I posted this in the doping thread:
I’m sorry, but I’m not buying Coggan is the absolute authority on this. Rules of thumbs are just that, rules of thumbs.
< has done plenty of scientific and engineering modeling in other disciplines. I know full well the shortcomings of models and data collection. Consider how different power meters can vary 5% from one brand to another, and that alone can swing numbers greatly.
5% +/- at a real 350 watts could show up as 332w or 367w. That’s a big swing and hugely effects those w/kg charts. This is also why I take anyone’s self reported FTP or w/kg with a grain of salt.
I don’t think we know what is genetically possible for any number of the reasons I have pointed out previously.
If cycling was the only sport in the world, none of the current guys would be the ones to beat.
All I see is people guessing at the rider’s weight and power meter numbers that could be 5% lower or higher than what would be found in a lab. Essentially there is a lot of measurement noise and I’m not sure what conclusions you guys could draw from that. On top of that, we only have a sample of the best athletes who have taken up cycling as sport, who had the right coaching, and the right discipline to pursue it this far. They are not the most genetically gifted, in any discipline, at any time, of anyone in the world. Likely, that person isn’t a cyclist and possibly not even a pro athlete, and will forever be an unknown.
It’s a silly argument to make.
Moral of the story is do you, and don’t worry about where you stack up, because there are measurement errors all over the place in all of these metrics.
2 Likes