Australian Cycling Forums - Bicycles Network Australia

I am going to purchase a trainer. I have had one before but it got wrecked in a removal, so I know how handy they are. I also don’t need assistance with brands or anything as I have two models I am looking at, but thank you anyway if that was what you were going to post . One has 425 watts resistance at 40km/h and the other has 460 watts at 40km/h. My question is solely about the amount of resistance: would someone who is an average rider need the extra resistance of the 460 watt trainer? I am interested to also know how many watts resistance an average rider can pedal for, say, half an hour at a go. Thank you.

anywhere from 100-300W depending on what you mean by average.

Another way of putting it, world class pursuiters put out low to mid 500W. 40km/h isnt that fast and very few people would be doing 5min or more at that speed.

DG wrote: would someone who is an average rider need the extra resistance of the 460 watt trainer? I am interested to also know how many watts resistance an average rider can pedal for, say, half an hour at a go. Thank you.

Q1. depends if you want to do short intervals, and how long for. If you want to sprint on your trainer for 5-10 seconds, you could easily exceed 460 watts, but you'd be driving the roller faster than 40kph. basically, you haven't given enough info about the models you've shortlisted.

Q2. go to a gym and get on a quality stationary ergometer with watts readout, and thrash yourself for 30 minutes (try and maintain the same pace from woe to go)....repeat it several times over a couple of weeks. the average is your answer. ..... or go to a closed criterium or cycle track, and do the same, and report back what your av speed was.

So are you saying that to hold 40kmph on trainer 1 you will have to hold 425 watts and on trainer 2 you will have to hold 460?... seems like very high resistance to me.
But anyway, on the road if you can hold 400w for 30 minutes, then you aren't really an average cyclist ... so either will probably be fine, I would go for the one with the biggest flywheel.
You might be able to hold 450w for 5minutes on the road... that often doesn't equate to indoors though.
Sprint training is best done outdoors.
Also make sure you buy a really powerful fan or two ... only way you will hold anywhere near what you do on the road indoors is if you can keep cool enough... once you start overheating power drops like a stone.

toolonglegs wrote: But anyway, on the road if you can hold 400w for 30 minutes, then you aren't really an average cyclist ...

Depends how heavy you are. Need to talk Watts/kg to know if those 400W are impressive or not...

dalai47 wrote:

toolonglegs wrote: But anyway, on the road if you can hold 400w for 30 minutes, then you aren't really an average cyclist ...

Depends how heavy you are. Need to talk Watts/kg to know if those 400W are impressive or not...

400W is impressive irrespective of weight. If you are putting out 400W for 30min you will drop all but the best A graders on the flat. If you 100kg you will possibly not be smashing the hills (still going well in all but A grade possibly even going OK in A grade) but on the flats you will be ridiculously strong.

vander wrote:

dalai47 wrote:

toolonglegs wrote: But anyway, on the road if you can hold 400w for 30 minutes, then you aren't really an average cyclist ...

Depends how heavy you are. Need to talk Watts/kg to know if those 400W are impressive or not...

400W is impressive irrespective of weight. If you are putting out 400W for 30min you will drop all but the best A graders on the flat. If you 100kg you will possibly not be smashing the hills (still going well in all but A grade possibly even going OK in A grade) but on the flats you will be ridiculously strong.

YOU might drop them if you are aero and they are not sitting on your date .
Mag trainers don't care about power to weight ... but OP did say "average cyclist" ... 400 w for 30 minutes means an FTP pretty damn close to that... like Vander says, not really what your average punter puts out even at 100kgs.

toolonglegs wrote:
YOU might drop them if you are aero and they are not sitting on your date .
Mag trainers don't care about power to weight ... but OP did say "average cyclist" ... 400 w for 30 minutes means an FTP pretty damn close to that... like Vander says, not really what your average punter puts out even at 100kgs.

Just have to be smart enough to get a 10m gap then its game over!

winstonw wrote: (try and maintain the same pace from woe to go)

That's the best malapropism I've seen in a long time

DG wrote:One has 425 watts resistance at 40km/h and the other has 460 watts at 40km/h. My question is solely about the amount of resistance: would someone who is an average rider need the extra resistance of the 460 watt trainer?

I'm grey hair + hearing aids + bifocal glasses years old and even I commonly put out bursts of more than 460 W for a few seconds. But a few minutes? Not a hope.

Unless there is some other factor like floorspace, noise or price, why wouldn't you just get the 460 W version? It would do everything the 425 W unit does plus 35 W.

Basso just mentioned he was pretty happy with holding 435w for 5 kms on a climb... That's probably around 6.8w per kg for him

ausrandoman wrote:

winstonw wrote: (try and maintain the same pace from woe to go)

That's the best malapropism I've seen in a long time

I'll blame that day's 140km ride, while on a diet.

My limited trainer experience with a kurt kenetic aka a good one is that they are useless for explosive sprinting, even ramping up say 150w to 300 for intervals is a pain from the slipping. 400? Get lost lol

So it would make little difference. You might as well be a tightwad and save the 20 bucks and spend it on a sweatband because it will probably be just as useful in the long run.

The wheel should not be slipping at all especially going from 150W-300W if it is slipping then its not a good trainer. I agree trainers arent the best spot for explosive sprinting but that is more because you rock the bike when you sprint rather then due to wheel slipping. I had a dodgy trainer the wheel used to always slip on my Cycleops fluid trainer I cant remember it happening once.

I don't ramp up the pressure on the tyre too much, and we're talking about instant power as well. I don't really expect much because I'm relying on 80 kiloes to push my rear tyre down if I'm doing it on the road. Come to think of it, I don't try and do such things on the road. Might have similar problems outdoors!

As Alex said 100 to 300 watts though it does depend on what you mean by average rider.

I can put out 250 watts over 30 minutes, have broken 26 minutes on 16km TT

The riders who are 2 minutes faster than me over 16km put out 300 watts (I follow a couple on Strava)

The KOM on strava put out 350 watts for 22 minutes (he rode with powermeter), the course record holder probably put out 400 watts for 20 minutes but he an Australia Champion of the track and part time NRS rider. Most world tour pros would be happy with 450 watts over 30 minutes, with a couple of exceptions like the world TT champion and runner up mange 500 watts, who could put out close to 500 watts over 30 minute

^^ all of these are subject to the watts per kg formula. 350 w over 20km is impressive if you weigh 68kg but not so if you weigh 88kg.

nickobec wrote: The KOM on strava put out 350 watts for 22 minutes (he rode with powermeter), the course record holder probably put out 400 watts for 20 minutes but he an Australia Champion of the track and part time NRS rider. Most world tour pros would be happy with 450 watts over 30 minutes, with a couple of exceptions like the world TT champion and runner up mange 500 watts, who could put out close to 500 watts over 30 minute

This data is so far off its not funny. Very few pros are doing 450W for 30min.

vander wrote:

nickobec wrote: The KOM on strava put out 350 watts for 22 minutes (he rode with powermeter), the course record holder probably put out 400 watts for 20 minutes but he an Australia Champion of the track and part time NRS rider. Most world tour pros would be happy with 450 watts over 30 minutes, with a couple of exceptions like the world TT champion and runner up mange 500 watts, who could put out close to 500 watts over 30 minute

This data is so far off its not funny. Very few pros are doing 450W for 30min.

Probably don't need to... a "big" rider is still only 80kgs on the tour. I'm sure TLL can put out watts to shame them all, but at 100kgs he needs them to simply keep up. My rough and ready figures have me pumping around 300W for 30 minutes (really need a proper PM lol) at 71kgs... my mind boggles that most of the pros are achieving better numbers for most of the day.

Xplora... I have a mate who is the same weight as you who can hold 370-380 w for an hour, he is continental ( without contract ) level, if he could hold 400w he would probably be with contract. But that 5% improvement is a lot to find for someone clean... and I know for a fact that the UCI 2 level races he races in are far from clean!.
SO there you go mate... you need to find another 35% ... I on the other hand have the necessary power... I just have to lose another 25 kgs ( down from 92! ) to get a pro power to weight ratio .

There is a lot of room for improvement for me, I've gotten to my level (aka not much) simply by commuting a lot and working hard, but little "training"... I'm sitting here wondering if my 2100 TSS two week period has left me feeling utterly destroyed by a virus right now. I think so

vander wrote:This data is so far off its not funny. Very few pros are doing 450W for 30min.

Probably should of prefaced that as a 75kg TT rider not a 62kg climber, because I was talking TT times

450W for 30 minutes is close to an FTP of 435W, which for a 75kg rider is 5.8W/kg. If you look at Allen & Coggan dreaded power profile chart, a world tour rider should have an FTP in the range of 5.7W/kg to 6.4W/kg (68kg at 6.4W/kg = 435W)

ps I weigh 80kg, but could lose 5kg, the rider I know who puts out 300w over 24 minutes in close to 75kg, and the 16km course record holder is a few kgs lighter

Nicko, apparently (cant find the source anymore) Durbridge at around 80kg did 420ishW in the world TT a few years back (around an hour effort), he placed 6th or 7th. To me that tells me very few riders push that much. Phinney who is in the 80s put out 480W for 10min at the end of a stage to win the stage (broke away from everyone) he may be one of the couple of riders (with Canc, Martin, Froome and Wiggo) that can actually put out those sort of numbers, as for the majority of the peleton I dont think so.

300W over 24min is a very long was from 450W for 30min.

vander wrote:Durbridge at around 80kg did 420ishW in the world TT a few years back (around an hour effort), he placed 6th or 7th.

Doesn't seem like much... but then there is no point comparing watts from one rider to another... all that really matters is results .