RESULTS: WEIGHT OFF ME VERSUS WEIGHT OF BIKE

[swoosh1973]

Ever wondered what the true impact of weight has on your cycling performance? Ever wondered about the performance difference that weight reduction off your body versus the same weight reduction off your bike?

 

Below are some results some of you may find interesting.

 

 

I am a seasoned cyclist and triathlete. I have trained for many years and do at least 3 rides a week. I go to Gym at least once and do a Sunday "long ride" of 3-4 hours. However my body fat is always a problem and the reason is quite simple....I trained so that I could get away with eating those juicy Steers burgers and any other Junk food. You see I am as good at eating as training and must be the fittest fat person I have ever seen. Few athletes would if they had the same body mass index as me would be able to drill me on hills.

 

However some life changing experience caused me to rethink things and I decided to actually apply all that knowledge I kept on preaching to others on my own body and eating habits. So I made only one change to my training schedule. Every Wednesday Morning I do a 12.61km time trial, I follow the same route, on the same bike at the same time in the morning. If I am traveling away from home I still do my time trial but simply don’t record it.

 

Below are the results...I had lost at the time of my last time trial 5.7kg....so as a matter of interest I added this to a ruck sack and decided to ride the rout meaning that the weight I had shed off my body was now a physical weight added to and including the weight of the ruck sack. The last entry shows how this extra weight impacted on my time trial result! As you can see my time improvement is still massive versus the same weight on my body! Also you can see from my resting heart rate that my metabolic fitness is not significantly different. My Resting heart rate came down probably because of the weight reduction and not so much due to a "fitness improvement".

[Just Keep Pedaling]

6kgs adds two minutes with the backpack test. That is 20 seconds a kg. Other people who have done somilar tests come to much lower differences per kg. About 2 seconds if memory recalls. They used a power meter to ensure that they were outputting the same effort.

[swoosh1973]

Power meter I dont have..for me its unfortunately perceived effort as the only thing I have on my time trial. Its like this.

 

Ride as hard as I can till I taste blood, puke or foam at the mouth and I realy mean that. Certainly a power meter will tell you exactly what your true power out put is......but at the end of the day its what your are physicaly capable of doing at the time and how one feels.

 

A power meter sure would be a more accurate method. I think I shal do some further research, to see if there has been some more results of this nature comparing different poeples experiences.

 

My cycling average speads on long rides have also significantly improved for the same perceived level of effort. Its huge difference and revelation for me to see how weight off my body has made such a masive difference to my riding.

 

Thanks for the comment....

[Just Keep Pedaling]

The other one I read it was only 1kg that got added. Maybe not all kgs are equal. So the 1st one makes little difference but the second one more, and so on. Your graph also shows that 50% of the gains were due to fitness. The reason this is such a contentious debate is on MTBs the cost of shaving 1 kg on a bike is significant. If your results are right it might just be worth it to splash out on that Momsen carbon weighing 9.7 kgs costing R50k. If it is only 2 seconds then I would rather save the money.

[Big JD]

Weight off the body makes a massive difference. Don't think anyone can argue to the contrary

[Pronutro]

I noticed your max speed on TT is around 80km/h, give or take. And yet, average speed is only 16-19km/h. Not sure that it looks right?

Edited February 12, 2012 by Pronutro

[Minion]

6kgs adds two minutes with the backpack test. That is 20 seconds a kg. Other people who have done somilar tests come to much lower differences per kg. About 2 seconds if memory recalls. They used a power meter to ensure that they were outputting the same effort.

I think it would depend a lot on the course. With 400m of ascent in 12km it looks quite hilly. Playing with some numbers on Analytic Cycling shows a 1-2min gain over 12km is not unreasonable for an inclined course.

You'd need some idea of the course profiles for both tests to really judge it (1-2s/kg sounds more feasible on a flatter course).

[covie]

Lol love how everyone is over analyzing this again, you can see a massive difference with the weight added, we all know weight makes a diff. the moral is there is such a significant difference with the added weight, all other items mentioned taken into account. His fitness is relativley the same if he does the same amount of hours per week. So if the weight had a small impact you could say less power, not feeling great etc.

 

The math here shows a drastic anomily, and thats the difference. As far as weight of the bike, i beleive weight on a road bike makes less of a difference than weight of a mtb. You dont need to throw a roadbike around tight bends over rocks, etc. So 1KG of a MTB does a lot for manueverability and the climbs MTB'ers face on a daily basis. I beleive a good rider on Road with a 8 kg bike will have a negligable diff on a 9kg bike. With roadies its more about the bragging rights of the cost of the kit than the actual gain they might get from the new components. (not meaning that in a bad way ) before i get roasted lol.

[swoosh1973]

Hey there Pronutro..good observation! I ride a very old dual suspension Specialized XC Pro Mountaine bike that I sprayed and built up myself. So this partly explains the slow pace going up. Its a heavy mountaine bike in about the 12.5 kilogram range. I love this bike!

 

I live in Drummond and there are allot of short but very very steep hills. i have chosen the steepest hills and repeated some of them as part of my rout. There are at least 2 where I gain 120 meters in a distance of only 380 meters of riding. On these I can average only about 5-6 km/h So its horrible interval training. 70% is tar which helps make up the top speed going down!

 

Now I suppose these hills are not even worth talking about for people like Kevin Evans...but they are realy hard for me on TT

[gogo@]

Some clever people apparently worked out that for every kg of body weight lost, you have a 1.25% advantage on your climbing times - so losing 5kg makes you almost a minute faster on a climb you took 15min to do before, using the same effort (power)... But that's for road altho I wonder why MTB should differ?

[covie]

I wonder why MTB should differ?

 

because they get to not do it on tarmac?

[EZRider]

Losing weight on your body makes a much bigger difference than on the bike. If there is less of you, even fat cells, there is less "body" to feed, keep oxygenated and move blood through. You become more efficient and a better thermo regulator as well as improving your power to weight ratio.

[gogo@]

And thanks for sharing... It's encouraging to see how much of a difference dropping the weight makes!

['Dale]

That is way I am now drawn to thé use of à power meter...

To move away from perceived exertion.

 

Interesting topic though.

Edited February 12, 2012 by ' Dale

[Stretch]

how much fitter were you getting?. The reason I ask is that at the beginning of the year my very hilly 15 km loop i do was taking me 1h 13 and I now do it in 59 min and 1:03ish taking it easy. Therefore just getting fitter has made a huge impact

[Cav']

I would like to see the same "table" put together on a 12.61km flat route ( for interest sakes )