Power nerds

rick_chasey

Enjoy: https://twitter.com/RGUpdate/status/576493798512979968

RonB

There you go. L43% R44%. Where does the extra 13% come from

takethehighroad

That might as well be in Mandarin, but I know some will love it

Crampeur

39.54km/h average.

Macaloon

RonB wrote:

There you go. L43% R44%. Where does the extra 13% come from

^ Site for sore eyes, thon avi.
Wildly OT appearance of another RonB

Pokerface

RonB wrote:

There you go. L43% R44%. Where does the extra 13% come from

I assume you're joking?

I also assume that those are the independent percentages of each pedal stroke - the part of the power generated by the upstroke for each side. IMO, TMI.

No_Ta_Doctor

Pokerface wrote:

RonB wrote:

There you go. L43% R44%. Where does the extra 13% come from

I assume you're joking?

I also assume that those are the independent percentages of each pedal stroke - the part of the power generated by the upstroke for each side. IMO, TMI.

If he's joking, I don't get it. I'm not a power nerd and I have no idea what I'm looking at... Anyone want to explain it all?

Pokerface

No tA Doctor wrote:

Pokerface wrote:

RonB wrote:

There you go. L43% R44%. Where does the extra 13% come from

I assume you're joking?

I also assume that those are the independent percentages of each pedal stroke - the part of the power generated by the upstroke for each side. IMO, TMI.

If he's joking, I don't get it. I'm not a power nerd and I have no idea what I'm looking at... Anyone want to explain it all?

Power data from a Pioneer power meter fro Gesink. Their power meter provides a huge amount of info.
60km ride, 1 hour 32 mins, 55m of climbing. 303w average, 97rpm avg, Left-Right balance: 51-49, 43.6% pedalling efficiency. And the 'dials' show the efficiency of each leg's pedalling.

No_Ta_Doctor

Pokerface wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

Pokerface wrote:

RonB wrote:

There you go. L43% R44%. Where does the extra 13% come from

I assume you're joking?

I also assume that those are the independent percentages of each pedal stroke - the part of the power generated by the upstroke for each side. IMO, TMI.

If he's joking, I don't get it. I'm not a power nerd and I have no idea what I'm looking at... Anyone want to explain it all?

Power data from a Pioneer power meter fro Gesink. Their power meter provides a huge amount of info.
60km ride, 1 hour 32 mins, 55m of climbing. 303w average, 97rpm avg, Left-Right balance: 51-49, 43.6% pedalling efficiency. And the 'dials' show the efficiency of each leg's pedalling.

Thanks, it's starting to make more sense now :-)

How is "efficiency" calculated?

Pokerface

No tA Doctor wrote:

How is "efficiency" calculated?

With the Pioneer PM, pedalling efficiency is calculated as the ratio of positive tangential force (force at 90° to the crank’s position that is actually usefully turning the crank) versus total force. Perfection with no wasted power would be 100%, and improving this efficiency helps in actually laying more power onto the road.


Efficiency tends to go up as riders approach maximum force.

No_Ta_Doctor

Pokerface wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

How is "efficiency" calculated?

With the Pioneer PM, pedalling efficiency is calculated as the ratio of positive tangential force (force at 90° to the crank’s position that is actually usefully turning the crank) versus total force. Perfection with no wasted power would be 100%, and improving this efficiency helps in actually laying more power onto the road.


Efficiency tends to go up as riders approach maximum force.

Thanks, enlightening.

okgo

Interesting to see what info you get from thàt meter. Numbers not particularly interesting in this case however.

slim_boy_fat

Interesting. What efficiency do the most efficient riders in the peleton pedal with?

Pokerface

Slim Boy Fat wrote:

Interesting. What efficiency do the most efficient riders in the peloton pedal with?

At threshold power, pedalling efficiency reaches it maximum. This can range from 70-80% in very good riders to 40-60% in untrained cyclists. Gesink's efficiency figures there would indicate a sub-maximal effort

cal_stewart

Like the efficiently bit, do any of the other meters on sale do this? Used a wattbike for a few months and like the little image of where the power is being put down in the stroke believe this helped, about the only bit I miss on my Kickr over the wattbike

slim_boy_fat

Pokerface wrote:

Slim Boy Fat wrote:

Interesting. What efficiency do the most efficient riders in the peloton pedal with?

At threshold power, pedalling efficiency reaches it maximum. This can range from 70-80% in very good riders to 40-60% in untrained cyclists. Gesink's efficiency figures there would indicate a sub-maximal effort

Thanks. How easy or difficult is it to improve your efficiency and do pro cyclists do a lot of work on it?

Pokerface

Slim Boy Fat wrote:

Pokerface wrote:

Slim Boy Fat wrote:

Interesting. What efficiency do the most efficient riders in the peloton pedal with?

At threshold power, pedalling efficiency reaches it maximum. This can range from 70-80% in very good riders to 40-60% in untrained cyclists. Gesink's efficiency figures there would indicate a sub-maximal effort

Thanks. How easy or difficult is it to improve your efficiency and do pro cyclists do a lot of work on it?

Article: http://www.bikeradar.com/road/gear/arti ... ncy-42061/

I have no idea how hard it is to improve. And I would assume that most Pros are just naturally gifted at pedalling. That, and the sheer number of hours they spend doing it will make them better at it.

slim_boy_fat

Pokerface wrote:

Slim Boy Fat wrote:

Pokerface wrote:

Slim Boy Fat wrote:

Interesting. What efficiency do the most efficient riders in the peloton pedal with?

At threshold power, pedalling efficiency reaches it maximum. This can range from 70-80% in very good riders to 40-60% in untrained cyclists. Gesink's efficiency figures there would indicate a sub-maximal effort

Thanks. How easy or difficult is it to improve your efficiency and do pro cyclists do a lot of work on it?

Article: http://www.bikeradar.com/road/gear/arti ... ncy-42061/

I have no idea how hard it is to improve. And I would assume that most Pros are just naturally gifted at pedalling. That, and the sheer number of hours they spend doing it will make them better at it.

Thanks for the link but I think there are a long list of things for me to work at before I look at pedalling efficiency to improve my cycling

Reason I ask is, I've only really watched pro cycling for the past 10 years and over that time watching races or reading books I've been quite surprised by how often it's appeared to be so amateur, especially compared to some of the other sports I watch and compete in. Sky bang on about marginal gains but it has often seemed that 'obvious gains' were needed in the sport. And I just wondered if pedalling efficiency was one of those 'obvious gains'.

okgo

Lots of discussion on this on various forums. In a nutshell it seems it doesn't matter vastly how you turn the cranks within reason. That is backed up e fact nearly every rider has a different style, some look great some look awful even though they're still all pro

philbar72

Wonder what AG2R's classics guy, is it gaudin, would be like. He cycles like he wants to ruin his bottom bracket and cranks.

milton50

Damien Gaudin. Yeh, it would be interesting to see a comparison of efficiency between Wiggins and someone like Gaudin. Just to see what kind of difference a smooth pedalling style makes.

And by interesting I mean verging on boring.

philbar72

Very boring tbh.

xavierdisley

Slim Boy Fat wrote:

Pokerface wrote:

Slim Boy Fat wrote:

Interesting. What efficiency do the most efficient riders in the peloton pedal with?

At threshold power, pedalling efficiency reaches it maximum. This can range from 70-80% in very good riders to 40-60% in untrained cyclists. Gesink's efficiency figures there would indicate a sub-maximal effort

Thanks. How easy or difficult is it to improve your efficiency and do pro cyclists do a lot of work on it?

LottoJumbo have got me in to do work with them in order to improve their riders' efficiency. The Pioneer power meter (impressive bit of kit) is one of the tools we use to evaluate the riders after testing.

Macaloon

xavierdisley wrote:

LottoJumbo have got me in to do work with them in order to improve their riders' efficiency. The Pioneer power meter (impressive bit of kit) is one of the tools we use to evaluate the riders after testing.

Do you have a view on the accuracy, or otherwise, of power estimate models and climb times.

okgo

Macaloon wrote:

xavierdisley wrote:

LottoJumbo have got me in to do work with them in order to improve their riders' efficiency. The Pioneer power meter (impressive bit of kit) is one of the tools we use to evaluate the riders after testing.

Do you have a view on the accuracy, or otherwise, of power estimate models and climb times.

The Scandi dude who posts on twitter has done a few recently where he has used estimates vs actuals and they seem to be fairly close, but I don't know if that was just two examples that happen to look similar...

Macaloon

okgo wrote:

The Scandi dude who posts on twitter has done a few recently where he has used estimates vs actuals and they seem to be fairly close, but I don't know if that was just two examples that happen to look similar...

Generous tribute, there. The one that bothers me most is that time Froome failed to drop Contador despite repeated attempts. They had identical times, but presumably wildly different power outputs.

The_Boy

okgo wrote:

Macaloon wrote:

xavierdisley wrote:

LottoJumbo have got me in to do work with them in order to improve their riders' efficiency. The Pioneer power meter (impressive bit of kit) is one of the tools we use to evaluate the riders after testing.

Do you have a view on the accuracy, or otherwise, of power estimate models and climb times.

The Scandi dude who posts on twitter has done a few recently where he has used estimates vs actuals and they seem to be fairly close, but I don't know if that was just two examples that happen to look similar...

amittipiroyally or something like that? ISTR, there was an article in Pro Cycling which quoted a couple of teams saying his numbers were fairly accurate - possibly with margin of error, but was a while back and physical copy so can't check.

okgo

Macaloon wrote:

okgo wrote:

The Scandi dude who posts on twitter has done a few recently where he has used estimates vs actuals and they seem to be fairly close, but I don't know if that was just two examples that happen to look similar...

Generous tribute, there. The one that bothers me most is that time Froome failed to drop Contador despite repeated attempts. They had identical times, but presumably wildly different power outputs.

To be honest I find his posts and that of the digger forum quite boring and tiresome, throwing around libel inducing accusations left right and center, I don't think they deserve the airtime they get. But I was at least interested to see how close the method was, I think it was Dan Lloyd that provided the real file in this case.

slim_boy_fat

xavierdisley wrote:

Slim Boy Fat wrote:

Pokerface wrote:

Slim Boy Fat wrote:

Interesting. What efficiency do the most efficient riders in the peloton pedal with?

At threshold power, pedalling efficiency reaches it maximum. This can range from 70-80% in very good riders to 40-60% in untrained cyclists. Gesink's efficiency figures there would indicate a sub-maximal effort

Thanks. How easy or difficult is it to improve your efficiency and do pro cyclists do a lot of work on it?

LottoJumbo have got me in to do work with them in order to improve their riders' efficiency. The Pioneer power meter (impressive bit of kit) is one of the tools we use to evaluate the riders after testing.

Thanks for your input. What sort of improvement would be expected by specifically working on it? Are we talking a very marginal gain or something more significant.

xavierdisley

The stuff I've been doing is very specific - so for example with one rider we were looking to improve his ability at higher power outputs (350-400w) as well as addressing a bit too much of a left/right imbalance. Amongst other metrics we were looking at, the improvements that we saw also manifested as a 1-4% increase in his "pedal efficiency" as measured on the Pioneer PM, which was encouraging/interesting.

There's still more work to be done in finding the link between these kinds of metrics to established measures of performance (eg. gross mechanical efficiency using expired gas in a lab), but I'm working on it

Paul 8v

Out of interest, what would you class as a bit too much of an imbalance? The last time I went on a wattbike my split was 45L 55R. I have a protruding disc following an accident which has mucked things up a bit to be honest. I'm trying to work on strengthening the left leg to smooth it out before the next time I try the watt bike.