Watt averages for an hour? What's good?

[grodriguez4321]

Hey guys, I'm a cat 3 road racer, but I do mountainbike and stuff too.
The other day I did a 25 mile computrainer time trial. I did it in a time of 1:07:50ish (My rear wheel flatted and I fell out of rhythm so I think I can break 1:05 next time)
Now here's my question, my average watts for that ride was 286. I weigh about 155 lbs. (70.3kg) I feel like I could have had closer to 300 but like i said, getting off the bike for 2 minutes threw me out of rhythm. How good was that average?

 

[daveryanwyoming]

Well if you assume the CT was accurate (which isn't a given especially if your rear tire is losing air during the ride and the press on force is decreasing). Then look at your watts per kg or ~ 4 w/kg for an hour. Definitely not bad but for a Cat 3 racer it's pretty much middle of the road or less.

Or you could see where you stack up on Andy Coggan's power profiling chart but he'd be the first to tell you that the category labels are just illustrations of the range between totally untrained and world records for various durations and shouldn't taken too literally as it takes a lot more than pure power to race effectively, some folks get by with less raw power, some folks need a lot more race effectively:



[edit] Hmmmmm, that's not Andy's original chart and has been shifted a bit. Google 'Coggan Power Profile' or take a look at the original by Googling 'Power411' and read the piece on power profiling.

 

[quenya]

286 watts is enough to go under an hour in a 40 km (25 mile) TT if you are reasonably aero. I did a 54:54 40 km on a little less than that.

 

[swampy1970]

290 to 300 watts is about 25mph on a road bike for most folk - and that's what your computrainer is probably set up for.

Pacing is key - specifically, not setting off at warp speed. Ease into the effort for the first minute and try not to hit 300 watts even at the very start. It's frustratingly hard to keep the adrenaline under control - but it's something you need to do.