What's your maximum horse power?

[Rob3rt]

I'm a cyclist not an athlete, therefore have never bothered to assess my wattage as I don't see riding as training.

Neither do I, I see riding as riding, training as training and racing as racing!

 

[Cyclist33]

I just see it as riding, if I wanted to be competitive I'd enter a pub quiz!

 

[GrasB]

... see I view my self as an athlete who happens to ride a bike. So yeah I'll get all obsessive about all this stuff but that's my way. It's equally acceptable not to give a flying one about it all as well.

 

[VamP]

Rather useless, but since the thread is here, I had a look at my data and the power I can hold for varying durations returns the following.

Duration - Power (W) - Horsepower (based on your OP)
1s = 981W = 1.31
10s = 840W = 1.12
30s = 605W = 0.81
1 min = 500W = 0.67
5 min = 390W = 0.52
20 min = 325W = 0.43
60 min = 308W = 0.41

I am a weak sprinter!

There's an understatement!

Your profile is really stacked in favour of the longer durations - I guess that's why you TT.

My FTP is woeful compared to yours, but my 5 min and shorter durations are all better. And I am a terrible sprinter.

I wonder if that could be because you haven't tested your sprint power correctly?

 

[GrasB]

There's an understatement!

Your profile is really stacked in favour of the longer durations - I guess that's why you TT.

My FTP is woeful compared to yours, but my 5 min and shorter durations are all better. And I am a terrible sprinter.

I wonder if that could be because you haven't tested your sprint power correctly?

It's not just watts but also w/kg (PWR) - If I look at PWR profiling I'm not great at short durations, this is my power profile today:
5s -15.6w/kg (cat 3, border line cat 4) @ 1264w
1min - 8.17w/kg (cat 3) @ 622w
5min - 5.53w/kg (cat 2) - 448w
60min - 4.58w/kg (cat 2) - 371w
However 1264w still gives me a kick to get me in to the low-40mph range solo thanks to my 5'7" stature. This is with my training concentrating on endurance power only. Before concentrating on endurance training & doing balenced at all round training it looked like this:
5s - 18.29w/kg (cat 2) @ 1452w
1 min - 9.51w/kg (cat 2, border line cat 1) @ 757w
5 min - 5.21w/kg (cat 2) @ 414w
60min - 4.12w/kg (cat 3, borderline cat 2) @ 326w
So I've lost some PWR at the shorter durations, but gained weight. This means I'm about 2mph lower in the short durations but gained about the same over 1h. For my goals this is a good compromise.

 

[VamP]

It's not just watts but also w/kg (PWR) - If I look at PWR profiling I'm not great at short durations, this is my power profile today:
5s -15.6w/kg (cat 3, border line cat 4) @ 1264w
1min - 8.17w/kg (cat 3) @ 622w
5min - 5.53w/kg (cat 2) - 448w
60min - 4.58w/kg (cat 2) - 371w
However 1264w still gives me a kick to get me in to the low-40mph range solo thanks to my 5'7" stature. This is with my training concentrating on endurance power only. Before concentrating on endurance training & looking at all round training it looked like this:
5s - 18.29w/kg (cat 2) @ 1452w
1 min - 9.51w/kg (cat 2, border line cat 1) @ 757w
5 min - 5.21w/kg (cat 2) @ 414w
60min - 4.12w/kg (cat 3, borderline cat 2) @ 326w
So I've lost about 2mph in the short durations to gain about the same over 1h. For my goals this is a good compromise.

It was Rob3ert's profile I was commenting on - yours I haven't looked at yet. Too scared

 

[Rob3rt]

There's an understatement!

Your profile is really stacked in favour of the longer durations - I guess that's why you TT.

My FTP is woeful compared to yours, but my 5 min and shorter durations are all better. And I am a terrible sprinter.

I wonder if that could be because you haven't tested your sprint power correctly?

Very possible, as I said above I have only tested 5 min through 60 min formally. The shorter durations are just a "best of" collection extracted from other efforts, i.e. my 1 minute power could actually be the best minute taken from a 3 minute effort, for example.

 

[GrasB]

It was Rob3ert's profile I was commenting on - yours I haven't looked at yet. Too scared

Point was supposed to be that watts alone doesn't show the entire story. A lot of people would consider my 5s power as high but in the grand scheme of things it's quite low PWR.

 

[GrasB]

Very possible, as I said above I have only tested 5 min through 60 min formally. The shorter durations are just a "best of" collection extracted from other efforts, i.e. my 1 minute power could actually be the best minute taken from a 3 minute effort, for example.

I often find that a CP run of a longer duration is the best way to get maximal effort for a shorter duration.

 

[Rob3rt]

BTW, for context my weight is approx 75-76kg. Haven't weighed in for a couple of weeks.

 

[GrasB]

at 75.5kg I get (after from a fitted curve to your supplied numbers) -
5 sec 12.21w/kg - cat 5/untrained
1 min 6.62w/kg - cat 5
15 min 4.38w/kg - cat 3
1 hour 4.08w/kg - border line cat 2/3

Which is about right for someone who's going for endurance power & not doing sprint interval training. There are very strong TTers out there, in the cat 1 band for FTP, which have 5s maximals in the 12-13w/kg area!

 

[jarlrmai]

ha i'm 60kg so I prefer climbing hills

 

[VamP]

Point was supposed to be that watts alone doesn't show the entire story.

Of course. But in the context of individual strengths and weaknesses it doesn't matter as rider weight is a constant.

 

[Ningishzidda]

6 hours 85 W.
12 hours 70 W.
18 hours 60 W.

That makes me a Randonnuer 1000 badge holder.

 

[GrasB]

Of course. But in the context of individual strengths and weaknesses it doesn't matter as rider weight is a constant.

Okay so which is more competitive: a FT PWR of 3.42w/kg or an FTP of 145w?