' races. I'll get my anaerobic interval work done trying to stay in your draft when you breakaway.

As far as the Masters categories go, as I'm sure you know that's a whole other deal. With guys like Thurlow Rogers racing 3 or 4 crits a day on the weekends and going in often long and sometimes solo breakaways in all of them, and consistently placing top 10 (even in the Pro 1/2/3s), there are definitely VERY strong guys out there that ain't so young. Then again, I think he won the Road Race for his category (45-49) at the World Cup this year and he's also a retired pro like Wayne Stetina.

Suffice it to say I don't think you will have any problem upgrading to Cat III. I'd love to know more about your background. I'm hoping you didn't just hop on your back in March at 62; that would be rather humbling.

Cheers,

Ethan

I am new to the world of Power. What would interest me is how peoples figure relate to reality. If they gave the data and then gave a bit of information about themselves it would make the data a bit more clear. i.e 40k time.

I have just had a MAP test done and the results were 363w and 4.8w/kg. Now I am not sure if this is good or bad, I think not too good, but in the season I have done a 55 min 25 mile (40 k) and a 20:47 10 mile.

I now have a powertap that will allow me to maintain data over the season, but currently having one test doesn't really tell me too much.

Hey Ethan, thanks for the note. No, I didn't get on a bike for the first time in March. I used to race (and train) pretty seriously back in the early 1970s. But, then life and children took priority and it's taken awhile until I could train properly again. Where do you live in SoCal? I will be down there from time to time next year. Maybe we can go for a ride? I came down last summer and went for a ride with OCRoadie, but my glutes were killing me and I wasn't able to push him on the climbs. I hope to do a little better next time. As to the SoCal races, I'll probably try to run with the Masters and, yes, I know they are fast. BTW, you ought to come up here and ride in the Nelson's Landing race at the end of January. It's a pretty challenging course.

Paul

I have been powerlifting for years, and should be able to make more power than I do. Do you think because I am a newbee that it will take a while to retrain the legs to move in circles, or do I have all I am gonna get?

You can probably make plenty of power for short durations. Most of us can. Most of us can ride at LA's TT power, we just can't ride at that power for an hour. If you mean "sustainable" power, that is completely independent of your leg strength (e.g., how much weight you can handle with leg presses). And, that type of power is absolutely "trainable." It's a simple matter of stressing your body through intervals sufficiently to trick it into adaptation, followed by rest and recovery to give the body a chance to do its thing. VO2MAX can be increased by only a limited amount for most of us, but lactate threshold and functional threshold (1 hr power) can be increased very substantially and for a very long period of time (e.g., years). The basic misconception about strength and cycling is that cycling is really not a strength discipline. Cycling is almost all about endurance and almost not at all about strength in the traditional definition of strength (e.g., how much weight one can handle in a given exercise in the gym).

First off, the leg press is for people too lazy to squat. I am only interested in going fast for about a minute and as few seconds as possible. I spent too many years in the gym to give up lifting. To make the change to an endurance athlete now would take too long, and I am not interested in it any hoo. I like the track stuff. I look at the numbers of the top road sprinters, and even though they are on the bike for so many hours they still have high peak power(1500+) Do you think the ability to translate gym power to functional power on the bike simply takes time . I can keep the power over 1000 for 20+ seconds seated, but I can only make 1300+ when I am standing and flailing away . I would be very happy to get my peak to yours. Thanks BP

Read back up through the thread to some of the links that were posted. There are some very helpful comparison tools out there, whereas the small sampling of stats you'll see here are less useful as a means of comparison.

That just shows my naivete when it comes to weight work. I don't do it.

First, I have never ridden track and have never been particularly interested in developing really short term power. So, you might want to scan the track racing threads for the trackie workouts on the bike and in the gym. Second, I attain a lot of my peak power with cadence because I don't think I actually have a lot of leg strength. When I first began cycling, I rode with a really good rider in Boston (3x Olympic road team member and 5x World Championships team member). He got me going on high cadence drills, regularly >150rpm for ~1 min. This particular guy can still pedal faster than the upper limit of most bike computers (200rpm). You're probably trying to make max power at low cadences, which I think is quite different. Finally, the flailing is not very effective, at least for me. I am so focused on turnover that I don't have time to flail. But, maybe if I had a lot of upper body strength I might use it more and throw my bike around more. I don't know because I never had great upper body strength.

Thank you, I have no problem with high cadence either, 170-180 no problem. I will jsut keep at it. Thanks again .

Make sure your boots are pulled up high to avoid the BS.

I have a PT SL. This may sound dumb, but without guessing how do you figure the averages That 5 min power is awsome BTW

Bill,

For some reason I have the sinking feeling that you're not downloading your data for each workout, as you really should. If you are, then finding your personal best power for any given duration is fairly easy to do using either the CyclingPeaks or SRM software...it's been ages since I've used the Cyclops/PowerTap software, and don't know whether their current offering is readily capable of doing this for you or not.

For those that just *can't* wait, it is available now, hidden in a sneak peak of what sounds like a great book soon to be released!

http://www.bicyclepowermeters.com/Er...ng_English.pdf

Scott