Beebo
Firm and Fruity
- Location
- Hexleybeef
Anyway everyone knows the plural of goose is goosesExcellent glad I feed your pet gripe you crack on and have a nice day and watch out for the geese.
How much difference does a lightweight bike really make.
- Thread starter markharry66
- Start date
Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.
Rob3rt
Man or Moose!
- Location
- Manchester
Without reading the article (I seem to recall something similar maybe the same thing posted on another forum recently anyway) I will comment only in a general sense.
Short duration power comes and goes at a much faster rate than long duration power, quite fitting really!
What I mean by this is, you could spend months training only to see a small overall increase in your FTP (60 minute power output, for the sake of this discussion, this definition is debated elsewhere) yet in a matter of weeks you could add a large amount of power to your 1-5 minute power output.
But, when you lay off, the FTP value will not decrease much, the 1-5 minute power will plummet.
Power over short durations is also far more fickle with regards to fatigue, this is why tapering and getting your taper right matters much more for people taking part in short duration and explosive events.
As an example, last year, in a 6 month long time trial season my FTP increased by about 40W. In 4 weeks I increased my 3 minute power by about 100W in preparation for the hill climb season. When I rested over winter (not total rest, but a lot less focussed in how I was riding and training), my FTP didn't decrease at all (I was a little surprised myself, it didn't budge), my 3 minute power and thus ability to ride up short steep climbs suffered massively.
Short duration power comes and goes at a much faster rate than long duration power, quite fitting really!
What I mean by this is, you could spend months training only to see a small overall increase in your FTP (60 minute power output, for the sake of this discussion, this definition is debated elsewhere) yet in a matter of weeks you could add a large amount of power to your 1-5 minute power output.
But, when you lay off, the FTP value will not decrease much, the 1-5 minute power will plummet.
Power over short durations is also far more fickle with regards to fatigue, this is why tapering and getting your taper right matters much more for people taking part in short duration and explosive events.
As an example, last year, in a 6 month long time trial season my FTP increased by about 40W. In 4 weeks I increased my 3 minute power by about 100W in preparation for the hill climb season. When I rested over winter (not total rest, but a lot less focussed in how I was riding and training), my FTP didn't decrease at all (I was a little surprised myself, it didn't budge), my 3 minute power and thus ability to ride up short steep climbs suffered massively.
Last edited:
nickyboy
Norven Mankey
- Location
- You want hills? We got hills
"can" is such a tricky word to tie down
jdtate101
Ex-Fatman
- Location
- Boring Birmingham
I've owned both expensive and cheap bikes. The main thing that makes the difference is stiffness, not weight. Lets be honest the kg difference between a top end and low/middle range bike is probably 2-3kg, most of us carry a lot more in terms of excess body fat, so really bike weight is not that important. The ability to transfer that power to the road is important and cheaper frames just don't do as good a job. However one caveat to the weight statement would be wheel weight, which does make a huge difference in climbing, due to the rotational weight. Climbing on a 1900g wheelset is a vastly different experience from climbing on a 1400g set.
nickyboy
Norven Mankey
- Location
- You want hills? We got hills
Oh dear, I was wondering when we'd get onto rotational weight. Whether the weight is in the wheels or elsewhere has no impact on climbing. It has a TINY impact on acceleration. I'm sure it feels different to you, but the physics doesn't back it up.
I do agree on the stiffness (ooer missus) however. On short power climbs, it seems that the lack of flex in the frame helps. On long climbs, not really
Peter Armstrong
Über Member
I only just learnt this the other day reading up on the subject, I can confirm its true!
Thomk
Guru
- Location
- Warwickshire
Spot the scary typo
Thomk
Guru
- Location
- Warwickshire
I use 2 bikes for commuting with about 4kg difference. There is a 2mph difference but much of that is probably tyres and wheels.
Dogtrousers
Kilometre nibbler
You definitely need a new bike. Get a great big Dutch shopping bike and ride that up and down the Surrey hills for a couple of months. After that, the next time you ride your Triban 5 up Box hill your mate will be toast.
Hmmmmm.......not sure about this. I may have missed your meaning entirely. Relating it to running: marathon runners taper according to a strict regime starting at least 2 weeks before the event. Sprinters don't.
Rob3rt
Man or Moose!
- Location
- Manchester
Marathon runners and sprinters taper differently! Additionally, running and cycling are different sports. Another thing to consider is the number of events each type of athlete will do per season.
Rob3rt
Man or Moose!
- Location
- Manchester
It is more fickle since the short duration performance will vary a lot more over a shorter period of time. Thus the balance between short term and long term stress is harder to manage and get your timings right in order to peak on the right day.
If you consider cycling, not running, for simplicity and since you can measure performance using methods that are objective (power output). If you taper for say a 12 hour TT, if you get it a few days wrong or the balance of intensity to volume is not quite optimal, you may lose (or better put fail to realise?) a handful of watts (relative to your absolute potential peak power) since long duration power decays slowly, if you are a sprinter or pursuit rider, you may end up tens of watts down as short duration power decays quickly, relative to long duration power. Now not only is the absolute power loss potentially larger but over the duration of the event, will have a more severe outcome on the result as the margins in the event are vastly different.
Similarly if you don't taper enough, you are likely to experience greater losses both absolute and relative in shorter duration efforts.
Last edited:
Shut Up Legs
Down Under Member
You forgot loos (aka dunnies, aka Johns, aka... well you get the point)
. As for the topic, how much is much? I found that my road bike is definitely easier to ride up mountains than my touring bike, even though I love riding the latter and have done many, many happy miles on it. Each bike has its pros and cons, but 7kg (the difference in weight between my 2 bikes) does make a difference when riding up hills.OK, thanks for that. That is clearer: a poor tapering for a power athlete is proportionately more important than a poor tapering for an endurance athlete (I can't see any way it could ever be worse in absolute terms). However, as counter to that, the tapering for a power athlete is disproportionately shorter and more straightforward than for an endurance athlete, excluding non-tapering issues such as diet.
I don't think we were in dispute here, so much as misunderstanding each other.
