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Stationary bike power


hairylittlehobbit's picture

By hairylittlehobbit - Posted on 25 January 2011

Because of injury i've been training on a stationary bike at the gym. Just wondering if there is any guide for power or if its pretty irrelevant?

Due to my supreme lack of fitness i can hold around about 125 watts for about 10minutes at rpm of 90-95.

Brian's picture

I recently did a VO2 Max test that started at 100 watts and incremented 30 watts every 4 minutes. EG. I had to hold 100 watts for 4 minutes and then go to 130 watts for 4 minutes and the 160 watts for 4 minutes. I ended up at 280 watts but started to fade by then. This put the test at just under 30 minutes.

What also made this harder was I was breathing into a tube (mouth piece like a snorkel) and had a nose peg on. I was stuffed at then end.

Cheers
Brian

Rob's picture

Keep training, a track sprinter can put out up to 2kw... Eye-wink

... although that would only be for a few seconds. For some more relevant numbers Training Peaks have some good real data from the TdF...

http://www.peaksware.com/articles/cycling/which-...

So from Chris Anker Sorensen:

So what are his actual numbers? Check out the stats below, listed first for 2009 and then 2010:

Peak 5 minutes: 433w vs 462w

Peak 20 minutes: 388w vs 393w

Peak 4 hours: 259w vs 288w

Hardest Stage (highest TSS): 372 TSS (Stage 7) vs 370 TSS (Stage 17)

TSS Total: 4,640 TSS vs 5172

Easiest Stage : 127 TSS (Stage 21) vs 113 TSS (Stage 20)

Those are impressive numbers! See how well you stack up: if you weigh 180lbs you’d have to ride at 499w for 20 minutes in order to be at Chris’s level (oh, and do that in hour 5 of a long hard bike race). If you don’t own a power meter head on down to your local gym and see if they have any stationary bikes which display watts. You can also inquire at sports medicine facilities and while you’re there ask for a lactate threshold test to see how many watts you can pump out at lactate threshold. If you’re Chris Sorensen it would be in the neighborhood of 380w.

Basically, to be a pro you need to sustain around 400w for at least 20 minutes... oh, and weigh no more than 65kg. Well, you can weigh more, but you just have to put out more power is all Sticking out tongue

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