lean and mean, or heavy and powerful

celery101

Hi

I'm doing the closed road Cambridge Sportive in a few months and wanted some training advice.

It's pretty flat and I was curious whether I should still be trying to be as lean as possible (I'm 6'1 and naturally hover about 75kg, but can also shed weight if necc) and have the bike with shallow wheels etc.... or whether actually I should be not thinking so much about weight, and aiming to add some muscle and strength (I'm very skinny upper body for example), and then running a slightly heavier set up with deep wheels (which I have but don't really use much)?

The wheel choice will be partly down to weather I guess, but any thoughts on weight gain/loss for this kind of flat course over 80m would be great. I have been thinking get weight right down, but think I might be stuck in that mindset because I often head abroad to go climbing where light = good/fast.

I'm in ok shape (can average 305ww on a 20mins FTP after a warm-up) and curious about where I should focus training over next few months. Basically, my training is pretty unfocused and usually consists of commute (50m a week) + daily quick blast on Watt Bike in the gym through the week + a long ride (anything 60-100m) at the weekend.

Cheers.

napoleond

You want the highest w/kg sustainable over 80miles. Basically.
So. Work on efficiency and getting lean.

imposter2.0

At the end of the day, it's a sportive, and unless you have any specific targets or goals just keep riding however you're riding now and you'll probably be fine. If you want arms like Arnie, then that's also fine. It's not going to enhance your cycling though...

Rigga

It's a sportive and as you say it's really flat, I wouldn't worry about it.

pastryboy

It's a combined race and sportive. I assume the OP wants to race it?

imposter2.0

pastryboy wrote:

It's a combined race and sportive. I assume the OP wants to race it?

You know what assumption is....

kajjal

The balance is between shedding too much weight so you lose power / endurance against carrying too much excess weight which slows you down. Very difficult to judge at the margin which is why top pro's have a team of people to do it for them.

celery101

Yep, didn't really explain myself.... I ride all the time for fun but for this I want to see how fast I can go (mainly cos I like having a goal, and find it gives me extra motivation to get out.... albeit, I know I'm not preparing for the Tour!).

I'm not sure about the best balance between focussing on getting super lean vs gaining power and given it is flattish was thinking weight might not actually be that important anyway.

GGBiker

Flat course so power output and aerodynamics will be faster, weight is only really relevant for steep climbs above about 10%. But given your current sporadic training just doing lots of miles is all you need to do.

ugo.santalucia

GGBiker wrote:

Flat course so power output and aerodynamics will be faster, weight is only really relevant for steep climbs above about 10%.

In fact typically the first guy on top of the Tourmalet is a sprinter, given the latter is only 7.5% average... :roll:

It's all balooney, I have never seen an overweight cyclist winning a race, flat or hilly... and that includes Backstead's Paris-Roubaix... he was close to 90 Kg, but also a 6 foot 5 beast

frisbee

celery101 wrote:

Yep, didn't really explain myself.... I ride all the time for fun but for this I want to see how fast I can go (mainly cos I like having a goal, and find it gives me extra motivation to get out.... albeit, I know I'm not preparing for the Tour!).

I'm not sure about the best balance between focussing on getting super lean vs gaining power and given it is flattish was thinking weight might not actually be that important anyway.

The biggest way to improve your time in the next few months is group riding skills. If you are constantly getting gapped and having to close up or expending too much effort on the front then you'll be wasting energy.

Its all about finding a good group to drag you along, especially if it is windy.

pastryboy

^What he said.

I did it last year - it's very, very flat and open which means windy. You need to find a group to make decent progress so be comfortable sitting on a wheel.

It's 83 miles - you're not going to rely on 'power' for that distance, you want to be lean and efficient.

AK_jnr

pastryboy wrote:

It's a combined race and sportive. I assume the OP wants to race it?

Its a what?!

AK_jnr

Just googled it. That looks like fun. I may enter actually.

ozzzyosborn206

I wouldn't overly focus on getting extra light if its flat, but putting on weight thats not directly from cycling(bigger legs) isn't going to make you faster either. Also unless it is super windy stick on the aero wheels

bernithebiker

If it's very flat, then weight loss will gain you nothing except possibly some loss of power.

964cup

It's a race (or can be). It's flat (and shorter than last year). Wind can be a factor, hills ain't. Unless it's too windy for deep sections, that's the way I'd go. I took my R5 on 45s last time, will be taking my S5 on 808s this time. As a consequence it's more about outright power than power-to-weight, so I'd focus on intervals, strength training and sustained output, not weight loss. You absolutely have to stay with the group, though, so practising that won't hurt either. The main issue there is, like a crit, corner exit acceleration; there is a good number of slow corners. There were also some pretty poor riding standards, even up the sharp end, last year; I think I passed at least four people on the deck.

frisbee

Or take an electric bike! I saw at least one on course last year.

kingstonian

AK_jnr wrote:

pastryboy wrote:

It's a combined race and sportive. I assume the OP wants to race it?

Its a what?!

It is a Gran Fondo

Those at the front are racing, for everyone else it is a sportive.

kingstonian

Oh, and the headwind last year was a bitch, riding on dead straight pan flat roads into a headwind is sould destroying at the best of times.

diy

I think for most people its easier to drop weight, than increase power quickly. As said early on in the thread - its all about power to weight and even though its more noticeable in the climbs, it still makes a difference on the flat given we haven't yet achieved frictionless riding.

bernithebiker

diy wrote:

I think for most people its easier to drop weight, than increase power quickly. As said early on in the thread - its all about power to weight and even though its more noticeable in the climbs, it still makes a difference on the flat given we haven't yet achieved frictionless riding.

I'm curious as to how low weight benefits you on the flats?

kajjal

bernithebiker wrote:

diy wrote:

I think for most people its easier to drop weight, than increase power quickly. As said early on in the thread - its all about power to weight and even though its more noticeable in the climbs, it still makes a difference on the flat given we haven't yet achieved frictionless riding.

I'm curious as to how low weight benefits you on the flats?

Put a 5kg rucksack on your back and see how it affects your times

okgo

As someone said on these here boards, eat to be lean, train to be powerful.

Chances are if you've done a bit of riding it will be pretty obvious which camp you sit in, no point trying to probably push it too hard either way as you will likely end up sick through trying to lose weight, or fat through trying to gain it and the watts do not follow. Power is not how 'big' you are.

Camcycle1974

On a flat course I would opt for power over light weight every time. A friend of mine did the Wiggle No Excuses recently and whilst its "only" a sportive he came 8th out of the guys doing the long route in 4h 14mins. He's 6'2" and 14.5 stone. It was mega windy and his power advantage definitely helped. He doesn't bother with aero, is very upright and still can roll along at 20mph average into a head wind.

okgo

Weight on the flat makes almost no difference - certainly 5kg when up to speed is hardly noticeable.

The problem is that many people assume gaining weight means gaining watts, it most certainly does not.

964cup

Kajjal wrote:

Put a 5kg rucksack on your back and see how it affects your times

A more appropriate point might be "train hard and add 5kg of muscle, mainly in your legs with some in your core, and see how it affects your times".

The real answer is: if you have a 250W FTP and weigh 80kg, you have 3.125 w/kg. If you lose 5 kg and drop to a 240W FTP, you have 3.2w/kg. So you will go faster when the issue is power against weight, for example when climbing.

On the other hand, if you have a 250W FTP you will go faster than someone with a 240W FTP if the issue is power versus drag, for example when racing on the flat. Weight is irrelevant (apart from during acceleration); what matters is CDA, which will be the same (about 0.44) for the same cyclist largely irrespective of his weight.

I regularly ride with a chap who's 125kg, much of it not muscle. I drop him on every climb, but he holds his own perfectly well on the flat despite weighing more than 50% more than me. Our FTPs are broadly matched.

bernithebiker

It's interesting how quickly hills establish people's power to weight ratio.

You can have a 50 strong peloton at the front of a competitive sportive like the Etape, all going along nicely together at 40km/h along the valley, all looking very similar performance wise.

But as soon as you hit the first col, the shake up begins in seconds. Some are immediately spat out the back, and then it thins and strings out into twos and threes. Here any extra weight makes it's presence felt big time and extra watts aren't worth squat if they come with extra kilos.

On a super flat ride/race, weight is almost immaterial. Watts rule. The only argument you could make is that by losing weight, you slim your silhouette, thereby reducing your frontal area, thereby reducing drag. But that's pretty marginal.

diy

I think if you look at the power chart for someone doing a straight flat TT, vs someone riding the same course in a group of independent riders, there will be a lot more accelerating and slowing in the group.

In terms of weight vs power. Unless you are "using" its hard for the avg. man (even a young one) to develop more than 4kg of lean muscle per year. Whereas most (even reasonably athletic) men can drop 4kg of fat in a couple of weeks.

The chances of that coming off your legs (the moving part) is unlikely.

markhewitt1978

Correct me if I'm wrong but the "heavy and powerful" bit refers to muscle mass doesn't it? So being 10kg heavier than you could be just from fat isn't going to do anything other than slow you down. So I'm guessing most will benefit from being as lean as they can, unless we can have a reliable and affordable way of measuring body fat.

okgo

Muscle mass and being a strong cyclist have very little in common. That much is fairly obvious surely, the largest pro cyclists are still skinny men, with very few exceptions - even strongmen as they're known like Fabian and Tomek would look like skinny men in a bar with normal people.