Out of curiosity how did you do the calculations for the Mashing style? Did you adjust it in efficiency?

Would the effect of a mashing style be different on a track bike? I remember reading somethign about a "mashing style" being more effective in pursuit track races... it was a long time ago though...

I have to believe that it is theoretically possible to calculate the optimum power to weight ratio for any given situation.

Research has shown the impact of wind resistance and road surface and their affects on speed.

Mathmatically it must be possible to calculate the power out put of a rider if you know that the rider weighs 50 kilo's, the bike a further 10 kilo's, that he covered a 40 k TT in exactly 60 mins and that his cadence was 100 rpm.

Similarly it must be posibble to show the power output if the rider weighed 70 kilo's and his cadence was 60 but that all other factors remain equal.

Is this sort of calculation possible? if so can you then factor in the gradient of the road?

I was always taught you need a control and you have the variables but I've been out of College for 8+ years and have no idea how this would / could be done but surely this is a mathmatical problem.

Once you have the results for the amount of energy various weights take to cover the same distance and you can figure a way of factoring the resistance of the wind, the surface and the gradient would it not be possible to calculate the optimum power to weight ratio for a given course or situation?

Clearly there will not be a single optimum p/w ratio, clearly Cipo is talented at one specific skill and LA another but this would be an interesting project.

note: tyler I think put out 340+ watts for 40 plus minutes on the Anglirui last year, thats what I heard anyway.

Interesting idea... here are my 2 cents on this theoretical project...

2 ways of increasing a ratio... increase the numerator or decrease the denominator...

So would these be equivalent?

Other things to think about... you take two people with similair weight to power ratios but one is a "climber" and one is a "sprinter"

THere is a great deal of skill and tactic to bunch sprinting, any thoughts about what are the skills that are required in climbing? Is one or the other more dependent on pure physiological make up...

Interesting thread

I dont think so, I think this is a fairly complex problem given that we all know that lets say as the grade increases, wind resistance decreases because you can not go as fast, like wise down hill the wind resis increases and road surface plays less of a factor is my guess simply because that resis is so easily over come going down hill.

Factors in this equation would have to be that the road remains flat, rider / bike weight is the variable but time given to cover distance is constant and cadence is constant.

So you run itterations of lets say bike rider 10/50, 10/60, 10/70 etc etc then repeat changing the cadence and then do more sets changing bike weight etc.

My guess is that it is the total mass of bike rider that matter more than calculating it with them as seperate factors because I weigh 150, on a Ghisallo I'd weigh 163 as opposed to my regular bike which is a total of 168, I dont think that those 5 pounds are a huge variable in this calculation, I have a hard time believing that at 20-25 mph that the extra 5 pounds is costing me more than 5 watts lets say, I just dont think thats where the large variables are. That said obviously if it is costing me 5 watts I'd potentially all things being equal be faster on the lighter bike but....................

Where are the Geeks that know how to explain this stuff to us?

It was fairly simple and rudimentary. I made an assumption that a certain perfect circlar pedal force of, say, 10 kg, resulted in a speed of 25 mph for a 70 kg rider. I then looked at what would happen to the speed if 50% of the time the force was 20kg and 50% zero (the worst case mashing scenario) or 50% 15kg and 50% 5kg at various cadences and various different masses. I ran about 2000 iterations until the speed stabilized.

Frank

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

This is all very interesting. But, it is only an academic exercise at this level.

What I take away from it that is useful in the "real world": If you are a masher, you will go faster by learning to pedal more like a spinner while keeping your masher capabilities intact. If you are a spinner, you will go faster by increasing your mashing capabilities while keeping your spinner capabilities intact.

Of course, there is still the obvious, perhaps more usual application of power in a pedal stroke, where the upstroke isn't zero power as in your masher case, but the number would actually be a negative...because of not at least picking up the weight of the foot, leg, pedal, crank.

So, being faster still boils down to becoming a more complete power generator around the continuum of the pedal stroke by either maximizing possible power application at all points (for the spinner), or at least minimizing the zero or negative power spots in the pedal stroke (for the masher).

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Quid quid latine dictum sit altum videtur
(That which is said in Latin sounds profound)

I agree this is completely an academic exercise. Going fast involves mostly getting more power to the wheel, however one can best accomplish that.

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks