I hear you. I probably need to take a step back myself. I thoroughly enjoy the discussion aspect of these things but some people tend to take a lot of this stuff seriously and get offended / take it personal when there are disagreements. I try to stick with facts but I’m only human myself. I don’t want to contribute to negativity if I can help it!
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Not always! In a race if the person with 5w/kg can only manage 7.5w/kg for 1 min four or five times, but the person with 4w/kg can do 9w/kg for 1 min 7 or 8 times, the person with 4w/kg will make the break and be able to go with the attacks but the person with 5w/kg won’t…
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Well but you’re making my point for me here.
First, I said all things being equal, someone with higher power will smoke someone with lower.
What you are posting is an example of that. The person with the higher level of w/kg, for the durations you listed, will win.
Of course you can come up with a multitude of situations where it might not be the case (a 4w/kg ultra endurance cyclist could beat a 6w/kg pro in a 1000 mile race) but all things being equal, the higher power to weight ration will win. (And really, what is happening is the ultra endurance IS doing the higher w/kg over that 1000 mile race)
You get higher to power weight ratios by increasing your watts and decreasing your weight.
This is my only point. Obviously it’s elementary but I think we get stuck in the weeds sometimes and forget it.
I don’t disagree with you regarding the importance of the other skills, repeatability, etc. All very important!
Let’s just change this to ‘on average’ and it is true. There always some outliers, but I’d put money on someone with a w/kg 25% greater than the other rider as the likely winner
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it doesn’t even matter. The question posed wasn’t what’s better 5 watts or better efficiency. It wasn’t what’s better 1kg or a tailwind. It wasn’t about a climb or a flat. It wasn’t about who’s a better racer. It was a simple question with a simple answer.
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Oh sorry… we’re we supposed to close the thread when @maxim809 gave the correct answer on the 26th post? Lol my B!
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Well, to toot my own horn and just to clarify, the correct answer was given on post 14, and followed with accurate math on post 16.
Maxim definitely gave the more thorough answer though!
While we are drifting topics.
Conjectures with stipulations are only as interesting as the use cases they can be applied to.
“5wkg vs 4wkg, all things being equal” – in practice the closest thing this can be applied to is a HC TT. The major unknowns are mechanicals, weather conditions, course conditions, bike-setup. Probably the closest to “racing in a vacuum” outdoors as you can get. The other proxies are controlled tunnel testing, or indoor velodrome.
In the context of a mass-start race without a selective climb, the conjecture become harder to apply. I race with a 4.0wkg FTP. I can barely break 1000w in a sprint… and you better believe that number is way worse at the end of a race But if the course is technical and the field plays too smart, I can place better, and once in a while win, against 5wkg guys with some level of consistency. My raw FTP doesn’t break 300w. Nobody crashed or had mechanicals. I don’t race with teammates. Field size is anywhere from 20-70. Everyone in the field had a shot to win it.
So the conditions aren’t just “equal” on paper; they are completely stacked against me.
So what is going on?
I think that’s all @AndyGajda is trying to highlight. Vacuum vs Real.
True racing is chaotic and the farthest thing from a vacuum. The immeasurable things hold more value than the measurable things. So need to be careful with conjectures based on the use case.
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Of course this is true, otherwise you wouldn’t need to have bike races. Just stack up W/kg numbers and call it.
But the conjecture doesn’t really matter. In the race you won, you made better decisions than the people you beat. That means that all things weren’t equal, because the decisions were not equal.
There is not a situation where a higher w/kg isn’t better. Anything that would benefit you at 4w/kg would still benefit you at 5w/kg.
Its common sense that a race can be won by someone with less power on paper. This is what makes racing exciting. I just took third in a road race because I raced like a fool. A three person break, i was the strongest out of the three, and I took third place. Not all things were equal… it was my first ever road race, and they made better decisions, had better situational awareness than I did. I was the stronger rider, but it did not matter.
Nobody is saying the higher power will win every time. But the higher you can get your power, the better your chances.
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@varmstrong , I stand corrected!
To be frank, I’m having a hard time understanding your motives.
First, you make a claim about 5wkg vs 4wkg. Then you say this conjecture doesn’t matter.
If we get pedantic about ‘all things being equal’ (which is totally fair to be pedantic sometimes, by the way) then yes, you win.
I’m just not sure what there was to gain by taking all of us around the block like this. It seems it’s more about narrowing into stipulations to double down on a very specific point applied in a hyper vacuum all in order to be right, rather than expanding on topics and helping others see greater perspectives?
I’m sorry I stepped into this and got myself tangled up. You win. I will see myself out.
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Poster 1: “Tire A is weighs 300 grams less than tire B, and has lower rolling resistance on test X”
Poster 2: “Yes, but tire A can get flats, so in that case tire B would be faster!”
Poster 1: “well yes, but that isn’t the discussion. Everything else being equal, tire A is better”
Poster 2: “Oh, you and your pedantry. You win, I’m out.”
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To be even more precise, the calculation should include the weight of the bike. If a 60kg rider with FTP of 300W loses 1kg, he saves only slightly less than five watts, because the bike has not shrunk proportionately. If the bike (incl. bottles etc. is 8KG) he was 4.4W/kg (weight of rider + bike) before and thus saves only 4.4W by losing a kg.
=> losing 1kg is only better, if you are above 5W/kg incl. the bike
It’s also counterintuitive for some, if you look at it from this angle: How many watts does a 3W/kg rider save on the mountain (at FTP), if he upgrades his bike to be 1kg lighter? => Answer: He saves less than 3W (incl. the weight of the bike). Some riders might expect a bigger advantage through such an upgrade.
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Good call out, it’s an often overlooked part of the equation. This is another advantage for a bigger & more powerful rider where bike weight becomes less of a factor (from a percentage standpoint). That said, all the 130-140lb guys I know seem to be dragging their bikes up the hills much better than me.
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That adds another dimension. It’s more simple, if looking just at the bike, i.e. what advantage in terms of watts gives 1 kg weight saving of the bike on a climb. And the answer depends mainly on how many W/kg (rider + bike) the rider is able to push.