Want to try this next year, even cat 5 seems crazy fast to me

Ryan_W wrote:

Lookyhere wrote:

Ryan_W wrote:

I got beat by a girl at my first race at Hillingdon. She was about 5ft, 45kg yet did an amazing job of blocking me in and holding me up on the final sprint. So a 1,700w sprint effort never happened and she rolled in in front of me.

I did feel bad screaming at her to move, but why would she. She beat me at the positioning game.

Chapeau to her. It's all good fun.

Big of you, prob a 1st year junior girl, aged 16.

a 1700w sprint effort... yeah of course.

Who's this numpty?

She was a grown woman and I congratulated her on her tactics.

And yes, I do have a 1,700w sprint. Why is that so hard to believe? Some of us can actually ride on this forum.

I can believe it, I max out around the 1650w mark, won me my 2nd JCA Vets Circuit Race champs earlier this month in a sprint finish.

Amateurs can get close to the watts of a pro in a sprint I believe, the difference is the likes of Griepel etc are doing it after 150km in the saddle at 40kmph plus, most amateurs wouldn't make the finish to contest the sprint.

OP - Road and crit racing is more than just power output, as others have said its more about positioning and the ability to read a race and not getting caught out an dropped. I've had some decent results off the back of a low level of fitness because I know where to place myself in a race to conserve energy, the other skill is to only use energy when you really need to. Of course learning race craft only comes by racing and getting dropped and learning from your mistakes. As others have said, get out there and enjoy it, get dropped, analyse what went wrong and learn from it, after a while you will start to get the hang of it.

Ryan_W wrote:

Peak of a sprint, rapidly diminishing to around a 1,200w average for 20 seconds.

That's much more than i can hold and for longer, I can accelerate quickly and hold speed for 150m then die off quickly, think i drop to closer to 1050w then fall over, my excuse is Im old.

He should tell you what he weighs

burnthesheep wrote:

To throw my $0.02 in on the sprint comment above from the guy.......

Can we see a segment or attempt with powermeter data? Even if it is true, I don't care, that'd be cool to see. I don't follow anyone on Strava that's put out 1700w.....ever, much less for any longer than a billionth of a second.

For it to count I thought sprints are peak and fade with an average over 20 seconds. So maybe 1700 is for 5 seconds and the actual sprint is 1200w for 20 seconds.

This also was shown well in a recent GCN show video. They got into the actual wattages and times spent leading out and sprinting at those power levels.

This is the only one I've done in the last few months.....trying to beat a stoplight.

I haven't tried any max efforts since before Feb (had a bad accident first week of Fed and was in a leg brace for 4 weeks).

The greyed out S-curve is my 'best effort' curve, the dark purple curve was just from a short ride I did the other morning (rehab on the ankle).

burnthesheep wrote:

Ryan_W wrote:

I haven't tried any max efforts since before Feb (had a bad accident first week of Fed and was in a leg brace for 4 weeks).

The greyed out S-curve is my 'best effort' curve, the dark purple curve was just from a short ride I did the other morning (rehab on the ankle).

Kill it! Love the powermeter average for the whole ride more than the sprint! I could only imagine doing that.

Bear in mind I did a very similar ride the other day in about the same time (56 minutes for 3 laps) at weighted average of 245W - I think a similar W/kg. Don't know what size you are, but it makes a difference.

Sawyer's Sprint, Ryan, 89kg, 1.05, 477W. Me 80kg, 1.09, 323W. The minimum conclusion is that conclusions are futile.

The OP should just do it.

Paul

Tour de Richmond Park (ACW Lap):

Ryan W: 18:04 - 346w
Tom W: 15:58 - 282w

My point exactly. Useless looking at Strava for comparison

burnthesheep wrote:

Ryan_W wrote:

whatleytom wrote:

Tour de Richmond Park (ACW Lap):

Ryan W: 18:04 - 346w
Tom W: 15:58 - 282w

Cheating on a TT bike...

People also forget to pay attention to if a rider has a power meter or not. Strava "estimated" watts are total crap.

If you put in some bogus body weight and bike weight then lose weight over two years it's going to look like you're some wattage monster.

300w is about 25mph and is about dead-on for folks in that range of that leaderboard. The 346w for 18min is either a windy day OR it's some larger rider using the fake Strava watts.

282w on a TT bike with decent kit is WELL over 25mph. Approaching 27mph.

It wasn't too windy, I was just riding very un-aerodynamically... Being a broad 88/89kg doesn't help.
The power is real though

Here is a slightly more 'aero' lap of 17:32 @ 336w

https://www.strava.com/activities/10825 ... 6639775713

whatleytom wrote:

And the times recorded on the same day.

Worth mentioning Ryan, not much point in practicing being un-aero. Imo efforts should really be done in race position, otherwise if you actually do start racing its going to be a bit of shock.

It wasn't a flat out effort mate, was just seeing how hard I could push my ankle.

But yes I agree, all serious efforts should be done as in race / aero position. Going for a sub 17 soon :oops:

Your NP will be about 150w if sitting in a pack. You'll only exert any effort if it's a sprint finish or you try to break away (don't do this!)....

burnthesheep wrote:

Fair enough.

I agree 300w for 20 min may be unremarkable to many folks. But, in the context of Cat 5 it seems way way more than I had thought it would be for a 20min test. On that magical ftp chart floating on the internet that groups into race categories, 300w is more into a solid 3 than a Cat 5.

I've gone from 160w a year ago to about 230w today at 20min. I can interval workout at 270 to 300 on 3x3's like I said above. I just can't see getting to 250w by May being enough without a LOT of strategy and skill in the pack.

It seems trying one of the racing simulation group rides locally would be a good bet. They "race" and have a much higher class rider coach what they see in the bunch along the way.

It’s not the power you can sustain for an hour that dictates your success or failure in road racing, it’s the ability to recover from repeated anaerobic efforts, bike handling, tactics, resistance to the mental stress and your sprint.