Watts produced by a trained cyclist

Derk said:

Hi,

Yesterday I did a 60 km ride with a friend of mine, whose cycling
perormance was tested some time ago in a lab. His max output was over
400 Watts and I can assure you I had a hard time keeping his rear
wheel. More now than in summer, because it was still freezing
yesterday. I wondered in what category he is, given th efact that he
produces 400 watts. Could anyone tell me if this is a very good score
or not? His heartrhythm in rest is 29 bpm btw, while mine is 44 bpm.

He's a freak. Avoid him.

:-D

Bill "if you can't beat 'em, shun 'em" S.

Derk said:

Hi,

Yesterday I did a 60 km ride with a friend of mine, whose cycling perormance
was tested some time ago in a lab. His max output was over 400 Watts and I
can assure you I had a hard time keeping his rear wheel. More now than in
summer, because it was still freezing yesterday. I wondered in what
category he is, given th efact that he produces 400 watts. Could anyone
tell me if this is a very good score or not? His heartrhythm in rest is 29
bpm btw, while mine is 44 bpm.

Greets, Derk

Sounds like he's in pretty good shape. How much power did he average
for one minute or one hour? Long term power is more important for
maintaining speed.

FWIW: Sam Whittingham averaged around 275 watts for one hour when he
was trying to set the HPV hour record. Here's the writeup:
http://www.recumbents.com/mars/pages/lib/libtexas.html

Jeff

Derk said:

Hi,

Yesterday I did a 60 km ride with a friend of mine, whose cycling perormance
was tested some time ago in a lab. His max output was over 400 Watts and I
can assure you I had a hard time keeping his rear wheel. More now than in
summer, because it was still freezing yesterday. I wondered in what
category he is, given th efact that he produces 400 watts. Could anyone
tell me if this is a very good score or not? His heartrhythm in rest is 29
bpm btw, while mine is 44 bpm.

Greets, Derk

Max output, what method was used (SMA?)? Usually max output doesn't mean
much. What counts is the power he can produce over a longer period. If
this is 400 Watt, then that's is a lot.

Lou
--
Posted by news://news.nb.nu

Derk said:

Hi,

Yesterday I did a 60 km ride with a friend of mine, whose cycling perormance
was tested some time ago in a lab. His max output was over 400 Watts and I
can assure you I had a hard time keeping his rear wheel. More now than in
summer, because it was still freezing yesterday. I wondered in what
category he is, given th efact that he produces 400 watts. Could anyone
tell me if this is a very good score or not? His heartrhythm in rest is 29
bpm btw, while mine is 44 bpm.

400W over a 25-mile time trial is elite category. It would get a time
well under the hour.

On Mon, 16 Jan 2006 19:14:10 +0100, Derk <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Hi,

Yesterday I did a 60 km ride with a friend of mine, whose cycling perormance
was tested some time ago in a lab. His max output was over 400 Watts and I
can assure you I had a hard time keeping his rear wheel. More now than in
summer, because it was still freezing yesterday. I wondered in what
category he is, given th efact that he produces 400 watts. Could anyone
tell me if this is a very good score or not? His heartrhythm in rest is 29
bpm btw, while mine is 44 bpm.

Does he have a copy of To Serve Man[1] in his bookcase[2]? Your stats
are within the range for a well-trained athlete. His are off the end
of the bell curve.

[1] The one that's not in any known language for thsi planet.

[2] We won'r discuss the fact that there's a copy of the locally
produced version of this tome in my kitchen.
--
Typoes are a feature, not a bug.
Some gardening required to reply via email.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.

Derk said:

Hi,

Yesterday I did a 60 km ride with a friend of mine, whose cycling perormance
was tested some time ago in a lab. His max output was over 400 Watts and I
can assure you I had a hard time keeping his rear wheel. More now than in
summer, because it was still freezing yesterday. I wondered in what
category he is, given th efact that he produces 400 watts. Could anyone
tell me if this is a very good score or not? His heartrhythm in rest is 29
bpm btw, while mine is 44 bpm.

A figure I've heard quoted is that Chris Boardman could average 442
watts for an hour. That's a different ball game to peaking at over 400,
unless it was a very flat peak.

Both of you may need to explain that you're fit, not dyeing, if you end
up in hospital attached to a heart monitor.

--
JimP
--
"We don't have a plan, so nothing can go wrong" - Spike Milligan

Derk said:

Yesterday I did a 60 km ride with a friend of mine, whose cycling perormance
was tested some time ago in a lab. His max output was over 400 Watts and I
can assure you I had a hard time keeping his rear wheel. More now than in
summer, because it was still freezing yesterday. I wondered in what
category he is, given th efact that he produces 400 watts. Could anyone
tell me if this is a very good score or not? His heartrhythm in rest is 29
bpm btw, while mine is 44 bpm.

I'm assuming that the 400 watts was produced in a lactate threshold
test, which basically means starting from some low intensity and then
increasing for example 20 watts every two minutes or so, until you can't
continue anymore. 400 watts is not his maximum power output - almost
anybody can produce such wattage for some time.

400 W is a typical result for a weekend warrior, I'd guess. If he's a
small rider it's very good.

-as

Lou Holtman said:

Max output, what method was used (SMA?)?

No idea.

Quoted message said:

What counts is the power he can produce over a longer period. If
this is 400 Watt, then that's is a lot.

It was over a longer period. The people who examined him said they were
impressed and told him they don't see this that often. He told me this
matter of factly, he's not the person to brag about something.

As a matter of fact, he told me the story, since they send him to a
cardiologist, because of the 29 bpm heartrate at rest. It seems to be
normal for him, since untrained he had a 40 bpm heartrate.......

My 44 bpm heartrate is at rest when I'm still in bed btw. When I was
severely overtrained 2 years ago, I also had a 30 bpm heartrate. I found it
a scary feeling.

Greetings, Derk

Zog The Undeniable said:

400W over a 25-mile time trial is elite category. It would get a time
well under the hour.

He is an "A amateur" here, but since I'm not a person for clubs I have no
idea what this means exactly. I found out early in life that I shouldn't
join clubs, since I don't want to do anything I HAVE to do.....(I know it's
not normal) :-)

Greetings, Derk

Sorni said:

He's a freak. Avoid him.

It wasn't good for my ego, I'll tell you that: I had a hard time brething
while keeping his rear wheel and he was still talking to me. From time to
time he would do a small interval: we were then going 45 km/h for some
time. Outside temp was around freezing.

Greetings, Derk

Jim Price said:

A figure I've heard quoted is that Chris Boardman could average 442
watts for an hour. That's a different ball game to peaking at over 400,
unless it was a very flat peak.

He did this for a longer period of time. I know he's an "A amateur" rider
and he represents his club in national time trial championships.

Quoted message said:

Both of you may need to explain that you're fit, not dyeing, if you end
up in hospital attached to a heart monitor.

Life is a fatal disease anyway and I prefer to die "in the saddle" to ending
up alone in an old people's home.

Greetings, Derk

JeffWills said:

Sounds like he's in pretty good shape. How much power did he average
for one minute or one hour? Long term power is more important for
maintaining speed.

I only know it was during a longer period of time and the people who
examined him were impressed. I could have told them that before they tested
him. To give you an example: I did a 55 km trip today with a 30 km/h
average. The cycle tracks had frosty patches and a very cold easterly wind
was blowing. I always thought I was in pretty good shape, but I'm a sorry
excuse for a cyclist compared to him.

Gr, Derk

Derk said:

Hi,

Yesterday I did a 60 km ride with a friend of mine, whose cycling perormance
was tested some time ago in a lab. His max output was over 400 Watts and I
can assure you I had a hard time keeping his rear wheel. More now than in
summer, because it was still freezing yesterday. I wondered in what
category he is, given th efact that he produces 400 watts. Could anyone
tell me if this is a very good score or not? His heartrhythm in rest is 29
bpm btw, while mine is 44 bpm.

Greets, Derk

You are an animal, he is a monster.

Joseph

Derk said:

I wondered in what
category he is, given th efact that he produces 400 watts.

Since climbing performance is usually vital for a road racer, it is
usually expressed as power/weight or W/kg. Just as an example, *if* he
weighs around 70kg and can put 400 watts to the pedals for 5min, then
his power ratio is 5.7W/kg... which would make him probably good enough
for Cat1 or 2 level in the US. If he can sustain that for 20min (FT),
then he is might be strong enough to turn pro.

http://www.cyclingpeakssoftware.com/images/powerprofile_v4.gif

Derk said:

Hi,

Yesterday I did a 60 km ride with a friend of mine, whose cycling perormance
was tested some time ago in a lab. His max output was over 400 Watts and I
can assure you I had a hard time keeping his rear wheel. More now than in
summer, because it was still freezing yesterday. I wondered in what
category he is, given th efact that he produces 400 watts. Could anyone
tell me if this is a very good score or not? His heartrhythm in rest is 29
bpm btw, while mine is 44 bpm.

It has been reported that Mr. Armstrong produced 700-750 watts when
climbing hard for periods of 10+ minutes.

--
Tom Sherman - Fox River Valley

Johnny Sunset said:

Quoted message said:

It has been reported that Mr. Armstrong produced 700-750 watts when
climbing hard for periods of 10+ minutes.

Where? There's most likely a lot of spin about Armstrong's numbers --
some of it designed to confuse competitors. However, just about
everyone
would agree that his functional threshold power is somewhere between
400 and 500 watts. Even if you take the high-end - a wildly optimistic

estimation of 10min power vs. threshold power, would be 115%. That
wouldn't even get him to 600, let alone 700.

--jens

Johnny Sunset said:

It has been reported that Mr. Armstrong produced 700-750 watts when
climbing hard for periods of 10+ minutes.

Source of this info? Seems unlikely... I'd believe 500-550 for 10
minutes.

Ron Ruff said:

Quoted message said:

It has been reported that Mr. Armstrong produced 700-750 watts when
climbing hard for periods of 10+ minutes.

Quoted message said:

Source of this info? Seems unlikely... I'd believe 500-550 for 10
minutes.

Consider that a steam iron or a two slot toaster run about 1000W and
that this would be enough to heat a rim smoking hot, which we do when
descending 10% grades at 20mph, just to put power into palpable
perspective. Try riding up a 10% grade at 20mph.

Of course we can compute how fast 750W will propel a 180lb rider +
bicycle up a 10% grade. At 746 Watts = 1 HP = 550 ft-lb/sec with a
180 lb load = 3 ft/sec vertical which is the same as 20.83 mph on 10%
grade. I don't believe Lance rides that fast up a 10% grade.

Jobst Brandt

See this link, look at the tables and you'll get an idea of how much power
Lance can put out.
There is a reason he didn't attempt the hour record.... he wasn't fast
enough

http://www.cyclingpeakssoftware.com/profile.html

----- Original Message -----
From: <[email hidden]>
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.tech
Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2006 4:43 PM
Subject: Re: Watts produced by a trained cyclist

Quoted message said:

Ron Ruff said:

Quoted message said:

It has been reported that Mr. Armstrong produced 700-750 watts when
climbing hard for periods of 10+ minutes.

Quoted message said:

Source of this info? Seems unlikely... I'd believe 500-550 for 10
minutes.

Consider that a steam iron or a two slot toaster run about 1000W and
that this would be enough to heat a rim smoking hot, which we do when
descending 10% grades at 20mph, just to put power into palpable
perspective. Try riding up a 10% grade at 20mph.

Of course we can compute how fast 750W will propel a 180lb rider +
bicycle up a 10% grade. At 746 Watts = 1 HP = 550 ft-lb/sec with a
180 lb load = 3 ft/sec vertical which is the same as 20.83 mph on 10%
grade. I don't believe Lance rides that fast up a 10% grade.

Jobst Brandt