Big vs Small Riders?

Any other men notice on the lower % climbs under 5min the boys can’t ride away, but when it hits above 8% I stand no chance of keeping up with the Boys.

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Whoa - thread revival after a long time!!

Tieing back to the original content of this thread, the concept was more about physical limiters. Yes, W/kg etc. isn’t everything and certain races still allow you to have a chance. However, the issue I raised back near the start of this thread is that larger riders can’t physically reach the same W/kg as smaller riders, yet the smaller riders can reach the same raw watts as the bigger guys.

As an example, I’ve been racing at a club A-grade level for about 6 years now. When my fitness was at it’s peak, I could do about 380W/20mins, giving me an FTP of about 360W with a weight of about 86-88kg - 4.1W/kg.

However, A-grade racing includes a large number of riders who race the national road series and also top national level track riders.

Granted, a lot of the people I race against do a lot more riding and training than me, but almost all of them are under 75kg and can still put out very similar 20min raw power to me. This means that in a flat 4-corner crit, where I have to average 340W (94% threshold but 3.86W/kg) just hiding in the bunch, those other guys are all riding at 4.5W/kg+ with the same raw power output.

As they have the same raw power, there is no “monstoring them off your wheel”. I cut a pretty small hole for someone who is 6’4", but many can usually still make a smaller profile if they try, due to their smaller stature and therefore get lower CdA. This means they can go faster, for less power on the flats AND they can certainly go faster up any hills.

I think this is the crux of the original question. Lots of “relatively high level athletes” will be able to obtain ~330-350W FTP’s, irrespective of height & weight. But pushing above this level seems to be beyond the physiology of almost every non-WT-pro, irrespective of size/weight.

Again, not trying to dimisnish anyone, but LOTS of people can push 340W FTP, irrespective of size/weight. This equates to:

5.2W/kg for an 65kg rider
4.9W/kg for an 70kg rider
4.5W/kg for an 75kg rider
4.3W/kg for an 80kg rider
4.0W/kg for an 85kg rider

However, for an 85kg rider:

4.0W/kg = 340W FTP (358W/20min)
4.5W/kg = 383W FTP (403W/20min)
5.0W/kg = 425W FTP (447W/20min)

So while a trained local 70kg rider can “readily” hit around 5W/kg, its almost impossible for an 85kg rider to hit 5W/kg.

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I’m not sure how you figure it’s harder for a bigger rider to hit 5W/kg than a smaller one. Larger riders have more muscle to produce more power, sure nothing scales linearly and we’re talking about humans who can be very different however you can also look at your body and it’s physical traits and capitalise on the advantages you naturally have.

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Not sure how you came to this conclusion - If you had an FTP of 340 and weighed 58kg you wouldn’t be far off from world tour level - and you are saying lots of people can push this?

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OT, Ganna the other day only pushed 340w at circa 85kg (IIRC); he did do it for 4 &1/2 hours though :hushed:

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What on earth gives you this insane idea

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Not for lots of TR users as link shows…

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Reviewing the linked data sets again, it seems my perspective on this is probably a bit detatched from the ‘norm’ and is probably getting a bit specialist (hence my problem in racing).

Would be interesting if @Nate_Pearson had data which showed people’s W/kg vs. weight and/or W/kg vs. Raw Power so we could see what power lighter riders can put out and how that differs from the heavier riders. Would certainly put some good data behind this discussion.

The curves linked show power output is peaking at around 350W-360W FTP for all users. I’m still fairly confident that you will find people down to around 65-68kg generating that sort of power. And yes, those top 3-5% on each of those graphs are the racers that i’m talking about here.

Happy to be proven wrong though!

There was also a breakdown of ftp/kg for different age groups of men and women in the same thread earlier on but can’t find any that groups weights which would be interesting.

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Yes, I saw that one. FTP/kg is just W/kg as a % of their user base though. I’d be interested to see Raw Watts vs Kg (i.e. weight on x axis, FTP wattage on y-axis).

The purpose being to see if smaller riders can still put out high FTPs and if the larger riders can actually put out much more… (and if there is a stagnation point).

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Yes, it would be really interesting to see what that graph would look like. I guess the only person who could construct that graph with TR data would be the CEO. That data is probably worth money somewhere? So I don’t expect to see it, you could always ask Nate :wink:

It all depends on how much oxygen the rider can consume, but yes, in general, a larger rider can put out much more raw watts than a smaller one, and this scales with height (until it doesn’t).

It’s incredibly rare for a human male (if we can put this in the context of men) to be able to consume more than 6L/min of oxygen. A larger athlete stands a better chance of being able to do this, of course, but once you get past about 5.5 liters/min, you’re at the rare end of the bell curve regardless of body mass. To pitch some very broad numbers (as there is considerable individual variation), 5.5 L/min would yield about 450w at VO2max, for a reasonably well-trained 90kg cyclist. Assuming that 90kg cyclist was in the average range for FTP as percentage of VO2, then that 90kg rider’s FTP would be about 360w, or 4 w/kg. They could lay a lot of watts down, but their large frontal area, inability to get much draft, and mass on hills would still be limiters. That 4 w/kg would also be pretty good for a 90kg athlete – a relative VO2 of 61 would be in the thin end of the bell curve for a guy that big.

It’s far more likely that Joe 90kg would have a relative VO2 more around 50 or 55, and have that 340w FTP. But, with the real-world limiters of cda and mass, they would not be able to turn that 340w into speed as well as a 70kg rider could.

If big guys could, as a general rule, be just as good as medium guys at cycling (or running, or cross-country skiing), the sport would be dominated by big guys (I’d say “big” starts at six four, maybe six three, and say 80kg – medium as five ten to six two or so, and you guys under five ten are small).

Ideally, a big guy who can consume a whole lot of oxygen needs to grow up near a rowing club. That’s an aerobic sport where bigger is a whole lot faster (until you hit 90kg…really big guys and narrow rowing shells are an awkward mix, unless the guy has superb technique.

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But big guys do have an advantage on the flats - smaller riders only have an advantage at steep gradients and really most races are flat. CDA doesn’t scale fairly with height. A taller rider might have a relatively larger CDA but the increased potential of power output outweighs that. Hence bigger riders tend to be better at TT’s. Also 4wkg for a 90kg athlete vs 65kg athlete in a crit - the 90kg athlete will be way way faster.

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Well, I’ve been racing since 1981. I’d say that bigger guys have an advantage on the flat, until they don’t. Once you get into basketball heights, things get a little more complicated.

Drafting a five foot six guy gets a bit harder when you’re six foot four. I’ve seen a lot of good big guys over the years, but they have to be a lot smarter about how they use what they have, sometimes.

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For anyone watching the Giro, Caleb Ewan (5’5”, 150-ish lbs) is being reported as ripping out 1000w sprints for 18s, the other day was a 1500w sprint and 1200w to 13s.

Also shows what weight training can do for those interested in not being a super lean climber.

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Is it just me or is this thread basically: big people saying small people have the advantage, and small people saying big people do :joy:

FWIW I’m small… and big people definitely have an advantage

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Sorry, I’m big and small people definitely have more advantages!!

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You big and small people have all the advantages and I’m stuck in the middle with nothing :pensive:

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And some of the big people are saying that they are medium and that I’m small :wink:

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We need a far more technical rider size breakdown…

These are my breakdowns for ‘cyclists’, not regular functional humans :grin:

Males
Megatron Over 90kgs
Big Above 6’2 Over 77kg
Medium 5’10 to 6’2 66 - 77kg
Small Under 5’10 Under 66kg
Nano Under 60kg

Females
Amazonian Over 75kgs
Big Above 5’7 Over 65g
Medium 5’3 to 5’7 55 to 65kg
Small Under 5’3 Under 55kg
Nano Under 50kg

Please please don’t take my rudimentary list as anything other than a bit of fun. It’s based on nothing other than observation of ‘general’ western humans and high level cyclists. For professionals you’d likely remove 4-5kgs for men and 2.5-3.5kgs for women.

Now, one can obviously be ‘big’ in height and even ‘small’ in weight. We are all different sizes.

It’s interesting, annoyingly, it’s pretty obvious when there’s possibly ‘some work’ to be done. When you’re in say, small on height, but big on weight. Now, that by no way means you aren’t an amazing rider or that we need to fit into a silly rudimentary table.

I for example am Male, 5’7, so small. At full ‘race weight’ (whatever that means) I’m 60kgs, so small. However, that is very extreme. I carry a lot of upper body muscle for a cyclist, because I’ve actually picked up a weight… so, I sometimes stray to the border of medium weight.

The fascinating part, for me at least. I’m simply not able to be under 60kgs due to my upper body muscle. Even though, before doing body building years ago, I could easily have been 55kgs. At that weight, I could actually climb okay. Sadly, that ain’t ever happening.

Luckily for me, I’m actually a micro sized sprinter.

On the flip side, I have a friend who weighs 100kg. Tall, but not enormous. He absolutely crushes me on any climb, in fact he crushes nearly anyone on most climbs. So, it’s possible to completely break the ‘rules’.

Until Caleb Ewan burst onto the scene, I thought I was doomed :grin:

Anybody else break the 'rules"?

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