The Wattage Thread

[anonymous-user]

okgo said:

Sounds like we have some strong riders in our midst. That is a lot for a crit, must have been a hard one, or you were making it hard

Feeling a bit weak now with a 300w FTP and 1400w sprint. Only little mind

[okgo]

Get that meter checked out mate. Bigger peak than Cav!

[BMWBen]

You chubbies need to start quoting in W/KG

[anonymous-user]

okgo said:

Get that meter checked out mate. Bigger peak than Cav!

lol, fker, Cav peaks at 1600w and holds 1400w for a good while longer than me. He can produce this power after riding tour stages up big hills and lots on km's. I'd be licking trees at the side of the road faced with a third of his days riding lol.

Edited by anonymous-user on Wednesday 18th June 23:45

[okgo]

BMWBen said:

You chubbies need to start quoting in W/KG

When I move to the alps I might, for now though

The only ones who pipe up about w/kg are the ones with no watts and not a lot of kgs

Yonex have a read here - the best he has hit is 1580 and he gets nowhere near that in races http://www.cyclesportmag.com/features/mark-cavendi...

[Fourmotion]

BMWBen said:

You chubbies need to start quoting in W/KG

I resemble that remark.

Managed another 10 miler last night, slightly down on my 343w of Saturday at 338w. But did a 24:5X, so much quicker.

3.8w/kg.

RGambo said:

It should do, as long as it's hollow tech 2. Can you give me model and I'll find out for you.

It's a 2007 Deore XT, which is Hollowtech II. I just re-read your post, ridden twice is probably putting it out of my price range, I was looking for discount over the XT price. Apologies.

[anonymous-user]

okgo said:

When I move to the alps I might, for now though

The only ones who pipe up about w/kg are the ones with no watts and not a lot of kgs

Yonex have a read here - the best he has hit is 1580 and he gets nowhere near that in races http://www.cyclesportmag.com/features/mark-cavendi...

Interesting. Shame i'm old/fat, could've been a contender

[matt-ITR]

okgo said:

The only ones who pipe up about w/kg are the ones with no watts and not a lot of kgs

On the contrary, the only people who quote FTP are those with lots of watts and can't climb
In all seriousness, its horses for course. If you are a time trialist, then W/Kg is irrelevant and for me w/CdA is meaningless.

[okgo]

matt-ITR said:

On the contrary, the only people who quote FTP are those with lots of watts and can't climb
In all seriousness, its horses for course. If you are a time trialist, then W/Kg is irrelevant and for me w/CdA is meaningless.

Even in a lot of road racing here its still largely not a big issue, absolute power is probably the better thing to have for a lot of UK racing (not sure on MTB as obviously its a bit different) but obviously if you can get your weight down as best you can that can only help, but having a 400w FTP at 80kg would be preferable vs having a 300w one at 60kg for most UK racing despite the w/kg being the same.

[matt-ITR]

okgo said:

Even in a lot of road racing here its still largely not a big issue, absolute power is probably the better thing to have for a lot of UK racing (not sure on MTB as obviously its a bit different) but obviously if you can get your weight down as best you can that can only help, but having a 400w FTP at 80kg would be preferable vs having a 300w one at 60kg for most UK racing despite the w/kg being the same.

Yes, I would agree with that. It is why I struggle in road races as they are almost all flat here. Well... that plus my lack of race craft.
Even the races classed as hilly will usually just be a hill finish.

Give me a massive alpine Gran Fondo or Cyclosportive any day!

[fromage]

Its amazing the wattage that some guys put put to even get around flat circuits whilst not even being active.

[Rocksteadyeddie]

fromage said:

Its amazing the wattage that some guys put put to even get around flat circuits whilst not even being active.

Makes me question the accuracy of some of the readings tbh. Unless we've got a load of top end 2nd cats/lower end 1st cats on the thread as yet undiscovered by the road racing scene.

[BMWBen]

So I did a 20 min test yesterday, and I've gone from 314w to 337w. This is after 4 weeks of focusing on threshold - a couple of 2x20s per week or if that hasn't been possible just riding at or just above threshold when I can (with an easy week last week).

Rather than celebrating, I'm worried that my power meter might be broken - that seems like quite a gain in a short space of time... I've also set a new 1 min and 5 min in the last 5 days,

[okgo]

I suspect there are a lot of meters giving odd figures. The reasons for this are varied though, a lot of people don't know what they're doing, they don't zero offset before each ride, they don't torque things to the correct NM thus putting strain gauges out, they swap chainrings without a second thought which ins many cases throws the slope off by a fair margin, they use q rings, or osy rings which inflate things a fair amount etc etc.

Hard to know on yours Ben, this is why sometimes doing time trials is useful, if you gained 20w, you'd normally be able to tell in your time in a 10 mile TT.

As Eddy says, some of the numbers mentioned, a good road racer would be pleased with!

As an aside, I did a handicap race last night, if there are any local to you, I would recommend them as they're a great workout, ride is here, but set some bests for the year in the 15-30 second range. http://www.strava.com/activities/155618362

[BMWBen]

okgo said:

I suspect there are a lot of meters giving odd figures. The reasons for this are varied though, a lot of people don't know what they're doing, they don't zero offset before each ride, they don't torque things to the correct NM thus putting strain gauges out, they swap chainrings without a second thought which ins many cases throws the slope off by a fair margin, they use q rings, or osy rings which inflate things a fair amount etc etc.

Hard to know on yours Ben, this is why sometimes doing time trials is useful, if you gained 20w, you'd normally be able to tell in your time in a 10 mile TT.

As Eddy says, some of the numbers mentioned, a good road racer would be pleased with!

As an aside, I did a handicap race last night, if there are any local to you, I would recommend them as they're a great workout, ride is here, but set some bests for the year in the 15-30 second range. http://www.strava.com/activities/155618362

Well, the reason I'm concerned is because my times over the course I use (bottom end of RP - using the ballet school road lap) weren't any better. I was sporting mudguards and there was a bit of a wind as well yesterday so who knows! I get my powertap back today (this was with a stages) so I can have a double check.

My bike racing season is now ready to start (other sports to take care of during the spring) so I'll be doing some KW club 10's, CP Crits etc over the next few weeks!

[okgo]

Cool, good luck. I can't really get to the club tens now due to work but they're good fun. Looks like I missed my chance to do a 19 on that course on Weds when it was super fast

I'll be at palace for the next few weeks though.

[fromage]

okgo said:

I suspect there are a lot of meters giving odd figures. The reasons for this are varied though, a lot of people don't know what they're doing, they don't zero offset before each ride, they don't torque things to the correct NM thus putting strain gauges out, they swap chainrings without a second thought which ins many cases throws the slope off by a fair margin, they use q rings, or osy rings which inflate things a fair amount etc etc.

Hard to know on yours Ben, this is why sometimes doing time trials is useful, if you gained 20w, you'd normally be able to tell in your time in a 10 mile TT.

As Eddy says, some of the numbers mentioned, a good road racer would be pleased with!

As an aside, I did a handicap race last night, if there are any local to you, I would recommend them as they're a great workout, ride is here, but set some bests for the year in the 15-30 second range. http://www.strava.com/activities/155618362

That is a very tidy 15 sec!! I'm struggling to get anywhere near last years peak figures but seem to be able to hold onto 900-950 for around 15 secs still. I'm still a way down from the end of last year after a proper disaster first half of the year. Have almost given up getting anything out of this season.

[matt-ITR]

okgo said:

they swap chainrings without a second thought which ins many cases throws the slope off by a fair margin, they use q rings, or osy rings which inflate things a fair amount etc etc.

Genuine question, but why would that inflate the figure?
Does it depend on the sampling rate? ie. if it samples on the power spot, the figure is higher?

For power meters that sample several times per revolution, Q-rings shouldn't give an inflated figure, surely?

[anonymous-user]

okgo said:

I suspect there are a lot of meters giving odd figures. The reasons for this are varied though, a lot of people don't know what they're doing, they don't zero offset before each ride, they don't torque things to the correct NM thus putting strain gauges out, they swap chainrings without a second thought which ins many cases throws the slope off by a fair margin, they use q rings, or osy rings which inflate things a fair amount etc etc.

Hard to know on yours Ben, this is why sometimes doing time trials is useful, if you gained 20w, you'd normally be able to tell in your time in a 10 mile TT.

As Eddy says, some of the numbers mentioned, a good road racer would be pleased with!

As an aside, I did a handicap race last night, if there are any local to you, I would recommend them as they're a great workout, ride is here, but set some bests for the year in the 15-30 second range. http://www.strava.com/activities/155618362

I read about the differences in numbers with the q's and always zero offset myself. I've got two Powertaps now and they give comparable readings, I trust the actual trend of the numbers as I can see I am faster/fitter than before I started training properly. Even with the considerable drag of my utterly stty diet I am doing ok. This year was supposed to be TT's but meh, I'm sort of happy just riding to a plan at the moment.

One question I do have, as you'll know, probably, is if I switch to a crank based system for the road bike and use q rings will the way the power meter functions give dramatically different numbers from the hub based systems I have been using for the last couple of years? I don't want to chuck out the data I have as it's repeatable and seems consistent for both good and bad days.

If so, I'll stay with the PT and get a race wheel built. Having said that P2M are apparently pretty good with non round rings?

Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 20th June 14:12

[anonymous-user]

matt-ITR said:

Genuine question, but why would that inflate the figure?
Does it depend on the sampling rate? ie. if it samples on the power spot, the figure is higher?

For power meters that sample several times per revolution, Q-rings shouldn't give an inflated figure, surely?

I think it's down to angular velocity and the way some crank systems function. I can't see the issue with a hub system other than you have to consider drive train losses.