How many watts?

Hi Everyone,

I've been playing with a few of the online calculators and it is both
amusing and informative. But it all boils down to me making wild
assumptions about my power output.

There are no flat and/or windless roads around here for me to do any
quantitative testing for sustainable speed, etc.

So just to help me calibrate myself, what are "normal" expected values
for sustainable watts for riders of various sizes and levels
conditiong? I am 193cm (6'3") and 104 kg (229 lbs) and I think my
maintainable output in watts is 260. Does that sound reasonable for
someone who rides several times per week?

Thanks!

Joseph

joseph santanie wrote:

I am 193cm (6'3") and 104 kg (229 lbs) and I think my
maintainable output in watts is 260. Does that sound reasonable
for someone who rides several times per week?

Sounds pretty high to me. I'd guess more like 150 watts.

Art "SWAG" Harris

wrote:

So just to help me calibrate myself, what are "normal" expected values
for sustainable watts for riders of various sizes and levels
conditiong? I am 193cm (6'3") and 104 kg (229 lbs) and I think my
maintainable output in watts is 260. Does that sound reasonable for
someone who rides several times per week?

Depends what you mean by maintainable. For 40 minutes, yes. All day,
not unless you're a professional racing cyclist - 150W is more
realistic. 20mph on a racing bike requires 180-200W.

If there are not any flat roads, you then have hilly roads? If you
have a hill that takes you more than about ten minutes you should be
able to get the elevation of that road somehow. Then take your
distance and time and plug it into analyticcycling.com



260 watts/104kg = 2.5watts per kilogram.

Somewhere between great for someone who is untrained and poor for
someone who trains a lot.

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

wrote:
Hi Everyone,

I've been playing with a few of the online calculators and it is both
amusing and informative. But it all boils down to me making wild
assumptions about my power output.

There are no flat and/or windless roads around here for me to do any
quantitative testing for sustainable speed, etc.

So just to help me calibrate myself, what are "normal" expected values
for sustainable watts for riders of various sizes and levels
conditiong? I am 193cm (6'3") and 104 kg (229 lbs) and I think my
maintainable output in watts is 260. Does that sound reasonable for
someone who rides several times per week?

Thanks!

Joseph


This could help:
http://www.thebikeage.com/images/pprof.gif

Bjarne Riis averaged 269 Watts when won the Amstel Gold Race in 1997.
This was 6+ hours race (226 km)
http://www.thebikeage.com/images/SRManriis.png

You could find out who in your area / network has a computrainer or
equivalent and borrow it (or buy one) It will show your power output
as you ride and you could test this over various terrains and distances.

try one run upwind and one downwind or 2 upwind and 2 ....

Interesting data, but the average speed (35 kph) and cadence (71) seem
low for a pro race.
Jeff

Jeff wrote:
Interesting data, but the average speed (35 kph) and cadence (71) seem
low for a pro race.

The summary data from that graphic include warm-up and cool-down: his
average speed for the race itself was about 41 km/h. His cadence during
the race was about 71 rpm, which doesn't seem low to me at all.

Average wattage for that file (as for most pro races) can be misleading.
The first half of that race was done at quite moderate power while the
last half was pretty brutal. If you're familiar with the difference
between mean and normalized power, you may be interested in this graphic
that traces Riis' one-hour normalized power output:
http://anonymous.coward.free.fr/temp/amstel97-np.png

As an aside, here is a graphic that shows Riis' normalized power over
different periods of time. It appears that during that race his
sustainable power was around 400 watts.
http://anonymous.coward.free.fr/temp/amstel97-npmax.png

Robert Chung wrote:
Jeff wrote:
Interesting data, but the average speed (35 kph) and cadence (71) seem
low for a pro race.

The summary data from that graphic include warm-up and cool-down: his
average speed for the race itself was about 41 km/h. His cadence during
the race was about 71 rpm, which doesn't seem low to me at all.

Average wattage for that file (as for most pro races) can be misleading.
The first half of that race was done at quite moderate power while the
last half was pretty brutal. If you're familiar with the difference
between mean and normalized power, you may be interested in this graphic
that traces Riis' one-hour normalized power output:
http://anonymous.coward.free.fr/temp/amstel97-np.png

As an aside, here is a graphic that shows Riis' normalized power over
different periods of time. It appears that during that race his
sustainable power was around 400 watts.
http://anonymous.coward.free.fr/temp/amstel97-npmax.png

Clarification: the data file includes a small amount of what appears to be
warm-up, but the last part of the file appears to have been marred by a
malfunctioning speed indicator. The file itself is 6:23 long and appears
to show 226 worth of racing, but we know the 1997 race was 258 km long and
Riis' winning time was 6:11:19. That's an average of 41.7 km/h. The 1997
race was the last one that started in Heerlen; in 1998 the start was moved
to Maastricht, and average speeds over the different course dropped below
39 km/h.