Why leg strength doesn't matter, that much, for road riding - a technical answer

[black'n'yellow]

Power is an important variable, but not the decider...

Nobody ever said it was. But the deciding factors, as have already been mentioned ad nauseam, are power to weight and sustainable power for a given weight. Your weightlifting awesomeness will be slowing you down, not making you quicker, regardless of what you may think...

 

[Drago]

Nobody ever said it was? You may wish to re acquaint yourself with the opening post, whereby the author enters into a mathematical explanation as to why they think a power output of X is required to climb a hill, and how most riders can achieve that magic figure. And... no mention of other factors involved. After a promising title it was a bit disappointing.

As I hinted at in my original post, there's a compromise position that's optimum. Sure, my meaty thighs and chick pleasing glutes has me whizzing a laden commuter up the steepest of hills, but a TdF rider may then have to face another 120km where that muscle mass is a liability to drag around.

 

[black'n'yellow]

Nobody ever said it was? You may wish to re acquaint yourself with the opening post, whereby the author enters into a mathematical explanation as to why they think a power output of X is required to climb a hill, and how most riders can achieve that magic figure. And... no mention of other factors involved. After a promising title it was a bit disappointing.

6.5 watts per kilo is what it says - together with an indication of how long it might be sustained for. Are you reading a different thread?

 

[GrasB]

I'm just not clear on where the 'very good 2nd cat' bit came from, when you don't hold a 2nd cat licence and have only scored three ranking points as a 3rd. Where do you race, incidentally..?

I admit I should have put riding level there. It comes from maximal effort W/kg between 5 seconds & 3 hours, performances in TTs against cat1/2 riders.

I have read the thread. I find it much easier now I'm manly and meaty than I did when I was a weakling. Simple as.

...

As a slightly tongue in cheek aside, it always seems to be the week and weedy who have such a strong opinion about what muscles can't do. Those of us that have some don't seem to have these problems.

Er, I'm 175lbs & 5' 6"... I don't do week & weedy . However as my W/kg goes up my ability to climb faster &/or further also increases. Ultimately the fastest elite climbers are, almost, always featherweight riders, the reason being that lighter riders naturally have a higher W/kg for a given state of fitness.

 

[black'n'yellow]

I admit I should have put riding level there. It comes from maximal effort W/kg between 5 seconds & 3 hours, performances in TTs against cat1/2 riders.

Fair enough. There's a reason you don't see Dr Hutch in many road races though....

 

[GrasB]

Fair enough. There's a reason you don't see Dr Hutch in many road races though....

In all honesty my 7th this year was very impressive considering I got taken off the bike about 15km from the finish. I got onto the wheel of riders in 8th to 3rd place when they started sprinting. I passed 2 riders & was making some impression on the riders ahead of me but I fundamentally was out of power in the tank. Thing would have been different had the finish line been 1 or 2 km down the road as I was by far the strongest sprinter in that group but I'd not had any recuperation from chasing the group.

 

[black'n'yellow]

what kind of race was this..?

 

[GrasB]

Rolling/slightly hilly road race on a looped course.

 

[GrasB]

Nobody ever said it was? You may wish to re acquaint yourself with the opening post, whereby the author enters into a mathematical explanation as to why they think a power output of X is required to climb a hill, and how most riders can achieve that magic figure. And... no mention of other factors involved. After a promising title it was a bit disappointing.

Did you actually read the post properly or did you make up most of it in your mind? I never actually refer to how applicable these wattages are to climbing a particular gradient. I go through the sort of pedal forces will be generated at give specific W/kg & cadence.

You also seem to fail to understand the difference between force & weight. I can apply a force that's equal to my body mass in a horizontal plane. The forces I'm talking about aren't necessarily applied as a vertical force, in fact most of the time they will be applied in a non-vertical plane.

 

[montage]

Drago, luckily for you the hill climbing season has started in some places.... get yourself down to a clubs hill climb session, pay a couple of quid to enter and then you have the right to brag about hill climbing abilities - can't claim you're fast without having results to back it up!

You also say that you haven't done cycle specific fitness in 38 years ..... does commuting not count?

I'm not convinced that there is no place in cycling for weights (though cycling specific weight training will always come out on top...e.g. 40rpm on the spin bike), but I do not for a second believe that weights make you go up hill faster - the argument you are putting forward is just awkwardly painful to read, meaty thighs and chick pleasing glutes or not