GrasB
Veteran
- Location
- Nr Cambridge
Let's get some basics out of the way;
If we drop to a more typical 3W/kg, 230w for someone who tips the scales at 12 stone & the sort of level that I'd expect a faster commuter to be able to produce, even peek pedal pressure is only producing enough force to lift two thirds of your body weight. Do people really think you need a large muscle mass to achieve that sort of force considering how easily most people accelerate their entire body mass up stairs?
Now all this assumes you're at the lower end of the rpm registers when climbing. Say you climb in the low 80rpm range. Even up a 6.5W/kg you're looking at your maximum pedal force being the same as your body weight, something you should easily be achieving. At 3W/kg it's less than half your body weight.
EDITED: make it a bit more readable.
- The average person can easily climb a set of stairs for several min without much problem. They may do this slowly but they can climb stairs. This means that people are regularly pushing down with, considerably, more force than their body weight; if you can't lift more than you weight you'd never climb stairs.
- A good national level pro/sponsored rider is going to have maximal outputs of around 6.5W/kg for 5 min. A fit, slightly trained rider will be close to 6.5W/kg for 1 min maximal effort & 3W/kg for 5min.
- A typical trained rider will have a nominal foot speed of 1.25-2.25m/s. On 170mm cranks this equates to approximately 70-125 rpm.
- The more power you produce the higher your cadence tends to be.
- Your peek pedal force is approximately 2.1x higher than your average pedal force across the entire pedal revolution. (I know this is true for me I'm not so sure about other people.)
If we drop to a more typical 3W/kg, 230w for someone who tips the scales at 12 stone & the sort of level that I'd expect a faster commuter to be able to produce, even peek pedal pressure is only producing enough force to lift two thirds of your body weight. Do people really think you need a large muscle mass to achieve that sort of force considering how easily most people accelerate their entire body mass up stairs?
Now all this assumes you're at the lower end of the rpm registers when climbing. Say you climb in the low 80rpm range. Even up a 6.5W/kg you're looking at your maximum pedal force being the same as your body weight, something you should easily be achieving. At 3W/kg it's less than half your body weight.
EDITED: make it a bit more readable.