I just spotted this in an article on the team web site for Svein Tuft winner of the US Open last weekend. He averaged 415W for the last hour of the US Open Champs this weekend: http://www.symmetricscycling.com/race/2007/04_07_07.aspx Pretty incredible!
Wonder if that is in the download or just from his powercontrol. The powercontrol doesn't average zeroes. Either way, it's impressive. Guess we know what his threshold is now though. ;-) Hunter
Great ride. Anybody know how big he is? I'd like to borrow his SRM and see what it shows my threshold is.
from the symetrics page... Name: Svein Tuft Date of Birth: May 9, 1977 Height: 175 cm Weight (In Season): 77 kg Currently Resides: Langley, British Columbia ~5.4 W/kg FTP
I can guarentee that nobody in the pro peleton trains like Tuft. For the last couple of years his winter training has consisted primarily of Ultimate fighting. (Yes I am serious) Although this year he did spend some time on the track. Maybe that is why he has had a better spring.
too right. although bear in mind this is the last hour of a 4 hr race. Most people do a totally fresh hour after a few days rest (or 20 min x 0.95) to get FTP.....and i reckon if you want your FTP to be a certain number you can devise a test to get to there. it does surprise me though that there are so many forum members with FTP's above 4 w/kg though......but reading the posts here it seems lots of guys tend to be quite old, or in the lower categories.
And from what was said on TV and in the writeups, a very hard race at that. It was just around 50 people that actually finished the race.
415 watts is a very strong ride for the last hour of the US Open. But I wouldn't take that number as Tuft's FT power, since as was stated earlier he was not recovered before the 1 hour effort. Over on BTR it was estimated that Tuft averaged 6.8 watts/kilo at Redlands for around 10 minutes....so I'm quite confident that his FT is at 5.4 watts/kilo or above. Moral of the story--Sven Tuft is one badass powerful horse on the bike.
I didn't realize he was so burley. 415 w and 5.4 w/kg makes sense. I agree his FTP would probably be somewhat higher as well.
wow-for me to have a 5.4w/kg ftp I'd need to average 363 watts. I dont think thats coming anytime in the near future considering I can only hold 363 for about 4 minutes-lol! But hey-I could hang with Tuft for about 2 miles....... I am always amazed at the power of the true [email protected]$$es that race bikes!!
Hey, watch who you're calling "quite old"! FWIW, when I was in my mid-20's I could sustain 5.2 W/kg for 1 h (75 min, actually). To only be able to generate 4.4 W/kg now (at age 48, and at the same body mass) is therefore a significant (but completely expected) fall off.
4.4 w/kg is not to be sneezed at either And I'll bet you aren't doing anywhere near the same volume of training, couple with a serious level of FAATSS! After 20 years of sedentary lifestyle followed by 3 years of training I am currently at around 4.5 w/kg.
i don't believe his thershold is 5.4, its probably more around 6 or higher, if he can do 6.8 for 10mins at the redlands prologue his FTP isn't going to be too far from that. I'm at 5.6 now and i'm still not that competitive on the US circuit.
He also did a 30km time trial he did in 33:39 at Tour of Cuba with an average speed of 53.5km/hr: http://www.symmetricscycling.com/race/2007/02_23_07.aspx I wonder what that would imply in terms of FTP? Hard to tell probably without knowing the course.
It's most definatly not all about the FT. AWC is very very important, not to mention the "bike racing tactics" thing. Also, I believe it has something to do with raw power output....Sven is a bigger guy in the peloton at 77Kg's, so for him to put out 5.5 watts/kilo for an hour is a LOT of power in comparison to a 65 Kg rider. If the two riders punch a similar size hole in the air (Sven is only 5'10'' tall despite his weight), 425 watts is going to get you going a lot faster for the 77 Kg rider than 360 watts will for the 65 Kg rider in every condition except a steep climb. As for 5.6 watts/kilo not being enough....you've got the talent, with some experience I'll bet you are thinking otherwise. Good luck racing this year, and I hope I don't see you in a TT.
